Paul Bohannan
Biographic Data
| ID | 79962 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul Bohannan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul |
| FAMILY NAME | Bohannan |
| SIGNATURE | BOHANNAN P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 90 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 961 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 90 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1953 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 14 |
Ethnography and Comparison in Legal Anthropology
Debt Jir
This chapter aims to present the Tiv notion of debt in such a way that its unity becomes apparent. Many Tiv personal relationships are expressed in terms of debt. The major class of cases found recorded in the scribe&s;s &s;Civil Case Book&s; are those jir described as &s;debt&s;. The simplest sort of debt jir called by Tiv involve livestock: disputes over ownership of livestock and disputes over the damage caused by livestock. It is possible to …
The Grade-D Court
There are fifty-four administrative districts in Tivland. Each has a Grade-D court, called a &s;clan court&s; in the Nigeria Gazette . It is, in Tivland, the chief and the other mbatarev of a district who officially constitute a Grade-D court. The Tiv, who do not think of political organization in terms of a paradigm of authority, but rather in terms of paradigms of juxtaposed lineages, had many words and phrases for describing persons in terms o…
‘Criminal’ Jir and The Problem of Self-Help
E erlier in this book I stated that I adopted the classification of the cases heard by the MbaDuku Grade-D court into civil and criminal, not because it was a standard European distinction, but rather because the scribe of MbaDuku jir classified them in that way. The fact that the distinction is of European origin is momentarily beside the point—it is, today, a distinction found amongst Tiv. 1
The Structure Of The Jir
This chapter is concerned with what we should, if we were lawyers, call procedural law: the regularities which can be found within the jir . It is also concerned with the activities of the mbatarev or other arbitrating persons, who are said to &s;investigate&s; or &s;get to the bottom of&s; the jir . The part which the mbatarev play in the jir , then, is called &s;investigating the jir &s;. The chapter examines Tiv notions of witnesses ( ashieda …
Tiv Marriage Jir
This chapter examines cases before the jir from the point of view of the substantive rules of the cases and the nature of those rules. In MbaDuku, civil cases are broken down by the scribe into three categories: marriage, debt, and appeal. The scribes, with varying degrees of accuracy and skill, keep brief records of the cases heard by the mbatarev of the area. The categories into which they are required to classify cases or jir are derived by th…
The People and The Problem
The Tiv are a semi-Bantu tribe of subsistence farmers living on both sides of the Benue River in northern Nigeria, some 150 miles from its confluence with the Niger. Tiv organize themselves into what is called, in anthropological English, a lineage system. An analytical system is a systematization of ethnographic fact for purposes of analysis. The problem which faces any ethnographer writing about &s;law&s; is twofold. First, he must report accur…
Moots: The Jir At Home
The jir at home is made up of all the important members of the community. The action of a moot is simpler than that of a court, and has two main sets of components: the first is called &s;convening the moot&s;, the second &s;discussing the moot&s;. One never &s;calls&s; a moot, but rather &s;convenes&s; or &s;invites&s; it. In both contexts the word jir itself refers to both the gathering and the cause: in order to put one&s;s jir , one must conv…
Conclusion
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in this book. The book aims to elicit the systemization of jural phenomena in the folk system of the Tiv. It also aims to give a sociological explanation, in more general terms, which will serve as an analytical system for comparing Tiv jural institutions with those of other societies. Two folk systems are operative in Tivland: one is the systemization of jural phenomena by th…
Market Jir and Age-Set Jir
This chapter considers a few minor jir that are heard by market officials and by age-sets. The main business of the market jir , even in Iyon, is to settle the petty squabbles that might well cause fighting in the market. It is a by-product of the market jir that they keep the jir mbatarev free from minor disputes. Intra-Tiv affairs heard at the market were indistinguishable from those heard at other Tiv markets. Every market in Tivland has eithe…
A Day In Court
T he best way to get an idea of how a jir works, of the cases it handles, and its methods of handling them, is to follow through a single day in MbaDuku jir , to analyse the cases, and trace out the events. I have selected the jir held on 3 August 1952, because, although representative, it contains rather more colourful cases than usual.
