Where Have All Their Lineages Gone? Cattle and Descent Among the Nuer

Abstract

Evans-Pritchard"THE NUER" ACQUIRED JUST FAME as one of the paradigmatic ethnographies that apparently solved urgent theoretical problems of the time. With the model of "segmentary lineage system," Evans-Pritchard thus accounted for the manner in which a society "without government" could exist through a process of "ordered anarchy" because this system served to "regulate political relations between territorial segments" (Fortes and EvansPritchard 1940:6). Ironically enough, Evans-Pritchards earlier writings about the Nuer (from 1933 to 1938) did not make any mention of a segmentary lineage system. It suddenly surfaced in 1940, certainly a convenient analytical tool, but perhaps not a most faithful representation of Nuer society, as later exegetists were to suggest (Glickman 1971; Holy 1979a).The segmentary lineage model's appeal extended far and wide, accounting for the social organization of various polities, such as the Tallensi or Tiv. But problems soon arose. To take but one instance, the "regulation between territorial groups" exerted by the segmentary lineage system seemed to vary significantly between the Nuer, on the one hand, and the Tallensi, on the other. The more inclusive territorial segments among the Nuer emerged in action only, and lacked permanence or reality except in opposition to segments of coordinate status. Fortes also read the same relativity in Tallensi lineage segments but, in reality, every level of segmentation among the Tallensi is clearly identified at all times. Every segment has a permanent representative who acceeds to a position according to clear rules and criteria of eligibility. The segment head is also entitled to perform certain political or ritual activities on behalf of the group, or to convene a subgroup for the performance of these activities. The problem was solved by claiming that the Tallensi lineage segments were corporate, whereas the Nuer ones were not. This distinction, however, only introduced a basic contradiction. Since corporateness implied perpetuity, corporate groups were by definition endowed with the attributes of permanence (a name, a representative, recurrent activities, and so forth). If the groups formed through the merging of lower groups (the lineage segments) were essentially relative, gaining substance in complementary opposition only, they could therefore not be corporate at the same time. Thus, either lineages could never be corporate (because of their essential relativity) or they could never be segmentary (because of their corporateness). Unfortunately, this contradiction was tolerated to save the category.As a first step toward a solution, we could thus rid ourselves from the notion of corporateness, but this would be far from sufficient. The very notion of lineage (or descent group) came indeed to subsume a number of disparate phenomena and, to clarify matters, we must define our concepts in a way that is mutually exclusive. The problem has been tackled from a purely theoretical point of view elsewhere (Verdon 1980a(Verdon , b, c, 1981 but...

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