Gifts Again

Complimentary Prestation among the Pastoral Nilotes of the Southern Sudan

Bibliographic Data

ID2736231
AuthorsJohn W Burton (corresponding author)
Year1982
Volume21
Issue1
Pages55
Publication date1982-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0014-1828 • E-ISSN: 2160-3510
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3773705
OpenAlexW2234954902
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited15

Nilotic-speaking peoples of the Southern Sudan possess canoes, though the exchange of valuable property in the process of establishing a marriage rarely sinks one. In this brief essay I review an ethnographically limited body of data relating a variety of prestations accompany marriages among Niloticspeaking pastoralists. Special emphasis is given the practice I interpret as complimentary prestation, or what Radcliffe-Brown (1950) indicated by the phrase reverse bridewealth. What otherwise might be interpreted as an instance of negative reciprocity, and thereby cited as a means of severing social relation? ships, is, in the Nilotic case, precisely the inverse. Two theoretically pertinent themes emerge from this brief discourse. First, it argues complimentary prestation among these peoples marks the total transformation of affines into kin, and has as a result very positive ramifications a wider series of social relationships. Second, on the basis of the data collected here, I argue exchanges are extant over an extended period of time tend be positively associated with a rather low incidence of divorce. Rather than sinking the boat, complimentary prestation in the Nilotic world is more a means of not rocking it. At the outset it can be stated reverse bridewealth or counter payment (Radcliffe-Brown 1950:52) is in no way the logical opposite of service or wealth as is often found in matrilineal societies of Africa and elsewhere. Nash (1978:106) reports the Nagorisi of New Guinea groomprice is first of all an optional transaction, confined in the main established families. In addition garden labor, this entails the Nagorisi prestation of red shell money as well as pigs marriage feasts. The etymology of groom? price, lolai, suggests that the reproductive capacities of men were also being paid for (Nash 1978:106). Since lolai is not an obligatory transaction, its wider social and structural significance is by comparison insignificant when seen in light of the Nilotic data. Closer the ethnographic focus of this essay, Harris (1972:63) refers the Taita custom of service, a situation wherein the groom is required to furnish his own and his male kinsmens' labor in the bride's

Ethnology · Genealogy · Geography · Library science · Computer Science · History · Land Rights and Reforms · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology

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