$Unique_ID{COW04168} $Pretitle{267} $Title{Zaire Chapter 3D. Local Social Systems} $Subtitle{} $Author{Irving Kaplan} $Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army} $Subject{lineage groups slave chiefs status descent group members slaves lineages} $Date{1978} $Log{} Country: Zaire Book: Zaire, A Country Study Author: Irving Kaplan Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army Date: 1978 Chapter 3D. Local Social Systems Of the varied sociopolitical patterns characteristic of indigenous Zairian communities, only some elements, altered and adapted during the colonial era and since independence, remain significant in the lives of Zairians generally and those in rural areas particularly. Broadly the persisting units are the local communities, often changed by the aggregation of smaller units into larger ones, the descent groups (clans and lineages) that bear a variable relationship to local communities, and the networks of kin connections in which each individual is involved. There is also a residue of the varying patterns of slavery that characterized most communities. Other institutions and groupings-chieftainship in its varied guises and politicoreligious associations-either no longer exist or have changed in form and function. Some institutions that were introduced by the Belgians and, with modifications, have been retained by governments after independence-e.g., sector chieftainship-have acquired a patina of tradition, as different as they are from the institutions of the precolonial period. Thus in many areas the people are used to collectivity chiefs (formerly sector chiefs) and resisted the Mobutu government's efforts to extend to them the principle of service outside the areas to which they were native (see Administration and Public Servants, ch. 2). With very few exceptions indigenous Zairian communities distinguished their members on some scale of worthiness in addition to those based on age and sex. In general, other things being equal, age required respect, although seniority did not necessarily confer access to the office of highest status in the descent group or local community. Again in general, males (and male activities, e.g., hunting) had higher status than females, the presence in many communities of matrilineal descent groups and matrilineally based succession and inheritance notwithstanding. There were exceptions: occasionally a woman succeeded to chieftainship and in some systems there were special roles in the political hierarchy, for a ritually chosen sister of chief or king. Further, older women past childbearing age sometimes participated in the kind of decisionmaking usually reserved to men of the lineage or local community. Even when there were no significant distinctions among free persons (other than those based on age and sex and those requiring deference to incumbents of political or religious office), there was almost always the difference in status between "free" persons and "slaves." The status of individuals that Westerners would call slaves, their treatment, and the degree and nature of their integration into the community and its constituent groups varied considerably from one ethnic group to another and often within such entities, but at any given time there were, in almost all indigenous communities, individuals whose status differed in some respects from persons whom Westerners would tend to call free (see Slavery and its Residue, this ch.). It has been reported that in some communities a substantial minority and even a majority were slaves or of slave origin. Of Kings and Chiefs With very few exceptions indigenous Zairian communities had chiefs of some kind. There was, however, a good deal of variation in the scale of the entity under a single head and therefore in the extent to which any chiefdom was marked by a hierarchy of chiefs, the lower ones presiding over subsidiary units. There were also considerable differences in the secular authority of chiefs at any level, that is, in the extent to which chiefs alone or with advice and counsel made significant decisions affecting the lives of those under them. Very often a chief's most important task was to perform the religious ritual necessary to maintain and enhance the welfare of his people. The processes by which he came into office (whether he inherited it or was elected-usually a combination of the two), the rites of installation, the paraphernalia he was given, and the meaning attached to kingship or chieftainship expressed in myth and ritual all reflected this responsibility. Even when a chief had much to say about the functioning of a polity on a day-to-day basis, in making decisions on important matters (such as war or peace), or in settling legal disputes, he rarely did it alone or in disregard of those who were entitled to (or at least usually did) advise him. In a number of cases, particularly in the more hierarchically organized chiefdoms or kingdoms, a paramount chief or king (or even chiefs directly representing him) received considerable formal deference from his subjects, and there were times when he acted in arbitrary ways (such arbitrariness may even have been expected) but, in the long run and over the full range of his behavior, a chief was rarely free of constraints. In most cases even those chiefs or kings with the greatest apparent secular authority did not legitimate it simply by referring to their capacity to coerce their subjects but justified it on the grounds that they represented the ancestors or the gods, a claim buttressed by much myth and ritual. Perhaps the most important exception to this pattern were the Zande chiefs. In the many autonomous political units that were limited to a village or a cluster of villages