An African Kingdom
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John Beattie's Bunyoro: An African Kingdom is an account of the author's life with the Nyoro, a Bantu speaking people who live in the uplands of Uganda, in east central Africa. Beattie's field work, spanning 22 months between 1951 and 1955, includes six aspects of Nyoro life, including their political system and cultural means of perpetuating such a system. The political structure in place at the time of Beattie's investigation will be discussed, as well as traditional Nyoro methods of rule before European influence. Beattie's work will also be examined as a product of the neo evolutionism school of anthropology.In addition, it will become evident that the Nyoro idea of "ruling" is not limited to the political sphere, but rather it pervades the gamut of social relations. As Beattie emphasizes throughout, "the notion that people occupy different categories, and that these are almost always unequal, is ubiquitous." This inegalitarian feature of Nyoro culture requires a thorough treatment of the idea of superordination and subordination. The hierarchical structure of Nyoro political and cultural life will be compared to that of the Nuer, a Nilotic people of the Southern Sudan, as first studied by E. E. Evans Pritchard in 1940. E. R. Leach's landmark study of Kachin social structure in Political Systems of Highland Burma (first published in 1954) will also provide a means of comparison to the Nyoro of Uganda. In Bunyoro, the top of the authority pyramid is occupied by
. . .
es into increasingly cohesive groups, loosely based on kinship, in order to more effectively do battle against their enemies. Rights, privileges, and obligations are determined by kinship. There is no central rule to be examined.
The Kachins have a very clear cut authority system based on caste. E. R. Leach delineates their political system: "the chief is regarded as an autocrat placed at the peak of a hierarchy of ranked classes, differentiated from one another by rules of caste like rigidity." Leach emphasizes that the rigidity of this system is illusory because power and influence may still be gained by one's function. He cites the positions of diviner, junior priest, or ritual butcher as those which offer a Kachin power and influence, although not necessarily prestige.
The "feudal" organization of the Nyoro is in fact clear cut. Such a system is more easily examined than either the Nuer or Kachin systems. Beattie looks at the Nyoro political hierarchy from a feudal perspective:
The king often gave chiefships to his maternal or affinal relatives. In addition, palace officials and servants were often granted minor chiefdoms; as in the feudal states of medieval Europe, personal service to the king might bring a rich r
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2334
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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