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Blood-Debts and Clientship Among the Lele
Author(s): Mary DouglasReviewed work(s):Source: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol.90, No. 1 (Jan. - Jun., 1960), pp. 1-28Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2844216.
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8/11/2019 Mary Dougsls Clientship
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Blood-debts
and
Clientship among the Lele
MARY
DOUGLAS
THE LELE ARE
A
SMALL TRIBE
inh4biting
the Kasai district of the Belgian Congo. They
hunt wild game, cultivate maize, manioc, and the raffia palm, and live in
small com-
pact villages ranging
in
size from
io
to I30 adult men. My fieldwork
among them was
sponsored by the International African Institute, and by the Institut de Recherche
Scientifique
en
Afrique Centrale.
Two things are notable
in
their political arrangements. One is that
each little
village
is
autonomous, acting
on
its own account,
in
alliance with some, and
at war with
other villages, and this
in
spite of a nominal suzerainty of a chiefly clan,
whose eldest
male has ritual status, great prestige, and traditional rights to
arbitrate between
villages. The second is that they have a system of clientship used to settle blood-debts,
which
is,
I
think, altogether peculiar
to
themselves.
The Lele hold that
for
every death someone can be made responsible. The only
case
in
which they admit that a death may be due to natural causes is when
a very old
person, after surviving his contemporaries, and passing through various
stages of
senility, finally dies
in his
bed. At
his
burial they rejoice as much as
they mourn,
because he
has
accomplished
the
full natural
span
of
man's life.
Therefore,
because
of
his triumph, they dance to drums instead of banning all dancing for a
three months'
period
of
mourning.
In
practice very
few of
the deaths which
Europeans would
reckon
to
have followed upon advanced senility are actually celebrated with drums and
dancing, because there are powerful interests pressing for each death to be classed as
one for which responsibility can be allotted and compensation claimed.
Their
system
of
blood-compensation
is
very far-reaching
in
Lele social life.
Every
family
is
concerned
in
it,
from
several angles.
It is so
highly developed that
it
has a
kind
of social
autonomy
of its
own; many subsidiary
institutions have
grown up
around
it;
everyone
has
an
interest
in
making
it
work;
and
something
of
the zest and satisfaction
of a
competitive game
is felt
in
observing
its
rules, paying its forfeits,
and
taking
its
rewards.
Compensation
is
based
on
the
principle
of
equivalence,
a
life
for
a
life,
a
person
for
a
person.
The
principle
is
interpreted
in an
institution
called
bukolomo,
hich
I
translate
as clientship. A client,
kolomo,
s a woman who has been paid over in settlement of a
blood-debt,
or
one
of
her matrilineal
descendants.
Only
limited
rights
over
her
are
transferred;
she
is
not
a
slave;
her own
clan
shares
responsibility
for
her
with
her lords.
The
rights
are transferred
in
perpetuity. When,
about
250 years ago,
the
Lele came
into
their present territory,
a
band
of
them
without canoes wanted
to
cross
a river.
A
man of
the
Lumbunji
clan
bridged
it
with
a
tree-trunk,
and
so allowed them
all
to
pass
across.
From
each clan
which
used
his
bridge
he
tried to
exact
payment
of
a
woman.
Descendants
of
these
early
clients
are
still
in
the control
of
the
Lumbunji
clan
to
this
day.
History
does not
say why
the clans were
prepared
to
acknowledge
the
equivalent
of
a
blood-debt
to
the
bridge-builder,
but the
story
illustrates
another
important
feature
I
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2
MARY
DOUGLAS
of the institution: the extension
of the
blood-compensation principle
to
other situations.
Any man whose life is saved by
another considers that he
owes
a blood-debt to his
rescuer. I mention below cases of ransoming
in
war,
and
of
restoring health, which
were treated
as
blood-debts
by
those
who
were saved.
Also
there
is
the convention
that
certain
animals
are rated symbolically
as
equivalent
to
humans
for
reckoning indebted-
ness. For instance,
a
leopard equals
a
man, since
a
leopard
kills
a
man; therefore f a
client kills
a
leopard and presents
his lord with the entire skin,
the lord is
in
honour
bound
to
release the mother
or sister of the slayer from clientship. There are times
when
it
is
a
matter
of
honour to be generous
in
admitting liability, and to pay up
spontaneously.
On
other occasions
t is as honourableto contest claims.
STATUS
OF CLIENT
Clientship
is a
semi-servile
status,
in
which the client
depends
for
protection on
his
lord
and owes
him certain services.
I
might
have followed
Rattray's
usage
and
translated
kolomo s pawn, and kumuas owner, but these terms are narrowerin their traditional
scope
than
client and
lord,
and
are
more
suited
to a
system
of
pledging
and of money
debts
than
to the Lele
institutions.
Lele vigorously distinguish client
from
slave. Slaves (ninga,
plural badinga)were
usually persons bought
from
afar,
or
captured
in war. Sometimes
they were Lele by
origin,
more
usually they
were
foreign
tribesmen.
Lele
had
no
way
of
permanently
exploiting
a
class
of male slaves. I think that their
political
institutions, particularly
the
hostility existing between
small
villages,
made it difficult
to
use male slaves as a source
of
forced
labour,
since
they
could
easily escape
to
a
rival
village.
Male
slaves were
apparently kept
for
a
short
period
to be killed at the burial
of
their
masters,
n a
manner
reminiscentof the Tumba systemof slavery,describedin 'The Nkumu of the Tumba'
by
H. D. Brown
(Africa I944). They
were
given special
slave-names which
concealed
their
clan
of
origin,
so that it was
impossible
for
them
to
be identified
by
fellow
clans-
men.
Female
slaves became
wives,
and
were
treated
in
much
the same
way
as
other
Lele
women.
The whole
institution of
slavery
was
effectively
abolished before
my
fieldwork,
and so
my knowledge
of it is based
on
information,
not observation. Client-
ship,
on the other
hand, though
it
was
in
process
of
liquidation
in
the
European-
supervised tribunals,
was still
very
much a live concern
of
Lele
of
the
day,
and
I
was
able
to observe
for
myself
and check on
reports.
A
slave
was
a man
without
a
clan, and
thereforewithout
protection.
No compensa-
tion could be claimed from the owner who killed his own slave. A client was a full
member
of his
or
her own
clan,
and
doubly protected.
For the
death
of a
client, double
compensation
was
demanded,
one woman
for
the
clan,
and
one
for
the lord. This
essential
distinction between
clientship
and
slavery
is
the source
of a
well-articulated
body
of rules
governing
the
relations
between clients and lords.
Kumu, ord,
is a
word
of
elastic
range.
It can refer to
members
of
the
hereditary clan
of
Lele
chiefs,
to the
appointed
head
of
a
village,
to
the owner
of a
dog,
to
the person
in whom
rights
of
clientship
are
vested. The lord
is
always male,
never
female. He never
acts
as
an
individual,
but
always representing
a
group,
either
a
section of
a
matrilineal
clan
or
a
village.
