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Is Elegance Proof? Structuralism and African History1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jan Vansina
Jan Vansina*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
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Despite its very visible career in anthropology and folklore, structuralism has been little used by historians of precolonial Africa. Only Ronald Atkinson has applied the method of Lévi-Strauss in the Edmund Leach variant, although a number of historians have attempted to elucidate symbolic meanings by other means. Rather surprisingly as well, given the two decades or so that have elapsed since Lévi-Strauss developed its axioms and analysis, no historian of Africa has ventured to discuss the validity of structuralism for coping with the interpretation of myths of origin or other oral traditions, except in passing. The topic has surfaced only here and there in the never-ending debate about traditions as expressions of the present, or of the past, or of both. Given the influence of structuralism elsewhere, though, it is due time that the approach be discussed for its own sake.

The reticence to do so became especially incongruous when a senior structuralist, Luc de Heusch, began to cover ground that historians had recently trod. In his Le roi ivre he discussed at length myths in the kingdoms of southeastern Zaire and adjacent areas. This did prompt publication of two articles about his Luba and Lunda interpretations, but no general assessment of this work in toto. Jeffrey Hoover faulted de Heusch's Lunda material but still praised his “provocative ideas” and the method, “which bore some good fruit,” while Thomas Reefe prefaced his critique of Luba material by calling the book “stimulating” and sidestepped the issue by noting that “no matter what the final assessment of this book will be by historians…” Others were equally bland in their references to this work, while still refuting de Heusch on specifics. Everyone felt, it seems, that a general assessment was beyond or outside their competence. Yet a general critique would have been of use for de Heusch is one of the oldest and most experienced structuralists in anthropology, perhaps the first disciple of Lévi-Strauss. Trained in Paris, he imbibed the approaches of the Griaule school, the protostructuralism of Georges Dumézil, and the early teaching of the master himself. Of all structuralists he remains the most faithful to the method of Lévi-Strauss.

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 10 , 1983 , pp. 307 - 348
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1983

Footnotes

1.

A review of Luc de Heusch, Rois nés d'un coeur de vache (Paris, 1982).

References

Notes

2. Atkinson, , “The Traditions of the Early Kings of Buganda: Myth, History and Structural Analysis,” HA, 2 (1975), 17–58.Google Scholar See also various contributions in Miller, J.C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone, 1980).Google Scholar

3. (Paris, 1972). A translation has just been published: The Drunken King (Bloomington, 1982).Google Scholar Citations are to this edition.

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5. E.g., Yoder, John, “The Historical Study of a Kanyok Genesis Myth: The Tale of Citend a Mfumu” in Miller, , The African Past Speaks, 82Google Scholar; Robert Schecter, “A Propos the Drunken King: Cosmology and History” in ibid., 108-13; and Randall M. Packard, “The Study of Historical Process in African Traditions of Genesis: The Bashu Myth of Muhiyi” in ibid., 157.

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7. idem., A State in the Making: Myth, History, and Social Transformation in Pre-Colonial Ufipa (Bloomington, 1981), 37.

8. I am much loath to undertake this; we have been friends for thirty years. Yet exercises of the kind of Rois nés leads to great waste of intellectual effort. This constrains me to undertake this critique, not so much of Rois nés but of the structuralist ‘method’ in general.

9. Cornet, René, Art royal kuba (Milan, 1982), 29, 308–309.Google Scholar Cf. Vansina, , Geschiedenis van de Kuba (Tervuren, 1962), 118-19, 291.Google Scholar

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12. Africanist anthropologists who aspire to be structuralists follow either Lévi-Strauss or Leach. T.O. Beidelman is not a strict structuralist because of his care to document his ethnographic data and his different goals. Structuralism must not be confused with all symbolic anthropology.

13. Lieury, Alain, La mémoire: résultats et theories (Brussels, 1975), 48–52.Google Scholar Besides oppositions, similarities, super-ordination or subordination, and co-ocurrence are the mental mechanisms of association.

14. The classic case is that of the Dogon. Griaule, Marcel, Dieu d'eau (Paris, 1948)Google Scholar was based entirely on the views of Ogotemelli but we will never know how far these have since become standard among the Dogon, perhaps driving out others; nor exactly to what extent earlier studies by the Griaule team were based on cosmological conceptions of other informants.

15. Willis, R.W., “The Literalist Fallacy and the Problem of Oral Tradition,” Social Analysis, 2 (1980), 28–33.Google Scholar Willis badly confuses symbolic analysis with structural analysis.

16. Torday, Emil and Joyce, M.A., Notes ethnographiques sur les peuples communément appelés Bakuba, ainsi que sur les peuplades apparentées-Les Bushongo (Brussels, 1910), 20.Google ScholarVansina, , Geschiedenis, 81.Google Scholar Fifteen other variants are known.

17. Hulstaert, G., “Le Dieu des Mongo,” Anthropos, 219-20, 223-24, 227.Google Scholar Note that the Yongo are a Mbole subgroup.

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26. Kagame, , La notion de génération appliquée à la généalogie dynastique et à l'histoire du Rwanda des Xè-XIè siècles à nos jours (Brussels, 1959), 14-27, 80–86Google Scholar, discusses this source, called ubuaurabwenge, (“Smithing intelligence”). His version is apparently the only one recorded. He fully published it in his Inganni Karinga, 93-99, but without commentary as to the circumstances of dictation or his actual source.

