Letters to Africa

[2OZ]

LETTERS TO AFRICA

Letters to the Editor should refer to matters raised in the journal and should be signed and give the full address and position of the writer. The Editor reserves the right to shorten letters or to decline them.

From Dr. Monica Wilson, Helen Cam Research Fellow,1972: 157) that the Lwembe had not been pre- Girton College, Cambridge eminent as divine king of the Nyakyusa before 1891: Sir, Within recent years three writers, Marcia Wright, "The spiritual authority of the Lwembes which in fart S. R. Charsley, and Michael G. McKenny have dis- probably existed to a limited extent before the 1890s, cussed what they think Nyakyusa society was like is assumed for a much earlier period' (my italics). before the colonial period. Two of them, Marcia She quoted the Berlin missionaries who described Wright and S. R. Charsley, working on mission the challenge to the Lwembe of one claiming to be a correspondence and journals, have provided in- priest of Mbasi in 1893 and concludes: 'it was from valuable material on the interaction between this victory, so it seems, that the wide influence of missions, administration, and Nyakyusa from 1887, Lwembe dated' (Wright, 1972: 158, my italics). In but they have also speculated on what Nyakyusa fact she has no evidence on what existed at Lubaga society was like before the records they use began, before 1891, whereas the accounts given in Communal and the distinction between record and speculation Rituals (1959a) and Divine Kings (M. Wilson, 1959^) is blurred. Moreover, the information given on what came from men who were already holding office as Nyakyusa society was like at the end of last century, priests and chiefs in 1891. Moreover, if the power of as distinct from the account of interaction between the Lwembe was indeed limited before 1891, how certain Nyakyusa individuals and certain mission- did it come about that in 1897 the chiefs who com- aries, is exceedingly thin. The scraps of information bined against the Germans gathered at Lubaga, the can only be fitted into some imagined framework. grove of the Lwembe ? And if the priest of Mbasi Michael McKenny questions and reinterprets the had been of comparable importance why was his evidence published by Godfrey Wilson and myself, grove not mentioned in Kinga accounts—the Kinga but he does not provide any new evidence. I believe priests passed nearby on the road to Lwembe ? (Park, that the speculations and reinterpretations are mis- 1966: M. Wilson, 1959a: 27). The oral tradition taken on a number of points and therefore, with regarding Lubaga stretched back seven generations reluctance, accept an invitation to discuss them. to the spread of chiefs into the area; the shrine of In German Missions in Tanzania (1971) Dr. WrightMbasi had no such tradition. The 'probably' and 'so has published a body of detailed evidence on early it seems' of Dr. Wright's argument do not serve in missions in the Rungwe valley, and Nyakyusa atti- place of evidence. Dr. Wright is also sceptical of the tudes to them, most of it precisely documented in statement that the Lwembe, like the Kyungu and mission records. But she makes one statement for Kyala, might be appealed to by unrelated chiefs (M. which no evidence is offered and which is demon- Wilson, 1959a: 18) and talks of how it was 'a dictum strably false. Commenting on my statement that 'the of the Wilsons' work that rituals ran along the lines Nyakyusa have been expanding for three centuries of kinship' (Wright, 1972: 157). She overlooks the and absorbing smaller peoples' (M. Wilson, 1958: principle that a chief was thought of as having 9, n. 4) she writes: 'Unfortunately, such a theory of mystical power both over his own junior kinsmen and absorption badly errs in assuming that the pattern of over the land, stock, and people in the country he outward colonization from Rungwe so evident in ruled or had once ruled. The living Lwembe claimed the 1930s had prevailed for centuries rather than for mystical power over a wide and never precisely decades, as appears to have been the case.' In Good defined area: Godfrey Wilson noted in his Intro- Company (M. Wilson, 1951: 3) it was noted that the duction to Nyakyusa Society (1936: 288) that Mwamba, settlement of Nyakyusa north of the Poroto moun- who claimed no kinship with the Lwembe, sent to tains was 'recent', and the spread through the Lubaga, whereas offerings were made at the groves Rungwe valley and lake plain was shown on a map of ordinary chiefs (such as Mbyanga) only by their of Nyakyusa chiefdoms related to the royal genea- descendants, and commoner priests representing the logies in Communal Rituals (M. Wilson, 1959a: chiefdoms they had once ruled. genealogies facing pp. 3, 27; map p. 87, 87-93). The Dr. Charsley thinks that Nyakyusa chiefs were spread was recounted in detailed oral histories of a creation of the colonial period and that before local areas which have not been published, but the Europeans arrived the Nyakyusa were 'acephalous'. general statement was rooted in this evidence. The This was offered as a tentative hypothesis in 1969 land-marks—sacred groves—were still visible in {The Princes of Nyakyusa) but was stated as assured 1955- fact in 1974 {Africa, xliv (4): 422), though no more Dr. Wright went on to argue in 'Nyakyusa Cults evidence was given. He wrote (1974) 'Nyakyusa and Politics in the later Nineteenth Century' (Wright, society in the late nineteenth century has to be

