Author's note: I am most grateful to the readers selected by the journal, whose insightful comments and bibliographical suggestions helped immensely to sharpen my argument. I would like to thank Michael E. Meeker for his extensive comments on an earlier version of this article. Among other things, he brought to my attention the need to talk about force in symbolic terms and also directed me toward Said S. Samatar's book Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism (Cambridge, 1982). I am also grateful for the criticisms of Joshua L. Simonds, which influenced my revisions.

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⁷ Bloch, Maurice, ed. Political Language and Oratory in Traditional Society (London, 1975).Google Scholar Various anthropologists doing research in the Middle East have been aware of the significance of oratory. See, for example, Dale Eickelman, F., ‘The Art of Memory,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 20, 4 (1978);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Geertz, Clifford, “Art as a Cultural System,” in his Local Knowledge (New York, 1983), pp. 94–120.Google Scholar

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⁹ Ibid., pp. 24–25.

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¹³ Ibid., p. 169.

¹⁴ Peters, “Structural Aspects of the Feud.”

¹⁵ P. 156: “The Corporate life is incompatible with a state of feud.”

¹⁶ “Nuer of Southern Sudan,” p. 278.

¹⁷ Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, p. 161.

¹⁸ Peters, “Structural Aspects of the Feud,” p. 268.

¹⁹ Gellner, Saints of the Atlas, p. 1.

²⁰ For criticism of Gellner's thesis, see Hammoudi, Abdellah, “Segmentarité, stratification sociale, pouvoir politique et sainteté. Reflections sur les theses de Geliner,” Hespéris-Tamuda, 15 (1974), 147–80;Google ScholarGeertz, Hildred, “Review of Saints of the Atlas,” Journal of American Sociology, 76 (1971), 763–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ Gellner, Saints of the Atlas, p. 82.

²² Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, p. 173.

²³ Ibid., p. 175.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 85–86.

²⁵ Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer, pp. 163–64.

²⁶ Gellner, Saints of the Atlas, p. 86.

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ Ibid., p. 129.

²⁹ See note 4 for Barth's work.

³⁰ Barth claimed that in the Swat system, individuals belonged to specific kinship or descent groups but would establish contractual relations with landowning chiefs for essentially economic and political reasons, and that these chiefs would compete for power in the political system. The basic political structure of Swat society, according to this argument, is a dyadic bond between client and patron; viewed another way, the political system consists of a field of competing patrons.

³¹ See Asad, Talal, “Market Model, Class Structure and Consent: A Reconsideration of Swat Political Organization,” Man, 7, 1 (1972), 79–94;CrossRefGoogle ScholarAhmad, Akbar, Millennium and Charisma among Pathans (London, 1976);Google ScholarLindholm, Charles, Generosity and Jealousy (New York, 1982).Google Scholar For criticism of Barth's Nomads, see Peters, Emrys, “The Paucity of Ritual Among Middle Eastern Pastoralists” in Islam in Tribal Societies, Ahmad, Akbar S. and Hart, David M., eds. (London, 1984), pp. 187–219.Google Scholar

³² Barth, Frederik, “Swat Pathans Reconsidered,” in Features of Person and Society in Swat, pp. 121–81.Google Scholar

³³ Barth, Nomads, p. 27.

³⁴ Ibid.

³⁵ Ibid., p. 28.

³⁶ Ibid., p. 32.

³⁷ Ibid., p. 30.

³⁸ Ibid.

³⁹ Ibid., p. 32.

⁴⁰ Ibid., p. 160.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 37.

⁴² Ibid., pp. 25–26.

⁴³ Ibid., p. 25.

⁴⁴ Ibid., p. 43.

⁴⁵ Ibid., pp. 29 and 81.

⁴⁶ Ibid., pp. 44–45.

⁴⁷ Ibid., p. 44.

⁴⁸ Lancaster, William, The Rwala Bedouin Today (Cambridge, 1981), p. 7.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Ibid., p. 67.

⁵⁰ Ibid., p.51.

⁵¹ Ibid., p. 52.

⁵² Ibid., p. 159.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 73.

⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 87.

⁵⁵ For another analysis of the sheikh in the Arabian context, see Dresch, Paul, “The Position of Shaykhs Among the Northern Tribes of Yemen,” Man (N.S.), 19 (1982), pp. 31–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵⁹ For further development of his argument, one should consult Gellner's Muslim Society (Cambridge, 1981).

⁶⁰ For this point, see Ahmad, Millennium and Charisma.

⁶¹ Geertz, Clifford, “In Search of North Africa,” New York Review of Books, 22 (1971);Google ScholarEickelman, Dale F., Moroccan Islam (Austin, 1976);Google ScholarRosen, Lawrence, “Rural Political Process and.National Political Structure in Morocco,” in Rural Politics and Social Change in the Middle East, Antoun, Richard and Harik, Iliya, eds. (Bloomington, 1972), pp. 214–36.Google Scholar

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⁶³ Jamous, Honneur et baraka, p. 5.

⁶⁴ Ibid., p. 65.

⁶⁵ Burckhardt, John Lewis, Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys (London, 1831).Google Scholar

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⁶⁷ Jamous, Honneur et baraka, p. 79.

⁶⁸ Ibid., p. 70.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Montagne, Les Berbères, see especially Book II, Ch. IV.

⁷¹ Jamous, Honneur et baraka, p. 35.

⁷² Ibid., p. 104–5.

⁷³ Ibid., p. 109.

⁷⁴ Ibid.

⁷⁵ Ibid., p. 182.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ Hart, David M., The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rjf (Tucson, Ariz., 1976), p. 444.Google Scholar

⁷⁸ Hart, David M., The Dadda 'Atta and His Forty Grandsons (Cambridge, 1981).Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Burckhardt, Notes on the Bedouins, p. 250.