age, descent and elders among the pokomo

International African Institute

Age, Descent and Elders among the PokomoAuthor(s): Norman TownsendSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 47, No. 4 (1977), pp. 386-397Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1158344 .

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Africa, 47(4), 1977

AGE, DESCENT AND ELDERS AMONG THE POKOMO

NORMAN TOWNSEND

INTRODUCTION

ANUMBER of writers have noted that for East Africa, age organization and

lineage organization are structural alternatives. More precisely, Southall (1970) has argued that the full and dominant development of age organization is

incompatible with that of a segmentary lineage structure. Forde (I97i) has similarly concluded that the two may be alternatives, and that selection between them may be

partly dependent on ecological factors. However, I would like to contend that to write of the elaboration, or non-elaboration, of age structures and descent groups or of a conflict of allegiances, may well be a sterile exercise if it is unrelated to an analysis of the mode of livelihood of the people concerned. Furthermore, in light of the modern view of social structure as the outcome, at any point in time, of continuous processes of destructuring and restructuring, the ceaseless turnover of the membership of

society, which age structures attempt to reduce to order, can be seen as one of the

major sources of these processes, as Bottomore has recently argued (1975). Thus a source of structural stress, and hence ultimately of change, more important, I would

argue, than the conflict between age and descent, is that between the generations. For, as Mannheim pointed out, the succession of generations readily leads to a

restructuring, or 're-orientation' of society, as new individuals make fresh contact with and develop the accumulated heritage proffered by the past (1959: 293). Mannheim's view of the relationship between the succession of generations and

changing 'objective conditions' was, however, not entirely clear, for he seemed mainly concerned with what he called the internal 'dynamism of society'. For example, 'Static conditions make for attitudes of piety', whereas 'With the strengthening of the social

dynamic ... the older generation becomes increasingly receptive to influences from the younger' (I959: 302). The impact of changing external conditions needs, I believe, more attention, as does their inter-relationship with the internal dynamics of society, in order to account for cases where the older generation explicitly rejects attempts by the younger to 're-orient' the social structure.

In this paper, I shall try to show the part played by notions of age and of descent

among the Pokomo of Kenya in their mode of livelihood, and the articulation between the social relations that are generated and their material setting.1 Elam (I975) has

provided a similar analysis for the Hima economy and social system.

THE MATERIAL SETTING The Pokomo are a congeries of three Bantu-speaking and one Galla-speaking peoples, living along the banks of the Tana, Kenya's largest river. The area is semi-desert, with scant and irregular rainfall, especially in the north. The major form of subsistence is the cultivation of crops and the Pokomo cultivate the banks of the river over the last 400 km of its course. The land actually used and inhabited by them extends no more than one or two km from either bank, except towards the delta, where cultivable land




stretches for long distances from the actual banks. Except for those living in the delta area, the Pokomo rely on the periodic floods of the Tana, sowing rice and maize in the moist earth as the floods recede, and harvesting bananas from groves planted on the

highest points of the banks. The river floods are highly irregular, both in timing and depth, and the Pokomo farmer has traditionally coped by using a variety of devices, including detailed knowledge of crop placement, timing and spacing, and by maintaining rights of access to a wide variety of plots of land in various places along the river, among which he can choose according to the height of the season's flood. There has been no attempt at irrigation by the Pokomo anywhere along the river. Bananas, maize and rice form the major part of the carbohydrate in the diet; fish the

major protein element. The Pokomo number about 35,000 today, and their population appears to have

doubled in size over the past oo years. At present they live at densities of between I 5 and 5 o per km of river, being more densely settled towards the mouth of the river.

The tools used are simple: a hand hoe and bush knife for cultivation, and a spear, fish traps and canoe for fishing. These items, plus those needed for food processing (baskets, mortar and pestle, pots, knife) are easy to acquire, and they involve no monopoly of control by any group.

The major units of production associated with this type of subsistence are (a) the household, based on the nuclear or polygynous family, and (b) the village-based and age-based work party. The majority of the activities involved can be performed by members of a household, but some are major processes which need to be completed quickly and hence require the deployment of a large unit of labour. Each household contains only one married man, and it harvests and stores its own crops from its own

pieces of land. (There is no community granary.) Brothers do not farm jointly, nor do fathers and sons after the sons are married. I have no reason to believe that this pattern has changed over the past century. Each married man inherits land only from his father, and only once he is married.

