Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-03T16:43:11.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Blood Partnership in Theory and Practice: the Expansion of Muslim Power in Dar Al-Kuti*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Dennis D. Cordell
Dennis D. Cordell
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article examines the institution of blood partnership, first theoretically, and then with reference to northern Equatorial Africa and Dar al-Kuti, a Muslim slave-raiding and slave-trading state. Contemporary anthropologists described blood partnership schematically as the exchange of blood and of conditional curses between two individuals or groups for the purpose of guaranteeing co-operation. They also suggested that blood partnership created bonds analogous to kinship. Blood alliances were concluded almost exclusively between parties who were not related genealogically, and promoted security, co-operation and long-distance trade. They were particularly important among societies outside highly centralized states, where they provided the ideology and mechanism for wider action embracing unrelated groups. Northern Equatorial Africa was just such an area, and, in the nineteenth century at least, blood pacts were very common. The article looks at blood partnership in the region generally, pointing out how foreigners, Muslims as well as Europeans, adopted the institution as a means of allying themselves with local leaders. Muslim penetration of the region is examined, and the infiltration of the zariba system of the southwestern Sudan into Ubangi-Shari (in what is now the Central African Empire) is outlined. The second half of the article deals specifically with Dar al-Kuti. Oral testimony and written evidence are combined to present a picture of blood partnership among the Banda, the most important non-Muslim people included in the state. The analysis is then extended to show how Muslims in the region, mainly the Runga from the Chad basin, led by Kobur and then by al-Sanusi, used blood pacts to foster their political and economic ambitions among non-Muslim peoples south of the Islamic frontier.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 379 - 394
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Frazer, James George, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (New York, 1922), 131, 234Google Scholar; Westermarck, Edward, The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas (London, 1926), ii, 206–9Google Scholar; Smith, William Robertson, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites (London, 1894), 315Google Scholar; Smith, Robertson, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (London, 1903), 56–62Google Scholar; Hocart, Arthur Maurice, The Life-Giving Myth (London, 1952), 185–9, 190–4Google Scholar; Davy, Georges, La Foi jurée (Paris, 1922), 33–81.Google Scholar

2 Pitt-Rivers, Julian, ‘Kinship: pseudo-kinship’, in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, ed. Sills, David (New York, 1968), viii, 408–13Google Scholar; Pitt-Rivers, , ‘The kith and kin’, in The Character of Kinship, ed. Goody, Jack, (Cambridge, 1973), 90–1Google Scholar, 95, 96; Paulme, Denise, ‘Pactes de sang, classes d'âge et castes en Afrique’, Archives européennes de sociologie, ix, i (1968), 12–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tegnaeus, Harry, La fraternité de sang, trans. David, Jacques (Paris, 1954), 11–18, 220–33Google Scholar; de Dampierre, Eric, Un ancien royaume Bandia du Haut-Oubangui (Paris, 1967), 262–71Google Scholar; Beidelman, T. O., ‘Blood covenant and the concept of blood in Ukaguru’, Africa, xxxiii (1963), 321–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Evans-Pritchard, E. E., ‘Zande blood-brotherhood’, Africa, vi (1933), 369–401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Eisenstadt, Samuel N., ‘Ritualized personal relations’, Man, lvi (1956), 90–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although it appears from a review of the literature that public recognition of blood pacts is the predominant custom, it should be noted that secret partnerships do exist in some societies. Among some peoples of Zaïre, for example, secret pacts are sometimes made between clans and villages. The public pact is also found, as are partnership agreements between spouses. See de Sousberghe, L., Pactes de sang et pactes d'union dans la mort chez quelques peuplades du Kwango (Brussels, 1960)Google Scholar. Among some peoples it is also thought that witches make secret blood pacts to carry out their nefarious, anti-social activities. See Pitt-Rivers, , ‘Kinship’, 410.Google Scholar

4 See note 2.

5 Paulme, , ‘Pactes de sang’, 14–15.Google Scholar

6 Comments offered by James Fernandez on an earlier version of this article presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, Baltimore, Maryland, 1 November 1978.

