The Divine Kingship of the Jukun: a Re-evaluation of some Theories

Africa ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 135-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael W. Young
Keyword(s):  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Structural Interpretation ◽  
Empirical Verification ◽  
Political Ritual ◽  
Central Tenet ◽  
The Dead ◽  
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Divine Kingship

Opening ParagraphFor many social anthropologists the problem of divine kingship was solved in 1948 when Professor Evans-Pritchard, in a well-known Frazer Lecture, put a respectably structural interpretation on the facts of the Shilluk case. Divine kingship in Africa was rather an embarrassment because the central tenet of its doctrine—that the king must be killed when he fell sick or grew senile—was usually beyond empirical verification. There was also perhaps some reluctance to accept the explanatory theories of Sir J. G. Frazer when in so many other respects his authority had long since been overthrown. In a single essay Evans-Pritchard appeared to have effectively slain both the problem and its discoverer. Such problems and such intellectual kings, however, have a way of rising from the dead. In this paper I resuscitate in part Frazer's theory of divine kingship and try to show that it illuminates important aspects of the problem which are ignored by the structuralist interpretation. With reference to a single example of divine kingship, that of the Jukun of Northern Nigeria, I utilize two familiar conceptual distinctions—person/office and political/ritual. Complementary to these, and perhaps even more analytically fruitful, is the man-god dichotomy which was one of Frazer's main preoccupations.

Recent Activities of the Literature Bureau, Zaria, Northern Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. East
Keyword(s):  
Main Function ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Education Department ◽  
District Officer ◽  
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Opening ParagraphThe Literature Bureau was originally started, in 1930, by the Education Department of Northern Nigeria, as a Translation Bureau. Its main function at first was to produce Hausa text-books for use in schools, but in the years before the war it was trying to lay the foundation of a more general literature for the Hausa-speaking people. In January 1939 a Hausa paper was started with the title Gaskiya Ta Fi Kwabo, and an Assistant District Officer was attached to the Bureau to supervise its publication and business side. But in 1940, owing to reduction in staff, such a man could no longer be spared, and the paper had to be run without him.

African Ethnographic Maps, with a new Example from Northern Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-65
Author(s):  
R. Mansell Prothero
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Ethnic Differences ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Ethnic Conflicts ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Republic ◽  
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Opening ParagraphThere is little evidence to show that ethnic differences in Africa result in problems of lesser magnitude at the present day than in the past. In recent years the problems of ‘minorities’ have had to be considered in Nigeria, while in the Republic of Congo (Léopoldville) ethnic conflicts and the reappearance of past tribal enmities have produced numerous tragic situations during the last twelve months. The frontiers of Africa were delimited by the European powers half a century or more ago and their absurdity in relation to ethnic groups has been demonstrated recently in papers by Barbour and Prescott. They were drawn in ignorance of the different groups of people through which they passed and have now been inherited by independent African governments who will have to face the problems which have been created. To solve them these African governments will need to know more of ethnic groups and their distributions than did their European predecessors and the need for more adequate ethnographic maps is likely to increase rather than diminish.

Observations on the Shilluk of the Upper Nile: The Laws of Homicide and the Legal Functions of the Reth

Africa ◽  
1952 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. P. Howell
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Full Account ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Wide Experience ◽  
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Divine Kingship ◽  
Complete Account

Opening ParagraphPublished literature on the subject of the Shilluk is considerable and there are also many interesting accounts of specific subjects buried in the files of the Administration. Nowhere, however, is there a complete account of all aspects of Shilluk life. Moreover, there has been a tendency to concentrate on certain aspects, notably the Divine Kingship, to the exclusion of others. In 1941 Mr. M. E. C. Pumphrey and I published two articles: the first a general summary account of the Shilluk tribe based on Mr. Pumphrey's observations and wide experience; the second a more detailed analysis of one Shilluk settlement, the result of fieldwork carried out in 1937. In 1944 I had the privilege of attending the installation of reth Anei Kur and, together with Mr. W. P. G. Thomson, published a full account. Subsequently Mr. Thomson published his ‘Further Notes on the Death of a Shilluk Reth’, after the death of reth Anei in 1943. This, with Professor Evans-Pritchard's Frazer Lecture, The Divine Kingship of the Shilluk of the Nilotic Sudan, represents the total of information published on the subject of the Shilluk in recent years.

A Note on the Ethnic Interpretation of the Fulani Jihād

Africa ◽  
1966 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 286-291
Author(s):  
Marilyn Robinson Waldman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Holy War ◽  
Form Of Government ◽  
City States ◽  
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Opening ParagraphThe religious government and society of contemporary Northern Nigeria have their historical roots in a jihād (Muslim holy war) which was waged there in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The leader of thai jihād, Usuman dan Fodio, sought to establish a Muslim form of government over the Hausa city-states of what is now Northern Nigeria; his movement had the effect of replacing most of the nonorthodox, and in some cases non-Muslim, Hausa rulers with orthodox Muslims who, like himself, were Fulani.

