Jacqueline Engel's List: Exercise: Race and Ethnicity

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    The most striking Shilluk characteristic is pride of race, from which most other features of their character spring. Their intense conservatism, for example, results from a conviction that everything not Shilluk in origin is inevitably bad. Their much complained of insolence results from their belief that they are every bit as good as the foreigner and just a little better because he has that great initial handicap of not being a Shilluk.

• The Shilluk, though generally tall and long-headed, seem to us to vary more among themselves than any of the riverain tribes of which we have first-hand knowledge, for while the subject (No. 1) figured on Pl. III may be taken to represent an average Shilluk youth (style of head-dress now unfashionable), a long-faced, straight-nosed and thin-lipped type, as shown in its extreme form in No. 2 is by no means uncommon, as also the handsome if somewhat fierce type shown in No. 3; there is, too, a rare, exaggeratedly negroid, type (No. 4), but this can hardly be accepted as truly Shilluk without prolonged genealogical research. Such wide variation can be best explained by assuming that Nyakang and his followers represented a stock carrying more Hamitic blood than the inhabitants of the riverain villages and other stocks who united with them, and we have no doubt that so far as the Nilotes are concerned even at the present day the maximum of Hamitic blood is to be found among the Shilluk, who, with the exception of the Azande, are the best organized people in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and who of all the black tribes offered the most determined opposition to the Khalifa and his followers.

• Two major economic and political changes have started to break down the Kpelle wealth-in-people system, on which traditional Kpelle marriage is based. First, opportunities to earn cash are giving people a new way to pay for goods and services, enabling them to sever economic ties of obligation to kin groups, chiefs, and religious leaders. Traditional social ties become more fragile since people have less to lose economically by breaking them. Increasingly, the Kpelle indebt themselves to kinsmen or local leaders only if they cannot achieve their goals using outside sources or a less binding means of exchange such as cash.
• Opportunities for earning cash through wage labor, marketing, and cash cropping are changing social ties in the modern part of Fuama Chiefdom, as in other modern areas throughout Africa.

  A young man, for example, can now evade dependency and still obtain a woman. He need not rely on his father for bridewealth payments or take on the burden of performing brideservice for in-laws.

  By giving your in-laws a lot of money, one young man told me, you don't have to work for them and you can keep them at bay.

  Although a young man can achieve considerable independence from traditional obligations to parents and in-laws, he still needs a wife  [Page 119]   in order to obtain rights in children as well as domestic services such as cooking and cleaning.
• Moreover, many young men who work for wages marry to obtain subsistence food, because their wages are insufficient to meet their needs in a cash economy

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• In some regions the members of the royal clan have become more numerous than commoners and have supplanted them in the chieftainship of the settlements. This has been possible because the members of the royal clan are richer and tend to marry more wives, and also because of the system whereby the offspring of a reth are planted out in various settlements away from Fashoda. When one of the reth's wives is about to give birth to a child she leaves Fashoda and goes to her own village. As soon as the nyireth is weaned he is placed in charge of some trustworthy settlement chief, often the mother's brother, and is brought up among his mother's people. When the child grows up and marries he builds a separate hamlet called pa nyireth (unless he is called on to become reth), and thus becomes the founder of a local lineage branch of the royal clan which may eventually grow powerful enough to overthrow the dominant lineage and assume the political aspects of its position in the settlement.
• This clan is separate from the royal clan and consists of the descendants of a disinherited branch. They are few in number and may intermarry with the royal clan. It is said that the reth still has the right to disinherit lineages of the royal clan but, apart from one traditional instance, it is not certain whether the right has been exercised. The ororo are indistinguishable from the commoner clans except for the special functions they perform for the reth at his investiture and at the time of his funeral. Traditionally, the ororo always smother the reth when he is ritually killed. The reth always takes some of his wives from the ororo.

• A certain amount of ‘mystification’ of ‘Pukhtunness’ conceals the possible contradictions within society between Pukhtun groups legitimizing hegemony with reference to the tribal charter and non-Pukhtun groups who do not find themselves on it. However, I have emphasized the significant point that in the nang areas where I conducted my fieldwork there are no landlords and tenants, no masters and slaves, no rulers and ruled. A certain hierarchy and inequality exist in society between men and women, senior and junior lineages and Pukhtun and non-Pukhtun, but they are not based on deterministic economic factors or ritual and commensal ones.
• Whether Pukhtun or not, every male is the independent head of his household which is the effective unit of economic consumption and distribution functions. Whether he is Malik or not is less important than the fact that he conceives of himself as such in terms of relative status; ‘I am the Malik’ is the answer that the interviewer will elicit from any household head. The proliferation of official and unofficial Maliks precludes the creation of an elite Malik class substantially superior in economic and political power to other members of their clan. Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive of permanent political domination when the major source of political power, economic resources based on land, is so severely limited and so equally divided (Chapter 9).
• As we know Shahzada, the most important political figure in Shati Khel and representing the dominant senior Musa lineage, owns some 7 acres of land mainly in Shati Khel and his only other source of income depends on uncertain political allowances from the administration. Similarly, Shamshudin in Bela Mohmandan, representing the senior Kado lineage, owns about 6½ acres of land and has no other source of income. Both Shahzada and Shamshudin have to live up to the Pukhto ideal as imposed on and by themselves, for it is implicit in their lineage position, and continue to maintain a level of hospitality beyond their means.

