Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T13:55:39.698Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Economic, Residential and Ritual Fission of Sisala Domestic Groups, Ghana1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Eugene L. Mendonsa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

After an initial discussion about the nature of Sisala society and the segmentary lineage system of shrine types, I will show that fission of domestic groups in Sisala-land takes place in three successive stages: economic, residential and, much later, ritual. This paper deals with two related problems, (a) Given a collective value of kinship amity and unity (Fortes 1969: 219ff), how are groups able to break the ritual bonds which serve to unite them into one body of ancestor-venerators? (b) How are the Sisala able to maintain the ideology of kinship and unity in the face of continual fission of family units?

Résumé

FISSION ÉCONOMIQUE, RÉSIDENTIELLE ET RITUELLE DES GROUPES DOMESTIQUES CHEZ LES SISALA

La fission des groupes domestiques en pays Sisala s'effectue selon trois étapes consécutives: d'abord économique, ensuite résidentielle et, à un stade ultérieur, rituelle. Bien qu'en principe un groupe de parenté ne doive jamais se fractionner, l'individu développe progressivement une indépendance croissante vis à vis de son chef légal ou moral. Toutefois, même un fois la fission résidentielle accomplie, un nouveau groupe continue de participer au culte des ancêtres du groupe parental d'origine. L'indépendence n'est pleinement réalisée qu'au cours de la génération suivante, le nouveau groupe érigeant son propre autel des ancêtres, affirmant par là même son statut de segment complémentaire du clan et dont l'égalité est reconnue par rapport au groupe parental d'origine. Ceci n'est pas envisagé comme une négation de la parente mais comme son prolongement.

Le rapport filial entre le lignage parental et le nouveau segment se redéfinit comme rapport fraternel: ainsi, la fission devient possible dans le cadre d'une idéologic qui insiste sur l'unité du group lignager. La séparation réalisée à un certain niveau du système lignager segmentaire se voit redéfinie comme une nouvelle forme d'unité à un niveau supérieur.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , October 1979 , pp. 388 - 407
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1979

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

Barnes, J. A. B. 1955 ‘Seven types of segmentation,’ The Rhodes Livingstone Journal 17: 1–22.Google Scholar
Bradbury, R. E. 1965 ‘Father and son in Edo mortuary ritual,’ in African Systems of Thought, ed. Fortes, M. & Dieterlen, G.. London: Oxford University Press for the IAI. 96–121.Google Scholar
Bradbury, R. E. 1966 ‘Fathers, elders and ghosts in Edo religion,’ in Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion, ed. Banton, M.. London: Tavistock. 127–54.Google Scholar
Brian, James 1973 ‘Ancestors and elders in Africa-further thoughts,’ Africa 43: 122–33.Google Scholar
Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1954 ‘The meaning of sacrifice among the Nuer,’ Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 84: 21–33.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1949 The Web of Kinship among the Tallensi. London: Oxford University Press, for the IAI.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1958 ‘Introduction,’ in The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups, ed. Goody, Jack. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1–14.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1965 ‘Ancestor worship,’ in African Systems of Thought, ed. Fortes, M. & Dieterlen, G.. London: Oxford University Press for the IAI. 16–20.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1969 Kinship and The Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar
Fortes, M. 1970 ‘The structure of unilineal descent groups,’ in Time and Social Structure and Other Essays, ed. Fortes, M.. London: Athlone Press. 67–95.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack 1958 ‘Fission of domestic groups among the LoDagaa,’ in The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups, ed. Goody, Jack. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 53–91.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack 1962 Death, Property and Ancestors. London: Tavistock.Google Scholar
Goody, Jack 1970 ‘Sideways or Downwards? Lateral or Vertical Succession: Inheritance and Descent in Africa and Eurasia’, Man 5: 627–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grindal, B. T. 1972 Growing Up in Two Worlds: Education and Transition among the Sisala of Northern Ghana. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Grindal, B. T. 1973 ‘Islamic affiliations and urban migration: the Sisala migrant in Accra, Ghana,’ Africa 43(4): 333–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horton, Robin 1967 ‘African traditional thought and western science,’ Africa 38: 50-71, 155–187.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelly, R. C. 1977 Etoro Social Structure: A Study in Structural Contradiction. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kopytoff, Igor 1971 ‘Ancestors and elders in Africa,’ Africa 31:129–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, I. M. 1961 ‘Force and fission in northern Somali lineage structure,’ American Anthropologist 63: 94–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, I. M. 1965 ‘Problems in the comparative study of unilineal descent,’ in The Relevance of Models for Social Anthropology, ed. Banton, M.. London: Tavistock. 87–112.Google Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1973 Divination among the Sisala of northern Ghana. Cambridge University, unpublished Ph.D. thesis.Google Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1975a ‘Traditional and imposed political systems among the Sisala of northern Ghana,’ Savanna 4: 103–15.Google Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1975b ‘Functions contingent and universal,’ Man 10: 474–6.Google Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1975c ‘The journey of the soul in Sisala cosmology’, Journal of Religion in Africa 7: 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1976 ‘Elders, office-holders and ancestors among the Sisala of northern Ghana,’ Africa 36: 57–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mendonsa, E. L. 1977 ‘The soul and sacrifice among the Sisala,’ Journal of Religion in Africa 8: 1–17.Google Scholar
John, Middleton and Tait, David (eds) 1958 Tribes without Rulers. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Ottenberg, Simon 1970 ‘Personal shrines of Afikpo,’ Ethnology 9: 26–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rivers, W. H. R. 1924 Social Organization. London.Google Scholar
Sangree, Walter 1974 ‘Youths as elders and infants as ancestors: the complementarity of alternate generations, both living and dead, in Tiriki, Kenya, and Irigwe, Nigeria,’ Africa 44: 65–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar