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Conjoined Book Review by M.G.Smith

Titles: “Alur Society: a Study in Process and Types of Domination,” by Aidan
Southall and “Bantu Bureaucracy: A Study of Integration and Conflict in Political
Institutions of an East African People,” by Lloyd Fallers
Author(s): M.G. Smith
Source: Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 9, No. 2 (1956), pp. 256-257.
 ,
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC
INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH
I
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF THE WEST INDIES

STUDIES
Advisory Board
Dr W W Crave (Chairman) Hoo. D. J. Judah Icwood
Ho·o. S. T: Christlao, O.B.E. Hon. R. L. M. XJ.r
Hon. W. H. Courtenay, O.B.E. Sir Raymond Priestley
Prof. A. K. Croston Prof. M. Sandmann
Dr. H. D. Ho..... M,. H. O. B. Woodlolt. Q.c.

Edito" H. D. Huggins
Editorial Advisory Board
Prof. R. G. D. A!:'en.Lo?don. Schoo~rJuE:~omjcs. London UnlV~rsity.
tv Vol. 6, No.1
Prof.
Prof. K. W. Bouldin.e:Lo'
R. E. Firth, on Sch000/ of EC:oomics• London Univcmty.
nUdDlVCr5l
Prof. P. Sar~ant Florence, Bi.rmin~ham University.
Glass.CaLombridd~·SUcholvlers~tyEconOmiCS
Prof, M. V.
Fortes, London University. ~Iarch, 1957
Prof. D. D on 00 0 ,
Prof. H. M. Gluckman, Manchester University.
Prof. W. A. Lewis, Manchester Univ~ity.
Prof. Robert Merton, Col~bia University.
Prof. E. F. Nash, Univemty of Wale~.
Prof, Talcott Parsons, Harvard U~ver:"ty.
Mr K E Robinson, Oxford Umvemty. ria
pn;;r.M~~aret Read, University . Colle~e. lbadan. NI,;e .
M D G S en: Oxford Univemty.
r. J.. Tinbeq~en,
Prof . e I •. ds Jns titute of Economics, H0 11an d .
Ne th enan

Research Staff
Director: H. D. Huutos
Uoyd Braithwaite Co Jayawardena
G, E, Cumper _ C. O'Loughlin
D. T. EdwanIJ M. G. Smith
Raymond T. Smtth
Editorial A",tatcnt StaU.ttfcal Aubtant
Marv ManninE Carlev E. R. Chane '.~
INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF THE WEST I DIES, JAMAICA, B.W.I.
 BOOK REVIEWS 1)7

lUgg~t that the Alur political system has only a conceptual or analytic unity;
that IS to say. the numerous AJur chieftainships and sub.chieftainships only
BOOK REVIEWS ronn a common pontical system in the sense that they share certain chanc.
Alur Society: A Study il~ Process (lnd Types of Domination. By Aidan W, teristic patterns and processes, namely, expansion without conquest or war,
Southall. W. Heffer and Sons Ltd. (for the East African Institute of Social the instihltion of chieftainship, segmentary lincage orgnnii".atiolls, and tJle
like.
Research), Cambridge, 1956, pp. 397. Price 305.
Bantu Bureaucracy: A Study of Integration and Conflict in tile Political In- Dr.. Fallers' Bus~ga .are another SOciety in which chieftainship and segmen.
slituiions of an East Africall People. By Lloyd A. Fallers. W. Heffer and Sons tary Imeage orgalllzation are found together. But Sogu development provides
Ltd. (for the East African Institute of Social Research), Cambridge, 1956, no problem of historical expansion for Dr. Fallers to wrestle with; and he is
rather (''Ollcerned with the consistency Or in(.'ol1sistt'ncy of corporate lineages,
pp. 283. Price 30..
chieftainship. and patron-clicnt relations in thc traditionrtl Busoga States on
There are several good grounds for discussing these books together. Both the one hand, and in their present relations with Western-type bureaucracy
P.re products of the East African Instituto of Social Research, both deal with on the othcr. This is the problem of integration and connict of political insti-
overlapping socio-eultural areas, and both books treat similar problems ot tutions, defined and analysed with great clarity and insight by Dr. Fallers.
political organization and change. Moreover, both are works of a very high There can hc no doubt that Dr. Fallers proves his cnse of the conflict be-
standard, and in their presentation, analysis and fieldwork belong with the tween lineage, clientship, and bureaucracy in modern Busoga. 'Vith regard
hest in current anthropological monographs. They reflect credit on the East to the "functional incompatibility" of corporate lineage and the traditional pat.