The individualism that is apparent from this description is in large part adaptive in that each household needs to be free to choose where to cultivate each season. Suitable plots of well-flooded land may be quite small, and there is often considerable geographical mobility as people search for better farming conditions elsewhere along the river. Ties of common ethnic identity, as well as ties of kinship, marriage and

friendship are used as a basis for sharing access to land. Given the potential variation of resources in local areas from year to year, households occasionally find they are unable to maintain themselves, and will migrate to other areas, joining other communities and borrowing land. To describe the Pokomo economy solely in terms of individualism, then, would be misleading in that it would de-emphasize the many important linkages that exist among communities.

UNITS OF PRODUCTION AND UNITS OF REPRODUCTION

I have indicated that the various processes of cultivation call for two types of

production unit, but that many kinds of linkages exist among households, in terms of access to land, for example, since much borrowing of land occurs. Later, I shall indicate how much inter-dependence there is in terms of the distribution of products.

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Furthermore, of course, households are not self-reproducing units: the most important unit of reproduction is what I shall call the sub-tribe.

Given that control over the reproductive processes of society and over the formation of new production units is the crucial element in the relations between older and younger men, it is significant that nearly all marriages take place within sub-tribes, i.e. the elders are the only ones who can transfer women and bridewealth, and they do so only among themselves and, for the most part, only within the sub-tribe. I have no exact figures, but in a sample of over 200 marriages in the southern half of Milalulu sub-tribe in 1972 I found only 4 or 5 cases of sub-tribe exogamy. The significance of reciprocal exchanges among clan elders was noted by Meillassoux (i 960), but the point I wish to stress here is the close relationship (if not identity) between the political unit and the unit of reproduction. The nature of the traditional political system will become clear as my argument proceeds, but first I must describe the relationship between clan, land and sub-tribe.

DESCENT AND LAND As noted above, the Pokomo are composed of four peoples, whom I shall call tribes. These four are the Lower Pokomo, the Upper Pokomo, the Elwana (or Malakote), and the Korokoro (or Munyo). Two of these four tribes contain sub-divisions (vyeti, sg. kyeti), which I shall call sub-tribes. Each sub-tribe inhabits a particular stretch of the river, averaging about 5 km. At a lower level of division still, there are patriclans, of which each sub-tribe contains between 2 and 9. (The Elwana and Korokoro, who have no sub-tribe divisions, also have a number of such clans.) The clans are the major land-holding units. There are no such positions as clan-head, or clan-chief, or even lineage-head.

The land owned by members of one clan is not all in one place, but is in many segments, interspersed with the land of other clans. On average, in any two km stretch of the river, segments of land belonging to all the clans in the local sub-tribe will be found. Each segment of clan land corresponds to what I shall call a sub-lineage-a group of between io and 20 people, descended from a common ancestor about 4 generations ago. The Upper Pokomo, whom I know best, do not in general display much interest in tracing descent connexions beyond 4 generations back, which is perhaps to be expected in view of the frequent short- and long-term borrowing of land that has always gone on. I should add that the lineages are not segmentary, and that there are no organizing principles of complementary opposition, of fission or fusion. Unlike Bunger (I973) I could find among the Upper Pokomo no knowledge among clan members of the links going back to a clan founder. Each clan (sindo) contains two or three lineages (nyumba), usually named for prominent living members.2 Members of the same lineage rarely meet; for purposes of marriage negotiations and land disputes, the important unit is what I have called a sub-lineage-a group of men living on one contiguous segment of clan land.

Although, among the Upper Pokomo, clans are not exogamous, leviratic marriage is practised, and local sub-lineage elders are prominent in relevant marriage negotiations. Most marriages, however, do seem to be between people from different clans. Among the Lower Pokomo clans are exogamous.

