Segmentation among the Tiv: a reappraisal

Abstract

Theoretical assumptions greatly influence our perception of reality. The representation of the Tiv as a “segmentary lineage system” can be questioned from this perspective. With a different conceptual framework I argue that the Tiv did not have any lineages and, a fortiori, any segmentary lineages. One can picture Tiv society as a social formation poised between a chiefly polity and a polity organized around lineages. One ought further to dismantle the very category of “segmentary lineages” because it is predicated on a definition of descent groups that leads to contradiction and to the inclusion, within the same category, of vastly divergent polities. [politics, segmentary societies, kinship, epistemology]