Kyanshipand kinship among the Tarok

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 242-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. G. Smith ◽  
Mary F. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Distinctive Feature ◽  
Northern Nigeria ◽  
Kinship System ◽  
Plateau State ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe Tarok of Plateau State in Northern Nigeria, or Yergam as they are better known, may have a unique kinship system.Their kinship institutions, and especially theirkyanship, that is, the positions and roles of the mother's mother's brother (MMB) and mother's brother (MB), raise fundamental questions about the nature of filiation and descent. To indicate the problem we first briefly describe Tarok forms of kinship and marriage and then concentrate on its distinctive feature, namely, the institution ofkyanship. In closing we suggest how the system probably emerged and discuss its implications.

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph

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.

Some Determinants of Marriage Stability in Busoga: A Reformulation of Gluckman's Hypothesis

Africa ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. A. Fallers
Keyword(s):  
Stable Marriage ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
General Hypothesis ◽  
Kinship System ◽  
Marriage Stability ◽  
The Face ◽  
Decisive Test ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Methodological Difficulties

Opening ParagraphIn a recent paper Gluckman puts forward a general hypothesis to account for the wide variation in the frequency of divorce among some African societies. Contrasting the bilateral kinship system of the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia with the strongly agnatic one of the Zulu of Natal, he notes that divorce is common among the former, rare among the latter, and suggests the general hypothesis that stable marriage is associated with patriliny. Gluckman tests this hypothesis against a substantial body of comparative data, drawn mainly from trans-Saharan Africa, and concludes that the available evidence seems generally to support it. He notes, however, that data for many areas are inadequate and he is properly cautious in the face of the methodological difficulties involved in putting such hypotheses to decisive test:I am aware of the difficulties of establishing the validity of the hypothesis, but even if it is wrong it may be useful. Some of the difficulties are inherent in sociological analysis, since in this there are always complicating variables. Others arise from the vague and embracing use of categories and concepts (of which I too am guilty) such as patrilineal, lineage, marriage, divorce, &c….I am myself uncertain whether it is the stability of people's attachment to specific areas, or patriliny or father-right itself, or the agnatic lineage, or all of these together, which, whatever the other variables are, tend to be associated with a strong marriage tie.He concludes by inviting further testing and reformulation of the hypothesis.

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph

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.

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
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.

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 ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
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.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document