Descent rules, then, give one permanent access to at least one plot, and perhaps

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several plots, in the various segments of land held by one's clan within one's sub-tribe

(though not outside one's sub-tribe). In fact, the pattern of land inheritance is such that the structure of the local descent group can be read off from the pattern of land-

holdings, even more clearly than, say, among the Tiv. Land boundaries run back at

right angles to the river, and when a man divides his land among his sons, the eldest son is always given the upstream section, and the youngest son the downstream section (see figure I). The length of river front from X to Y is equal to that from Y to Z, since A divided his land equally between his two sons. But B had to divide his plot into 3 of his own sons, whereas C had to divide his plot only into 2. A man with sons from 2 wives divides his land into 2, and gives each son a share of the plot allotted to his mother: hence, for example, an only son could have as much land as his three half- brothers combined. This is clearly a variety of the common East African House- Property Complex. It should be added, however, that in this connexion there is a stated rule that a man should not continue to father children once his son's first children are born. The effect of this rule is twofold: firstly, it minimises land quarrels, as land boundaries would have to be redrawn to accommodate new heirs, with considerable scope for friction. Secondly, the rule minimises discrepancies of age and

generation; this will be explained after the age institutions have been discussed.

Lineages do not form units of production; the main function of lineage membership is to give access to land, which is inherited patrilineally by men. Descent, then, is one

FIG. I: Division of land among the different members of a lineage among the Upper Pokomo

AA

BA cA

A A A A A

oth X i i hl- RIVER

of the idioms in which neighbours think of themselves as being linked. So much is this the case that a frequent tactic in disputes between neighbours over land boundaries is the denial of kinship.

AGE-RELATED INSTITUTIONS

Kinship relations do not dominate Pokomo social organization; instead, social

organization is based largely on the concepts of secret societies, age sets, and

generations. These three institutions act as strong supports for the power held by the elders.

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(a) The first is the system of men's secret societies or associations. These are almost defunct today. Entrance was by payment of fees, the amounts increasing steeply as one moved up the ladder of associations. The system was quite elaborate, and each association had its own secrets and its own paraphernalia. Those who entered the

highest association were called wakijo, and were entitled to wear turbans and special ornaments, and see the sacred friction-drum (the ngaji). This drum was sounded when

any of the wakijo died, and when a criminal was executed. The system closely resembles that of the njuri elders of the Meru (Bernardi 19 59), and its highest grades were likewise characterized by great secrecy and authority. It is interesting, therefore, to note that the Korokoro claim to have obtained the ngaji from upriver, and to have introduced it to the other Pokomo.

Elders today describe the wakijo as having been their Government before the Whites came. Only the wakijo could pass death sentences; they could mobilize age sets for public works; they judged disputes over land, women etc; they levied contributions from their sub-tribe, but although all lived in great fear of them, it was also well-known that they assisted widows and orphans. For grave matters, wakijo from other tribes and sub-tribes would be invited. Since wakijo from the Korokoro, Elwana and Upper Pokomo attended important rituals in each other's territory, we can regard these three as to some extent a single political community. There was little contact with the Lower Pokomo, but this may be a result of the latter's political subordination to the Witu Swahili in the i9th century.

Paralleling this structure of associations, there was a structure of associations of medicine men; again entrance was by payment of fees, initiation ceremonies, dances and feasts. Though the medicine men (wagangana) seem to have had considerable influence, we know very little about their organization.

(b) The second age-connected institution is the system of age sets. Among all Pokomo men initiation at puberty was until very recently the basis for the formation of groups based on age. The Korokoro and Elwana circumcised boys and girls at a very young age; the Upper Pokomo circumcised boys only, at puberty; the Lower Pokomo do not circumcise. Initiation was carried out over one or two days in each sub-tribe, all boys in each village being initiated together. All men initiated together in each sub- tribe were regarded as members of an age set (luva pl. maluva), and each set was given a name. A new luva was formed every ten or twelve years, so that there were no more than five or six sets in existence at any one time. Besides the duty of respect towards members of senior sets, there was, and is, a rule forbidding marriage with the daughter of a member of one's own age set.

After initiation, boys entered the young men's house (gane) where they stayed for a number of years, leaving as they got married. The age at marriage seems to have been quite high in the i9th century for men. Apparently, among the Lower Pokomo, successive sets belonged to one or other of the two divisions of each sub-tribe; this division of the sub-tribe does not occur among the other Pokomo, and in fact may have been limited to the Buu.

