Academic literature on the topic 'Acephalous societies'

The paper examines conflicts in Northern and Upper East regions of Ghana from the perspective of identity crisis in an ethnically heterogeneous section of the country. Notwithstanding the long periods of co-existence among the heterogeneous ethnic groups the melting pot effect has not emerged as attachment to primordial identity lines still prevail. This is most manifested between the traditionally acephalous societies and the chiefly societies. The relationship between these two societies has been antagonistic, especially as the acephalous societies seem to be besieged with identity crisis. The rejection of the chiefly hegemony is at the root of the identity conflicts. The cases examined in this paper illustrate two of such ‘wars of emancipation’ but with differential results. Whereas the Kusasi had been ‘successful’ in wrestling out of the chiefly hegemonic control of the Mamprusi, the Konkomba have not been all that successful against their antagonists. In both situations, however, the acephalous societies tend to slough off their past ‘anarchic’, systems to adopt and/or adapt the chiefly political culture. This adaptation has become the mode of assertion to redress the low social categorisation of the acephalous societies. It is concluded that observance of peace in two areas continue to be tedious as primordial cleavages are still alive. It is thus recommended, among others that the National Peace Council should work with stakeholders to sustain peace. Keywords: Identity, Conflict, Kusasi, Mamprusi, Konkomba

Opening ParagraphIn studies of change in indigenous political organisations under the impact of colonial administration, the precolonial situation in Africa is often depicted as essentially static. Anthropologists tend to project a relatively ‘uninfluenced’ state of affairs from the early colonial period into the past. Change seems to occur under European influence. This picture is the result less of the conviction of the authors that conditions were static than of a lack of information on precolonial development. This is especially true for ‘acephalous’ societies; centralised societies often possess detailed traditions concerning their institutional history. In the following case, of the political development of a village in the Nigerian Middle Belt, it has been possible to record precolonial changes of organisation in an acephalous society.

This author suggests new avenues for thinking about the relationship between formerly stateless societies and the state. It does so through a detailed study of one particular group, the Shuar, indigenous to the Ecuadorian Amazon. Formerly an acephalous society of hunter-gardeners, the Shuar now constitute a federation with a democratically elected, hierarchical leadership and are at the forefront of indigenous movements in Latin America. The author analyzes this transformation in the context of colonialism but argues that colonialism involves far more than the movement of people from one place to another or the extension of state authority over new territory. Rather, he reveals colonialism to hinge on the transformation of sociospatial boundaries. Such transformations were critical not only to Shuar ethnogenesis but also to Ecuadorian state-building. That is, colonialism involves a dialectical reorganization both of the state and of its new subjects.

An ever-growing literature on West African slavery has, for obvious reasons, tended to concentrate on societies that developed complex forms of domestic slavery and/or were closely tied to the export trade. Three major collections on slavery published in the last ten years deal almost exclusively with such groups. The history of peaples who refused, at least in the beginning, to take captives for the purpose of selling them to outsiders or keeping them for themselves has been ignored. And yet these acephalous groups are very instructive. They illustrate how certain structural features and other cultural preferences may have impeded, or at least retarded, the development of indigenous slaving institutions.This paper discusses the role of slavery in a marginal area of the Upper Guinea coast. Emphasis will be placed on how practices surrounding the acquisition and disposal of captives were embedded in local institutions. Because these practices developed in the context of Africans dealing with each other, and not exclusively in the context of their dealings with the Europeans, they reflected modes of thinking and organizations intrinsic to certain forest groups of west Africa. A comprehensive history of why the Jola of Lower Casamance, Senegal, were slow to develop various kinds of slaving practices emphasizes their resistance to currents of change affecting the political economy of this region before, during, and after the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade.