Two main rights are transferredwhen a woman is paid in settlement of a blood-
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BLOOD-DEBTS
AND CLIENTSHIP
AMONG THE LELE
3
debt.
The first
is the
right
to
dispose
in
marriage
of her and
of all her female
matrilineal
descendants.
The
second is to use
her,
or
any
of her female matrilineal
descendants,
to
settle
a furtherblood-debt.
This latter
right
has to be exercised
with the consent
of
the
client's clan,
which should
be
given
a 'mutationfee',
called
nghei
mwatet
a
ponj,
wealth
of the arrow shaft', twenty raffia cloths and an arrow, to signify their consent to the
change
of authority.
The first right
severely
limits the initiative
and controlof the
mother's brother
of the
first
female client,
and
similarly
restricts the rights
of all her male matrilineal
descen-
dants.
Since
competition
for wives
is one of the
key
motives
inspiring
Lele
behaviour,
the
advantages
of
clientship
to the receiver
of
compensation
and the disadvantages
to
the
payer
seem
to be
very
obvious.
In
effect,
a whole future
section of the payer's
clan
is
marked off,
and
transferred,
or
these
important
purposes,to
another
clan, for ever.
At first
glance
it seems
as
if,
to the
question
'What does the
lord gain out
of
his
control
of clients?'
the answer should
be
that he
gains
wives
for
himself
and
for
his
junior clansmen, and all the prestige and authority which follow from being in a
position
to
allocate
wives.
This reply is never
given, and the Lele
do not even
seem
to
think
of
the
system
as one which
gives
extrinsic
advantages
to the
winners,
or dis-
advantages
to the
losers.
They always
speak
as
if
sufficient explanation
of the moves
they
make is contained
within
the rulesof the system
itself,
as if it were
a game played
for its
own
sake.
Ask 'Why
do
you
want
to
have
more
clients?'
and they invariably
say, 'The
advantage
of
owning
clients
is that
if
you
incur
a
blood-debt, you
can settle
it
by
paying
one
of
your
clients,
and
your
own
sisters remain
free.'
Ask 'Why do you
wish
your
own
sisters
to remain free?'
and
they reply,
'Ah
then
if
I incur
a
blood-debt,
I
can settle it by giving one of them as a client.' Ask them what is the advantageof marry-
ing
a
woman
who
is
your
own
client,
and
they
say
that if
she commits adultery,
instead
of
the
usual
damages
of
fifty
raffia
cloths, you
can ask for a
client to be paid,
and so
then
you
will
have two
clients where before
you
had
only
one.
They
never seemed
to
be able
to
stand
outside
the
system,
and
explain
it
in
terms of
social
or
economic advantages
accruing
to the
lords,
or
disadvantages alling
on
the clients.
The
truth
is that the
ramifications
of
the
system
have
became
so
complex,
that it
is
difficult
to
isolate
its
effects.
There
is no
class
of
hereditary
lords distinct
from
a
class
of
clients.
A man
who
is lord
of a
group
of clan
X,
is
likely himself
to be
a client
of a
man
of clan
Y,
and he
may
well feel
that
the
practical
responsibilities
of being
a
lord
are as
onerousas the liabilitiesof being a client.
Lele
are
far more
conscious
of the pressure
(surely
increasedby the
system itself)
to
pay
blood-debts,
than
they
are
of
other
specific
patterns
of
profit
and loss arisingout
of
clientship.
Every
man
is
always
aware
that
at any time he
may be liable
for a blood-
debt.
If
any
woman he has seduced
confesses
his
name
in
the throesof
child-birth,and
subsequently
dies,
or
if
her
child
dies,
or if
anyone he
has quarrelledwith
dies of illness
or
accident,
he
may
be
held
responsible,
and have to pay
compensation.Ideas
of liability
are
highly
developed;
even
if
a
woman
runs
away from
her husband,
and fighting
breaks
out on her
account,
the
deaths
will be
laid to her door,
and her brother
or
mother's brother
will have to
pay up.
Since only women
are
accepted as blood-com-
pensation, and since compensation is demanded for all deaths, of men as well as of
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4
MA-RY DOUGLAS
women, it
is
obvious that there can never
be
enough
women
to
go
round.
Men fall into
arrears in their clientship
obligations, and girls used to be
pledged before their birth,
even
before their mothers were
of
marriageable age.
It can
be
supposed that clientship
has far-reaching effects on the
marriage-institutions
of
the Lele, making for a strong
disapprovalof divorceand even of adultery.
The
rights to dispose of female clients
in
marriage,
and to transfer these rights to
settle
blood-debts, are primary rights of the lord. They are,
of course, exercised as a
limitation
of the rights of the woman's male clansmen. They
can hardly be said to be
rights
exercised over the women themselves. The latter have
never had any freedom
(which could be said to be restricted
by
their status as
clients) to marry as they chose.
Whether
they are free or clients
their personal
marital
status is exactly the same. For
her
husband, her co-wives, her
children, there is no difference between a free woman
and a client. Clientship essentially s
an arrangementwhich
holds between men, though
it
concerns the distribution of their rights over women.
In
recognition of this fact, the
relation of the lord to the male descendantsof his client women is precisely formulated.
Unless there is
goodwill between
them,
the whole
system
breaks
down.
There
is no external machinery
of justice which can coerce clients into honouring
their
contracts. The interestsof the lord cannot
be
enforced
against the wishes of his
clients.
Consequently,
lords are
engaged
in
elaborate
manoeuvres to
keep their clients
sweet,
in
order that
the rights which, dejure,according
to the
conventions
of
the system,
they
are
entitled
to hand down to their heirs
in
perpetuity,
shall
in
fact be
respected by
the
clients.
If
goodwill is lost,
a whole
heritage may
be
lost,
for an
angry client can
summon
the armed
strength
of
a
rival
village
to
support
him
against
an
unjust lord.
This
aspect needs detailed exposition.
In
brief, any
individual
can take
his claim to a
village rival to that in which his enemy resides. If the village accepts the case, they
pay
him
full
material compensation
for
a
woman,
and
they proceed
to
capture one or
two
women from the defendant.
One of
the
women
captured'
s
installed as
'village-
wife',
that
is,
she fills the
role of wife
to
all
the men
of
one of
the
age-sets
in
the
village.
There
are local
variations
in
the
number
of
men
entitled
to
sexual
access,
but
always
the full
legal responsibility
as
her
husband and as
social father of all
her
children is
acceptedby
the
whole
village
as
a
single corporate
unit.
Any
male client
who thinks
that
his lord is
not
acting
fairly by
him
can
arrange
for
one
of his own sisters
to be
captured
and installed as
village
wife. This
explains
the
responsibilities
which the
lord undertakes on behalf of his male clients.
He has full
liability for any blood-debts which they may incur. He should also help them sub-
stantially
with raffia cloths and camwood from his
stores,
when
they
need
help
in
paying
their
entrance
fees
and
fines.