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• The group solidarity of the settlement springs from the power and prerogative of the Dyil clan and from common interests and territorial proximity. The compulsory association and stratification of all male members of the settlement emphasises that feeling of solidarity, but does not conflict with the political function of the Dyil clan, for its purpose is limited to warfare. In inter-lineage disputes within the boundaries of the settlement the organization does not function, but in warfare on a wider scale when the separate lineages must fight as one, the young men and warriors are mobilized into age-sets.
• Every male inhabitant of a settlement, on reaching the age of puberty, is automatically grouped with his coaevals and together they are recruited to the most recently formed age-set. Each age-set, known in Shilluk as Ric, is made up of a series of sub-divisions which are grouped together temporarily until a new reorganization is made. There are two grades through which the members of an age-set will pass before retiring from active military service. Recruitment is compulsory and never individual.

• There are no real caste distinctions between kwareth, ororo, collo, and bang reth and, apart from restrictions on the marriages of daughters of a living or past reth, they intermarry freely. The kwareth, however, by reason of their connexion with Nyikang and subsequent reths, are treated with special respect and this extends to those bang reth who have close association with the shrines of Nyikang or of dead kings. The Shilluk basic social structure is very similar to that of the Nuer and Dinka, though there are important differences. The segmentation of the population into territorial units and of the clans into localized lineages has, however, a greater permanency and stability. The distinctive feature of the Shilluk political structure is the existence of an established and theoretically omnipotent monarchy and it is in the political sphere  [Page 101]   that the most definite contrasts may be found. Whether this established and institutionalized monarchy is the result of diffusion from elsewhere, a legacy from ancient Egypt

• The Poro and Sande are the most important local-level secret associations in Liberia. This is due in part to the governmental policy, established under the regime of President W. V. S. Tubman (1944–1971), of incorporating the Poro by placing it under the authority of the Ministry of Local Government. Secret societies are practiced throughout Liberia, even among the smaller ethnic groups that do not have the Poro and Sande. One of these smaller groups, the so-called Americo-Liberians, or descendants of the black settler families that came to Liberia from the United States and Barbados, organized the Masons and the United Brotherhood Fellowship (UBF) as secret societies. They identified with other Masonic groups in West Africa and with black Freemasonry in the United States.^{2 2. See Cohen (1974, 1981) for a discussion of West African Freemasonary and its relationship to elite political structures.Go to end note page} Although these societies were organized and controlled by the Americo-Liberians, economically successful ethnic elites were permitted membership.

• The 1984 population of Pushto speakers was approximately 20 million. This includes 11 million native to Pakistan and 9 million originating in Afghanistan. [Editor's note: The World Fact Book estimates the Pashtun population as 21.9 million in July of 2001, with slightly more than half of them in Pakistan.] Because of the civil war that has persisted in Afghanistan since 1979, roughly 2 million Pashtuns have left for Pakistan as refugees. The Pashtun constituted from 50 to 60 percent of the population of prewar Afghanistan. As the largest and most influential ethnic group, the Pashtun have dominated the society and politics of that country for the past 200 years. Other important ethnic minorities in Afghanistan include the Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks. Since the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the Pashtun constitute Pakistan's second-largest ethnic group. According to Pakistan's 1981 census 13 percent of the nation's households are Pushto-speaking. Punjabis make up the majority of Pakistan's population; other important linguistic groups are Sindhis, Baluchis, and Urdu speakers.

• The Poro and Sande are the most important local-level secret associations in Liberia. This is due in part to the governmental policy, established under the regime of President W. V. S. Tubman (1944–1971), of incorporating the Poro by placing it under the authority of the Ministry of Local Government. Secret societies are practiced throughout Liberia, even among the smaller ethnic groups that do not have the Poro and Sande. One of these smaller groups, the so-called Americo-Liberians, or descendants of the black settler families that came to Liberia from the United States and Barbados, organized the Masons and the United Brotherhood Fellowship (UBF) as secret societies. They identified with other Masonic groups in West Africa and with black Freemasonry in the United States.^{2 2. See Cohen (1974, 1981) for a discussion of West African Freemasonary and its relationship to elite political structures.Go to end note page} Although these societies were organized and controlled by the Americo-Liberians, economically successful ethnic elites were permitted membership.