7 Beidelman, , ‘Blood covenant’, 321–2Google Scholar; Evans-Pritchard, , ‘Zande blood-brotherhood’, 395–401Google Scholar; de Dampierre, , Un Ancien royaume Bandia, 266–8Google Scholar. See also Paulme, , ‘Pactes de sang’. 12–15.Google Scholar

8 Pitt-Rivers, , ‘Kinship’, 412.Google Scholar

9 Douglas, Mary, Natural Symbols (New York, 1970), 11–18Google Scholar. See also Pitt-Rivers, , ‘Kinship’, 409–10.Google Scholar

10 Leach, E. R., ‘Magical hair’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, lxxxviii (1958), 147–64.Google Scholar

11 Needham, Rodney, ‘Blood, thunder, and mockery of animals’, Sociologus, xiv (1964), 147.Google Scholar

12 Evans-Pritchard, , ‘Anthropology and history’, in Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Essays in Social Anthropology (London, 1962), 46.Google Scholar

13 Evans-Pritchard, , ‘Anthropology and history’, 48.Google Scholar

14 Ibid.

15 Lewis, I. M., ‘Introduction’, in History and Social Anthropology, ed. Lewis, (London, 1968), ix–xxvGoogle Scholar. Jan Vansina has similarly appealed for an interdisciplinary approach. See ‘Anthropologists and the Third Dimension’, Africa, lxii (1969), 62–7.Google Scholar

16 Personal communications, Baier, Stephen B., Boston University, 25 September 1978Google Scholar; Burnham, Philip, University College, University of London, 2 June 1978Google Scholar; Vansina, Jan M., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 28 August 1978Google Scholar. For a discussion of the impact of agriculture on settlement patterns in one part of northern Equatorial Africa, see Schlippe, Pierre de, Shifting Cultivation in Africa: The Zande System of Agriculture (London, 1956)Google Scholar; Vanderlinden, Jacques, ‘Principes de droit foncier Zande’, Revue de I'Institut de Sociologie (Brussels, Université Libre), iii (1960), 557–610.Google Scholar

17 Birmingham, David, ‘Central Africa from Cameroun to the Zambezi’, in The Cambridge History of Africa. Volume 3. C. 1050 to C. 1600, ed. Oliver, Roland (Cambridge, 1977), 566Google Scholar; Birmingham, , ‘Central Africa from Cameroun to the Zambezi’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 4, c. 1600 to c. 1790, ed. Gray, Richard (Cambridge, 1975), 325.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 For a survey of blood partnership in the ethnographic and travel literature of Central and Equatorial Africa, see Tegnaeus, , La Fraternité de sang, 121–200.Google Scholar

19 Tegnaeus, , La Fraternité de sang, 121–200Google Scholar; Pitt-Rivers, , ‘Kinship’, 410.Google Scholar

20 Julien, Emile (Capitaine), ‘Du Haut-Oubangui vers le Chari par le bassin de la Kota (ler mai – 5 octobre 1894)’, Bulletin de la société de géographie de Paris, xviii (1897), 136Google Scholar, 141–3, 145, 147, 149, 153–4. 156–7. 159, 163, 169, 170–1, 341.

21 Crussol, Jacques Marie de, d'Uzes, Duc, Le Voyage de man fils au Congo (Paris, 1894), 142.Google Scholar

22 The people of Dar al-Kuti (Central African Empire) supplied the author with much of the most important information concerning blood partnership and the history of northern Ubangi-Shari. Interviews conducted in Dar al-Kuti in 1974 will be cited through the remainder of this essay as OA (Oral Account) followed by the number of the session. Microfilm copies of the transcripts (transcribed in Chadic Arabic with long passages translated into English and French) have been deposited with the African Studies Association oral data collection housed at the Archives of Traditional Music, Indiana University, Bloomington, and the Memorial Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison. A third copy will be deposited at the Musée Boganda in Bangui, Central African Empire, when a long-planned oral data centre opens there. For verification of this note, see OA 14.2, Khrouma Sale (Salih), Bagrim, Runga, Village of Koundi, 21 June 1974Google Scholar; Prins, Pierre, ‘L'Islam et les musulmans dans les sultanats du Haut-Oubangui’, Afrique française: renseignements coloniaux (hereafter AF-RC) xvii, 6 (June, 1907), 142Google Scholar; Schweinfurth, George, The Heart of Africa, trans. Frewer, Ellen (New York, 1874), i, 532Google Scholar; 11, 37.