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 28 Sep 2021 at 16:54:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.2307/1159657 LETTERS TO AFRICA 203 regarded as acephalous in form since the princes and Again a tentative hypothesis of 1969 became a state- their followings did not represent the independent ment of fact in 1974 without any further evidence political units, the 'chiefdoms' which they were by being adduced. In a confusing account of 'princes' the 1930s taken to have been.' Dr. Charsley further of the plain and Selya (1969) Charsley attempted argued that in place of chiefdoms there was 'a com- to relate those mentioned in the records to royal plex hierarchy of princely titles' to which men suc- genealogies (M. Wilson, 1959^) and to identify ceeded under a system of 'positional succession'. 'titles'. His account is confusing because his evidence There is no doubt that some Nyakyusa chiefs is so thin; no distinction is made in it between chiefs increased in power during the colonial period, as who had 'come out' and held power, and other mem- Godfrey Wilson showed. But an increase in power bers of a royal lineage. Moreover, since a Nyakyusa under colonial rule has also been shown for Bemba, woman took her name from her father and her son Sotho, Tswana, and other chiefs: it did not imply took her name, and chiefs frequently married daugh- the absence of chieftainship before colonial rule be- ters of other chiefs, the same name repeatedly gan. And four characteristics of Nyakyusa chieftain- reappears in different chiefdoms. There was a further ship which are cited by Charsley (1969: 69-73) as complication: in 1934-8 and almost certainly a evidence that Nyakyusa abanyfyale were not chiefs, generation earlier, a man might be addressed by were characteristic of chieftainship through southern different names even in the same conversation. All Africa. These were: control of a chief by his council- this leaves great uncertainty in the identifications lors; continual splitting of chiefdoms; rivalry made. Charsley was far from demonstrating that a between chiefs to attract men; and a connection 'system of titles' existed in place of a series of chief- between a chief's generosity and the size of his doms, each rooted in a known territory, with a chief following. It can hardly be argued that the Swazi whose heirs were known. king, the Rolong and Kgatla chiefs, who could be In 1934—8 Nyakyusa informants made a clear dis- tried by their own councillors (Kuper, 1947: 63-4; tinction between divine kings (Lwembe and Schapera, 1938: 84) were not chiefs. Tswana chief- Kyungu) and priests, each of whom when he died doms split 63 times in less than 200 years (Schapera, was replaced by one heir who took his name and 1963: 163-5); and rivalry for men was apparent in social personality (M. Wilson, 1959a: 17-19, 93-4) every Nguni and Sotho chiefdom until land grew and ruling chiefs who, if they lived until the 'coming scarce. Casalis, writing in 183 j, related the number of out' of their sons, were usually succeeded by two followers a chief had to the quantity of milk he dis- heirs designated from the time of the retiring chief's tributed (Germond, 1967:437). marriage to two senior wives a generation earlier. As for size, Charsley quoted Merensky as saying The heirs represented their own generation: they that Mwamakula of the lake plain could raise an were not identified with their retiring father who was army of 6,000 men, whereas in 1843 Livingstone expected to 'die soon'. Only if a chief died young, recorded from personal observation that no tribe in before the 'coming out' of his sons, was he replaced what is now Botswana had more than about 3,000 by his younger full-brother or other kinsman as members (Schapera, 1963 :159), and Xhosa chiefdoms chief, as Mwaipopo II replaced Mwaipopo I in Selya in the nineteenth century mustered between 150 and before 1891. When a chief died after the 'coming out' 6,000 fighting men (Wilson and Thompson, i: 119). of his heirs his personal property was taken by a Before 1891 there was no authority capable of junior brother as personal heir, but such a man had maintaining order between chiefdoms in the Rungwe no claim to chiefly office. The succession by sons at valley, though the belief that misfortune followed their 'coming out', as distinct from replacement by the neglect of rituals compelled independent chiefs an heir identified with the deceased, was demon- to make offerings together at Lubaga and other strated in many genealogies stretching back in time, sacred groves. In Princes of Nyakyusa Charsley shows and was a consistent pattern, though the number of conflicts between members of different chiefdoms, sons who succeeded could diverge from the cus- and how German missionaries intervened in these: tomary two. with one doubtful exception, he does not show un- Professor McKenny presents no new evidence but settled conflicts within chiefdoms. According to our questions that published. He does not think that age- informants who had held office as chiefs and village villages could really have existed—they must have headmen before 1891, or who had been litigants in had a kinship base of some sort which is not revealed, cases, chief's courts existed which settled disputes for no census of all the villages of one or more chief- and enforced judgement; the chief controlled the doms was taken. He thinks it improbable that a poison ordeal, administered in cases where evidence redistribution of land was ever made without regard was lacking, and his person and the house of his to kinship: 'Certainly it is unlikely that currently senior wife were sanctuary. But the rule of law did productive agricultural land would have been re- not extend to another chiefdom, and a murderer or allocated without reference to the kinship connec- adulterer who fled to a distance might go free. tions of the persons involved' (1973: 104). What Charsley stated (1974) that among the Nyakyusa view one takes depends whether one thinks that before 1891 there was a 'system of titles' to which speculations made by an outsider in 1974 carry most 'princes' succeeded, and no independent chiefdoms. weight, or the precise statements of insiders—