The trend in precolonial Nigerian historiography has been the attempt to concentrate studies on prominent kingdoms, major ethnic nationalities, and coastal communities. Consequently, the histories of acephalous societies have been neglected by historians. A. E. Afigbo once warned Nigerian historians against the danger inherent in the overconcentration of research on the history of megastates to the neglect of ministates, arguing that the history of the smaller polities should not be presented as footnotes to the history of major states.The raison d'être of this paper is to draw attention of historians to one of these neglected communities, the Owan peoples of Nigeria. They inhabit Owan Local Government Area of Bendel State, and consist of eleven clans: Emai, Ighue, Ihievbe, Ikao, Iuleha, Ivbiadaobi, Evbiomoin, Ora, Otuo, Ozalla, and Uokha. Linguistically, they belong to the Edo-speaking people centered in Benin. While it is true that Owan history has been neglected, that of their women suffers doubly because of their gender and as members of the society. Clearly such questions as what Owan society has been like in the past; how it has come to be what it is; what factors operate within it; what currents and forces move the people; and what general and personal factors have shaped events in the area should be the concern of historians interested in Owan history. In answering these questions the origins of the people and the evolution of precolonial sociopolitical institutions should be investigated. The economic arrangements which have sustained the society over the years will no doubt be of interest to would-be researchers. In addition, the links between the various groups and clans in term of trade, politics, and social relations should be studied. An examination of precolonial judicial arrangements and how they coped with crime and punishment will lead to an understanding of the currents within Owan society. Since all societies are dynamic, changes which occurred in the precolonial setting may reveal the resilience of indigenous institutions. Any reconstruction of Owan history must of necessity examine published, archival, and oral evidence. It is hoped that this research agenda will spur historians to focus attention on major aspects of Owan history—origins, economic, political, and social relations—with equal attention to the roles of men and of women.

This is, as the title makes clear, an essay; that is to say, a genre in which it is considered legitimate for the author to put forward his own more or less (in this case rather more) subjective viewpoints. As such it contains quite a number of short cuts and mouthfuls. I have also deemed it necessary, for the sake of the logic of the argumentation, to make occasional and rather long de-tours via a number of obvious, and at times downright elementary, points. My excuse is that the genre virtually requires it. And my hope is that the following pages will provide at least some food for thought.Back in the early 1960s the distinguished Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper of Oxford University proclaimed, as every Africanist probably knows, that at least precolonial Black Africa had no history. He must have meant what he said, for he repeated his contention in 1969 by putting the label “unhistoric” on the African continent; the whole of the African continent that is, including Ethiopia, Egypt, and the Maghrib.On the face of it there is little reason why we should bother with this type of point of view now in the 1990s. After all, the avalanche of articles and books on African history—including several multi-volume General Histories—which have been published since the 1960s, in a sense bear testimony to the absurdity of Trevor-Roper's position.And yet, for all that, I am not quite certain that the malaise engendered by Trevor-Roper and his like has been entirely dissipated. After all, Trevor-Roper remains a frequently-quoted historian. But more to the point, there is often in my opinion a rather embarrassing insistence in the specialist Africanist litera¬ture on the “extraordinary complexity and dynamism” of Black Africa's past; an insistence not infrequently coupled with the urge, apparently never appeased, to put to rest the myth of Primitive Africa. There is also an equally embarrassing insistence on behalf of many Africanists to pin the label “state” on even the tiniest of polities in precolonial Africa, thus obscuring the appar¬ent fact that perhaps a majority of Africans in the precolonial era lived in so-called “acephalous” societies.

The evolution of African stateless societies and the diverse impact of their cultures, on political thought previous to and post-modernity, are not well understood. Scholars acknowledge the varied influence of precolonial African culture on the artistic, spiritual, and linguistic expressions of African-descended populations. However, observations regarding the impact of such acephalous societies on the political thought of the African Diaspora remain obscure. The organizational techniques of such societies are best described as a form of kinship-based anarchism. This study seeks to examine the persistence of such organizational techniques among African-descended populations in the United States. The political life and background of Ella Baker will be used as a historical case study to illustrate the possible strands of continuity that may exist between the organizational habitude of African acephalous societies, and modern African-American grassroots political structures.