Some Structural Features of Ingessana Marriage and Affinity

Africa ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. C. Jȩdrej
Keyword(s):  
Structural Features ◽  
Controversial Issues ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Ethiopian Highlands ◽  
Principal Objective ◽  
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Bridal Chamber

Opening ParagraphThe Ingessana represent one of the archaic pre-Nilotic cultures on the Sudanese margins of the Western Ethiopian highlands and may be regarded as belonging to that complex of ‘montagnards paléonigritiques’ extending west by way of, among others, the Nuba Mountain peoples, the Hadjeray in Chad and the numerous hill dwelling peoples of northern Nigeria. The customs with which this article is primarily concerned, such as the avunculate, brideservice, mother-in-law avoidance, the construction of a special bridal chamber, are prominent features of this complex but they are neither universally nor exclusively so. Thus, although the principal objective is to contribute to the documentation and comprehension of the marital customs of this ethnological zone, judged to be ‘ancient and probably prior to bridewealth systems’ by Froelich (1968: 202), the analysis necessarily engages with more general and often controversial issues. Perhaps the most pertinent and least distracting approach in these circumstances is that which confines itself to delimiting the set of structural features which the subsequent account draws upon in comprehending the ethnography.

Ancestor Propitiation Ceremonies in Sukumaland, Tanganyika

Africa ◽  
1958 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-231 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. E. S. Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Continuous Line ◽  
The Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Dead ◽  
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Opening ParagraphThe Sukuma, like many other African peoples, believe that the living and the dead are a continuous line, in which death is not an end but only a transformation within the history of the family. The lack of children means physical and spiritual extinction, since the ancestor spirits depend for their survival on remembrance in the minds of their descendants. The unity of the living and the dead is expressed in their ceremonies when ancestors are referred to by kinship terms more appropriate to the living, whereas the word for ancestor spirit (isamva; pl. masamva) is rarely used in propitiation although quite common in everyday conversation.

A Religious Festival in Northern Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 323-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. K. Meek
Keyword(s):  
Major Part ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Good Fortune ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Religious Festival

Opening ParagraphThis article is an attempt to give some account of the magicoreligious ideas of the Bachama tribe. It is based on notes made during a ten-days' visit to the tribe in the spring of 1927. During this visit I had the good fortune to witness the annual festival at Fare, the description of which occupies the major part of the following remarks. I am indebted to Dr. Bronnum of the Danish Mission at Numan for a number of suggestions.

The Manipulation of Ritual among Plateau Nigerians

Africa ◽  
1963 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 227-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis P. Conant
Keyword(s):  
Technological Diffusion ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Regular Feature ◽  
Political Relations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Ritual Context ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Manipulative Techniques ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphDespite great linguistic and cultural diversity, sustained political relations among the many different groups of the Jos-Bauchi Plateau are a notably regular feature of this area of Northern Nigeria. That these relations are often expressed in a ritual context is an observation frequently made in the literature on the Plateau Pagans. My intention here is to specify some of the regular ways in which ritual paraphernalia may be manipulated for a variety of secular purposes (often political) among communities of such very different kinds as those of the Plateau mountain people and neighbouring plainsmen. These manipulative techniques appear to be important in the analysis of such widely different phenomena as the adoption of Islam, technological diffusion, the spread of art styles, and, more generally, the successful persistence, through time, of relations between societies of very different levels of complexity and organization. My data are drawn from field experience among Barawa mountain settlements and the Bankalawa–Jarawa plains communities of Dass Independent District, Bauchi Province, on the east-south-eastern slopes of the Plateau.

The Religions of Nigeria

Africa ◽  
1943 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 106-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. K. Meek
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Lake Chad ◽  
Southern Nigeria ◽  
The Times ◽  
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Master Builder ◽  
River Niger ◽  
Official Recognition

Opening ParagraphMost people are aware that Nigeria is named after the river Niger, but many may be surprised to hear that the word Niger is not derived from the Latin adjective niger meaning ‘black’, but from a Libyan and Sudanic root, meaning ‘water“or ‘river’. This word was used by the geographer Ptolemy some 1,800 years ago in the Greek form of ‘Niγɛιρ’, and it is used to-day by the tribes of lake Chad in the form of njer. But Pliny employed the form Nigris, and from very early times the land of the Niger was called Nigritia. The modern name of Nigeria was only invented forty-six years ago by Miss Flora Shaw, who became, quite appropriately, the wife of Lord Lugard, the master-builder of Nigeria. In a letter to The Times, written in 1897, Miss Shaw said, ‘It may be permissible to coin a shorter title for the agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States which have been brought, by the exertion of the Royal Niger Company, within the confines of a British Protectorate.’ Her suggestion that the new title should be Nigeria was at once accepted. But it did not receive official recognition until the territories of the Royal Niger Company were formally taken over by the Imperial Government in 1900, and were formed into the two administrations known as Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria. Fourteen years later these two administrations were amalgamated into a single Nigeria, which then became, next to India, the most populous dependency in the British Empire.

!Kung Bushman Religious Beliefs

Africa ◽  
1962 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorna Marshall
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Problem Of Evil ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
South West ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
South West Africa ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Medicine Men

Opening ParagraphMy purpose in this paper is to describe some of the religious beliefs held currently by the !Kung Bushmen of the interior bands of the Nyae Nyae region of South West Africa. I shall limit the paper to a description of their concepts of the gods, the problem of evil, supplication, the spirits of the dead, and the ceremonial curing dance, but leave for another paper a more detailed account of medicine men, how they become medicine men, and more about their practices and beliefs. We gathered the information which I present principally on our expeditions of 1952–3 and 1955.

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