African Institute of Social Research as well as on their authors. The inform- terns of Busoga state organization, there is more rOOm for doubt; and Dr.
ation which they. supply and the analyses which they provide cannot fail to FaUers' g..eneral~z.1tions about ~~e "~nevitability of conflict het"·een lineage
he stimulating and valuable to academic and practical men alike. It is a plea- and state re<Jurre careful qualificatIOns and definitions before they are test-
sure to review such excellent work. able comparatively.
Dr. Southall discusses the political organization of the Alur, a Luo-speaking These two studies, dealing as they do with similar problems in somewhat
Nilo-Hamitic people who live on both sides of the border between Uganda simiJa~ ty~es of so~ieties, share a similar form. After brief historical and geo-
lind the Belgian Congo. Dr. Fallers' people, the Busoga, are B~ntu, also living ~raphtc~1 mtroductions, they proceed to describe the system of segmentary cor.
at the Northern shore of Lake Victoria in Uganda. The Busog.t number about porate lmeages among the Aim and Saga. The account of AIm lineage or.
half a million or about the same as the Alur. But Aim have been expanding ganization provides an opportunity for Dr. Southall to illustrate the processes
their territory for some generations. with the result th<lt mnny groups living by which the complex society of Alur has developed. Dr. Fallers, dealing
within Alur society, such as the Lendu, Okebo, or Madi, are not true Mur. with tIle Soga, uses survey data on the composition of households and villages
Dr. Southall therefore has to show how the processes by which the Alm ex· tl) illustrate various aspects ~f line<lge and loc~ll organization such as kinship
panded their dominion relate to the type of dominion which thc)' developed, span, scatter, depth, extra-:lllage ~larriage frequcncies. ctc. He also gives a
and he faces this problem squarely in tenns of "the incorporation of diverse clear account of Soga farmly relations, and describes the relations between
ethnic groups into a single social structure" (p. 23, Alur Society). lineage organization and the patterns of inheritance and succession distin.
Dr. Southall defines the problems produced by Aim expansion at two levels; guishing ~etween the Soga "succession·' lineages and the pure type' of seg-
historically, as a problem of growth and spread of Alur domination over mcntal)l lineage such ns the Alur have. Dr. Fallers next gives <tn account of
Bantu tribes; morphologically as the problem of unity of divergent cultural traditional Busoga state institutions ami organization which is, unfortunately,
and structmal patterns. He shows clearly (p. 180 ff.) that subjection of the weakest part of the book (pp. 126-143). Concerning the character ot
neighbouring people to Alur rule was voluntnr)', ami not a result of conquest, ~aditi.o~al Alur cl.lieftninship, Dr. Southall givcs a fuller account, discussing
and thus that the conquest theory of the origin of state systems needs re- lts religiOus and fltual characteristiCS. and its processes of growth and decay
visioD, in so far as Alur political organization has the form of a state (p. 245 in detail.