Justice And Judgment Among The Tiv
Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in the anthropological study of law and the contribution this makes to comparative jurisprudence. the work describes and defines Tiv ideas of 'law' as expressed in the operations of their courts know…
The Tiv of Central Nigeria: Western Africa Part VIII
The Tiv of Central Nigeria: Western Africa Part VIII
Routledge is proud to be re-issuing this landmark series in association with the International African Institute. The series, published between 1950 and 1977, brings together a wealth of previously un-co-ordinated material on the ethnic groupings and social conditions of African peoples. Concise, critical and (for its time) accurate, the Ethnographic Survey contains sections as follows: Physical Environment Linguistic Data Demography History & Tr…
Para Raros, Nosotros - Antropologia Cultural
Asking and Listening: Ethnography as Personal Adaptation
"Asking and Listening is the first book to trace the changing ways in which human beings have learned to look at "the Others Beyond the Gate" with their strange languages and stranger customs. Not a history of ethnography so much as a chronicle of its uses and potentials, Asking and Listening examines the premises of ethnography and concerns itself with a wide range of issues such as ethnocentrism and the morass of cultural relativism, the cultur…
Ethnography and Comparison in Legal Anthropology
How Culture Works
It's been a good field trip
Paul Bohannan apporte ici sa contribution a une reflexion sur l'histoire de l'anthropologie. Il reflechit sur la richesse de sa carriere d'anthropologue de terrain (depuis son travail chez les Tiv du Nigeria jusqu'a ses recherches sur le divorce aux Etats-Unis) et d'universitaire. Il note qu'il a vecu pres de la moitie de l'histoire de l'anthropologie culturelle, et qu'il a travaille pour la discipline depuis les annees 40. Il tire les lecons de …
Africa and Africans
The Expansive Moment: Anthropology in Britain and Africa 1918-1970
General/Theoretical Anthropology: Beyond the Family: The Social Organization of Human Reproduction . A. F. Robertson
Publications
Plough, Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History; Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches
Ernest Gellner. Plough Sword and Book: The Structure of Human History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.Emiko Ohnuki-Tiemey. Culture Through Time: Anthropological Approaches. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991
Ex Familia: Grandparents, Parents, and Children Adjust to Divorce. Colleen Leahy JOHNSON
The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy
This article examines the impact of money on a subsistence economy in Africa, specifically among the Tiv people of Nigeria. Bohannan argues that pre-colonial African economies often used various forms of 'primitive money,' which differed significantly from Western currency. These forms, such as cattle or brass rods, served specific social and ritual functions alongside their economic role. The introduction of Western money disrupted these traditi…
Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv2
Proxemics [and Comments and Replies]
Virtually everything that man is and does is associated with space. Man's sense of space is a synthesis of many sensory inputs: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and thermal. Not only does each of these constitute a complex system (as for example, the dozen or more different ways of experiencing depth visually), but each is molded and patterned by culture. Hence people reared in different cultures live in different sensory worlds. What is…
Justice And Judgment Among The Tiv
Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in the anthropological study of law and the contribution this makes to comparative jurisprudence. the work describes and defines Tiv ideas of 'law' as expressed in the operations of their courts know…
African Homicide and Suicide
This article examines homicide and suicide rates among 40 African tribes, utilizing data compiled by Bohannan. The study explores the relationship between these violent acts and various sociocultural factors, including the presence of centralized authority, means of conflict resolution, and societal attitudes towards aggression. It finds a positive correlation between homicide rates and the presence of strong, centralized political systems, sugge…
The Differing Realms of the Law
Extra-Processual Events in Tiv Political Institutions1
The Tiv of Central Nigeria: Western Africa Part VIII
Routledge is proud to be re-issuing this landmark series in association with the International African Institute. The series, published between 1950 and 1977, brings together a wealth of previously un-co-ordinated material on the ethnic groupings and social conditions of African peoples. Concise, critical and (for its time) accurate, the Ethnographic Survey contains sections as follows: Physical Environment Linguistic Data Demography History & Tr…
The Migration and Expansion of the Tiv
Opening ParagraphOne of the most obvious social situations in the middle Benue Valley is the expansion in all directions of the Tiv, who number some 800,000 and are the largest pagan tribe in Northern Nigeria. One of the most puzzling aspects of Tiv expansion has been that, although it is obviously connected in many areas with land shortage and accompanying economic factors, it is precisely in those areas in which land shortage is least severe th…
The Expansive Moment: Anthropology in Britain and Africa 1918-1970
A Natural Science of Society
Comparative Political Systems: Studies in the Politics of Pre-Industrial Societies
You Can't Do Nothing
Unless we can think right down to the reaches of mankind's long past and into the future in which the earth is only one part of a known and explored solar system, and in which mankind's problems will become extraordinarily different, we shall not be what we want to be: anthropologists, whatever our area, whatever our specialty, whatever our subdivision
Concepts of Time among the Tiv of Nigeria
Beauty and Scarification Amongst the Tiv
Colonial Research Studies
An Alternate Residence Classification
Rethinking Culture: A Project for Current Anthropologists [and Comments and Reply]