based either on a single descent group and the individuals attached to it or on several such groups, some related, some not, the head of the community was the head of the sole descent group or of the senior or dominant group. If he had significant secular authority, it was usually limited by his need to consult the elders of the community (see Descent Groups and Kinship, this ch.). When, as was sometimes the case, a descent group of greater scope included those localized in autonomous communities and extended beyond them, its chief (often the head of the senior localized segment) was owed considerable deference; but just as the more inclusive dispersed descent group had limited political and economic functions, or none, so its head had few or no secular powers. More often than not the primary responsibilities of the heads of local descent groups or communities had to do with the performance of ritual, although they and their elders might also be concerned with economic matters and dispute settlement. In a few cases, e.g., among some of the Bantu-speaking groups in Equateur, there were in addition specialized judicial officers and war chiefs. Among those groups in which more complex systems had emerged in the precolonial era there was a good deal of variation in the nature of the hierarchy and in the powers of the king or supreme chief and his subordinates, whether they were functionally differentiated officials living in the capital or subordinate chiefs governing the units into which the larger entity was divided. In general the larger the kingdom the greater was the autonomy of the chiefs who ruled those parts of it remote from the capital, but even some of the smaller polities ruled by a king or supreme chief were marked by the limited territorial scope of his de facto powers. In almost all cases, however, there was an insistence on the transmission of tribute from all of a king's domains to the capital, in return for which the king was, in principle, their protector and court of appeal. In many instances, e.g., among the Zande, the supreme chief's powers and perquisites were delegated to his subordinates except for the region immediately surrounding his capital, which he ruled directly. In some cases, however, e.g., in the Lunda and Kuba kingdoms, hierarchy was accompanied by differentiation, higher and lower chiefs having distinct powers and responsibilities. One of the more elaborate organizations was that developed by the Lunda. The mwaant yaav, a sacred king, represented the Lunda god on earth. All other chiefs (some were in effect kings themselves) represented him, although the more remote parts of the empire, for example, the kingdom of the Kazembe of Luapula, were for all practical purposes autonomous, except for the payment of tribute-in these cases more symbolic than substantial. The mwaant yaav's national court and council were made up of high dignitaries, some of them special officials, others great chiefs. At the next (regional) level the mwaant yaav was represented by officials who saw to it that tribute reached the capital and by political chiefs with secular administrative powers and responsibilities. A local chief and his council of adult males dealt with village matters, and there were also chiefs of the earth descended from those who were considered to have arrived in the area before all others. The local chiefs and the chiefs of the earth were concerned largely with the ritual maintenance of the fertility of the land. Only in the mwaant yaav himself were sacred and secular powers and responsibilities joined. Earth chiefs have been reported from a number of other groups in the Southern Uplands, but their powers have often been misconstrued. Although there were cases where such chiefs combined responsibilities for the maintenance of the fertility of the earth and even limited powers connected with its allocation with restricted powers in the secular realm, their ritual powers were more significant. In a number of those more complex chiefdoms aspects of the hierarchy survived even if, when under the colonial and independence governments, administrative chiefs were in principle chosen on bases other than the traditional ones and the powers of the kings and their subordinates were limited. Sometimes, however, traditional chiefs were vested with administrative powers. In any case there are indications, for example, that the mwaant yaav wields considerable influence among the Lunda of southwestern Shaba although non-Lunda elements of the empire (e.g., the Chokwe and Ndembo) are no longer subject to him. This seems to be true of the supreme chiefs of the Eastern Highlands and of the Mangbetu. There are cases, however, where younger members of a group no longer give its head their allegiance. Moreover disputes over succession were not uncommon in the precolonial era, and they have persisted into the modern period so that at any time a kingdom may be divided between factions supporting specific claimants to the kingship. Descent Groups and Kinship Descent as the basis for group formation and kinship as the basis for interpersonal relations were pervasive in earlier periods and persist into the later half of the twentieth century. Modifications in form and function have occurred in rural and perhaps particularly in urban areas, however. Except in a few cases the basic units of indigenous societies were unilineal descent groups, that is, they included all persons actually or putatively descended from a common male ancestor through males (patrilineal) or from a common female ancestor through females (matrilineal). Matrilineal descent groups are found chiefly in the Southern Uplands extending from the Kongo in the far west (with interruptions, e.g., the