ff. ) Dr. FalJ~rs observes ~at ~'th~ institution of corporate unilineal descent group
The morphological problem is rather more tricky. Here, Dr. Southall is t;?n- memberslup :tnd the lDStitlltiOIl of patroJl·c1icotship intcrfered with each
cemed with the type and unity of the Alur political system as a system and other". ~ut ~le ~vidence from Alur suggests that tillS need not always be so
with the boundaries of the area to which this system applied. The signific.'lnt Alur ehieftamshlp expanded, as Dr. Southall's data show, b), enliSting local-
variations of political fonn and organization which he reports in detail would ized corporatc lineages as "clicnts". Among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria,
 88 SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STUDIES
BOOK REVIEWS
dynastic lineages flourish under state conditions, while persons of commoner
!'Itatus lack unilineal corporate descent. The Hauss example is indeed almost Local Covernment is one (See also pp. 19, 65, 71, 74, 78 ff, 97,101,109,114-5,
the reverse of certain traditional Saga conditions. Such comparisons suggest 121, 122-4, 129, 175, 182-4, 189, 222, 226, 228, 245, 2.50).
t~at the s~tement about the inevitability of conflict between clientage and But this is by the way. The most serious weakness of this concept is its
lineage may need some qualification. normative basis, and when this is coupled 'V1th political organization, this
Dr. Fallers..concludes his discllssion of the traditional Busoga state with the means that a political system is defined in terms or Tilles which govern the
remark that although. the state was unstable from the point of view of its proper use of properly ncquired powers or authority. TOW authority and
:oncret~ personnel, tIlls very instability was, from the point of view of the power are both relevant to political or governmental organization; and they
s~stem In th_c abstract, a kind of stabiliZing influence. The presence of poten- nrc very etlsily confused, espeCially perhaps since the word "powers" often
ual, rebel. princes provided a ready SOurce of leadership for revolt against refers to authority, and the word "authorities" often refers to politically domi-
sp.nous mIsrule D,r breach of custom by the ruler ... Traditional revolt fre- nant units or personnel. Dr. Fallers and Dr. Southall both miss this critical
quently resulted '~ changes of personnel, but did not altcr the system." Indeed, distinction. For example, when Dr. Fallers repeats his definition of political
1.~ so far as the eVidence presented permits judgment, it may be the case that institutions a page or two later on, he spe;.lks of it as "the rules governing
~(.volt or the threat of revolt was essential if the "system" was to persist in the distribution or legitimate authority", whereas previonsly he had spoken
I~ current form. Yet if this is admitted, the "functional incompatibility" ot of legitimate power. Now authority is simply legitimate power; but aU power
lineage .and. state must be abandoned. \Vhat we have in traditional Busoga is is not legitimate, that is to say, in terms of Dr. Fallers' concepts, it is not
a combmatlon .of these two prinCiples to produce a type of equilibrium and instihltionaHzed. On the other hand a political system or system of govern-
sys~em. th~ mamte~~tn.ce or ~h~nge of which depended ultimatel)' on the inter- ment is actually concerned as mnch with the non-institutionalized forms ot
~~~n of Its constitutive pnnclples, namely,. lineage, clientage and chieftain- power as with the institutionalized. For instances or this from the Soga mater-
ials we can refer to the traditional processes of rcvolt and secession, or the
~ur gover~ment, despite its peaceful expansion, rested on the same ultimate ('ontemporary processes of "political" organization within the African bureau-
b:ulS • The chieflet who could not maintain the minimum of order soon lost cracy (pp. 200 n.) which Dr. Fallers notes "bring politics into the African
hIS supporters; while his oeighbour who ruled despotically found that his Local Government civil service", In other words, by limiting his analysis to
people had also wJthdrawn. Rain making powers of Alur chiefs corresponded the legitimate uses of authurity, Dr. Fallers has failed to deal as fully with
a: Dr. ~outhal~ shows, with their chiefly power, and this in hU'n was adjusted
Illcely In relation to the power and freedom of the people O\'er whom they
the problems presented by Busoga political institutions as he intended.