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 28 Sep 2021 at 16:54:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.2307/1159657 204 LETTERS TO AFRICA Nyakyusa—made in 1934-5. I also found it sur- would he preside?' Answers to these questions in prising that cultivated land should be reallocated terms of law were explicit and have been given; if the without reference to kinship, but I was assured by genealogies printed opposite pp. 3 and 27 in Com- those who had participated in 'coming out' rituals munal Rituals ate compared with the map printed on that it had been, and transferred when the standing p. 87, it will be seen where in the Rungwe valley the crop was reaped. Professor McKenny reports that heirs of particular chiefs settled. If a chiefdom were Dr. Konter, a most careful observer in 1965-9, also judged too small to split one brother colonized un- doubted that old men had ever 'moved aside', but occupied land where he could find it (M. Wilson Dr. Konter worked in two villages established after 1959a: 89). The process by which unoccupied land 'coming out' rituals had ceased in the chiefdoms was being colonized by men from Lupata in 1935-8, concerned, and no fathers in these villages had and taken over by Mwaipopo's junior heir in 1953, moved. Furthermore, fathers and sons are now in has been described (M. Wilson, 19590: 89-90). acute competition for land and no father wants to It is an elementary principle of symbolic studies admit that, according to traditional law, he might that the same thing may symbolize more than one have had to move to make way for a younger relationship or value, but McKenny has difficulty in generation. believing that the trees of chieftainship symbolized I saw age-villages with my own eyes: in 1955 in both a chief and his great wife, and a chief and his Lupata I saw the differences of generation between senior village headman, and that the placing of the the old men of Bujege, the mature men of Igembe trees foreshadowed the future splitting of the chief- and Lugombo, and the young married men, recently dom. He writes: ... 'it would not necessarily have 'come out' of Lupando. I traced on the ground the been the case that the trees had all that much to do areas where men of Bujege, Igembe, and Lugombo with demarcating the division of the chiefdom' had moved to make way for the young men of (1973: 106). Again he claims to know more than Lupando (M. Wilson, 1959a: table opposite p. 91). the men who planted such trees (M. Wilson, 1959a: I listened to the laughter of Nyakyusa men when 55). His doubts about the smothering of ailing chiefs I told them that Englishmen were sceptical of the —'it was supposed by Nyakyusa informants that a existence of age-villages and argued that there must chief might have been killed when his powers were be a kinship base. The men explained yet again that: on the wane'—are hardly justified. One account 'We Nyakyusa like to live in a village with men of given in Communal Rituals (p. 64) was that of the the same age. If we move we don't choose a village senior priest, Kasitile, who admitted his own on account of kinship, but join our contemporaries participation, and Mwandisi, an old blind chief on who are our friends.' In 1969, working with the the lake plain was equally explicit (ibid. 65). Thanks Rungwe team of Leiden University, it became clear to Charsley's assiduous work there is independent to me that a distinction should