patrilineal Luba) to the peoples of Shaba. Descent groups vary in size, degree of localization, function, and degree of internal segmentation. In the groups called clans, found in many Zairian societies, the links between a putative, usually remote common ancestor and the living cannot be traced, and no effort is made to do so. Such groups are larger in scope than the units into which they are segmented although they need not have many living members in absolute terms. They are rarely localized, and their members may often be widely dispersed, the same clan turning up throughout the territory occupied by an ethnic group and sometimes in different ethnic groups. In these circumstances they have few, if any, political or economic powers and responsibilities, but they may have places sacred to all of their members at which occasional rituals are performed. Clans may also be points of reference in urban areas where individuals are unable to find members of a narrower descent group. Clans are invariably subdivided into smaller units; sometimes these are subclans, which have the same general characteristics as clans although they are usually more localized. More often the component units are lineages in which the common ancestor is not so remote and to whom links can be traced. Such lineages do, however, vary in generational depth and in size, degree of localization, and function. Most ubiquitous is the unit called the minimal lineage, in which the common ancestor is three (rarely four) generations removed from the youngest generation of adults. It is likely to be localized (exceptions occur among matrilineal groups) and to have a degree of control over the land cultivated by its members, although the fruits of cultivation are used by specific households. In some ethnic groups such a lineage is in fact the only one with significant economic, social, and political functions, and where larger lineages tend to diminish in importance under modern conditions, the minimal lineage retains much of its significance. Often a lineage perhaps five to seven generations in depth and containing several minimal lineages living in a contiguous area exercised a degree of political control over its members, held primary and residual rights on agricultural and hunting land, settled disputes between different minimal lineages or their members, and represented them vis-a-vis other lineages and chiefs. In a few cases lineage systems were more elaborated: up to four levels of lineages have been found, genealogically deeper entities including several units at the next shallower level and so on. Almost always minimal lineages and even larger ones are exogamous even when the clans of which they may be a part are not. The village (or part of a village or hamlet) in which a localized patrilineage lived usually consisted of an adult male core, their wives (of other lineages), unmarried members of the lineage, male and female, and other dependents, the married women having gone to live with their husbands-frequently in another village given the usually small size of a village in the precolonial era. Village endogamy may have become more frequent after the colonial regime consolidated villages, thereby putting unrelated or remotely related lineages into the same community. Localization was much rarer among matrilineal groups. In these societies the possibilities for postmarital residence were wider, and a core of adult women was not usually able to maintain generational continuity in the same local community. There were some cases in which generations of women remained in the same village, their husbands coming to live with them. Frequently, however, a man's residence in his wife's community was temporary if it occurred at all. Sometimes immediately, sometimes after an interval, the wife joined her husband in his father's community. If this occurred for several generations, as it sometimes did, a set of related males of different matrilineages would form a local group. In still other instances, a man took his wife to live with his mother's brother, and if his own sister's son then joined him after marriage a male core of a matrilineage then existed. Postmarital residence of this kind was not often systematic, however, occuring most commonly when a man's mother's brother held office to which the man was likely to succeed. Despite the dispersion of their members, matrilineages were often able to maintain a local center. There were always a few adult men, including the lineage head, and women of the lineage resident in the center, and this mixed core was replenished as men and women after divorce or death of spouses or fathers returned to it. Descent groups are corporate entities in that each unit, depending on its level, had certain rights and responsibilities vis-a-vis units at the same or other levels and with respect to its individual members. The range of variation in these rights and responsibilities is such that an example can only suggest the possible rather than the typical. The Boa, living north of Kisangani and lacking territorial chieftainship, illustrate segmentary systems, common among the patrilineal societies living in the area north and south of the Zaire River from Kisangani west. According to Vansina the largest entity is a subclan (there is no reference to clans, an obscurity in the source), which includes a number of maximal lineages (etina); each of these comprehends a number of major lineages (makere), which are further divided into minor lineages (gube), the constituents of which are minimal lineages (likudu). It may be noted that in some ethnic groups descent groups of different levels have the same term applied to them and that, among the Boa themselves, lineage