This same point applies also to Dr. Southall's analysis, tlS can be seen from
ruled. . the following passage in which he distingUishes segmentary and unitary states:
It is this problem of power which is ultim:ltely crucial in political order Dr -rhe powers exercised in this way ... are virtually of the same type at the
So~~aU COnsi?er~ that .Alur government belongs to a special categor~ 0; several different levels of the pyramid segmentary structure ... On the other
political orgamzation. whIch he calls th~, "segmentary state", (p. 248 n.). Seg- hand, the pou;er stfllcture of the fully developed state may be described as
Dlen~ states are distinglll~hed from unitary states" decisively by the fact hierarchical rather than pyramidal, because similar powers arc not repeated
th~t se~eralle~els of subordmate foci may be distingUishable, organized pyra- at all levels, but certain powers are reserved at the top of the structure, and
mIdally m re.lation to the .central authority ... Similar powers arc repeated at lesser powers distributed to the lower levels of it ... At the lowcr levels ot
each level wlth a decre~smg range, every authority haVing certain recognized a hierarchic JJower slructtlrc. there is the recognition that such powers are
powers over the subordmate authorities articulated to it ..." delegated from the top of the structurc where in theory political power is
Dr. FaUe~~. wh~ d~fines his study in tenns of tIle integration or conflict of f1Iollopolised." (Alllr Society, p. 251, my italics). Now power hy its nature
Dusoga pohtical ~~1Stitutions, begins (Chapter I) by a beautifully clear and is not subject to monopoly, although authority is. Even in conditions of oriental
srstem~tic deflruhon of each of these concepts, and regilrds "political institu- dcspotism, where absolutism was the rule, monopoly of power IlCV('l' obtained.
tions sl~ply .as the rules governing the legitimate use of power, and not as I direct attention to these ooneeptual problems which confront political
the SOCial uruts to which such rules apply ... The British Parliament is not analysis, because of their central significance. Social anthropologists have
~ po~tic~ i~stitution but rather a specinlized social unit to which British poll. made excellent progress recently in the comparativc study of governmental
~c~ m~titutio~s allocate overriding legitimate power" (p. 5). Thjs concept ot s~'stems, largely by reconsidering the systematic typology proposed by Pro-
Institutions raJses various problems. If the British Parliament is not an in:"' rf'SSOrS Fortes and Evans-Pritchard in their 1940 volume on African Political
stitution, it is diffi.cult to see why the Uganda Admnistration or the African Systems. But Beldwork and structural-functional analysis are not alone ade-
quate to deal with problems which are ultimatt':ly conceptual in kind. Careful
 00 SOCIAL ANn ECONOMIC STUDIES nOOK REVIEWS

consideration of the nature of government, of anthority and )?Ower, their dif- include both 1egal' and 'alegal' rules-that is to say all "rules accepted by ~II
ferences. inter.rel~tions, and implications for equilibrium or' change. is also normal members of the society as defining right and reasonable ~vays .10
necessary. It is not the least merit of these two books that they both propose which persons ought to behave in relation to each other and to thmgs, 10-
and suggest general ideas about the lines along which these problems might eluding ways of obtaining protcction of one's rights" (p. 229). Of these rules
be fruitfully studied. AI"T Society and Bant.u Bureaucracy are notable con· only those which the Courts ought to enforce or observe are 'legal' niles. The
bibutions to the anthropological study of government and to the documenta- remainder are 'sIegal'. 'Legal' and 'alegal' niles of law toge~her m~ke up
tion of African change and life. the 'corpus juris' of the society. It may be doubted \~hetl~er. ~)s ~ermmology
is the best which can be devised. The reader may fmd It Irritating to have
University Collcg(' M. C. SMITH.
to remember that 'law' may include rules which are not 'legal', and to have
of the West Indies.
to keep wondering, in various contexts, whether the point.is i~port~nt. To
rejoin that the Lozi term 'mulao' has a similar wide meanlOg IS.. besl?e. the
The Judicial Process among tlle Baratsc of Norlllcrn. RJlOdesia. By Max' point. It has airendy been admitted that it is only by the use of spcclahsed,
Gluckman. WiOl a Foreword by A. L. Goodhart, K.B.E., (,l.C., F.B.A., Man: specific, univocal" terms in analysis that this sort of ambigUIty m current
chester. Manchester University Press, on behalf of the Rhodes-Livingstone torms can be adequately exposed. Since Lori judges, where stalutes and clear
In~~lute, Northern Rhodesia, 1955. With 11 plates, 2 maps, 6 diagrams,
custom fail, may give eHcct to equity or fairness and other types of co~dl\ct
XXUJ and 386 pp. 37s. 6d. net.
