| Society-AZANDE The Azande, as they exist today, are an agglomeration of indigenous and invading Sudanic peoples, whose different origins, languages, and cultures over a period of two centuries have become homogenized into a more or less common social pattern. This process has taken place through the military and political domination of the Ambomu conquerors under the leadership of the ruling sib, the Avungara. The name "Azande" is spelled with many variations, such as Asande, Assandeh, Asandeh, Badjande, Bazende, Basingi, Sande, and Sandeh. In common usage, "Azande" is used when referring to an individual, or simply as an adjective. Sometimes the name of a section is used to signify the whole group, as in Abandiya, Adio, Avungara, Makaraka, and Niam-Niam (also called Gnam-Gnam, Dem-Dem, Jem-Jem, and Lem-Lem). The area occupied by the Azande roughly straddles the present-day boundaries of the Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Zaire. The whole area is contained within the rectangle made by the parallels lat. 2 degrees 50 min.6 degrees N by long. 23 degrees-30 degrees E. The Azande language belongs to the Eastern branch of the Niger-Congo stock, and is spoken throughout the region as either a first or a second language. The language is subdivided into several different but mutually intelligible dialects. Population estimates of the Azande vary considerably, since it is difficult to tell exactly what boundaries the estimators have used or whether they have included related ethnic groups in their estimates. Such estimates have run from two million in 1870 (Schweinfurth 1874) to three to four million around 1920 (Van den Plas 1921), but these figures seem excessively high. A more recent estimate, made in 1949, gives a figure of about 725,000 to 730,000 people, of whom 500,000 live in Zaire, 200,000 in the Sudan, and from 25,000 to 30,000 in the Central African Republic (Baxter and Butt 1953: 13). Throughout the regions occupied by the Azande, the birth rate is steadily declining. Europeans and Arabs first came into contact with the Azande along the Nile and were active as traders in the area prior to European conquest. The first systematic attempt to contact the Azande was made in 1841 by members of the Mehemet Ali's Sudan Expedition. Slave traders, ivory merchants, and explorer-traders soon followed, and with Egyptian control of trade, ivory- and slave-trading stations were soon established well to the south. When Schweinfurth visited the region in 1868-71, slavery was at its height. While early Arab influence on the Azande had been minimal, that of Egyptian and Sudanese officials and, later, traders was much greater, eventually leading to a gradual breakdown of the big kingdoms into smaller chiefdoms. As a result of the Anglo-French convention of 1899, a military administration was established over Azande territory, effectively stopping the slave trade and halting further expansion. This military administration, which continued through 1914, tried to break the power of the Avungara, but in 1920 a civil administration took over control in the Sudan and reversed this policy, using its influence instead to bolster the Avungara chiefs. Concurrent with European occupation came sleeping sickness, which spread over the entire area. Under strict government-sponsored public health measuresquarantines, isolation, population resettlement, etc.the disease was finally brought under control by 1940. In the period following 1945, the Sudan Azande were the subjects of a pilot project, generally referred to as the "Zande Scheme," which attempted to raise tribal living standards "... by the promotion of a 'healthy market' and the establishment of manufactures throughout the southern Sudan" (Baxter and Butt 1953: 24). The Azande economy was based primarily on agriculture, with shifting cultivation, brand tillage, and crop rotation, but without fertilization of crops. The staple crop was eleusine, followed by maize, sweet potatoes, manioc, ground nuts, bananas (particularly in the south), and a number of leguminous and oil-bearing plants. Nonfood crops included jute, tobacco, and cotton. (For detailed information on Azande agriculture, see de Schlippe 1956). Cattle were not kept because of the numerous trypanosomes that infest the country. Dogs were kept for hunting and for food, chickens for divination but not for food, and sheep and goats were entirely lacking. Hunting and fishing were of minor economic importance. Gathering activities, on the other hand, added significantly to the Azande diet. Items gathered included wild seeds, fungi, caterpillars, land crabs, frogs, snails, and large quantities of termites. Class structure was clearly demarcated in Azande society between the ruling chiefs or nobles (the Avungara) and the commoners. According to Murdock (1958), the commoners were divided into the Mbomu (Ambamu), who were the descendants of conquering Azande, and the Auro, who were the descendants of the conquered peoples or strangers. The Seligmans, however, speak of the Mbomu as being an intermediate class between the Avungara and the commoners, or Auro (Seligman and Seligman 1932: 