Lecture 10
Political Anthropology 2.
Chiefs, states and state formation
1
Questions
• Why should anyone accept being a
subordinate
• What is authority and why do we obey? Or
not?
• What is the nature of power?
2
Some theories
• Political order is achieved through
coercion and the origin of social inequality
is power
• Political order is a functional necessity, it
enables the efficient avoidance of conflict
and thus for society to progress.
3
Typologies of political leadership
• Lewellen, Ted C. Political anthropology :
an introduction. South Hadley, Mass. :
Bergin & Garvey, 1983
• Johnson, Allen W. & Timothy Earle. The
evolution of human societies : from
foraging group to agrarian state.
Stanford, Calif. : Stanford University
Press, 1987.
4
Ethnographies
• Sahlins, M. 1963 Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief:
Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia "
Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol. 5, No. 3
(Apr., 1963), pp. 285-303
• Gluckman, Max 1940 “The Kingdom of the Zulu” in Fortes, M.
and E. E. Evans-Pritchard (eds) African Political
Systems London : Oxford University Press.
• Deflem, Mathieu. 1999. “Warfare, Political Leadership,
and State Formation: The Case of the Zulu Kingdom,
1808-1879.” Ethnology 38(4):371-391.
http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zzulu.htm
5
Marshal Sahlins: “Poor man, Rich
man, big, chief”
• Comparison of political leadership between
Melanesia and Polynesia
• Both regions have similar production base,
family production of:
– Yams, taro, breadfruit, bananas and coconuts, and
raising of pigs.
• Yet Polynesia has elaborate forms of rank and
chiefdoms
• whereas Melanesia has small scale polities with
leadership based on personal renown.
6
Melanesia
• In Melanesia power
tends to be personal
based on reputation
and achievement
"Big man" officiating
at a pig give-away
ceremony in Papua
New Guinea
http://anthro.palomar.edu/political/pol
_2.htm
7
Melanesia
• “Bigman” is not a title of chief or office, variously
translates man of renown, generous richman, or centre
man.
• Such a man in the centre of a faction
• He is able to manipulate power by reciprocity and
exchange with other groups and factions
• These men assert their authority by amassing large
numbers of pigs and other valued goods and giving them
away to rivals
• ‘Big men’ have a entrepreneurial career
• The political limits of the system are set by the fact that
leadership is personal, so that reputation and faction
fade with a leader’s prowess and die with him.
8
Polynesia
• Polynesia has
pyramid structure of
chiefs and sub-chiefs.
Samoan chief.
, c 1910
www.oceaniaethnographica.com/poly9.html
9
Polynesia
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Kinship provides as system for ranking all in society.
Chiefs inherit office as eldest sons
Chiefs are able to command people and resources
Tabu
Redistribution
Chiefs retinue/faction supported by work of lower ranks
Unstable centralisation: The political limits of the
developing chiefdom set by extraction possible from the
core of the polity to keep control of the periphery.
10
King Mata'afa Iosefa (1832-1912),
his wife Talala (Kalala) and his
daughters in traditional costumes.
Samoa ca. 1900.
Malietoa Tanumafili II, the king of
Western Samoa, died 2007
•
11
Key points of comparison
• Chiefly personality v. “Bigman” personality
• Impersonal office allows redistribution rather than
reciprocity
• Family based division of labour set limits on amount
which can be extracted to support other specialists
• Significance of ideology; reciprocity with the gods
enables their representatives to accumulate
• “The combination of economic control, military might,
and ceremonial legitimacy,” are the key themes in the
evolution of chiefdoms. T.Earle
12
Institutional characteristics of a
state
•
•
•
•
•
Territory - borders
Monopoly of the use of violence - army
Taxation – revenue raising
Administration – bureaucracy, judiciary
Claim to legitimacy – expressed in ritual
and ceremony
13
“The Kingdom of the Zulu” by Max
Gluckman in African Political Systems.
• They were pastoralists
• The Nguni family of Bantu
practising shifting cultivation.
speaking people who later
They lived in scattered
formed the Zulu nation migrated
homesteads occupied by male
into south eastern Africa about
agnates and their families; a
the middle of the 15C.
number of these homesteads
were united under a chief the
heir of the their senior line into
a tribe. A tribe was divided into
sections under brothers of the
chief and as a result of a
quarrel a section might migrate
an establish itself as an
independent clan and tribe.
Cattle raids were frequent but
there were no wars of
conquest.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/hands-onclassroom/classroom/pages/projects/grade10/lesson2/05-effects.htm
14
mfecane
• From about 1775 the motive
for war had changed, possibly
owing to pressure of
population. Certain tribes
conquered their neighbours
and small kingdoms emerged.
