Chefferie, idéologie et mode de production chez les Rukuba (Plateau State, Nigeria)

Bibliographic Data

ID2139409
AuthorsJean-Claude Muller (Université de Montréal, corresponding author)
Year1977
Volume11
Issue1
Pages3-22
Publication date1977-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0008-3968 • E-ISSN: 1923-3051
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00083968.1977.10803908
OpenAlexW2290270803
LanguageFR
Citations received1

This article examines the relations between the office of chief and the various tributes and work prestations due to him among the Rukuba. It is shown that the basis of these prestations is ideological and that they derive from the position of the chief as a “divine king.” The chief is able to use the fruit of the villagers' labours only when his mystical work has been well done; when it is not the case and when the harvest is not plentiful, the villagers use the grain reaped on the chief's farm for themselves and the chief receives nothing and may even be deposed. The character of the chiefs power and of its concensual basis is analysed and it is argued that the degree of arbitrariness and of despotism exhibited by certain African rulers is a direct expression of the innate ambivalence of the “divine king.”

Ambivalence · Arbitrariness · Epistemology · Ethnology · Geography · Ideology · Nothing · Plateau (mathematics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · State (computer science) · African history and culture analysis · African Studies and Geopolitics · Agriculture and Rural Development Research · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy

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