He should
help
them to obtain
wives.
He
usually
tries
to
allot one of his female clients in
marriage
to one of his male
clients, hoping
that
they
will continue
to live near him. For the death of a
client,
the lord claims
compensa-
tion,
and this is
regarded
as an added
security.
Someone
threatened,
or
bullied,
will
cry out,
'Wayibu
Ndi mot
akana,
Take care I am someone else's man.' In
short,
the lord
is
expected
to
play
a
role,
both
protective
and
authoritarian,
which is
very
like that of
father
or mother's brother.
The latter do not
give up
their
responsibilities
towards
a
client,
who
looks on his lord as an
additional,
not an alternative source of
help.
In recognitionof his obligations,and his right to protectionfrom his lord, the male
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BLOOD-DEBTS
AND CLIENTSHIP
AMONG
THE LELE
5
client
should
give
one
hind,leg
and- he
back-
of
any large antelope
or
any pig
that
he
kills; one
foreleg,
one
hindleg,
the
back
and-skinof any leopard,
and the whole
of
any
eagle,
payments.
explicitly
ahalagous
to tribute-to a-chief.
But
a
man
does not often
kill
one of these
beasts
on
his own;
most
big kills
are
made
in the
communal
hunt, when
such
privateobligation' arewaived in favourof the hunting team. When he is on good terms
with
his lord,
a man
looks
forward
to killing
one of
the
tribute
animals, organizing
his
younger
brothers
to
help
him to
carry the
meat,
and
then
laying it ceremoniously
at
his
lord'sfeet.
He
will
go away
happily
conscious
that
if he were later
to need help
in
any
form, the
lord
would
be
under strong
moral
obligation
to
give
it. Men make
these
calculations
quite
explicitly,
working
it out
that if they
want
initiation
to a cult
group,
they will
need
help with
the
entrance
fees,
and that, therefore,
the
first
step
is
to
kill
a
big beast,
so as
to lay its
back
and
hind leg
at the feet
of their
lord.
A further
sanction
upholds
the
lord's
rights.
If a female
client
marriesagainst
his
express
wishes,
he
can curse
her fertility,
and she is expected
never
to
bear
children
again, unless he lifts the curse. This would be a blow against the girl's clansmen, as
much
as against
herself,
and they
are thus
likely
to
bring
pressure
on
her to
conform
to their
lord's
wishes.
I give here
an
example
of
a lord
paying
blood-compensation
for
one of his
clients,
and another
case
in which
the
lord
was
punished
for his refusal
to do so, by
unilateral
action
on the
part
of the
claimants.
Case
L.
Mabonje,
the
head
of the
village
of
South
Homb,
and leader
of
the
local
section
of the
Bwenga
clan,
was the son
of
Piciamaha,
herself the client
of the
Lum-
bunji clan,
living
in
Middle Homb,
where
Ikum
was head
of that local
clan
section.
Ikum
had
betrothed
Mabonje's
sister's
daughter,
also
Piciamaha,
to his own
sister's
son, Lukotera.Mabonje was accused of killing a man who was a client of the village of
Bushongo.
He refused
to
pay
the blood-debt,
saying
that
he
was a client of the
Lum-
bunji clan,
and
had
no
free
sisters.
Bushongo
village promptly
captured
his
wife,
and
held
her
hostage
until Mabonje prevailed
on
his
lord,
Ikum,
to release the
child
Piciamaha
and
pay
her over
to Bushongo
village.
Then
his wife was
returned
to
him.
VILLAGE
F
VILLAGE
F
VILLAGE
F BUSHONGO
MIDDLE
HOMB
SOUTH
HOMB
IKUM
PICIAMAHA
CAPTURED
RETURNED
LUKOTERA
MAWE
MABONJE
BAHEK
U
III
(2)
MARRIED
CLIENTOF
S.
HOMS
VILLAGE
I
~~~~~~PICIAMAHA
_
BETROTHED
(I) MARRIED
CLIENT
OF
BUSHONGO
VILLAGE
FIGURE,
I
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6 MARY DOUGLAS
Piciamaha was now client of the village
of
Bushongo
anc
the
Lumbunji
clan had
given
up
all
rights over her. Later the village
of Bushongo incurred a blood-debt
with the
village of South Homb, which they
at first refused to admit. South
Homb
simply
captured
Piciamaha when she was visiting her brother
Mabonje, and kept her as
their
client and village-wife.Bushongo village is near South Homb and has a long history of
alliance with them.
Consequently they had reasons for
acquiescing in the
transfer
of
rights.
Case
I.
The village of North Homb
accused a man of the Lumanya clan
of killing
their client village-wife, by having
illicit sexual intercourse
with her when she
was
pregnant. The
defendant was himselfa client of the Lumbunji
clan in Middle
Homb.
In
this case the
latter refused to accept liability for their
client's debt. The village of
North
Homb retaliated by capturing
a Lubelo woman, Mbembe, who was
herself a
client
of
the
Lumbunji clan. She had
been married to a Bwenga man (who was
client of
the
Lumbunji)
for three years without conceiving, and was
ready to try being
a village-
wife. Nothing was done to compensateher husband for his loss. In eight years as village-
wife in
North Homb,
she bore four sons who died in infancy.
A great deal of ill-will
developed between
her and her village-husbands, whom
she accused of killing her
children because
they were male, and therefore useless
for continuing the clientship
relation. When the fourth child died
she left North Homb, and returned to her
original
owners, the Lumbunji clan in Middle
Homb, who agreed with her that North
Homb
had
had no clear right to capture her
in the first place.
This happened in the nineteen-
forties, when Belgian Administration
was well established, but even in the
old days
fighting would
not have been likely
to have broken out when she ran away,
since
North
Homb and
Middle Homb acknowledgeda common
origin and were allies.
These two casesshow how the lord is expected to pay the blood-debts of his clients,
and
the kind of reprisals o which he is exposed if he denies
the responsibility.
If
the arrangements
do not work to the profit of both
parties, lord and client, then
goodwill is lost, and there follows a trial
of strength, in which client
is
likely
to emerge
as a
free
man.
The usual way in which a client becomes
free is by demanding
the
release
of his
mother or sister, when his lord
is responsible or a death among
his
clients.
In
the
case
above,
of
Mbembe running away from North Homb,
if
they
had tried
to
follow
her,
her
protectors
would certainly have riposted with
an accusation that
the
village
had
killed
one,
or all of her children, in which case the village
of North
Homb
would
have
owed
a
blood-debt to her clan.
In
such
cases, when there is already
a
basis
of
goodwill
between the parties, it is always honourable to accept the liability and let the woman
go free,
another reason why North Homb let
the matter drop.
The
following
shows what
happens when
the essentialgoodwill is lacking.
Case
II.
Case
of
Ket
clan.
A
Ket
woman, Mbwengol,
died.
She was
the client
and
wife
of
a
man
of Bienge clan,
in
Mbombe
village.
