The Manipulation of Ritual among Plateau Nigerians

Bibliographic Data

ID2508907
AuthorsFrancis P Conant (corresponding author)
Year1963
Volume33
Issue3
Pages227-236
Publication date1963-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1157417
OpenAlexW2026698608
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited16

Opening ParagraphDespite great linguistic and cultural diversity, sustained political relations among the many different groups of the Jos-Bauchi Plateau are a notably regular feature of this area of Northern Nigeria. That these relations are often expressed in a ritual context is an observation frequently made in the literature on the Plateau Pagans. My intention here is to specify some of theregularways in which ritual paraphernalia may be manipulated for a variety of secular purposes (often political) among communities of such very different kinds as those of the Plateau mountain people and neighbouring plainsmen. These manipulative techniques appear to be important in the analysis of such widely different phenomena as the adoption of Islam, technological diffusion, the spread of art styles, and, more generally, the successful persistence, through time, of relations between societies of very different levels of complexity and organization. My data are drawn from field experience among Barawa mountain settlements and the Bankalawa-Jarawa plains communities of Dass Independent District, Bauchi Province, on the east-south-eastern slopes of the Plateau

Archaeology · Context (archaeology · Diversity (politics · Geography · Human settlement · Islam · Paraphernalia · Plateau (mathematics · Political science · Politics · Sociology · African history and culture analysis · Anthropology · History · Law · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria