Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-09T12:37:12.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anthropological Models in Yoruba History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

R. C. C. Law
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The recent appearance of a monograph by a social anthropologist, Peter Lloyd, on The Political Development of Yoruba Kingdoms in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries is likely to arouse considerable interest among historians of Africa, whose appetites have been whetted by adumbrations of his interpretation in some of his earlier publications. Lloyd traces the political development of the kingdom of Oyo through its period of imperial expansion in the eighteenth century until its collapse in the 1830s, and of five Yoruba states in the nineteenth century—Ibadan, Ado Ekiti, Abeokuta, Iwo, and Ilorin. He seeks to apply to the history of these states a model of the process whereby ‘tribal kingdoms’ develop into ‘highly centralised monarchies’. A ‘tribal kingdom’ is defined as one in which ‘political power…rests with a council of chiefs, each of which is selected by and from among members of a descent group—[and] the king is seen more as an arbiter between the chiefs than as an autocrat’. In a centralized monarchy, on the other hand, power rests with the king, the senior chiefs are appointed by the king, and a concept of ‘citizenship’ develops to replace descent-group loyalties. The Yoruba states discussed in this monograph did not, in fact, develop in this way, and Lloyd's theme is their failure to achieve centralization. The analysis is applied principally to Oyo. Of the nineteenth-century states discussed, relatively little is said of Iwo and Ado Ekiti, while Ibadan, Abeokuta, and Ilorin did not start out as ‘tribal kingdoms’ but as war-camps without kings. Moreover, it is suggested that the failure of Oyo to achieve centralization provided precedents for decentralization which influenced the development of its successors in the nineteenth century.

Résumé

MODÈLES ANTHROPOLOGIQUES APPLIQUÉS A L'HISTOIRE DES YORUBA

Une récente étude de l'état de Oyo et des autres états Yoruba par Peter Lloyd présente des conclusions méthodologiques d'importance pour l'histoire africaine. Lloyd déclare que les ‘royaumes tribaux’ se développent dans des ‘monarchies centralisées’ grâce à l'exploitation par le roi de ‘ressources de libre circulation’. Notant que de telles ressources existaient dans le pays Yoruba, mais que les états Yoruba n'avaient pas achevé leur centralisation, il suppose l'existence—qu'il cherche à établir—de facteurs qui ‘freinaient’ le processus espéré de centralisation. Au cours de son analyse, il fait usage de modèles variés. L'usage d'un ‘modèle’ dans le sens d'une représentation idéalisée du fonctionnement d'un système politique pour interpréter les événements historiques et l'usage de l' ‘extrapolation’ depuis les temps les plus récents pour construire un tel modèle semble ne poser aucune difficulté de principe (bien que les difficultés pratiques puissent être considérables). Mais l'emploi par Lloyd d'un modèle de prévision, décrivant un processus de transformation dans des circonstances données, semble discutable. L'historien peut employer un tel modèle comme schéma d'interprétation, mais ne saurait considérer sa valeur de prévision trop sérieusement, ou lui accorder la force d'une explication valable.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 1973 , pp. 18 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Agiri, B. A. 1966. ‘The Development of Local Government in Ogbomoso, 1850-1950’. M.A. thesis, University of Ibadan.Google Scholar
Akintoye, S. A. 1969. ‘The North-eastern Districts of the Yoruba Country and the Benin Kingdom’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, iv. 539–53.Google Scholar
Atanda, J. A. 1971. ‘The Fall of the Old Oyo Empire: a Re-consideration of its Cause’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria v. 477–90.Google Scholar
Banton, M. (ed.) 1965. Political Systems and the Distribution of Power, A.S.A. Monographs No. 2. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Bradbury, R. E. 1964. ‘The Historical Uses of Comparative Ethnography with Special Reference to Benin and the Yoruba’, in Vansina, Mauny, and Thomas, 1964, pp. 145–60.Google Scholar
Childe, V. G. 1952. New Light on the Most Ancient East, 4th edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Douglas, M., and Kaberry, P. M. (eds.) 1969. Man in Africa. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Eisenstadt, S. N. 1969. The Political Systems of Empires, 2nd edn. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Forde, D., & Kaberry, P. M. (eds.) 1967. West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century. London: Oxford University Press, for International African Institute.Google Scholar
Goody, J. 1971. Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa. London: Oxford University Press, for International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, R. 1970. ‘History and the Social Sciences’, in , Stern, 1970, pp. 359–70.Google Scholar
Horton, R. 1969. ‘From Fishing Village to City-State: a Social History of New Calabar’, in , Douglas and , Kaberry, 1969, pp. 37–58.Google Scholar
Law, R. C. C. 1971a. ‘The Constitutional Troubles of Oyo in the Eighteenth Century’, J. Afr. Hist. xii. 25–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law, R. C. C. 1971b. ‘Law R. C. C. The Oyo Empire: the history of a Yoruba state, principally in the period c. 1600-c. 1836’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Lewis, I. M. (ed.) 1968. History and Social Anthropology, A.S.A. Monographs No. 7. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1960. ‘Sacred Kingship and Government among the Yoruba’, Africa, xxx. 221–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1963. ‘The Itsekiri in the Nineteenth Century: an Outline Social History’, J. Afr. Hist. iv. 207–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1965. ‘The Political Structure of African Kingdoms: An Exploratory Model’, in , Banton, 1965, pp. 65–112.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1968a. ‘Conflict Theory and Yoruba Kingdoms’, in , Lewis, 1968, pp. 25–61.Google Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1968b. ‘The Political Development of West African Kingdoms’, J. Afr. Hist. ix. 319–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lloyd, P. C. 1971. The Political Development of Yoruba Kingdoms in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. London: Royal Anthropological Institute, Occasional Paper No. 31.Google Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1960. ‘The Yoruba Ogboni Cult in Oyo’, Africa, xxx. 362–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1967. ‘The Yoruba Kingdom of Oyo’, in , Forde and , Kaberry, 1967, pp. 36–69.Google Scholar
Morton-Williams, P. 1969. ‘The Influence of Habitat and Trade on the Polities of Oyo and Ashanti’, in , Douglas and , Kaberry, 1969, pp. 79–98.Google Scholar
Oroge, E. A. 1971. ‘The Institution of Slavery in Yorubaland, with particular reference to the nineteenth century’. Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham.Google Scholar
Smith, R. S. 1971. ‘Event and Portent: The Fall of Old Oyo, a Problem in Historical Explanation’, Africa, xli. 186–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Southwold, M. 1961. Bureaucracy and Chief ship in Buganda. Kampala: East African Institute of Social Research.Google Scholar
Stern, F. (ed.) 1970. The Varieties of History, 2nd edn. London: MacMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vansina, J., Mauny, R., and Thomas, L. V. (eds.) 1964. The Historian in Tropical Africa. London: Oxford University Press., for International African Institute.Google Scholar
Weber, M. 1964. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, translated by Henderson, A. M. and Parsons, T.. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Wilks, I. 1966. ‘Aspects of Bureaucratization in Ashantiin the Nineteenth Century’, J. Afr. Hist. vii. 215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilks, I. 1967. ‘Ashanti Government’, in , Forde and , Kaberry, 1967, pp. 206–38.Google Scholar