levels were sometimes telescoped if there were not enough persons at some levels to permit such extensive differentiation. Each lineage at each level had a head, usually its genealogically senior male member, who represented it at councils at the next higher level. Maximal lineages within each subclan were ranked depending, in theory at least, on the status of the wives of the common ancestor from which the chiefly line in the maximal lineage was descended. The chief of the highest ranked maximal lineage was chief of the subclan and was entitled to a special tribute passed through the various levels and ranks. If groups of strangers (refugees) entered the land occupied by a subclan, they were attached to it as a low-ranked (junior) maximal lineage if there were enough of them or at a lower level (as a low-ranked major or minor lineage) if not. The maximal lineage held the land, thought of not so much as cultivable land as hunting territory, and its chief was entitled to the tusks of elephants killed and quarters of certain game animals. The major lineage was the exogamous group. The significant rights in agricultural land were held by the minor lineage occupying a village, and its head distributed land for cultivation to its component minimal lineages, each of which occupied a hamlet. The minimal lineage was the most important functioning unit in most social and economic matters, paying out and receiving bridewealth (given by the minimal lineage of the husband to that of the wife), paying compensation for wrongs committed by its members against members of other lineages, and so on. A minimal lineage here provided the male core of an extended family, the other members of which were the wives of these males, their children, occasional matrilineally related kin (a daughter's or sister's son), and slaves or sons of slaves. Matrilaterally related kin tended to join the minimal lineage because the situation in their own descent group may have been difficult for them economically or otherwise. It is not clear how typical it was, but one Boa extended family compromising eighty-three persons of both sexes and all ages included twenty-five adult males of which twenty were slaves or sons of slaves (see Slavery and its Residue, this ch.). An outline like that presented for the Boa provides only a preliminary framework for understanding descent-group systems. Very often the situation of any segment of a lineage system with respect to others in the system, whether of the same or a higher level, is ambiguous as the detailed analysis of a Kongo community by MacGaffey has shown. That ambiguity may be partly or temporarily resolved in the course of specific disputes over, for example, land rights or status. In the course of such disputes traditional history becomes not a universally accepted body of knowledge fixing the rights and status of one group in relation to all relevant others but a weapon to be used in argument. The conditions for this uncertainty were in part set by the internal movement of individuals and small groups from one community to another (very common throughout Zaire at least until the 1920s), in which case the migrants usually became clients of a unit already in place, and by the significance of slavery. In many Zairian communities a slave's descendants gave rise to a lineage segment that became integrated as a client group in a larger unit. Over time the status of a client group, whether of immigrant or slave origin, may become subject to dispute or, more accurately, in the course of a dispute over rights to land or some other issue assertions of slave or client status may be made in order to support claims and counterclaims. Although changes since the beginning of the colonial era may account in part for some of the ambiguity, there are indications that it and the endemic disputation characteristic of some groups are inherent in the structures of some of these societies. A further feature of many of these systems is lineage fission. Sometimes this may be attributable to demographic factors. A lineage of given generational depth may grow to such an extent (in itself desirable) that effective cooperation and adequate allocation of land to all its households become difficult and the group splits, one section moving. The converse may also occur: a demographically shrinking lineage may find it convenient to attach itself to another of a theoretically equivalent level. Often enough, however, fission may occur because of internal conflict, separate sections being unable to cooperate on a whole range of issues. Although each individual has rights and obligations with respect to his lineage as a whole, his daily life is lived as part of a network of relationships with other individuals, many of them kin, some of them members of his own lineage, some not. Kin ties, through one's parents and by marriage, with a wide range of persons define interpersonal rights, obligations, and opportunities. The significance of unilineal descent groups in most Zairian communities does not mean that matrilineal kin in patrilineal societies are unimportant and vice versa. The precise nature of these ties-that is, which kin are more important for economic purposes, which for political or religious ones, varies. So too does the extent to which kin, similarly positioned to the Westerner, are treated in similar ways. Thus broadly speaking, in a matrilineal system a man's mother's brother from whom one may inherit and who represents authority in his lineage is likely to receive deference and respect whereas a mother's brother in a patrilineal system will have a somewhat different relationship to his sister's son. Also varying from society to society is the extent to which kin are