Her brother, Pung,
in
Bushongo,
con-
sulting oracles,
found her husband guilty
of
killing
her
by sorcery.
His
demand
for
compensation
was refused.
If
it
had
been admitted,
one of
his dead
sister's
daughters
should
have
been released
from
clientship.
He
declared
that he
would take one
of them
away,
so
that none
of
her
former lords
of
the
Bienge
clan
should choose her
husband.
He carried
off the little
girl, Ngalakamba,
his
sister's
daughter,
to the
village
of
Bush-
ongo, to be marriedthere. The Biengeclan arrangedwith the village of Middle Homb
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BLOOD-DEABTS
AND CLIENTSHIP
AMONG THE LELE
7
that she should be}captuted
and made village-wife there, they receiving
compensation
from
Middle Holibb Then h'er-mother's rother-complained o the chief of the
Western
Lele, Ngwamakadi, one
of
the few cases
I
recorded of appeal to chiefly arbitration. He
declared both
sides to have been
in
the wrong, the
Bienge clan
for not compensating
for the death they had caused, and the Ket clan for taking the girl away from her
fathers by force.
He proposed
that she should
now be allowed to remain the wife of
Middle Homb,
and
that
the Bienge should
pay over a client to
her mother'sbrother,
Pung. The Bienge,
stronger
and more numerous
than the Ket clan, and backed by their
own
village,
agreed
with the first
part of the settlement, but omitted to carry out the
second part. When
Pung himself
finally died, no compensation
had been paid, and
his younger
clansmen, the
sons of
the girl in question,
felt that they were
too isolated
and too few to reopen the
case.
KET
CLAN
~~4
MBWENGOL PUNG
NGALAKAMBA
NGONDU CLAN
[CLIENTS
OF
4
LUBELO
ILUNGU
MBOYU
MWENDELA
CLEMENT
LELE
FIGURE
2
This part of the case
illustrates
the disadvantages
of belonging to a small
local clan
section (see below). The
second part
of the case illustrates
the ways in which
lords use
their
rights over
clientwomen.
While
Ngalakamba's
children were young,
Middle Homb village
incurred a blood-
debt to the clan
of Hanja
in
their own
village, which they
settled by transferring
rights
over her
daughter,
Mwendela. Hanja settled
an outstanding
debt they
owed to the
Bulong clan, and the latter transferredrightsover the girl to a man of the Lubelo clan
in
South Homb,
who had long ago
accused one of them
of having killed
his mother.
The girl
herself,
in
the
meanwhile, had been
baptized at the
mission, and therefore
the
Lubelo,
on acquiring
rights over her, had
to find her a Christian
husband. Their
own
young Lubelo
men
were mostly married
or betrothed. They
thereforegave her
to
Clement, younger
brother
of Lele of the Ngondu
clan, both clients
of the Lubelo.
Her
two brothers
left Middle Homb,
and came
to settle near their
sister in South Homb.
They acknowledged
their status of
clients to the village
of Middle
Homb, but they
nourished
a
sense
of grievance, saying
that but for the
weaknessof their
local clan
section, they
would
have
been free men, and
their sister and
her children free
to
be
disposedof in marriage accordingto their own interests.
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8
MARY DOUGLAS
When
the client
and
lord live
in rival villages it is even
more neces
-ry for the lord
to
be
punctilious
in his
dealings,
as
the
following
casq
demolistrates.
Case V.
Lubelo nd
Lungclans.
A man of theLubelo clan
in South Homb was accused,
and convicted
by poison
ordeal,
of
killing by
sorcery a man of the Hanja
clan in Middle
Homb village. Lubelo gave their own sister, Idiamaha, in compensation.The Hanja,
instead of marrying
her themselves, transferred
their rights as lords to
the Lung clan
in Hanga village,
the hereditaryrival of South
Homb village. There she
was married
to
the official
diviner of the village,
and bore three children,
clients of the Lung clan.
When
her husband died, Idiamaha was inherited
by another
man, but properpurifica-
tory
ritual
which
protects
the
widows
of
official diviners
from death, was
omitted.
Idiamaha died,
and
her
brother, Ngomambulu,
demanded compensation
from
the
Lung
clan. The
Lung refused,
and the
Lubelo
forthwith
declared their
clientship
to be
at an end.
Idiamaha's
daughters
and her only
son became, to all intents
and purposes
as
free
as
if
Lung
had
formally
released them.
Koku and Ngomadiku
went to live in
South Homb, and Kinda was married asvillage-wifein Bushongo.
Later, Ngomambulu fell ill,
and
nearly died. Many diviners
tried to
cure him, with-
out success. The man who restored
him to health was Mihaha,
a diviner of the Lung
clan,
from
Hanga,
who
went to endless
trouble to
get powerfulremedies
for him.
LUBELO
CLAN
NGOMAMBULU IDIAMAHA
~~~4
KINDA
KOKU NGOMADIKU
(CLIENT
OF
BUSHONGO)
MAHAMIMBENDI
FIGURE
3
When
he felt his health
return,
Ngomambulu
sent
for Mihaha and
declared
that as
he owed
him
his
life,
he would
give
to him
Mahamimbendi,
the
girl
whom Mihaha
would have married originally if the Lubelo had not ceased to be clients of the Lung
clan.
As
it
happened,
Mahamimbendi
had
already
been married
to another
man,
and borne
him
a son. He refused
to
give
her
up,
and in
the old
days
the
Lubelo
would
have
resorted
to force.
However,
this
happened
quite recently,
in
the last ten years,
when
the
Belgian
Administration
effectively
prevented fighting. Ngomambulu
and
Mihaha went
together
to the
tribunal
and
obtained
an
order for
Mahamimbendi to
leave
her
husband
and
go
to
be married
to
Mihaha,
as
they solemnly declared that
he
was her first
betrothed,
and that she
had
been
taken from
him
by
force. She now
has
three
small children
by
Mihaha.
In this
case
the lord, representedby Mihaha,
finally
recoveredhis clients,by showing
extreme solicitude when their leader was ill. Ngomambulu's act of restoringthe girl to
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BLOOD-DEBTS
AND CLIENTSHIP
AMONG
THE
LELE
9
clientship
as
a ge ture of
gratitude
illustrates
the grand style
in which these
transactions
were made.
The fact that the
girl
was unhesitatingly taken away
from her
first husband
shows that
the husband
who is not
his wife's lord is at
some
disadvantage
in his
dealings
with
his
in-laws.
In
this
sense
it
is
true
that
it is an advantage to
be married to
a client-
wife.
THE CLAN
AS LORD
When
a
village
owns
a
group
of
clients,
there
is no difficulty
in
recognizing
who
is their
lord, for the village
has
a corporate
enduring
personality,
regardless of the
fluctuations
in its population.
This
I must describe
separately.
The clan,
on
the other
hand, has
little
br
no corporate
personality.
It is an amorphous
collection
of
individuals, claiming
common matrilineal
descent,
practising
exogamy,
and observing
a few
religious pro-
hibitions, but
too dispersed
to be capable
of
any common
action.