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30. A point made by Hoover, “Mythe,” 67. Thus “sun” as opposed to “rain” or “clouds” is as valid as sun opposed to “moon” and hence neither is a strictly logical deduction from “sun,” being neither sufficient nor necessary.

31. “Cow” in the sense of a head of cattle without gender indication. Cf. Coupez, /Kamanzi, , Récits historiques, 60.Google Scholar

32. Ibid., 98-99.

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42. Newbury, David, “The Clans of Rwanda: An Historical Hypothesis,” Africa, 50 (1980), 389–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows how damaging this can be and how unrealistic it is.

43. E.g., Huffman, T.N., “Archaeology and Ethnohistory of the African Iron Age,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 11 (1982), 133–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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50. Junod, , Moeurs, 85–86.Google Scholar The last line of the French translation was detached in error from the preceding text, explaining the confusion of de Heusch. But the original Thonga had no such error and even a cursory comparison of original and translation shows it.

51. Stayt, Hugh A., The Bavenda (London, 1968).Google Scholar

52. Beach, David N., The Shona and Zimbabwe (London, 1980), 107–08.Google Scholar

53. Junod, , Moeurs, 74.Google Scholar

54. Wagner, R., “Zoutpansberg: The Dynamics of a Hunting Frontier, 1848-67” in Marks, Shula and Atmore, Anthony, eds., Economy and Society in Pre-Industrial South Africa (London, 1980), 335–36.Google Scholar The initiation rituals were then very new among the Venda.

55. Baumann, , Völker Afrikas, 596.Google Scholar

56. Jadin, Louis, L'ancien Congo et l'Angola, 1639-1655 (2 vols.: Brussels, 1975), 2: 1151-65, esp. 1152.Google Scholar

57. Ibid., 1164. A second account by Bonaventura d'Alessano is found on 1172 (Original in Brásio, A., Monumenta Missionaria Africana (Lisbon, 1965), 10: 395–400.Google Scholar

58. In Brásio, , Monumenta, 4: 399Google Scholar; Bal, Willy, Description du royaume de Congo et des Contrées envaronantes (Louvain, 1965), 31, 34.Google Scholar

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61. Guthrie, Malcolm, Comparative Bantu (Farnham, 1970), 3: 265Google Scholar, CS 1002 (“letter”), 1003 (“skin”), 1004 (“strap”).

62. Van Wing, Joseph, Penders, C., Le plus ancien dictionnaire bantu (Louvain, 1928), 206.Google Scholar

63. Dumézil, , Les dieux souverains, 9–15Google Scholar, for his own estimate of his work.

64. (Brussels, 1966).

65. Schebesta, Paul, “Die Zimbabwe-Kultur in Afrika,” Anthropos, 21 (1926), 484–545.Google Scholar De Heusch rejects Kulturkreislehre in general, but not in this instance.

66. Bennett, Patrick and Sterk, Jan, “South Central Niger-Congo: A Reclassification,” Studies in African Linguistics, 8 (1977), 241–73Google Scholar and Williamson, Kay, “The Benue-Congo Languages and Ijo,” Current Trends in Linguistics, 7 (1971), 245–306.Google Scholar

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68. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit, 190.Google Scholar

69. Poignant, Roslyn, Oceanic Mythology (London, 1967), 29.Google Scholar

70. Baumann, , Schöpfung und Urzeit, 186, 189.Google Scholar

71. The importance of twins in Africa need not be stressed. Twins as a means to propagate the human race occur elsewhere in Africa, as among the Fang or the Ziba.

72. Haberland, Eike, ed., Leo Frobenius, 1873-1973 (Wiesbaden, 1973), 192–221.Google Scholar The originals are from Frobenius, Erythräa: Länder und Zeiten des heiligen Königsmordes (Berlin, 1931), 114–244.Google Scholar The data come from his 1928/1930 trip. Anyone using Frobenius is well-advised to check his published texts against his own notebooks, preserved at the Institute in Frankfort that bears his name.

73. Beach, Shona and Zimbabwe.

74. Haberland, , Leo Frobenius, 209–11.Google Scholar

75. Vansina, , “The History of God Among the Kuba,” Africa [Rome], 38 (1983).Google Scholar

76. Among the iconographie ancestors of St. George and the Dragon must be reckoned a fourth-century relief showing Horus killing a crocodile, perhaps the former god Sebk. See du Bourguet, Pierre, L'art copte (Paris, 1968), 78.Google Scholar And who does not know about dragons in China where they represent the water? See de Visser, Marlmus W., The Dragon in China and Japan (Amsterdam, 1913). Passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

77. E.g., Bartlett, Frederic C., Remembering (Cambridge, 1964)Google Scholar; Edelman, G.M., “Through A Computer Darkly: Group Selection and Higher Brain Function,” Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 36 (1982), 20–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. De Heusch refers here to Children of Woot, 322n1.

79. Vansina, , Children of Woot, 31, 45.Google Scholar

80. For the argument see Vansina, “History of God.”

81. Ibid.

82. Hulstaert, , Dieu des Mongo, 219, 223.Google Scholar

83. Ibid., 228.

84. Ibid., 227.