lumped together or distinguished. For example, one's father's brother's children and one's mother's brother's children, both cousins in most Western systems, are likely to be related to differently, in part because of their membership in different lineages, in part because they are less likely to live in the same local community. Often modifying kin relationships but tied in with them is relative seniority. A society's norms may require that one's father's younger brother be treated somewhat differently from his older brother in some contexts as may one's own older and younger brothers. But the effects of genealogical seniority may be modified by chronological contemporaneity. In polygynous societies one's father's younger half-brother may be no older than his nephew, and in everyday matters they may treat each other like brothers, although the distinction will be made on appropriate occasions. In general the range of fairly important kin is wider than that in Western urban society and has not appreciably narrowed in Zairian urban society, in part because many urban Zairians maintain ties with the rural areas from which they come, in part because kin ties provide ways of coping with some of the difficulties of urban life. In some cases obligations to kin become burdensome in an urban context, particularly to those who have had some degree of success and are expected to help new arrivals. Kin may be more trustworthy than others, however, and for the ambitious man they may provide a nucleus of dependents and followers necessary to further success. Kin relationships define certain kinds of behavior-styles of address, modes of deference or, in some cases, of joking-and, with varying degrees of specificity, rights and obligations. Situations, even in an earlier time and increasingly in the modern era, permit choice, however. For a variety of reasons an individual may forfeit some rights or ignore certain obligations because there are other opportunities. Put another way, an individual will seek to shore up or take advantage of some links rather than others. Sometimes this will be governed by propinquity. A kinsman of the same order of relationship as another is nevertheless closer because he is physically closer (in the same or a nearby hamlet). Conversely a physically more remote kinsman may be able to provide land or other support. The important points are that kinship makes demands and provides opportunities; individuals may for economic, social, political, and even psychological reasons reject the demands made by some kin ties and take the opportunities offered by others, risking some losses for bigger gains. Slavery and its Residue In one form or another slavery was embedded in the social systems of precolonial Zairian communities, and residues of the relationships and norms connected with it have persisted into the modern era, particularly in the rural areas. Indeed in many cases descendants of slaves may escape from all of the implications of their status only by leaving for an urban area and detaching themselves from rural structure. To go to yet another rural area with a similar structure is to be a stranger with limited access to the full range of rights and privileges available in that community. Such limited access or marginality is precisely one of the features of slavery and to a lesser extent of client status. There were several ways of becoming a slave, accounting in different combinations for the slaves in any community. The slave relationship and its political, social, and economic significance varied from society to society. So too did the extent to which the status of a slave could be modified in his lifetime and that of his descendants change in the course of generations. Raiding was one source of slaves, and slave raiding became more important for some groups under the influence of the European-dominated market on the one hand and the Afro-Arab market on the other. In those situations raiding of one African ethnic group by another occurred as it sometimes did independently of the influence of external markets. But raiding and warfare (which, whatever its primary cause, almost always resulted in the acquisition of slaves) very often took place between groups of the same language and culture, and there was rarely a marked cultural or linguistic difference (let alone a racial one) between master and slave. If raiding and warfare were the sources of some slaves, the actual workings of the social system generated others. Disputes between lineages over the killing of a member of one by a member of another or over theft could be settled by the transfer of a person from the killer's or thief's lineage to that of the victim. Persons convicted of witchcraft, accusations of which were not in infrequent, could also be given in slavery, or someone could be given in their stead. In some groups individuals who came as refugees or for other reasons lacked the full complement of kin who could or would look after their interests and became slaves. In some situations persons were sold or, more accurately, given in exchange for such necessities as food when difficult circumstances obtained. Perhaps a more common transaction was pawning-the transfer of an individual from one lineage to another for a debt owed the latter and, in principle, subject to redemption on payment of that debt. Often enough, however, the pawn was not redeemed and became for all practical purposes a slave. The transfer of individuals into slavery by their own lineage reflected the relation of the corporate group to its members. In effect the lineage owned its members and could dispose of them if those in authority (its head and elders) considered it necessary. In many cases the individual