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| From Harold Barclay, People Without Government <ref>[[People Without Government: An Anthropology of Anarchy]]</ref>:
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| <blockquote>
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| Over a third of a million Lugbara dwell in southern Uganda and
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| northern Zaire. As horticulturalists they grow chiefly eleusine and
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| sorghum, but they also keep some cattle. The Lugbara live on open
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| rolling plains in a highland area of 4-5,000 feet elevation. They, like
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| their neighbours, are politically decentralised, traditionally having
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| no chiefs and the fundamental form of social organisation is the
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| segmentary lineage.<ref>The classical conception of the segmentary lineage system as outlined by E. E.
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| Evans-Pritchard in The Nuer, and as reflected in Middleton's description of the
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| Lugbara has been subjected to considerable cntic1sm over the last several years.
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| The criticism stresses the following points:
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|
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| (1) Segmentary "theory" alleges that in a segmentary lineage system any important
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| social and political relations are explicable in terms of lineage affiliation.
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| Cleavages, alliances, feuds, mutual aid are all determined · by lineage affiliation.
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| This emphasis overlooks other types of social relationships which can be equally
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| important and often override an individual's or group's lineage obligations.
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| These relationships include community membership, fnendsh1p, ne1ghborhood
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| and affinal ties, relationships with one's mother's kin, and relationships of work
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| and economic enterprise. Lineages, then, are not the solitary, close knit corporate
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| bodies claimed by the theory.
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|
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| (2) In segmentary "theory" it is held that opposition arises between segments
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| of the same level, that is, a maior lineage opposes another major hneage but
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| never a minor or minimal lineage. The theory also argues that the complementary
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| segments are approximately equal in strength. But there are too many exceptions
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| to these points, especially to the latter, for them to be accepted as invariable
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| characteristics of the segmentary lineage.
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|
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| (3) Presumably membership in a lineage within the segmentary system is based
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| exclusively upon kin ties through males and to a common male ancestor. In fact,
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| there is often manipulation and jockeying with genealogies so that some individuals
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| who are not so related are absorbed into the lineage. Aside from these kinds of
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| fictions, the alleged common male ancestor is sometimes also only an invention.
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| In sum we may say that the segmentary "theory" presents a people's ideology
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| about their social system, an ideology which is only imperfectly reflected in their
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| everyday life and which therefore clearly tells only a biased story.</ref>
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|
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| The basic social grouping is the family, either some type of
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| joint family or a nuclear group. Families related through males
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| and dwelling in a neighbourhood comprise a 'family cluster' or
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| minimal lineage of three to four generations depth. The cluster
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| might also include individuals who are not members of the lineage
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| group, such as a sister's son or daughter's husband. It might also
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| have 'clients' residing within it. These are persons who escaped
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| from their own homes in times of war or famine, or who had been
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| expelled for some offence. Except for those clients who had not
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| married into the cluster, the residents are subject to the elder of
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| the group, who is its genealogically senior member. His authority is primarily ritual in that he can invoke the ancestral ghosts, who have influence only on their descendents.
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|
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| The lineage owns the territory within which its members reside
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| and the elder allocates use rights within it as well as the rights
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| to its resources, including daughters of the lineage. Further, he
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| is in control of the use of livestock. Within the minimal lineage
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| the elder is responsible for settling disputes. He may also initiate
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| hostile relations with other groups.
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|
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| Related minimal lineages form yet another lineage segment
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| (minor lineage), which in turn is consolidated into larger segments
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| (major lineages) and these in turn constitute sub clans which
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| consolidate to form clans. However, the number of levels of
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| segmentation among the Lugbara varies. The following diagram
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| of the levels of segmentation within a Lugbara tribe shows on
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| the right side the various segments as territorial units, beginning
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| at the lowest level of the family cluster and culminating in the
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| subtribe. On the left side of the diagram is the segmentary system
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| in terms of descent groups, commencing with the smallest segment,
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| the minimal lineage, whose personnel is roughly equivalent to
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| the territorial unit, the family cluster. (It will be recalled that
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| some residents of the family cluster are not agnatic kinsmen.)
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| Correspondingly each higher level of segmentation of the descent
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| groups has an approximate correspondence to equivalent levels
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| of territorial groups. Again, the rough correspondence results
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| from the fact that while . territories are identified with a given
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| descent group, they may include residents not belonging to that
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| descent group.