The clan never
assembles,
has no single
leader
or set of
leaders, never
attempts
to take
united action.
Clansmen
are scattered,
not only
through
the four
Lele chiefdoms,
but also
through
the neighbouring tribes. Fellow clansmen from different parts of Lele country do not
know
each
other, even
know of each
other, or
of how
many they
number. They
have no
corporate unity.
For
the Lele man,
clanship is
scarcely more
than
a completely
general
claim
for
assistance based
on matrilineal
descent. The
content of
the claim, the
persons
against
whom it may
be made, the
kind and
amount
of assistance
that may
be hoped
for in
any
particular
case depends
entirely
on the circumstances.
In spite of
this vagueness
and
lack of organization
in
the clan,
claims for
blood-
compensation
are made in
the name of
the clan of
the victim,
against the
clan of
the
slayer.
This is largely
a manner
of speaking.
When
a claim is
refused, the claimants
never capture
a distant clanswoman
of
the slayer,
as a
means of enforcing
collective
clan
responsibility;
they
usually capture
a client
of the man who refuses to pay up.
There
are two limited
senses
in which it is
true
that the whole
clan appears
as
a
collectivity. First,
no claim
for blood-compensation
can be
made between
sections
of a
single clan.
If a man kills a
fellow
clansman,
this is a shameful
act, which
will
create
enmity,
but which cannot
be compensated
by the transfer
of a client
from one
section
to
another. Second,
the
fiction of
clan unity is
validated in
so far
as its effective
sub-
units are
constituted
so that any
clansman, born
or
reared anywhere,
related
or not
related, may become
a fully participating
member.
The single
qualification
of
matri-
lineal
descent
gives
a man an
option, which
he
can take out
with whichever
local group
of
his
clan he likes best, an option
to acquire
the status
of a fully
active member.
EFFECTIVE
SUB-UNITS
OF THE
CLAN
The
various
sub-units,
which
act, each,
in the name
of the whole
clan,
are not clearly
definable, either by the
observer,
or by Lele
themselves.
They
are constituted
on the
two
principles
of residence
and descent.
A man's
close
matrilineal
descendants,
whether
or
not they are actually
living in
his village,
can claim
to inherit
his widows,
and to
have some
say on the
disposal
of his clients.
In some
contexts I
find it convenient
to
refer
to these
scattered
matrilineal
relatives
as the inheritance
group.
Further,
any
man
who
is
actually
resident in the
same
village as
a fellow clansman,
may be
regarded
as a
member of his local clan section, and this too gives a claim to inherit.
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IO
M-ARY DOUGLAS
Each
principle limits the
application
of the other. Residence limits
the descent
principle.
Close lineal relatives, if they have
moved
fiaar
way, and
especially if their
move seems
definitive,
will not
normally
count
as
memrbers?of
he
inheritancegroup.
Correspondingly, he man
who has recer-flymoved into a
village, and hopes to be
accepted as a full member
of his local clan section there,
may have to live
there for
some time, before he can
compete successfully
with close lineal relatives for
the benefits
of
co-residence.
Since each
local clan section believes it
has advantages in numerical
strength, each
tries to
attract recruits
fromothers, so
acceptance is not so difficult for a
youngish man
as might be
assumed.
It
is more difficult for
an old man,
because his senioritywould
put
him
high
in
the scale of
authority. Since the local section is
regarded as a
single unit,
recognizingno internal
distinctionsexcept of age or sex, its
oldest male leads it
on formal
occasions,
and
expects some deference to his
opinions. The
arrival of a young man does
little
to
disturb the
existing
pattern of power and authority;
the arrival of an old man
is likely to threaten some established interests.The young are also welcome because of
their
physicalstrength.
In
short,
there is
a
practical
age-limit
for
easy
transfer rom
one
village
to
another,
and there comes a time
in a man's life when he has to decide
to
settle
down
finally.
Other factors
beside
his
age tend
to
make a man's welcome
more or
less
uncertain:
his
cult
status,
his
relations as
a
client
and
as
a
lord,
his
reputation
for
quarrelsomeness
nd
adultery,
or for
easy
social
relations
with
other men.
The distinction
between
a
long visit,
and a
permanent change
of
residence
is not
always easy
to
clarify.
Some men
are
accepted
at
once,;
others never. One
man
may
make
a
visit
for
six
months,
be lent
a
house,
then be
given
a
wife,
and
then
finally
settle
down and
build
his own
house. Another man
may arrive,
immediately
start
building a house, in the hopes of being given a wife in due course,but his hopes may be
disappointed,
and
after some
years
he
may go
away
to
try
his
luck
elsewhere.
The
only
sure
test of
membership
s whether
or
not
the new
arrival
eventually
receives
a
portion
of
the
inheritance which the local clan
section
controls,
.e.
a
wife.
In every
village,
round
the settled
core of
each
local
clan section,
there
is
a
fringe
of
men, working
to make
good
their
membership,
men who have come
in from else-
where.
At the
same time there are
the
young men,
born
in
the
village,
still
regarding
it as their
home,
and
yet
who are
preparing
to
leave
for the sake
of
joining
some other
group
of their clansmen.
There are situations
when
the
Lele
prefer
an
ambiguous
status to
a
well-defined
one,
since definitioninvolvesseparationand a cutting-offof claims. Membershipof the local
clan section
is one case.
A man
knows
that
if
he
does
not
reside
and
co-operate
with
one
group
of
his
fellow
clansmen,
he cannot make claims on them for wives
or
help.
But he
foresees
a
time when
he
may quarrel
or
be
driven
out,
and
he
would like to
keep
similar
claims
warm in
other
villages. (Mwana
mala
mapende,
ahawu
bo,
the child of
two
villages
won't
die.)
Since the
Lele themselves
avoid
it,
let us
put
aside
the
attempt
to define
closely
the
local
clan
section,
and turn to the
problem
of how this
group
acts
as lord
in
relation
to clients.
The role
of lord needs
decision, generosity,
and
other
qualities
which
are
best
displayed
in one
man,
not in
a
leaderless
group.
Lele themselves
say
that the senior
member of a local clan section acts for the section as a whole. This would imply a
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BLOOD-DEBTS AND
CLIENTSHIP AMONG THE
LELE
II
degree of authority,
which,
apagt
from being
generally uncharacteristic
of Lele
social
organization,
is not
warranted
by,the
facts
observed.
The local
clan
section
appears
as a
single group
at
village
meetings.
It acts
as
a
single unit,
under the
formal
leadership of
its
elder,
in
support
of
any
of
its
members'
claims for compensation.It also appears as a single unit when it has allocated any of
its widows or client
women in
marriage,
or when
it decides
that the claims of
a
close
matrilineal
kinsmanwho
has
gone
to
live elsewhere should
be considered or not.
There
are meetings
and
discussions
which make
a
real
thing
of
the nominal
unity.