be made between the evidence supporting these statements: in 1924 Dr. boys' villages built on land provided by their fathers, John Brown of Itete mission hospital wrote an and remaining there (so long as a 'coming out' ritual account of the death of chief Mwangomo who had was celebrated) only until the 'coming out', and been his patient in hospital but was taken home legally established villages of men who owned their (Charsley, 1969: 89-90). own land, allocated at a 'coming out'. The distinc- Dr. Charsley finds 'most' of the Wilsons' work tion grew in importance since boys continued to 'timeless' (1974: 422). In fact The Constitution of build apart in 1965-9 but ceased to secure land of Ngonde (Godfrey Wilson, 1939) was concerned with their own: a son remained dependent upon his own how and why a kingdom developed in Ngonde, and father for land. I suggested 'age-quarter' for the boys' Godfrey Wilson noted (pp. 8-9) that: 'In studying settlement, and 'age-village' for the traditional land- the present constitution of Ngonde and the profound holding group of men, and that was acceptable in changes now taking place in it, we cannot find any Leiden. Age-villages had ceased to exist by 1965—9 point of time at which the process of change began.' but 'age-quarters' continued. The excellent material The crux of change in 1934-55 was the existence of collected by the team from Leiden shows the form a Christian minority, living somewhat apart and of society existing in 1965-9 when land had become rather differently from their pagan kin, the growth of a scarce commodity, whereas up to 1938 men were migrant labour and cash crops, and the increase of still scarcer than land, and even in 1955, when land population leading to pressure on land. These were was becoming scarce, Professor Gulliver noted that dealt with in all the books because they were part of a village headman was reluctant not to welcome a everyday life: Christian villages were described in stranger (Gulliver, 1958: 25). Good Company; conversion, church organization, and McKenny thinks that 'both the ethnographers and the adaptation of manners and morals were discussed their informants were deluded about the frequency at greater length in 'An African Christian Morality' and nature of dual division' (1973 : 105), and com- (Hunter, 1936) and Communal Rituals, and attention plains of having 'no concrete evidence of how chief- given to the emergence and constitution of Indepen- dom division actually worked'. He asks, in relation dent Churches. Diversity, which may be seen as the to the 'coming out', 'who would be the chief and cross-section of social change, was thus described, whom would he represent and over what territory but it is true that, except in the Constitution of Ngonde,

From M. D. McLeod, Keeper, The Ethnography Depart- On p. 302. 'futuro' should be 'futura' and 'Asante- ment of the British Museum hene's state sword' should be 'swords'. Dear Sir, As I was unable to see a proof of my letter As I criticized Professor Frazer for garbling Asante which you published in your issue of July 1974 terms it is doubly unfortunate that I was not given perhaps I may now make some of the corrections the chance of making the above corrections. I would have made at the proof stage. (I omit Yours faithfully grammatical or stylistic corrections.) JL «,,,,, /« , r , J M. D. MCLEOD On p. 301. okomtoo should read akomfoo and London 'Nokye' should read 'Anokye'