The names of the maluva are not cyclical, but are taken from significant contemporary events, such as the introduction of paper currency, the proclamation of martial law during World War I, etc. For example, among the Milalulu Pokomo, the names that are remembered are Wembe (circumcised in I962), Shiti (1950), Japa

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(I937), Noti (1925), Keya (1914) and Muzungu (about I900). Some only of the names are the same among neighbouring sub-tribes, but the intervals appear to be identical. The most prominent elders in community life in the early I 970S were members of the Keya and Noti maluva, among the Upper Pokomo.

Age sets are based on residence within a sub-tribe and thus cut across descent

groups linking both kin and affines. In several senses age sets and descent groups are

opposed categories. The Pokomo say: 'Your age set will come to an end, but your clan never ends.' Relationships among age mates are egalitarian and harmonious; among clansmen they are hierarchical and discordant. Among age mates, the ties are horizontal; within clans they are vertical. While clans may be linked via de facto or de jure exogamy, the prohibition on marriage with the daughter of an age mate means that men in successive sets are linked through an exchange of daughters for bridewealth. Thus wealth flows upwards.

(c) The same kind of marriage rule applies in the third age-related institution: the strict division of generations. All first-born sons are named for their father's father, second-born sons for their FFB, and so on. The effect is to identify alternate generations, and to obviate any confusion about what generation a person belongs to. For there is a prohibition on marrying any person who is of one's parents', or of one's children's generation. It should be noted that two people in the same generation, e.g. two brothers, are frequently members of different age-sets. So that in seeking a wife, a man has two sets of prohibitions to remember. The equality of generation membership shows up also in such matters as the terminological equation of siblings, parallel cousins and cross-cousins, and the use of the same term for both brother's wife (male speaking) and age mate's wife.

Here we have, then, a system where, as among the Galla (Legesse I973), the concept of age is clearly separated from that of generation. The age set is held to be a group of age peers, for its members are recruited strictly on the basis of a common circumcision, whereas recruitment to generation is strictly on the basis of genealogy. The situation is similar to that among the Galla: 'The grandsons of two brothers are genealogically members of the same generation. However, the difference in age between the youngest and the oldest members of the group of grandsons could be as much as 40 or 5 o years. That is hardly an age group' (Legesse 973 : 5 I). The Pokomo have in fact been greatly affected by Galla culture over the centuries; much of their lexicon is clearly derived from Galla, as are their personal names, their clan names, and some of their age institutions. However, whereas the Galla use the word luba to designate a class of

people recruited on the basis of genealogical generations, the Pokomo use the word (altered to luva) to mean age sets recruited on the basis of common circumcision. I could find no corresponding term for generation group.

The potential for a mismatching of generation and age sets, referred to by Legesse for the Galla, is minimised among the Pokomo in two main ways. Firstly, the rule against further children after one's grandchildren are born limits the age differential within generations, thus limiting the extent to which age and generation can get out of line. Secondly, in giving greater weight to age then to generation in most matters of local political importance, the effect of any mismatching is minimised. Furthermore, the fact that in most cases marriage was, in the past, delayed for several years after initiation made it unlikely that a man and, say, his father's brother could be in the same age set.

39I




Pokomo age sets today are frequently the basis for organizing work parties, and I suggest that this was always one of their main functions, for the economy periodically requires large inputs of labour at one time, e.g. bringing home the harvest before the river floods again. The sets may also have served a military purpose in the Igth century, in the days when villages were stockaded against Somali attacks.

The effect of the men's associations and of the marriage rules was clearly to redistribute material goods and authority into the hands of older men, through bridewealth payments and association fees, even though the younger men were the more effective producers. Bridewealth payments took many years to complete, and often a man would have to pay off the uncompleted part of the bridewealth for his mother after his father's death.

The important point is that it was both through descent (giving potential access to land) and through age structures (giving access to women) that the elders maintained the relations of dependence of the younger men. The two most important factors involved in the reproduction of the social system were land and women, and it was through control over them that older men were able to ensure their own continued

hegemony. Moreover, the two factors are not separable, for access to land was not

given to men who had not married.

