The Pastoral Son and the Spirit of Patriarchy: Religion, Society, and Person Among East African Stock Keepers

Abstract

The pastoral son and the spirit of patriarchy is a broad-ranging comparative study of domestic authority, social organization, and forms of expressive culture among stock-keeping peoples. The book's primary data are the classic studies of the linguistically related and neighboring Nilotic-speaking Nuer and Dinka of the Southern Sudan by Francis Deng, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, and Godfrey Lienhardt. The book compares the Nilotic-speaking peoples with pastoralists among the highly stratified interlacustrine Bantu further south on the African continent. The Northern Somali provide a second level of comparison, based again on the ethnography of I.M. Lewis and the excellent study of Somali oral literature by Said Samatar. Meeker then uses his conclusions to reexamine Dumezil's famous division of early Indo-European ideology into priestly, warrior, and producer roles and activities. The book's most important aspect is its use of studies of oral literature as source materials for analysis and comparison. Meeker shows that the last twenty years have produced a body of studies that go beyond descriptions of ritual, symbolism, cosmology, and social organization, and that they can be used for comparative purposes. By examining images of personhood and attitudes towards authority presented in oral literature, Meeker opens up anthropological analysis by broadening the conventional sense of what constitutes data. Moreover, he does so not with field-collected material, but with data often collected for very different purposes. This is a signal achievement in and of itself, and, whatever its flaws, this study provides a challenge to anthropologists interested in the same topics. Meeker's argument is relatively simple. Stockkeeping archaic (a category he uses but does not justify) have to mediate a recurring conflict. Stock-keeping requires cooperation and coordination but it generates conflict and individualism. Meeker relates this conflict (why not contradiction?) to the demands of pastoral ecologies and the nature of stock as wealth. Although coordination beyond the local group is required for food production, the partible nature of stock herds generates conflict over rights-especially between fathers and sons. Because pastoral societies locate conflict in male relationships and domains, pastoralists exhibit a high degree of concern for masculine identity and present themselves as male oriented. Nonetheless, there are significant differences among pastoral societies, and Meeker relates these differences to how pastoralists resolve the conflict between authority and individualism. Meeker first contrasts the Dinka and Nuer peoples. Dinka resolve their conflicts in favor of paternal authority, while the Nuer stress individualism to a greater degree. These contrasting cultural emphases color their oral literature, their religious practices, and their cosmology. Much of the book is given over to insightful contrasts between Dinka and Nuer. Where historical and ecological factors prevent the resolution of conflict in favor of authority, he argues, segmentary forms of organization arise and the segmentary principle flourishes. Where authority predominates, expressive and religious culture then generates a problematic sense of self (as among the Dinka, who worry about how to maintain autonomy while subordinating themselves to authority). Where individualism is the norm (as among the Nuer), the segmentary nature of culture and social organization generates a sense of self that stresses overall oneness. Antagonism and opposition create a need for cohesiveness within groups that leads the Nuer to emphasize identity within relatively large-scale groups. Meeker argues that solutions endemic to conflict generate cultural attitudes that are themselves attempts to mediate the personal dilemmas produced by the unequal distribution or dispersion of power in relationships. In shorter chapters Meeker goes on to show how state institutions resolve the same basic conflicts in Bantu-speaking cattle keepers in Africa and how, among the Somali, the introduction of the horse complicated the solution to the basic conflict. Finally, he reexamines Dumezil's tripartite model of Indo-European stock keepers.