A
young
boy
will
say artlessly
'We
gave
so-and-so
his
wife'.
But
the fine
simplicity
of the
first
person plural
applies
only
after there has
been
considerable
shuffling,
bargaining and
pushing
from
various
points
of
vantage.
It is
important to
try
and discover
what
these
points
of
initiative
are.
Observation shows
that for all
practical
purposes
each
elementary
family
of
clients
may recognize
a
different
member of
the lord's
clan
as
their own
particular
and
im-
mediate representative,whom they refer to as their kumu,ord. If a case of clientship
originates
with
the
action of
one
man, then he is
the lord,
nominallyacting
in the
name
of his
clan,
who
has
most
control
over the
woman who is
transferred, and
over
her
children.
Nyama,
below
(Case
V), is an
instance.
He had provided,
single-handed,
the
wealth
in
camwood
which
his village
required for
two of its wives.
In recompense
he was
given,
as
his
clients, the
daughters
of these
village-wives. He
married them
himself,
and
controlled
the marriages
of his
own daughters
himself as if, in
this case,
he alone
represented the
clan,
though he was
by no means the
eldest
man of his local
clan-section.
Again, the
man in
the lord'sclan
who marries a clan
client and begets
daughterswho
are in turn clients, acts as a nearly independent agent in their affairs,for their client-
ship
has
begun
with
his
begetting. Every
time a
lord-husband dies,
his successor
as
husband,
if
he
is
a
fellow-clansman,takes
over his role in
regard to
the children. It
follows
that,
in
practice, a
descent line of
clients is attached
to the local
section of its
lord's clan
through
a
number of
particular
allegiances to
each of the
clansmen
who
intermarried with
the client
females. No
wonder
men are keen to be
allotted client
wives
in
the
gift
of
their
local
clan
section. Whatever
the other
purposes of the act
of
bestowing
a
client
wife on a
junior clansman,
the
effect on his status is
like promotion
from
an
ordinary
shareholderto the
board of directors,
for he
can now hope to
become
one
of
the founts
of
authority through
which the clan
section
controls its
heritage of
clients. In short, any originator of clientship rights for his clan, whether by begetting
or
by
buying, becomes
one of the points
of focus
in client-lord
relations.
Case
V.
Nyama'sdebt.A
Lubelo man was
captured in a
raid, and
would have been
killed
if
a
Bwenga man
from
Mbombe had not
intervened
and ransomed his
life by
giving
a
client
to his
captor.
The Lubelo
thereforeowed a
blood-debt to the
Bwenga
man,
and
they paid
over Njangom.
Her children
were born
in clientship,
but they
went
in
due
course
to
live
with
their clansmen
in South Homb.
Subsequently
Njangom
died
in
the
poison
ordeal,
convicted of having
killed a Bwenga
woman by
sorcery. The
Lubelo owed
therefore
another
blood-debt to
the Bwenga.
The debt
was never
regarded as one
concerning
the whole of the
Lubelo clan, nor
even the whole of the sectionof it living in South Homb, but merelyNyama himself, the
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12
MARY DOUGLAS
LUBELC
CLAN
IDIAMAHA
NJANGOM
4~ b
PFRO
NYAMA
MAPICI
MAHAMALUBELO
HIMBU
MAWEMIMBWANGA
MAHAMALUBELO
FIGURE 4
eldest
male
descended
from the dead woman who
had
incurred
the
debt. Nyama's
own sister,
Mahamalubelo,
had been
paid
over
by
the
Bwenga,
his
lords, to the Bulo-
mani clan
in South
Homb,
so that he could not
give
his
sister's
daughter
or
daughter's
daughters.
He
proposed
to settle the debt
by giving
one of his
own
daughters.
Both
wives, Mapici
and
Ihowa,
were
his
clients,
and he was
evidently
considered to
have
the
sole
right
to
dispose
of their children
in
marriage,
since he had
not
only begotten them,
but himselfhad been the agent by which his clan could claim them as clients.But both
girls,
Mawe
and
Himbu,
he
had
betrothed from
infancy
to
men
in
the
village.
One
of
them, Himbu,
had been betrothed
to
Ngwe Malop,
a client of
the
Bulomani
clan,
the
lords
of his sister'schildren.
Nyama
now
proposed
to break off
the
bethrothal,
and send
her
to
Mbombe,
as
client of
the
Bwenga clan,
to make
good
his
mother's
debt. However,
Himbu's
mother
did
not want her
daughter
to
go away,
and
her
case
was
put by
her
half-brother,Lele,
of the
Ngondu
clan, who,
we
shall
see,
was
a
man
of
influence.
Himbu
and her mother
were
of
the Pata
clan, hailing
from
Bushongo.Speaking
as a man
of
Bushongo,
Lele warned
Nyama
that Pata
girls
never
did well
in
Mbombe,
and
rarely
succeeded
in
rearing
their children
there.
If
he wanted to
see
his
daughter's
daughtersmarriedin their turn, Nyama would have to find some other way of settling
his debt.
In the end
the solution
came
from the Bulomani
clan,
the lords of
Nyama's sisters,
and also
of Himbu's
original
betrothed.
Nyama
made
a
deal with
them, transferring
rights
over
Himbu
to the
Bulomani,
in
return
for
clientship rights
over his own
sister's
daughter's daughter, Mahamalubelo,
whom he
then
gave
to the
Bwenga
in
Mbombe.
Himbu
was thus
able to
stay
in
the
village,
and
to
marry
her
original betrothed, Ngwei.
The interest
of
Nyama's
case here is the
degree
of
autonomy
with
which
he
exercised
his
rights
as lord
of clients
of his
own
begetting,
and the absence
of
co-operation
from
the
rest
of his own clan section.
When
I
knew
him,
his
other
daughter
Mawe had died
in
childbirth, and so he had no clients left under his own control, except his two wives.
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BLOOD-DEBTS
AND CLIENTSHIP AMONG
THE
LELE
I3
By that time his own
sister'ssons, the
thildren of
-Mawe-Mimbwang,
were
all
Christians,
so
it
was
altogether
too
specuiiative
o
ty
to d
wscoxer
ho,
in the event of his
death,
would have taken
over.
his rights
as lord,
-inth
eevent
of
any
clients
surviving
him.
For
Christians,
since
they
could
-only marry
once,
could
hardly
work
the
clientship
systemand enjoyits benefits n the old
waNr.
The
proof
of
whether
a
man's
rights
as
a
lord are
vested
in
him as an
individual,
or
whether the
generally
accepted
theory
is
valid,
that
they
are distributed
evenly through
the
corporate
personality
of the local clan
section,
is
tested
by
what
happens
when
he
dies
or
leaves
the
village.
Does
he
carry
his individual
rights
as lord
away
with him
when
he
goes?
The
answer depends much on the
strength
of
personal loyalties.
The exercise
of
rights over clients is
always
so
much
a
matter
of
delicacy
and
compromise,
that
in
practice the lord is
not likely to have effective
authority
if
he goes
very
far from
the
normal
scene
of
his client's lives.