norms, it may well be said that the sources of such norms are ~ubsl~)ar~
This is an important. stimulating and amhitious work. Professor Gluckman s(Jurces of legal niles. In this way one can indicate the close relationslup of
writes prim.arily for the social anthropologist, but is justified in hoping that these social norms to Jegal niles without adopting a terminology which re-
his work Will be of value to administrative officers, comparative lawyers and quires one to say that such norms, even if contrary to statute and custom, are
legal theorists. As for the Barotse themselves he trusts that his record "wiU part of the 1aw' and the 'corpus juris-though admillldly 'alegal'. In short
preserve not only for them, but also for their descendants, a way of life which, the reviewer would deny the name <law' to norms other than those which
despite its material hards'hips and its evils, was on the whole good. It may C')ltrls ought to enforce or observe. And this on pure grounds of convenience

llelp others to understand them, and them to understand themselves". Not for analysis, with no implications for the meanings which "inhere in ... words
the least interesting aspect of the work is indeed the way in which a picture themselves" (p. 366). or for the "nature ... of law" (p.xv). whatever may
of the whole life of a society emerges from the record and discussion of be the import of these mystic phrases. A society without norms must certainly
si~ty cases hied in the Barotse courts. The allthor was present at the hearing be termed abnormal. But is it so hard for the followers of Malinowski to
of many of these cases-he spent in all thirty months on field research-and conceive of a society which is without <law' (because there are no courts)
the patent warmth of his regard for the persons he is observing (the Ex· and is yet not therefore to be designated 'lawless'?
orbitant Fishmonger, the Forgiving Kinsman, the Quarrelsome Teacher, the A recurrent theme throughout the book, and the title of an important
Man who Helped his Mother·in-Law Cross a Ford-and many such others) chapter, is "The Paradox of the 'Uncertainty' of Legal Concepts. and t~e
t'~rries with it an assurance of the quality of his understanding. To complete 'Certainty' of Law", This paradox results in the simultaneous LoZI convlc~
hiS study of law and ethics in the social structure of the Lozi, the ruling tions that law is certain and litigation a chancy business. The paradox is
people of Barotseland, two furthef works are planned, "The Hole of the perhaps better formulated on p. 366 as «the paradox of certainty in the
('.(lurts in Barotse Social Life" :mel "The Idens of Ilarotse Jurisprudence". This corpus juris and uncertainty in adjudic:ltion or legul rulings". Professor Cluck-
mology should form a unique account of the legal system of a simple agri- man declines, however, as an anthropologist, to consider "fundamental epis-
(·ultural society. temological problems of how niles exist" (p. 352). nut can stich problems,
Of special interest to the reviewer is Professor Cluckmrlll'!i treatment of the in this context, reall), be avoided? He treats rules as containing concepts,
more abstrnct topics of legal theory. Deeming it his first dut), to describe and concepts as being sometimes "flexible". Rules then, for him, exist in a
Lozi 1egal' institutions c1earl)" he has not become involved in complex discus· \'lay which permits of being «flexed". This flexibility of rules-which occurs
sions of.the meaning of terms or considered whether the conceptual framework when they contain imprecise or ambiguous concepts like "reasonable", "law",
he empL,ys will cover the 'facts of law' in other systems. Realizing however " ight"-accounts for the element of uncertainty about the rulings in particu-
that "specialized, specific, univocal tenns" are needed for any careful analysis...... lar cases. But there are difficulties in reconciling this flexibility with a simul-
of empirical observations he gives his own definitions of terms he is pro- taneous certainty in law. How can a flexible legul rule be flexed and yet
posing to use nke 'law', 'corpus juris', <legal' and 'alegal' ntles. 'Law' is to rf.main certain 'and the same? If one doesn't know how a rule exists it would
s""m difficult to say,