2 - Nyamwezi classifications: right or left?

Summary

In this chapter I shall try to give some idea of the range of forms assumed by Nyamwezi taxonomies. Nyamwezi society is particularly interesting, in that one cannot help but see it in global terms, adopt a ‘holistic’ perspective, and therefore conceive of it as hierarchical. There are two linked features of this society which deserve special mention. First, the Nyamwezi, like so many living in ‘stateless’ societies, live entirely enclosed within the whole that relations with their ancestors (the mizimu) define. Tradition, law and values are vigilantly upheld by all the mizimu, and ritual activity essentially consists in sustaining this relation by means of a wide range of sacrifices and ceremonial exchanges (kuhoja mizimu). Second, Nyamwezi society differs from that of some of the other groups described above, in that it enjoys a degree of institutional stability. There is a ‘divine’ kingship, related to those of interlacustrine Africa, which guarantees the permanence of the society. These two defining features of Nyamwezi society are interconnected, in that the king is the representative on earth of the law of the ancestors. Kingship clothes itself in the attributes of the collective ancestrality, even to the extent of being confused with it.

This is the reason why, although I have chosen the most outstanding rituals to elicit the taxonomies which are operative there, I do not propose to drift into formulating my analysis in terms of statutory oppositions (‘the king's people’ or nobles/commoners) or into considering conflicts in terms of ‘power’.