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|
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| The major lineage comprises a most strategic segment within
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| Lugbara society since it is within this group that marriage and
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| fratricide are prohibited and kinship terms are used as forms
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| of address. The major lineage is the feud unit: the body
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| that presumably unites to engage in hostilities against other equivalent
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| segments and within which feuding is not supposed to occur,
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| although it does occasionally.
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|
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| Within the minor lineage only fighting with sticks and fists is
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| permitted: no bows and arrows or spears can be used since there
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| is no technique, ritual or otherwise, by which the group can deal
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| with the fratricide which might result. We have encountered this
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| notion before: that fratricide, that is, murder carried out within a
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| closely related group, is so horrendous that the community has no
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| established means to deal with it. Nevertheless, a Lugbara killer
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| would marry his victim's widows and donate a bull to the victim's
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| mother's brother, but still this does not repair the injury done.
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| A killing between minor segments of the same lineage is also a
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| heinous deed, but compensation in the form of cattle is considered
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| payable to re-establish group harmony. A homicide involving two
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| major lineages entails no compensation, but rather retaliation may
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| be resorted to. Such fighting can go on between groups for some
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| time. Eventually, when everyone gets tired of hostilities, elders
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| from both sides, in addition to elders from related but uninvolved
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| lineages, gather and negotiate a peace. Should the parties continue
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| to fight the elders may invoke a collective curse upon them. In the
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| curse those ancestral ghosts common to the conflicting parties are
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| asked to bring sickness upon all those who disobey.
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|
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| Killings within a tribe and between its subclans are compensated
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| for, but beyond this level there is no compensation and the fighting
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| that goes on between tribes continues until third parties are able to
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| intervene successfully, or until the matter is forgotten.
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|
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| As is usual in other systems of this sort, the most intense feelings
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| of identification, and the most active functioning in terms of mutual
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| interrelationship, is at the minimal level. This gradually decreases
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| as one ascends to encompass larger and larger groups and numbers
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| of people, until one can say that the tribal level has little or no
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| significance. Nevertheless, all Lugbara have the belief that they
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| are all kin. They express their own social relations by speaking of
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| groups which are ''juru'', wherein potentially hostile relations obtain,
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| and those which are ''o'dipi'', which include all those within a group's
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| direct social relations which are not ''juru''. Ordinarily ''o'dipi'' refers to
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| the agnatic descendants of a common ancestor, often a man's major
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| lineage. Thus, as with the latter, among ''o'dipi'' there is supposed to be no fighting, no intermarriage and any girl is called 'sister'. At
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| any given time a group may be regarded as ''juru'' and later it may
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| become ''o'dipi''.
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|
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| The chief form of sanction in Lugbara society is religious.
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| Ancestral ghosts may themselves directly impose their vengeance
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| through sickness. Otherwise the elder may invoke the power
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| of the ghosts against individuals, including his own dependants
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| within the family cluster. The power of the ghost invocation by
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| an elder extends as far as there are common ghosts. Non-agnatic
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| kin may curse one another for breaches of kinship ties. Witchcraft
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| accusations are directed against neighbours. Within the community
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| of kin and neighbours, order is maintained through these several
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| supernatural sanctions, all of which form a single mystical system.
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| The rainmaker is a powerful figure in Lugbara society, as he is in
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| many neighbouring groups. Among the northern Lugbara, where
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| he is the senior member of the senior line of the senior major
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| lineage of a subclan, he is able to bring an end to hostilities by
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| calling people together to prohibit fighting on pain of his cursing
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| those who do not obey. In some areas wrongdoers may find a
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| sanctuary in-his person.
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|
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| Other important men in Lugbara society are 'men whose names
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| are known'. These are invariably wealthy men, but they also have
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| admirable character and thus attract a following. Their influence
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| may spread over several tribes and their status is neither attached
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| to the lineage system nor is it hereditary. They carry white staves
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| as symbols of their position. Like the rainmakers they can curse
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| combatants in a · feud and may act as a sanctuary for a refugee
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| and as a mediator in quarrels. For a short period, first in 1895
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| and again in 1910 'prophets' appeared among the Lugbara and
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| had some influence.
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|
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| The Lugbara have unmistakable anarchic characteristics. Yet
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| there exist certain specific kinds of persons - rainmakers and
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| 'men whose names are known' - who have a superior cursing
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| power which sets them off as privileged individuals. Here we have
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| the beginning of a proto-governmental structure.
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| </blockquote>
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|
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| <references/>
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