In this struggle Shaka head of
the Zulu tribe was victorious;
by his personal characteristics
and military strategy, he made
himself in ten years ruler of
what is now Zululand. He
organised a nation out of the
people he conquered.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/pages/people/images/zulu_shaka.jpg
15
Shaka
• Shaka follows a pattern of founding national heros, starting as a
excluded marginal figure who through charisma and organisational
innovation unites the nation. Military tactics of shield and stabbing
spear. Extreme cruelty and paranoia
• In the series of devastating wars which led to great loss of life and
widespread migration. The clans dispersed as units and members of
a single clan might be widely spread over Zululand. They retained
their clan names and their respect for the head of the senior line.
The important kinship links which were the basis of social
organisation were still formed by the inhabitants of separate
homesteads. At the head of a homestead was the senior male by
descent of the group.
• Among the local agnatic groups there were often homesteads of
other relatives by marriage or matrilineal relationships;
• Strangers might attach themselves to an important man as his
servants or dependents and would be absorbed with their relatives
into his kinship group as quasi kin.
16
The regiments
• An important change in Zulu life was caused by the
younger men having to serve at the kings military
barracks which kept them from home most of the year. In
the homesteads the older men and the boys herded the
cattle and the women worked the fields. Each
homestead had its own fields and cattle fold. But the
division of labour had to vary to accommodate military
service to the king. The King’s regiments could not marry
until permitted to by the king, and married a regiment of
women.
• The regiments were recruit by age. Completed in honour
and valour and were rewarded with distinctive uniforms
and shields.
17
Zulu warrior regalia
http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.
org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=21137
18
Nationhood
• The Zulu nation thus consisted of members of some hundreds of
clans united by the allegiance to the king. The people belonged to
the king and he therefore took the fine in cases of assault or murder.
• While the kinship basis of politic groups disappeared the new ones
which emerged were described in kinship terms for political officer
was spoken of as the father of his people and his relationship to
them was conceived to be similar to that of a father and his children.
But importantly political organisation and allegiance had become
territorial.
• The king owned the land. All who came to live in Zululand had to
acknowledge his sovereignty. This was true of the chiefs at the lower
levels of the political pyramid. Anyone coming onto land belonging to
apolitical authority became subject to that authority and all his
subjects were entitled to land in his area.
19
Nation and state
• The Zulu nation therefore can be defined as a group of
people owing allegiance to a common head, the king,
and occupying a defined territory.
• They combined under the king to attack or defend
themselves against outside groups.
• In addition to controlling relations with other Bantu
peoples and the Europeans, the king exercised judicial,
administrative and legislative authority over his people
with power to enforce his decisions.
• He performed religious ceremonies and magical acts on
behalf of the nation.
• All the tribes which made up the nation spoke dialects of
the same language and had a common culture.
20
Military power and control of violence
• The dominant values of Zulu society was that of
the warrior. The rituals of state were militarised
and performed by regiments of warriors and
maidens. The regiments belonged to the king
alone. They lived in barracks concentrated about
the capital, the chiefs had no control over the
regiments and assembled their own people in
territorial not age divisions.
• The centralisation of regiments in the kings area
gave him a position in Zululand entirely different
from that of any of his chiefs, and gave the state
a stability and power not previously available.
21
Courts and administration
• The king was also the supreme court of the nation and appeals from
the chiefs courts went to him. There were always in residence at his
capital some indunas who heard special difficult cases and gave
verdicts in the king’s name.
• Most of the indunas were chiefs ruling areas of their own, others
were sons, brothers and uncles of the king and there were
commoners “lifted up” by the king for their wisdom and knowledge of
the law.
• Two of the kings Indunas were more important that the others; the
one was specifically commander of the army and was a chief or
prince; the other was the great induna (prime minister) and had the
weightiest voice in discussing affairs of state. He was never a
member of the royal family.
• The Zulu believe that the welfare of the country depended on the
king having wise and strong councillors ready to criticise the king. In
Council the king was supposed to put matters to the Council but
speak last having heard his councillors views. Thus the indunas
placed a degree of constraint on the King.
22
Administration
•
•
•
The kings communicates with is chiefs by runners. To impersonate a kings
messenger was punishable by death. Thus orders to mobilize at the capital, projected
laws and matters of national import were announced to the people by the king
through his chiefs, though many announcements were made at the first fruits
ceremony. When necessary the chiefs passed on these orders to their indunas in
charge of wards and these reported to the heads of lineage groups and homesteads.
All the people were entitled to express their opinion on affairs and they did this
through the heads of their kinship groups and then their intermediate political officers.
In addition the chiefs and indunas had administrative duties within their own districts
including the allocation of land and maintenance of order, trying of cases, watching
over their districts welfare, taking ritual steps to protect the crops, and looking for
sorcerers. Chief like the king received gifts of corn and cattle but they levied no
regular tribute. They could call out their subjects to work their fields, build their
homesteads, arrest malefactors or hunt.
The nation was a federation of tribes who separate identities were symbolised by
their chiefs. The tribes were even autonomous within the national organisation for on
occasion many tribesmen supported their chiefs in quarrels with the king. However, it
was interrelations between tribes that the tribal identities mainly appeared.