Nothing
is
easier,
in
such
a
fluid
system,
for the
clients
left behind to transfer their individual allegiance to one of his remaining fellow-
clansmen.
He is sure
to be
withstood
by
the
women,
since
they regularly try
to
resist
proposed
changes ofresidencefor
themselves
and
their daughters.
The followingis a case in which a
new arrival
brought
with
him
the
right
to
act
as
lord
in
several
clientship
cases. One
man, Lele,
was welcomed because he came
to
where
his own clients, and his
lords, were
living. By contrast, the young
man who
joined
him
later, Yembu, gave up
any rights
he
may
have
hoped
to claim
in his
old clan
section
in
the
far
north. The case is worth
studying
in
detail,
for it shows
the
kind
of
factors
which
enable
a man to
be
immediately accepted
in
another
village,
his
own
age,
client-
ship rights
and
obligations,
and also
the
structure
and
composition
(age, sex,
numbers)
of the clan section he isjoining.
Case
VI. Jgonduclan.
When Lele was
released
from
a
long
term
of
imprisonment
in
Luebo,
he felt he could
no
longer
live
in
his own
village,
Bushongo,
because
his
brother
had taken his
wife
from
him.
He joined
his
sisters
n
South Homb.
At
the time
that
Lele
arrived
there, the
local
section of the
Ngondu
clan
in
South
Homb
comprisedonly
two
men.
One, Ibonje,
was
very old, nearly senile,
and
well
past
active direction
of
affairs.
He
had
been
born
and
brought up
in
South
Homb,
and now
depended
on his
wife,
and
NGONDU CLAN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a
IBONJE
< 4
NJILU
(LIVING N
NIAMAHA
LELE
CLEMENT
(VILLAGE-WIFE
BUSHONGO)
GABRIEL
YEMBU
IN
S.
HOMB)
FIGURE
5
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I4
MARY
DOUGLAS
his daughters
and
their husbands. The other was Gabriel,
a
young leper. There were
three women, Gabriel's mother, and Lele's two classificatorysisters. With Lele came
his brother Clement,
a
Christian.
Lele brought with him some clientship rights, which had been vested in the section
of the Ngondu clan residing formerly n
a
little village, Bushongo bwabwani, which had
grown too small to be able to exist independently, and which had now been merged
with its brother
village, Bushongo bwankapa.
Most of
these clients were
now
living
in South Homb, and on his arrival there, they transferredtheir allegiance at once to
Lele, instead of to one of his maternal uncles in the other Bushongo village. Lele also
carried
with him
the right
to
control clients
who had
belonged to the vanished village,
and not to the Ngondu clan. He said that if the village were ever again restored to
separate
existence he would
hand
over the heritage of clientship rights
which he
had
been administering
n
its
name.
It is understandable that Lele was a man of some importance, and was doubly
acceptable as a newcomer to the village of South Homb; one of his sisters there was a
client
of the
village, he
and
his brother
were clients
of
the
main
clan there,
the
Lubelo,
and several
of his own clients and
those
of
Bushongo
bwabwani
were
also resident there.
To make
him
welcome, the village immediately allotted to him two of its clients
as
wives.
By marrying
them
he
became son-in-law to the
village,
twice over.
Later
he
was
inducted
as
junior official diviner of the village. The combination of honours accepted
implied that his life was now finally committed to being spent in South Homb.
In
the meanwhile, another Ngondu man, Yembu, felt dissatisfiedwith his treatment
at the
hands of
his own clan section
in
the village of his birth, Njembe,
in the north
of
the
territory.
He
had
served as
a
policeman, and
had
met Lele
when the
latter did
a
long-term prison sentence, and on hearing of his warm reception in South Homb,
decided
to
throw
in
his
lot
with him.
At
the time that
Yembu
arrived in South
Homb, Lele
had three
wives,
two
given
by
the
village.
The
third, Mawe,
a
client girl,
had run
away
from her first
husband,
and
offered herself to Lele as her lord.
The fact
that
Lele was
now
living
in
the
same
village
as her mother
and
her mother's mother
no
doubt influenced her
decision.
Lele said that he felt ashamed to have
three wives,
when
his
younger brother,
Yembu had none. He took the new
wife, Mawe,
and said to
Yembu, 'Here, put
her
in
your
house. You can
keep
her
as
your wife.' Just
as the
gift
of
girls
in
marriage proved
that
Lele
was
acceptable
as
a
member of
the village, so
also Yembu knew that he
was
accepted as a full member of the local section of the Ngondu clan. Later the Lubelo
clan,
Lele's
lords,
allowed Yembu to
marry
one
of
their
women
as a
second
wife.
Yembu and
Lele
acted as brothers who had
been
cradled
together. They
treated old
Ibonje as
their father, bringing
him
meat and wine. When
Niamaha's son was to be
married, all three contributed to his marriage payments. When Gabriel
went
to the
mission
clinic
for
long treatment, they sent
him
provisions.
In
the
dry season,
Lele and
Yembu
cleared their fields, shoulder to shoulder,
in
turn.
When Lele's wife was
ill,
Yembu
went
regularly
to find her
herbal
remedies.
When
Yembu had to
pay
a
fine
at
the
tribunal,
Lele
helped
to find
him
money.
The
solidarity
of
the local clan
section
was
beyond doubt,
and
whether Lele
or
Yembu died
first,
the other would
have
a
prime voice in the disposal of his widows, as much as Clement, Lele's full brother, who
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BLOOD-DEBTS ANn
CLIENTSHIP
AMONG THE
LELE
I5
had, in the meantime, gone-
to Bushongo. Since this was a neighbouring and friendly
village, his departurewas not looked,upon as enrding is rights as
Lele's brother.
This example gives
a
clear
illustration of how the local clan
section, constituted
from disparate elements, comes
to act
as
a single unit, and formsan inheritance group
which
pools
wives
and
property tt
would
be
a mistake
to think of
a
man deliberately
calculating that a move to village A will give him a better start on the social ladder than,
say, village B. When they move, it is generally under great personal
stress, and at any
given time the choice of villages where they will be welcome
may be very small,
Whether
the move turns out to
have been
advantageous depends
on the
numbers, sex,
and age of fellow-clansmen and
the number of the ties of clientship, but their personal
qualities as good friends
will
probably
weigh more for a man deciding to join them
than
a
cool reckoning
of his own
chances
of
leadership.
The Ngondu
case
concerns
only a very small local section
of a clan, four men,
three women. Matters
are
different
when
the local clan section
is
larger. First, the
complete solidarity
and
pooling
of
interests
s
absent, although
clan
unity
is still invoked
on occasion.
A
large
clan section has
been settled
for
some time
and
factions
have
emerged.
I do
not call them
descent groups, since they are not based strictly
on
prin-
ciples
of descent.
Newcomers to
the
village
attach themselves
to
one or
other
of these
sub-groups,
as
personal
tastes
and
interests
dictate.