• When typologizing or relating Pathan ^{(6) 6 Pathan is the popular name for Pukhtuns; they refer to themselves as Pukhtun. This essay will use Pathan generally and Pukhtun specifically with reference to the Swat Yusufzai dominant tribal groups, while following the convention established by Professor Barth of using Pathan and Pukhtun interchangeably.Go to end note page} tribes with African (Fortes and Evans-Pritchards, 1940; Middleton and Tait, 1958) or Indian (Bailey, 1960, 1961; Haimendorf, 1939, 1962; Srinivas, 1952) tribal categories certain features are noted. These features are not exclusive to Pathan tribes and may well be common to other tribes, particularly like the Kurd (Barth, 1953; Leach, 1940) or the Berber (Gellner, 1969a):
• I The vast tribal population involved: Pathan society, with over fifteen million people in Pakistan alone, is probably one of the largest tribal groupings in the world.  III Pathan tribal society is not ‘pre-literate’ or oral society (Bailey, 1960; Gluckman, 1971; Sahlins, 1968). The most famous Pashto poets were contemporaries of John Milton. Nor is Pathan society in a state of perpetual anarchy and war. ⁽⁸⁾
• IV Pathan dynasties have ruled non-Pathan kingdoms far from their original ethnic homelands (in Bengal, from Delhi and nearer home, at Kabul). They have thus extended their political boundaries and carried forward their ethnic identity. The historical role of warrior-king is part of Pathan consciousness. ⁽⁹⁾
• V While pushing out their political boundaries the Pathan areas, and particularly the Tribal Areas, were jealously isolated from any form of permanent invasion or non-Pathan administration. Imperial generals, leading great armies, have been humbled and destroyed in these mountains ^{(10) 10 A parallel situation is described for another Muslim tribal people, the Berbers of the Atlas mountains: ‘Here, it is perfectly clear why the geographical boundary between plain and mountain, was also, for so long, a political boundary between the “land of government” and the “land of dissidence”. Prior to modern times, there is no record of an army of the central state successfully penetrating these gorges, though some did try’ (Gellner, 1969a, p.31).Go to end note page} (the Mughal, the Durrani and the British tried to ‘incorporate’ the Tribal Areas).
• VI Mountain ecology thus partly shaped Pathan social  [Page 7]  identity, political strategy and economic structure: it also defined ‘Pukhtunwali’ which approximates to its ‘ideal-type’ in a segmentary tribal system organized within an acephalous political framework: ‘The system has been most successful, and self-maintaining, under anarchic conditions in low production areas’ (Barth, 1969, p.134).

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• Just as each of the quarters is related to the others through the ngala-maling relationship, Sucromu residents also categorize other Kpelle communities with this system. This is especially true of those towns in Guinea that are immediately on the other side of the border. In the Poro initiations this is significant and is symbolically expressed in the formal rhetoric used when the initiates are presented to the community by the Zo leadership. Because the Poro is considered to have originated in Guinea, the people from there are considered the ngala. The special deference shown to the Guinea visitors during the Poro rituals is expressed solely in terms of the ngala-maling interaction. It represents a structural dichotomy as important as the differentiation between the sacred and secular division within the community.

• Contrary to a western stereotype of Muslim women as powerless, subjugated and oppressed victims of Islamic ideology and a patriarchal social structure, Sheikhanzai women of western Afghanistan make significant and indispensable contributions to social, political, and economic decision-making  [Page 181]  in their pastoralist society. Their management of economic resources, particularly animals and animal products, provides them with sources of power, and with positions as power-wielders and power-brokers, which are frequently unavailable to women in sedentary communities.

• Amongst the Luo-speakers the Shilluk are unique in their possession of a single royal dynasty, in relation to which all are members of one Shilluk kingdom, with well-defined territorial and social limits. By this also they are chiefly set apart from the other Nilotic negroes, the Nuer and Dinka, with whom they otherwise have much in common in physique, character, and culture. Perhaps more than the other Nilotes, the Shilluk have for long been in intermittently hostile contact  with foreign enemies and foreign governments. The traveller Schweinfurth, who visited them in 1869, says that at that time little or nothing remained of the original condition of the Shilluk, who of all Nilotic negroes ‘used to uphold the most perfectly regulated government’, which, he says, can only be properly appreciated by reference to the registers of the expedition of Mohammed Ali earlier in the century.^{1 1 G. Schweinfurth, 1873, p. 93.} We cannot now know what the Shilluk were really like at that time, and it is certain that some of their indigenous custom, particularly that concerning the election and disposal of the Shilluk king, has been interfered with to such an extent that the Shilluk themselves are uncertain about some details of the old belief and practice.
• Nevertheless, until the present day the Shilluk have retained a consciousness of their national identity and integrity, and have been slow to modify their ideas to accord with those of the various strangers in their land. The main features of their social structure remain, and under the present government, versions of their ceremonies for the funeral and installation of the king have been carefully observed and described.²