23 Prins, , ‘L'Islam et les musulmans’, 142.Google Scholar

24 See Collins, Robert O., ‘Sudanese factors in the history of the Congo and Central West Africa in the nineteenth century’, in Sudan in Africa, ed. Hasan, Yusuf Fadl (Khartoum, 1971), 156–67.Google Scholar

25 See Holt, P. M., ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, in The Cambridge History of Africa, vol. 5, c. 1790 to c. 1870, ed. Flint, John E. (Cambridge, 1976), 22–50.Google Scholar

26 Schweinfurth, , The Heart of Africa, i, 257–61Google Scholar, 11, 410–32.

27 For a study of Mahdist activities in the southwestern Sudan, see Collins, , The Southern Sudan, 1883–1898: A Struggle for Control (New Haven, 1962)Google Scholar. The Mahdist period in Dar Fur is chronicled in al-Hasan, Mūsā al-Mubārak, Tarīkh Dārfūr al-siyasī, 1882–1898 (Khartoum, n.d., but c. 1970).Google Scholar

28 For a study of the westward shift of the zariba system and a survey of the careers of two trader-raiders, see Dennis D. Cordell, ‘Secondary Empire and slave-raiding beyond the Islamic frontier in northern equatorial Africa: The case of Bandas Hakim and Sa'id Baldas’, Unpublished paper presented at the Annual Meeting, American Historical Association, Dallas, Texas, December, 1977. For further information on Rabih's career up to the Bagirmi conquest, see Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti: A history of the slave trade and state formation on the Islamic frontier in northern Equatorial Africa (Central African Republic and Chad) in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1977, 121–31Google Scholar, 176; Collins, ‘Sudanese Factors’, 163–4; Holt, ‘Egypt and the Nile Valley’, 38; Hallam, W. K. R., The Life and Times of Rabih Fadl Allah (Devon, 1977), 30–91.Google Scholar

29 Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti’, 76–87.Google Scholar

30 For an overview of the early history of Dar al-Kuti, see Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti’, 64–118.Google Scholar

31 OA 3.2, Yadjouma Pascal, Banda Mbagga, Ndele, 18 May 1974; OA 5.1, Dillang, Yacoub Mahamat, Runga, Ndele, 20 May 1974Google Scholar; OA5.2/6.1, Dillang, Yacoub Mahamat, Ndele, , 22 May 1974Google Scholar; OA7.1, Dillang, Yacoub Mahamat, Ndele, , 25 May 1974Google Scholar; OA8.2, Angulu, Assakin Mahamat, Jallaba, Runga, Ndele, , 29 May 1974Google Scholar; OA 13.1, Sale, Khrouma, Koundi, , 19 June 1974Google Scholar; OA 14.2, Sale, Khrouma, Koundi, , 21 June 1974Google Scholar; OA15.2/16.1, Pascal, Yadjouma, Ndele, , 30 June 1974Google Scholar; OA 17.1, Angulu, Assakin Mahamat, Ndele, , 5 July 1974Google Scholar; OA 21.1, al-Hajj Abakar Zacharia, Runga, Village of Mbangbali, 29 August 1974; OA21.4, al-Hajj Abakar Zacharia, Mbangbali, 29 September 1974; OA22.3, Issa-Din, Yahya, Tunjur, Runga, Village of Birbatouma, 30 September 1974Google Scholar; Chevalier, Auguste, Mission Chari-Lac Tchad, 1902–1904: l' Afrique Centrale Française, récit du voyage de la mission (Paris, 1907), 117, 226Google Scholar; Modat, , ‘Une tournèe en pays Fertyt’, AF-RC, 22:6 (06, 1912), 226–30Google Scholar; Decorse, Gaston Jules and Gaudefroy-Demombynes, Maurice, Rabah et les arabes du Chari: documents arabes et vocabulaire (Paris, 1906), 5–13Google Scholar; Julien, , ‘Mohamed-es-Senoussi et ses états’, Bulletin de la société des recherches congolaises, vii (1925), 108–14Google Scholar; Hallam, , The Life and Times of Rabih, 80–91Google Scholar; Adrian, MaxOppenheim, Simon, Rabeh und das Tchadseegebeit (Berlin, 1902), 14–33Google Scholar; Toque, Georges, Essai sur le peuple et la langue Banda (Paris, 1904), 53.Google Scholar

32 See Oral Accounts cited in note 27. Also see Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti’, 201.Google Scholar