23
Gifts, tribute, taxation?
• From his subjects point of view, the main duty they owned was
military service including labour service.
• it was customary to vie him gifts of grain beer cattle and (some say)
girls.
• As he also received most of the cattle, the women captured in war,
fines for certain offences, he was easily the richest man in the
nation.
• In return for this he was expected to feed and help his people
generously. He had to care for his regiments and give them their
shields. In famine he was expected to help all his people and also at
all times of difficulties.
• Thus if the king rules according to tradition, he was generous to his
subjects, using his wealth for them, he gave them justice, he
protected their interests and through him they hoped to satisfy their
ambitions on the battlefield and in the forums of public debate.
24
Politics and succession
•
•
•
All members of Shaka’s family enjoyed a higher status as a result of his
victories. Neither he nor Dingane had any children and it was the
descendents of Mpande who came to form the royal family. They formed the
superior rank in Zulu society in status above even the chiefs, some of them
also ruled as chief of tribes. Princes of the Zulu line and chiefs of other clan
lines who were princes by royal women were among the more powerful
chief in the land. They received ceremonial deference.
Mpande followed the practice of big polygamous chiefs and settled his sons
in various areas as chiefs there. The kings was therefore head by descent
of the powerful aristocratic Zulu lineage which was looked up to by all Zulus
and his position in the national organisation was strengthened since tribes
scattered through Zululand were ruled by his close relatives who were
bound to him by strong kinship ties of mutual assistance and by their
common membership of the royal lineage.
Marriage between the royal family and families of chiefs established similar
ties. The king would marry off his sisters, a daughter or even some girl
belonging to him, to a chief and her son ( who ranked as a prince of the
nation) should be heir. However, the princes might draw to themselves
followers beyond those given to them by the king and as in the past
brothers of tribal chiefs had broken away to establish independent tribes so
the princes within the nation were a potential threat to the king. Especially if
he misrules.
25
Politics and succession
• Zulu customs says the king
should not eat with his brother • The rule of succession is
that the heir is born of the
lest they poison him. His
woman who the king
relatives on his mothers side
makes his chief wife.
and by marriage were said to
Mpande first appointed
be his strongest supporters
Cetshwayo heir for he
for their importance in
was born to the wife
national life came from their
given to him by
relationship to him rather than
Dingwane. Then he
their relationship to the royal
began to favour Mbuyazi,
lineage.
son of his most beloved
wife. Each had his own
following. Cetshwayo was
supported by his most
important brothers and
the big chiefs and he
routed Mbuyazi.
26
The Zulu monarch - King Goodwill
Zwelethini
•
http://www.knet.co.za/shakaland/Photos.htm
http://www.tamarin.com/king-pic/king13.JPG
27
Daily News March 30 2006 at 11:21AM
• Zulu monarch's R40m budget under spotlight
•
Bheko Madlala
Will Zulu monarch King Goodwill Zwelithini be asking for almost R40-million to run the royal household?
That's what members of the Finance Portfolio Committee will be wondering when officials from the royal
household department, which is in charge of the King's living expenses, appear before them at the provincial
parliament in Pietermaritzburg on Thursday when the budget for the 2006/07 financial year comes under the
spotlight.
The department, which received R25-million for the current 2005/06 financial year which ends on Friday, came
under the spotlight towards the end of last year when it emerged that its officials had told parliament they needed
an additional R14,3-million in order for the department to meet its financial obligations.
According to the "wish list" which was presented by the head of the department, Dr Vusi Shongwe, Zwelithini
requested he be provided with a top of the range Mercedes Benz and six equally impressive Mercedes Benzs for
his queens at a total cost of R3,537-million to the taxpayer.
Spare the taxpayers the responsibility of paying for the Zulu monarch's expensesIn addition, Shongwe told
the Finance Portfolio Committee that the department needed R2,35-million in order to replace its existing ageing
fleet of cars.
He said among the new vehicles needed by the department was a four ton truck which would be used to transport
gifts, "invariably live beasts, from the King's subjects" to royal palaces, an 18-seater kombi to transport members
of the Royal family and four sedans to provide transport for staff from the department.
•
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=13&art_id=vn20060330101220143C638866
28
Jacob Zuma
29
Limits on state formation
• These problems of fission and succession reveal the extent to which
kinship had not been suppressed in favour of territorial and
bureaucratic office.
• Ritual and political centralisation occurred. But lacked
– 1) literacy. Learned men – memories but not sacred book or priesthood
– 2) trade. Began with Europeans, British in Natal (role of slave trade)
– 3) not massive accumulation, and therefore no monumental
architecture. Kings kraal special by size not design. Same as other but
on a vastly bigger scale
• Disputes in anthropology
– Conquest or functionality
– Primary v secondary states
– Role of trade / symbolic goods
• Disputes in history
– Political nature of historical accounts
• Refer back to questions – sources of power and authority.
30