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Blood brotherhood revisited: kinship, relationship, and the body in East and Central Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Luise White
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Extract

This article is a reinterpretation of blood brotherhood in three East African societies based on a reading of three ethnographic accounts, Evans-Pritchard on the Azande, Roscoe on the Baganda and Beidelman on the Kaguru. It argues against a construction of blood brotherhood as a single institution with one meaning, suggesting instead that the blood pact should be seen as a mechanism by which men formed ties of filiation with other men, in part on the basis of the kinds of relationships they idealised. In this way, blood was sometimes a magical substance and sometimes a fluid of reproductive power. This article suggests that scholars should look not only at the fluid of the blood pact but also at the part of the body from which blood is taken, in order to see the kinds of relationships men sought to establish with one another. Thus when the blood of blood brotherhood was taken from near the navel, or the chest, it suggested the intimacy of uterine ties, or the closeness of infant and nursing mother. When blood was mediated by cooked meat, it suggested a dilution of the power of blood and its association with the fluids of biological relationship.

Résumé

Cet article est une réinterprétation de la fraternité de sang dans trois sociétés de l'Afrique de l'est basée sur une lecture de 3 compte-rendus ethnographiques, celui d'Evans-Pritchard sur les Azande, Roscoe sur les Baganda et Beidelman sur les Kaguru. Cet article argumente contre une construction de la fraternité de sang comme seule institution avec un seul sens, suggérant a la place que le pacte du sang devrait être considéré comme un mécanisme par lequel les hommes forment des liens de filiation avec d'autres hommes, en partie sur la base du genre de relations qu'ils idéalisaient. De cette façon le sang était quelquefois une substance magique et d'autres fois un fluide de pouvoir reproductif. Cet article suggère que les érudits devraient non seulement regarder le fluide du pacte de sang mais aussi la partie du corps d'où le sang en est pris afin de voir les types de relations que les hommes cherchent à établir les uns avec les autres. Done quand le sang de la fraternité de sang était pris près du nombril ou de la poitrine, cela suggerait l'intimité des liens utérins ou l'intimité de l'enfant avec la mere nourricière.

Quand le sang provenait de la viande cuite, cela suggérait une dilution du pouvoir du sang et de ses associations avec les fluides des relations biologiques.

Type
Liquid Assets
Information
Africa , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , July 1994 , pp. 359 - 372
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1994

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