CONTROL OVER WOMEN There were a number of rules governing marriage that worked out to the advantage of the elders. Firstly, bridewealth had to be paid, and it was a heavy burden that a man carried for many years of his life. Early accounts mention the demand by girls' fathers for considerable amounts not only of garden produce, meat, and honey beer, but also of such imported items as lengths of cotton cloth, red ochre, lead, brass wire (Kraft 1903). Bunger (I973) claims, though without quoting a source, that ivory and iron

goods were demanded. (Ivory was traded to the coast in return for iron goods, cloth and guns.) These imported items were luxury goods, and by making them

indispensable for marriage and for the transfer of rights to a woman's children, the older men also made sure that their own position in the economy was a central one, and that the dependence of the younger men upon them was guaranteed. The younger men were thus fitted into a progression that they followed until they finally became elders themselves.

Another controlling device was the establishment of negative marriage rules -clan

exogamy among the Lower Pokomo, and prohibitions on marriage with the daughter of a co-eval among the other tribes. The latter prohibition was verbally justified on the same grounds as among the Nuer (Evans-Pritchard 195 : 34), that 'were a man to marry the daughter of an age mate, her parents would become his parents-in-law, and the respect he would have to show them would be incompatible with the familiarity with which he should treat age mates and their wives and the liberties he may take with - them.' However, it also had the effect that a man's father-in-law must therefore be older than himself, and in fact would almost inevitably be at least 5 or 20 years older. Once again, we are looking at a custom which reinforced the privileged position of older men, for to the assymmetry of the father-in-law/son-in-law relationship was added the assymmetry of age.

Furthermore, young men could not themselves engage in marriage negotiations

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AGE, DESCENT AND ELDERS AMONG THE POKOMO 393

with their prospective father-in-law. All such negotiations had (and still have) to be between representatives of the parents involved, for only elders could transfer rights over women and their children, and bridewealth goods.

Again, one early source (Werner 1913) indicates that young men had to have

progressed through the lowest three men's associations before they could be married. Entrance into these associations cost considerable sums of money. (Entrance into the

higher grades was only for the really well-to-do.) All these fees went to the wakijo. One

important consequence of the expensiveness of marriage and the fact that it was the elders who collected the fees and the bridewealth, was that older men were

disproportionately polygynous. As a major gauge of status was number of children, so

polygyny was highly valued, since it led to more children per husband. A final source of control was the power of fathers to betroth their children, even sometimes before these children were born.

It is clear that the Pokomo, even those high up the river, were involved, in the I 9th Century, in the system of international trade that was established by Arabs along the East African coast, though not nearly so involved as, e.g. the Kamba (Lamphear 1970). Though linked to an outside market system, the elders limited the potentially disrupting effects of commercial exchange by (a) preventing access by Arab and Swahili merchants to the upriver areas, and (b) raising their demands for bridewealth as these imported goods became more common. This was especially apparent after

money was introduced, since when bridewealth demands have continuously inflated as the elders have endeavoured to keep their juniors in a dependent position.3

The control exercised by the elders was sustained by mystical notions. Only the

wakijo could approach God and the ancestors; only the wakijo were supposed to know the ngaji. Fathers also wielded considerable power in their ability to curse their

offspring. The lifting of curses, and the removal of kinship barriers to marriage, were similar kinds of ritual in that both involved the spraying of honey beer, and the invocation of the ancestors, and that both needed elders for their performance. In addition, most medicine men (wagangana) were older men, and they had their own herbal and ritual knowledge.

It is also important to note that the authority of the elders grew not only from their control over marriages, but also from the fact that each generation depends for its existence on resources advanced to them by those who have gone before. The elders are in fact the only ones who owe nothing to any other living people. This argument is most clearly presented by Meillassoux (i973).

COLONIAL RULE Some of the elements in this system of production began to disintegrate when direct colonial rule was introduced at the very end of the i gth century. New forms of political authority were introduced, forms which had no base in the local economy. Further, a hut tax was introduced in 1902, which had to be paid in cash. Swahili and Indian traders began moving freely into all parts of the district. Furthermore, following the fall of Witu in I893, the demand for agricultural produce and for labour on the rice fields of the delta expanded rapidly, as the grain export trade to Lamu, Mombasa and the Persian Gulf began to thrive. Many young men flocked to the delta area to find




work. Some may have been seeking refuge from heavy Somali raids on the upriver areas.