495-496). At the bottom of the social order were the slaves, who were acquired in war or in punishment for crime. The sib system, which regulated marriage, cross-cut the entire class structure. Traditionally, the Azande empire was divided into a number of kingdoms, each founded by a chief or noble of the Avungara. Each kingdom was autonomous and governed by a king or paramount chief. Each had its own military organization for offense and defense, and was the largest unit within which organized legal sanctions were recognized. These kingdoms were further divided into provinces, each of which was administered by a governor (who was usually a younger brother or son of the king) or by a few wealthy commoners appointed by him (who never themselves became Avungara). The provincial governors exercised authority through local deputies, who were directly responsible for the conduct of their respective districts. Through each deputy, the rigid demands of political obedience were transformed into a series of day-to-day kinship obligations with the group of neighbors of which he was head. Succession to chiefly office was patrilineal, usually by the elder son or another son selected by the father. Fissive tendencies were common among these political groups, and provincial chiefs (especially at the time of the selection of a new king) would sometimes break away from their prescribed roles and embark on careers of conquest and state formation on their own. (For a summary discussion of the formal political structure of Azande society, see (Baxter and Butt 1953: 48-51). The Azande lived typically in neighborhoods of polygynous family homesteads scattered at intervals of 100-300 yards. The provincial governors, however, generally occupied concentrated hamlets, and paramount chiefs lived in villages of several hundred people. There were numerous noncorporate, nonlocalized totemic patrisibs among the Azande, each of which was exogamous with respect to both marriage and sex. The Avungara sib, composed as it was of the Azande nobility, was exempt from these exogamous restrictions and in fact was agamous, even permitting men to marry their own daughters and sisters (probably half-sisters). Polygyny was the preferred form of marriage, with each wife having her own hut. Marriages took place by payment of a bride-price, traditionally in iron spears, to the bride's family (wife's father or brother). The more spears paidgenerally twenty spears or morethe greater was considered the stability of the marriage. Premarital bride service was also customary among the Azande, as was the levirate and sororate. Marriage by the exchange of female relatives between two men also occurred. Divorce was rare and difficult to achieve, but when it did take place, the husband simply returned his wife to her family, who returned his spears. Custody of any children reverted to the husband. The Azande magico-religious system has attained renown in the field of anthropology through Evans-Pritchard's pioneering study of their witchcraft beliefs (1937). As Mary Douglas points out, this is basically a book about the sociology of knowledge. It shows how witchcraft beliefs sustained Azande moral values and their institutions, while also revealing how these beliefs were restricted so as never to apply in contexts in which conflicting parties might have found an interest in denying them (Douglas 1970: xiv, xvi). Moreover, Evans-Pritchard's detailed analysis of the Azande distinction between "witchcraft" and "sorcery" established this differentiation as a basic theme in British social anthropological studies of magical systems. Murdock (1958) and Seligman (1932) provide useful introductions to the Azande. Culture summary by John M. Beierle Baxter, P. T. W. The Azande, and related peoples of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan and Belgian Congo. By P. T. W. Baxter and Audrey Butt. London, International African Institute, 1953. 10, 152 p. map. Douglas, Mary. Introduction: thirty years after Witchcraft, oracles and magic. In Mary Douglas, ed. Witchcraft. Confessions and Accusations. A.S.A. Monographs, 9. London, Tavistock Publications, 1970: xiii-xxxviii. Evans-Pritchard, Edward Evan. Witchcraft, oracles and magic among the Azande. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1937. 25, 558 p. illus., maps. Murdock, George Peter. Azande. In his African Cultural Summaries. New Haven, Human Relations Area Files, 1958. Schlippe, Pierre de. Shifting cultivation in Africa: the Zande system of agriculture. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956. 31, 304 p. illus., maps. Schweinfurth, Georg. The heart of Africa: three years' travels and adventures in the unexplored region of Central Africa from 1868 to 1871. New York, Harper and Brothers, 1874, 2 v. illus., maps. Seligman, Charles Gabriel. The Azande. By Charles Gabriel Seligman and Brenda Z. Seligman. In Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London, George Routledge and Sons, 1932: 495-539. Van den Plas, V. H. La langue des Azande. [The langauge of the Azande.] Volume 1. Ghent, 1921. 7829 | |
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