They
remain as
vague
as
ever
about
the
genealogical
relations
nvolved.
There
are two words
for
segments
within
a
clan.
Ikundu
means womb,
or line
of
descent.
Lele
like
to
emphasize
that the
whole
clan
is
derived from
a
single womb,
and
they disapprove strongly any
mention of
different
descent
lines within the
clan.
Kongu
means
co-operating group
of
clansmen,
but it is a
word also
disapproved
n so
far
as
it
is
used to makeinternal distinctionswithin the clan, and so is very rarely heard. However,
in spite
of
the etiquette
which requiresthat distinctionsof descentand of grouping
with-
in
the
clan
be
overlooked,
it remains
true
that in
a
large
local clan
section,
there
are
separate segments
which deal
independently
with
their own clients.
Nyama's
case
above
is
an
example.
So
much for the
question
of
who,
in
the local
clan
section,
takes
the
initiative in
dealing
with clients. We
now
should
ask how
the lords exercise theirrights.
HOW THE
LORDS'
RIGHTS
ARE
EXERCISED
Lele's
case shows that clients like to have one of their lords
living among
them.
The fact
is that the lord has no possibilityof exercising any tyrannouscontrol over his clients;
on the
contrary,
his role is
benignly protective.
For this there are
at
least
four reasons.
The
first,
we
have
seen,
is
that, unless the male clients
are satisfied that their lord
is good
to
them, they
will seek
an
opportunity
for
ending
the whole relationship,
and
this
is not
difficult,
since there is no
machinery
of coercion other
than force of arms.
The second is that female clients who are unhappy can easily
run away. Women
like
to live near their mothers
and
grandmothers.
This
limits the
geographical
range
within
which their
marriages
can
be
arranged
to
settle
blood-debts.
The
normal
course of
action
for a woman who
was
unhappily
married
was for
her
to offer herself
to
be
village-
wife
in
a
village rivalling
that of her
husband.
Immediately
she
had a
whole
village
to
support her and to confront her husband's little clan section. No village would ever
B
R.A.I.J.
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i6 MARY
DOUGLAS
refuse the opportunity to take a new
village-wife..
This aspect must be discussed
in
detail separately.
Thirdly the rules of incest and exogamy complicate Xthe llocation of client
women
to husbands. It is impossible for a whole line of clients to be married to the clan of their
lords. Fourthly, there are certain preferred marriages which the lord is expected to
allow his client women to make.
In
other words, the degree to which the lords can derive any personal benefit from
theirrights over clients is severely imited.
According to the rules of incest and exogamy, no one may marry into their own
clan,
or
into the clan of their own father. A man may not marry again into his wife's clan, if
she is
alive. If he is the son of a village-wife, he should not marry a girl whose
mother
was a
village-wife of his village, nor should two women, whose mothers were village-
wives in the same village, and who therefore call each other sisters, be married to the
same man.
It follows from the first of these regulations that the daughters of client-wives, as
they may not marry into their father's clan, have to be married to men who are not of
the
lord's clan. If a woman of clan B is client of her husband in clan A, then her
daughters, though they are clients of clan A, may not marry any
man of
that clan.
Clan A
will try to arrange their marriages so that they
will
live near
the
village
of
their
lords; when their children are in turn of marriageable age, clan
A
will
again
be
able to allocate the girls amongst themselves, if they have not in the meanwhile trans-
ferred their rights over them. In short, a lord's clan can intermarrywith
a
client
in
the
first generation, and subsequently with her daughters' daughters, and similarly with
their
daughters' daughters. In each alternate generation the
lords
get
the
full
benefit
of their rights to dispose of their female clients in marriage,and in every intervening
generation they get the secondary advantage of being able to give away
wives to their
friends. On how wisely they use their rights in the intervening generation, when the
female
clients are debarred from intermarriagewith them, depends
their
prospect
of
following up their full claims when these girls' daughters are again marriageable
for
their
clan.
Long-term planning is required, and some men
do
not
have the
energy
or
ability
to
succeed. The baptizing of the younger generation
as Christians
has created
a
further
complication, since Christiansare monogamous
and
intermarryonly
with
one
another.
It is interesting to see how many of the marriagesbetween young Christians
at
the mis-
sions, which seem to be spontaneously arranged,are in fact a follow-upof old clientship
rights.
Case
VII.
In the following case, Ngomadiku
had
some difficulty
in
finding
suitable
husbands for clients in his own clan section. When his sister
Kinda
died,
her
husbands,
the village of Bushongo, admitted their responsibility,and paid over
to her
clan one of
their
clients. Whether the girl refused to leave home,
or whether
he
found the incest
regulations debarred his own clan section, in any case, Ngomadiku
allowed
a
fellow-
clansman
living in Bushongo to marry her.
Earlier, before Kinda had died, he
had
paid
her
daughter, Idiamaha,
as
client
to
the
chiefly clan at Tundu, because
a
Lubelo
man had seduced
a
chief's wife.
Instead
of
marrying her himself,the chief gave Idiamaha to the village of Malembi, and in return
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8/11/2019 Mary Dougsls Clientship
18/29
BLOOD-DEBTS
AND CLIENTSHIP AMONG
THE LELE
17
Malembi gave
him
another
woman. The girl's mother,
Kinda, in
Bushongo, protested
that Malembi was too
far'
andp he asked--that-Idiamaha
be married
in Bushongo.
So
the
Lumanya
clan in
Buishongo
ollected camwood,
and
bought
the clientshiprights
over
her from
Malembi
village, and she married a Lumanya
man in Bushongo.
Later she died in childbirth, nfaminga man of the Bulomani clan in her confessionof
LUBELO
CLAN
NDONG
CLAN
KOKU KINDA
NGOMADIKU
MWEN
NDENG
NGONDU
MAHAMIMBENDI ELIAS MAHOPU
IDIAMAHA
MANJUANJ
MAYENGA
MEN
I
FIGURE
6
adultery.
Both the Lubelo
and the Lumanya clans
claimed compensation from
the
Bulomani
for her death. The Bulomani
paid over one of their clients
of the Ndong
clan
to the
Lubelo,
a
girl
called Mayenga.
Ngomadiku could not marry
her himself, as her
mother's
sister was already his wife.
The dead woman's full brothers
were too young for
her. By going among other men of his own clan section, or by going beyond it, he could
presumablyhave found
her a husband,but he let the
matter slide, saying
that she could
marry
whom she
pleased,
so
long
as the Lubelo could claim her daughters. She went to
the
far
south to be married,
and
bore
three daughters,who, by rights,
should
have all
been clients of the Lubelo. The distance
was too
far
for easy contact to be maintained,
so
Elias was
lucky
to
get
one
of
them:
Mwen was
betrothed to
him
from
birth,
and
at
the
time
of
my
visit he
was
waiting
for
her to finish her instruction for baptism at the
mission.
PREFERRED
MARRIAGES
From the rules ofexogamy one would expect that the client's line would be intermarried