Political Functions of Kinship

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Political Functions of Kinship

• Principles of Segmentary Opposition

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Kinship institutions are total social facts

• This means not only that they have many
  functions, but that kinship groups are the sole
  defining principle of social organization.
• Descent groups can be divided into very small and
  then larger and more inclusive groups.
• These are termed
• Minimal lineages the unit above the household,
  consists of several households related through
  descent.
• Maximal lineages can trace exact links of
  descent
• Clans related, but are so large they cannot
  trace exact lines of descent
• Phratries agglomeration of clans into two
  opposed groups
• Tribes combinations of lineages and clans.
• IN Nuerland, they are termed lineages, tertiary
  sections, secondary sections and primary
  sections.

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Political Features of the Nuer of southern Sudan

• No centralized government blood feuds are quite
  common.
• Vengeance is expected by slain kinsmen of the
  deceased.
• Bloodweath is required of those kinsmen who did
  the slaying.
• Male children are raised to be courageous in
  fighting.
• Fights therefore have the potential always to
  encompass an entire set of descent groups.

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Segmentary Opposition Amongst the Nuer

• For each blood feud, the descent group will tend
  to combine and support its members.
• If the blood feud is between lineages of the same
  tertiary section, then these will combine to deal
  with the matter, and either fights will ensue or
  bloodwealth will be paid and the feud will
  subside.
• If individuals from different secondary sections
  are involved, then the entire set of lineages
  within that secondary section will unite.
• If individuals from different primary segments
  are involved, then the entire set of secondary
  sections within that primary section will unite.
• Descent and locality are combined hence sections
  tend to be associated with villages.
• Problem of blood feuds in villages people will
  try to avoid them and solve them through the
  leopard-skin chief if they occur.

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Sections and Tribes

• A tribe is a group within which bloodwealth must
  be paid. Cattle raiding generally occurs between
  tribes, e.g. the Nuer and the Dinka, but not
  within them.
• A section is a group that comes into action as a
  political entity.
• Each segment lineages, sections, or tribes come
  into existence in relation to each other and only
  under circumstances that warrant it, e.g. a feud
  or a cattle raid.
• The notion of a tribe is therefore very fuzzy and
  relational.
• If primary sections in a tribe wars continually,
  they will often break up into separate tribes
  and one group will move away.
• Yet segments also come together and unite to
  support each other.
• Evans-Pritchard sees this as a system in
  equilibrium.

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Other examples of segmentary structures

• Swat pathans, in nw pakistan (Barth)
• Political leaders are khans (landowners),
  however, the valley was acephalous. Saints are
  political mediators.
• Land is distributed through each patilineage by
  the khan.
• Groups of patrilineages form alliances with each
  other, resulting in a balanced equilibrium of
  competing political blocs.