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Polities and Political Discourse: Was Mande Already A Segmentary Society in the Middle Ages?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jan Jansen
Jan Jansen*
Affiliation:
University of Leiden
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Extract

Stephan Bühnen has applied some of my ideas to a wider region than southwestern Mali, and shown that the principles of Mande status discourse make possible new interpretations on sources and political processes in the entire West African Sudan. Inspired by Bühnen's analysis, I am convinced that the principles of Mande status discourse may shed light on various processes, varying from political struggles between families to the construction of contemporary ethnic identities. I hope that this reply will not be the end of the discussion on West African genealogies, and that others will join us.

Although Bühnen ideas are fruitful, there are also points to contest. Lack of space forces me to focus on three points of Bühnen's critique: the way I elaborate the term “segmentary;” his remarks that I overlook a “bulk of testimony recorded in medieval Arabic sources;” and his complaint of my “inadequate understanding of historical polities.”

Since Bühnen accepts my analysis of the Mande genealogies and their relation to nineteenth-century society, I will take this as my point of departure. I will argue that we cannot deduce the “historical reality of polities” for the available material without being misled by our own prejudices and fallacies. The ‘old’ sources are not as one-dimensional as Bühnen thinks: a status claim does not necessarily represent an irreversible hierarchy in a relationship. Bühnen ignores the context, overlooks the dynamics of Mande status discourse, and presupposes his model of chiefdoms.

I admit that I am vague about the way I operationalize the term “segmentary,” but a definition of “segmentary” is not necessary to my argument since I focus on a discourse which shows that any relation in Mande is hierarchical as well as based on a dichotomy—for instance, ‘older-younger’ or ‘founder-stranger.’

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 23 , January 1996 , pp. 121 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1996

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References

Notes

1. Lloyd, C., The Search for the Niger (Newton Abbot, 1974)Google Scholar; Jansen “Draaiende put,” chapter 3. Caillté did not proceed from Kankan to Kangaba, because he heard that there was a war going on there.

2. For a more elaborate description see ibid., chapter 4. See also Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 148–50.Google Scholar

3. Jansen “Draaiende put,” chapter 4.

4. Bühnen is right that my comparison with Segu is not clear. I made this comparison because the Kangaba material and the Segu material seem to confirm each other. In Segu warfare was important, and the rulers represented themselves as bachelors vs. unarmed female kings. Such characteristics fit Mande status discourse closely, in which those in power represent themselves as ‘young’ and ‘recent’ (for instance, a ‘bachelor’) vs. the older brother who sits ‘home’ next to his mother. Those in power both in Segu and Kangaba represented themselves along the same principles, and neither aimed to control territory, hence my use of “state” was inappropriate.

5. For these difficulties see Leynaud/Cisse, Paysans Malinke, chapter 3.

6. In a paper presented at the Third International Conference on Mande Studies. A shortened version of this paper will appear as “The Younger Brother and the Stranger in Mande Status Discourse,” in The Younger Brother and the Stranger: Kinship and Politics in West-Africa, ed. Jansen, J. and Zobel, C. (Leiden, 1996).Google Scholar

7. My conclusion is based on my attending several training sessions for the ceremony. See my “An Ethnography of the Sunjata Epic in Kela” in In Search of Sunjata: the Mande Epic as History, Literature and Performance, ed. Austen, R.A. (Bloomington, forthcoming).Google Scholar See also Jansen “Draaiende put,” chapter 7.

Another reason to consider the Kamabolon ceremony as a political event is that the Kamabolon sanctuary is considered to be a ‘recent’ construction in relation to other Kamabolon-like sanctuaries. (E.g., Leynaud, /Cisse, , Paysans Malinke, 25, 148.Google Scholar) The claim for being recent coincides with political power, so the setting of the stories about the Kamabolon in combination with the training sessions indicates that the Kamabolon ceremony celebrates prestige, but has nothing to do with creation, control over territory, or fertility.

8. For this topic, see the critical article by van Beek, Walter E.A. “Dogon Restudied: A Field Evaluation of the Work of Marcel Griaule,” Current Anthropology, 32 (1991), 139–65.Google Scholar

9. Although, within the same generation, age is the most important argument, other arguments do exist—for instance, ‘difference in generation’ or ‘being a bastard.’ See, e.g., C. Zobel, “The Noble Griot: the Construction of Mande Jeliw-Identities and Political Leadership as Interplay of Alternate Values,” in Younger Brother.

10. See Jansen/Zobel, “Kinship as Political Discourse: the Representation of Harmony and Change in Mande,” in ibid.

11. Y. Person, “Nyaani Mansa Mamadu.”