Culture as a concept has not been fully examined by the profession for some time. This article is a challenge to carry out this examination. It begins by discussing problems in the use of the concept and then goes on to suggest a new way of looking at culture: as a cultural pool, analogous to the gene pool (both culture and genes being forms of storing and retrieving information), from which each individual, each dyad, each group draws its partic…
Circumcision Among the Tiv
The 'Descent' of the Tiv from Ibenda Hill
Opening ParagraphThe Tiv, a semi-Bantu people numbering some 800,000 who live in the middle Benue Valley of Northern Nigeria, have not, according to their tradition, always lived in their present location. They account for their entrance into the territory they now occupy and the disposition of the lineages into which they are organized by means of stories which depict events of their migrations.Tiv from every part of Tivland know bits and pieces…
American Anthropologist: The First Eighty Years
An Experimental Ninth-Grade Anthropology Course
A ninth-grade course in anthropology was taught for three years at the North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois. Initially, the first quarter concerned ethnography and the principles of cultural and social anthropology; the second centered around evolution, human origins, and the development of civilization; and the third dealt with comparative modern civilizations. However, the first year convinced us that this was too much material,…
On Anthropologists' Use of Language
Institutions of Divorce, Family, and the Law
Social scientists are accustomed to thinking of the family as a primary social institution. They are less accustomed to thinking of it as one of the primary "back-up institutions" of American society. A back-up institution carries out the work of some other institution of society when that other institution fails in its task. The back-up institution might have been called an "institution for redundancy," defining redundancy with Hall as "informat…
Obituary
Concepts of Time among the Tiv of Nigeria
African Worlds
African Worlds Get access African Worlds. Daryll Forde. London: O.U.P. for International African Institute. 1954. Pp. xvii+ 243, Index. 30s. 0d. Traditional African Religion. Parrinder E. G.London: Hutchinson. 1954. Pp. 155 with Index. 8s. 6d. PAUL BOHANNAN PAUL BOHANNAN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 53, Issue 212, July 1954, Pages 256–257, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.a…
Circumcision Among the Tiv
The Migration and Expansion of the Tiv
Opening ParagraphOne of the most obvious social situations in the middle Benue Valley is the expansion in all directions of the Tiv, who number some 800,000 and are the largest pagan tribe in Northern Nigeria. One of the most puzzling aspects of Tiv expansion has been that, although it is obviously connected in many areas with land shortage and accompanying economic factors, it is precisely in those areas in which land shortage is least severe th…
The 'Descent' of the Tiv from Ibenda Hill
Opening ParagraphThe Tiv, a semi-Bantu people numbering some 800,000 who live in the middle Benue Valley of Northern Nigeria, have not, according to their tradition, always lived in their present location. They account for their entrance into the territory they now occupy and the disposition of the lineages into which they are organized by means of stories which depict events of their migrations.Tiv from every part of Tivland know bits and pieces…
Some Principles of Exchange and Investment among the Tiv2
A Tiv Political and Religious Idea
Colonial Research Studies
Beauty and Scarification Amongst the Tiv
On the Use of Native Language Categories in Ethnology
An Alternate Residence Classification
Justice and Judgement among the Tiv
Since publication in 1957 the importance of Bohannan's study of judicial institutions and procedures among the Tiv has been widely recognized. It has contributed widely to the continuing discussion concerning the objectives and methods to be followed in the anthropological study of law and the contribution this makes to comparative jurisprudence. the work describes and defines Tiv ideas of 'law' as expressed in the operations of their courts know…
A Natural Science of Society
On Anthropologists' Use of Language
Extra-Processual Events in Tiv Political Institutions1
Ethnology and Ethnography: The Staple Food Economies of Western Tropical Africa . BRUCE F. JOHNSTON
The Impact of Money on an African Subsistence Economy
This article examines the impact of money on a subsistence economy in Africa, specifically among the Tiv people of Nigeria. Bohannan argues that pre-colonial African economies often used various forms of 'primitive money,' which differed significantly from Western currency. These forms, such as cattle or brass rods, served specific social and ritual functions alongside their economic role. The introduction of Western money disrupted these traditi…
Valuable Pioneering Study in African Behavior and Criminology
Man's Way: A Preface to the Understanding of Human Society
African Homicide and Suicide
This article examines homicide and suicide rates among 40 African tribes, utilizing data compiled by Bohannan. The study explores the relationship between these violent acts and various sociocultural factors, including the presence of centralized authority, means of conflict resolution, and societal attitudes towards aggression. It finds a positive correlation between homicide rates and the presence of strong, centralized political systems, sugge…
General: Shona Ritual with Special Reference to the Chaminuka Cult. Michael Gelfand
Ethnology and Ethnography: Tribal Cohension in a Money Economy: A Study of the Mambwe People of Northern Rhodesia. William Watson
Three Studies in African Law
General and Ethnology: Tropical Africa. George H. T. Kimble
Ethnology: Search for Security: An Ethno‐Psychiatric Study of Rural Ghana . M. J. Field
Sociology (44 works) · Computer Science (38 works) · History (36 works) · Citation (35 works) · Library science (34 works) · History (27 works) · Political science (24 works) · Law (17 works) · Anthropology (14 works) · African history and culture analysis (13 works)