33 OA7.2/8.1, Hasan, Maarabbi and Tidjani, Abakar, both Runga-Nduka, Quartier Sultan, Ndele, 28 May 1974Google Scholar; OA8.2; OA11.2/12.1, Abudullu Yiala Mende, Banda Ngao-Banda Marba-Kresh, Ndele, , 12 June 1974Google Scholar; OA13.1; OA14.2; OA15.1, Mittendumu Albert, Banda Mbatta-Banda Mbagga, Ndele, , 25 June 1974Google Scholar; OA 19.1/20.1, Jean, Balingonvo, Ngonvo, Banda, Ndele, , 15 July 1974Google Scholar; OA20.3, Munju, Siam, Gollo, Nduka, Village of Kour, 23 August 1974Google Scholar; OA22.1, Omar, Adoum, Runga, Village of Manga, 29 September 1974Google Scholar; OA22.3; OA 1 1.1, Abudullu Yiala Mende, Ndele, , 10 June 1974Google Scholar; OA, Notes on a conversation with Zacharia Kouzoubali, Doggo, Nduka, Village of Manga, 30 September 1974Google Scholar; Modat, , ‘Une tournée’, AF-RC, xxii, 7 (July, 1912), 276.Google Scholar

34 Evans-Pritchard, ‘Azande blood-brotherhood’.

35 Dampierre, de, Un ancien royaume Bandia, 260–71.Google Scholar

36 Tisserant, Charles, Dictionnaire Banda–Français (Paris, 1931), 274Google Scholar; Daigre, P., ‘Les Bandas de 1'Oubangui-Chari’, Anthropos, xxvi (1931), 668–9.Google Scholar

37 OA7.2/8.1; OA9.2/10.1, Mahamat Ngouvela Dodo, Banda Ngao Bulu (Buru), Village of Mbollo, 5 June 1974 (Mahamat is the grandson of the famous Ngao leader Ngono); OA11.2/12.1, Daigre, , ‘Les Bandas’, 668–9Google Scholar; Tisserant, , Dictionnaire, 259Google Scholar, 274, 284.

38 Daigre, , ‘Les Bandas’, 669.Google Scholar

39 Gillier, , ‘Les Bandas: notes ethnographiques’, AF-RC, xxiii, 10 (10, 1913), 354.Google Scholar

40 Several scholars of Equatorial and East Africa have suggested that the need for blood pacts decreased with increasing centralization and routinization of political power. Thus bilateral arrangements for personal security and incorporation became less necessary. The creation of colonial administrations may also have adversely affected blood partnership. See Dampierre, de, Un ancien royaume Bandia 264Google Scholar; Tegnaeus, , La Fraternité de sang, 116Google Scholar; Evans-Pritchard, , ‘Azande blood-brotherhood’, 374, 394–5Google Scholar; Beattie, J., ‘The blood pact of Bunyoro’, African Studies, xvii (1958), 203.Google Scholar

41 OA 11.2/12.1.

42 Tegnaeus, , La Fraternité de sang, 82.Google Scholar

43 OA17.2/18.1, Ngrekoudou Ouih Fran, Banda Toulou, Village of Ouih Fran, 7 July 1974.

44 OA9.1, Yadri Sale, Banda Ngao, Ndele, 5 June 1974.

45 OA9.2/10.1; OA11.2/12.1, Gillier, ‘Les Bandas: notes ethnographiques’, 354.

46 Diagre, , ‘Les Bandas’, 668–9.Google Scholar

47 OA 14.2; OA, Notes on a conversation with Abakar Tidjani, Quartier Sultan, Ndele, , 1 June 1974Google Scholar. No ethnographic studies exist of the Runga, either in Dar Runga (Chad) or Dar al-Kuti (Central African Empire). The closest relevant work available is that of Marie José Tubiana on the Zaghawa peoples who live north of the Runga. The Zaghawa appear to resemble the Runga, and Tubiana does not mention the existence of blood partnership among them. See Tubiana, Marie-José, Survivances pré-islamiques en pays Zaghawa (Paris, 1964).Google Scholar

48 OA3.2; OA11.2/12.1; Julien, , ‘Mohamed-es-Senoussi et ses états’, Bulletin de la société des recherches congolaises, x (1929), 60Google Scholar; Modat, , ‘Une tournée’, June, 1912, 230Google Scholar; Chevalier, , L'Afrique Centrale Française, 164.Google Scholar

49 Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti’, 197–227Google Scholar, 277–87.

