Abstract
The establishment of or is conventionally traced to publication in 1940 of African Political Systems, The Nuer, and The Political System of Anuak ( 15, 16,28). Lineage theory dominated study of social structure in British anthropology immediately after end of World War II and retained a central position until mid-1960s when, like British social anthropology more generally and British Em pire itself, it seemed to lose its impetus and to run into sands. Yet it did not completely vanish. Elements of lineage model of political organiza tion still embellish phantom protostates in work of African historians or the lineage mode of production in work of French Marxist an thropologists, or they appear simply as part of trappings, taken for granted, in dozens of ethnographic monographs. This stubborn half-life of lineage theory warrants consideration. I have an historical interest in lineage theory also, for although repre sented at time as a breakthrough, it was rather a transformation of earlier theories in anthropology. Understanding way in which trans formation occurred helps us to see how and why anthropology developed as it did. The organization of my review is roughly chronological, and I shall sketch genealogy of lineage theory, a genealogy which predictably has been tampered with (by others) to fi t later political realities. Evans-Pritch ard, for example, pointed out that there is a long history of interest in central themes of descent theory, that is, in the reciprocal relations be tween descent groups and local and political groups, between lineages and
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