transferred might already have been a slave but in others not. Except in the case of hierarchically organized states in which the members of the ruling group were not involved in the production of food or in domestic tasks but in which the court of a king or supreme chief required quantities of food and many servants, slaves were not necessarily taken simply for their labor power. In general slaves were acquired either to augment a descent group as individuals or through their reproductive power to constitute part of the corps of dependents of a politically and socially ambitious individual. In a patrilineal society a male, whatever the limits of his access to power or high status in the lineage to which he was attached, could be a hunter and even a warrior; a female was married out, and the bridewealth received for her could at minimum be used to pay bridewealth for a man of the lineage. In matrilineal societies a slave woman, unlike a free woman, produced children for her husband's descent group, always desirable. Broadly, political and social power went to those who controlled large numbers of dependents (kin, clients, and slaves) and who were in a position to use them. Thus among the nineteenth-century Kongo, a descent group head who sought a prestigious title was expected to turn over a slave or slaves (as well as other prestige goods) to a superior chief or to others already holding such titles. But among these same Kongo a slave often worked and lived much as did a free man. In their essay on African slavery Igor Kopytoff and Suzanne Miers suggest that the social mobility of a slave (and his descendants) could occur along three dimensions, each independently of the other. The first was that of his formal status, that is, his rights and obligations with respect to the society as a whole and particularly to the individual and descent group to which he was attached. The second had to do with his affective status, the extent to which an enslaved individual might be held in greater or lesser esteem and affection. It was entirely possible for a slave to be held in such esteem that he would not be sold or sacrificed even if his formal status permitted it. The third concerned worldly success-the extent to which a slave could improve his living conditions, exert greater political influence, and control wealth. Slaves and their descendants in any single society could occupy a range of positions with respect to each dimension, and societies varied in the extent to which they permitted or fostered mobility along any one of them. Thus a slave who became a warrior or an important part of a trading expedition might better his material position and conceivably his political situation while another slave engaged solely in agricultural activity would not. Although descriptions of most Zairian societies refer to the presence of some form of slavery in the precolonial era and suggest that the status of individuals in the colonial and postcolonial periods was affected by the real or putative slave status of their ancestors, detailed analysis is rare. In general, however, formal status was most likely to change intergenerationally, a slave's descendants becoming increasingly integrated into the lineage to which they were attached. Even so they were unlikely to arrive at the full status of free men in the sense that they could independently hold authority in that lineage. In some societies slaves who were dependents of high officials could wield authority over free men, but they did so as representatives of their masters. Because slaves and their descendants in most Zairian societies were not simply chattels but bore a complex relationship to other members of the same community, the abolition of the slave trade and of slavery, predicated as it was on the assumption that one was either simply slave or simply free, did not end "slave" status for many Zairians. The descendants of slaves were members of communities and kin by blood and marriage to others, often free, in that community. They could no longer be sold or sacrificed, but the abolition of slavery did not specify that all individuals had the right to become lineage chiefs or that each segment of a lineage including that descended from a slave had exactly the same rights in land. To the extent that slave status was defined by these differences in rights and privileges rather than by a clear and simple distinction between an unambiguously free individual and a chattel, it has been entirely possible for differences in status in rural communities to turn on the question of pedigree: if in an indigenous society only a free lineage could hold basic rights in land and others held rights of use at the pleasure of the free lineage, change in slave status could be accomplished only by a revolution in land tenure. In modern Zairian society if a descendant of a slave objects to the limits on his rights or the onerousness of his obligations, he can leave if he thinks that he can survive and prosper in an urban environment. Alternatively he can claim the pedigree of free man, often in the context of a legal case concerning land rights. The notion of slavery enters into disputes in another way: because slave descent implies marginality to the community, a party to a dispute may claim that his opponent is of slave ancestry, thus arguing that he lacks standing in the community. Here a party's slave status, although not central to the quarrel, is brought in as a weapon. Because these arguments depend on tradition and genealogy, often subject to disagreement, it is possible for individuals and their descent groups to move from one status to another if acceptable witnesses support one claimant's traditions rather than the other's.