50 Cordell, , ‘Dar al-Kuti’, 155–63Google Scholar, 198–9, 269–87.

51 OA7.2/8.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA19.1/20.1; OA22.1; Chevalier, , L'Afrique Centrale Française, 162.Google Scholar

52 OA4.1, Yadjouma Pascal, Ndele, 18 May 1974; OA7.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA15.1; OA15.2/16.1; OA19.1/20.1; Tisserant, , Dictionnaire, 116–17Google Scholar, 143–4; Eboué, Felix, ‘Les peuples de l'OubanguiChari: essai d'ethnographie, de linguistique, et d'economie sociale’, AF-RC, xliii, 1 (01, 1933), 22.Google Scholar

53 Archives Nationales Françaises, Section d'Outre-Mer (Aix-en-Provence), 4(3)D19, ‘Résumé des rapports mensuels, juin 1912’, Bangui, 14–8–1912.

54 OA3.2; OA4.1; OA9.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA15.2/16.1.

55 OA2.1, Boukar Froumbala, Bornoan (Kanuri), Ndele, , 11 May 1974Google Scholar; OA7.2/8.1; OA14.1, Othman, Abdel-Banat, Dajo, Village of Koundi, 20 June 1974.Google Scholar

56 OA14.2.

57 OA9.2/10.1; Santandrea, Stefano, A Tribal History of the Bahr el-Ghazal (Bologna, 1974), 127–72.Google Scholar

58 OA1.2, Boukar Froumbala, Ndele, 9 May 1974; OA9.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA11.1; OA15.1; OA15.2/16.1; OA19.1/20.1.

59 OA5.2/6.1; OA11.2/12.1; OA14.2; OA 19.1/20.1; OA21.1; OA22.1; Julien, , ‘Mohamedes-Senoussi et ses états’ (1925) 154Google Scholar; Toque, , Essai sur le peuple et la langue Banda, 12–15.Google Scholar

60 OA 1.2; OA8.2; OA11.2/12.1.

61 OA9.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA15.2/16.1; Archives Nationales Françaises, Section d'Outre-Mer (Aix-en-Provence), 2D11, Gentil (Chargé de Mission de Chari) à M. le Commissaire-Générale dans le Congo-Français, Gribingui, , 3 April 1897Google Scholar; Gaud, F., Les Mandja (Congo-Français) (Brussels, 1911), 99–104Google Scholar; Chevalier, , L'Afrique Centrale Française, 227.Google Scholar

62 OA11.1; OA11.2/12.1; OA14.2; OA17.2/18.1; OA19.1/20.1.

63 OA3.2; OA8.2; OA9.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA11.1; OA15.2/16.1; OA21.4; Modat, , ‘Une tournée en pays Fertyt’, AF-RC xxii, 5 (05, 1912), 180.Google Scholar

64 OA15.1.

65 OA1.2; OA3.2; OA5.2/6.1; OA9.1; OA9.2/10.1; OA11.1; OA11.2/12.1; OA 14.2; OA15.1; OA15.2/16.1; OA17.2/18.1; OA19.1/20.1; OA21.4. Almost all the data on Jagara are taken from oral sources, but the sparse written evidence corroborates a number of crucial details concerning Ngono, the date of al-Sanusi's attacks, and the location of the Ngao settlements. See Prins, , ‘Voyage au Dar Rounga: résultats scientifiques’, La Geographic, i, iii (1900), 194Google Scholar, map between pages 196 and 197; Prins, , ‘Les Troglodytes du Dar Banda et du Djebel Mela’, Bulletin de géographie historique et descriptive (1909), 12–14Google Scholar; Julien, , ‘Mohamed-es-Senoussi et ses état’ (1925), 154Google Scholar; Chevalier, , L'Afrique Centrale Fraçaise, 173–4Google Scholar, 176 and note 1, 226–7; Modat, , ‘Une tournée’, 05 1912, 180Google Scholar; Santandrea, , A Tribal History, 253–4.Google Scholar

66 OA9.2/10.1. On the breaking of blood partnership in general, see Evans-Pritchard, , ‘Azande blood-brotherhood’ 374Google Scholar; Tegnaeus, , La Fraternité de sang, 51Google Scholar. For examples in Ubangi-Shari, see Dybowski, Jean, La Route du Tchad, du Loango au Chari (Paris, 1893), 163Google Scholar; Julien, , ‘Du Haut-Oubangui vers le Chari’, 177, 342, 360Google Scholar. F. Lukyn Williams noted that in Ankole, as in Dar al-Kuti and elsewhere in Equatorial Africa, blood pacts theoretically lasted forever; but the memory of such ties is lost after two or three generations since they represent personal bonds not integrated into the lineage structure whose past is more carefully preserved. See ‘Blood-brotherhood in Ankole’, Uganda Journal, ii, i (1934), 34.Google Scholar