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The Mäsqal-Pole: Religious Conflict and Social Change in Gurageland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Extract

In An Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand, Professor Gluckman argued that in situations of conflict, pre-existing groups do not divide neatly into opposing halves, but that groups realign themselves according to the values, motives, and interests governing them at a given time; and that groups who are opposed when facing one situation may find themselves aligned when the nature of the situation differs. Similar studies of social change in Africa and elsewhere have further advanced Gluckman's contention. In all these studies the analytical procedure adopted was to interpret the situational behaviour of the actors in terms of the influence of the wider social system of which they were a part. However, a great deal of the ethnographic data anthropologists gather in the course of field research are derived from chance observations of social phenomena occurring in relatively unstructured situations within which the individuals involved have a wide range of choice in determining the way they interact with others. This paper is based upon just these sorts of ‘imponderable’ facts of Gurage life which, when first recorded in the field, appeared less clearly a part of what Malinowski once called ‘the real substance of the social fabric’ of a changing tribal society than they do now in retrospect. I attempt here to interpret the spontaneous and contradictory behaviour of individual Gurage and groups in the setting of an Ethiopian Christian religious ceremony known as Mäsqal. This analysis of situational behaviour is made in terms of selected aspects of historical or ‘processive’ social change in Gurageland, a tribal district in south-west Ethiopia.

Résumé

LA CÉRÉMONIE MÄSQAL: CONFLIT RELIGIEUX ET CHANGEMENTS SOCIAUX AU GURAGELAND

La cérémonie annuelle Mäsqal revêt des significations symboliques contradictoires pour la tribu chrétienne, politiquement dominante, des Amhara du Nord de l'Éthiopie et pour les Gurage, tribu traditionnellement païenne du Sud-Ouest de l'Éthiopie.

Pour les premiers, Mäsqal signifie la découverte de la ‘véritable saïnte croix’; pour les Gurage, soumis par les Amhara au xixème siècle, Mäsqal est la cérémonie du renouveau rituel de la fécondité des femmes et de la terre. Depuis la conquête, c'est sous sa version chrétienne que Mäsqal est célébré au Gurageland, et les chefs de clan locaux sont obligés de participer aux rites comme s'il s'agissait d'un problème de politique gouvernementale pour l'administration du territoire tribal.

Une série d'événements perturbateurs au cours d'une cérémonie Mäsqal, provoqué par l'imprudence d'un chef Gurage, a permis une analyse des conflits religieux et des changements sociaux au Gurageland. La réaction spontanée du chef, du Gouverneur du district et des anciens de la tribu à ces événements, a été le symbole des différents niveaux du conflit externe et interne causé par les modifications apportées au système d'autorité tribale. Chacun des acteurs principaux de la cérémonie représente des groupes d'intérêt rivaux qui s'opposent dans certains cas et coopèrent dans d'autres. Les options prises concernant l'organisation sociale permettent aux individus et aux groupes d'agir suivant leurs intérêts, en tenant compte des modifications des positions respectives suivant les facteurs qui influencent leur décision à un moment donné. L'utilité de l'analyse de ces situations est dé definir le champ complet d'interaction sociale à l'intérieur duquel les individus et les groupes réduisent les conflits.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , October 1968 , pp. 457 - 468
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1968

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