At the coast these upriver people came into contact with Islam. Islam had existed along the coast for centuries, but little attempt had been made at proselytisation until just before colonial rule began. Among the Pokomo, Islam seems to have been an important catalytic agent. Given that the majority of the upriver immigrants would have been younger men, that they were living outside their home areas, and that they were engaged in a totally new kind of production relationship (employer/employee), it is perhaps not surprising that they should have seen the potential of this new religion as a catalyst in the inter-generational tension of the traditional social system.

Returning from the coast, young men began to introduce Islam into their home areas from about the time of World War I onwards. According to Bunger (1973) the first mosque among the Upper Pokomo was built in Ndera in 1912; in retaliation, the local wakijo desecrated it and seized and thrashed local Moslems. It was clear both to the elders, and to European colonial officials that Islam was (or was being used as) a challenge to the authority of the elders. Nearly all the converts were young men, and living at the mouth of the river they were to a large extent beyond the effective control of their elders.

The colonial administration played an important role in undermining the power of the wakijo. In early years, District Commissioners in their annual reports spoke of their vigorous suppression of the privilege of the wakijo to help themselves to whatever they wanted from other people's land. In I933, the District Commissioner organized a meeting 'at which a large number of Wapokomo elders had an opportunity of hearing the replies of the wakijo elders when accused by me of malpractices ... this lowered their prestige enormously' (K.N.A. T.R.D. 1933). In the 1940S District Commissioners began to refuse to appoint wakijo as Chiefs of administrative Locations.

Trouble between young Moslems and traditional elders continued in all the Locations of Central Division for the next forty years. In Ndura, it was not until 195 I that Moslems were able to build a mosque; even then, the wakijo tore it down and threw the pieces into the river, so that another had to be built. This was again torn down.

In 1937, a Local Native Council was set up, involving Chiefs and elected Councillors from every Location. This proved a useful forum for the elucidation of points at issue between the Moslem sharia and customary law, for it was common for young Moslems to claim allegiance only to the sharia. For example, a young Kinakomba mwalimu, Omari Dima, trained in Lamu, began vigorously proselytizing in 1941 along the river. In one instance, he successfully changed the custom of women burying children who die at birth, for by traditional custom, men may not enter the house of a newly delivered woman. Today, husbands enter to retrieve the corpses and bury them themselves, though at first some were charged with breach of custom. In other instances, Omari urged Moslem sons not to bury their pagan fathers, and he strongly attacked the custom of spirit possession dances, as well as the ngaji of the elders.

There were fracas between elders and young men in 1941, 1943, 1945, I946 and 195 I, and ill-feeling and troubles were recorded almost every year from the 920S to

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the mid- 95 os. In 945, for example, at Masalani in Kinakomba, some Moslem youths were being tried by a local court when a crowd broke in and rescued them; several elders, including the Chief, were assaulted with sticks. Thirty seven people were

imprisoned. In I951 in Ndura, wakijo twice tore down a mosque; fighting broke out and spread to Kinakomba, involving the use of knives and spears. Again, many arrests were made. There was fighting, with sticks and arrows, at Makere in Milalulu also. In

February 195 I, the D.C. took men from each Location to help rebuild a broken river bank at Oda on the lower Tana, and young Moslems took the opportunity presented by the gathering of men from all the sub-tribes to construct a mock ngaji drum, showing it to everyone. After this time, only the very oldest men remained committed to the old religion, for a mass conversion to Islam, affecting many upriver Christians also, took place in the early 95 os.

In a few places, the power of the wakijo remained for a few years longer. Fire ordeals for suspected sorcerers were supervised by them in I952, 1953 and 1955, and the

leading elder of each kyeti still plays an important role in land cases. But the association is now more of an old men's club; indeed, in 1955 the wakijo claimed that their ceremonies did not exclude Christians and Moslems. The number of initiates dropped off rapidly in the 195 os; the last initiation ceremony seems to have been held in I 9 58.

The men's associations have disappeared, but the age sets have not entirely lost their

corporate functions. They are still activated locally as work parties, and to some extent have even replaced the earlier local councils of elders (gasa). For example, in Ndura in

1972, I noticed that the (Government-appointed) Chief, who was a youngish man, would occasionally call together the members of the two most senior age sets for discussion of local issues.

But today, the whole social organization is being transformed under the impact of the market economy. Already one in every six adult male Pokomo is earning a full-time

living outside traditional agriculture; and almost all adult males now have some kind of cash income, whether through the sale of agricultural produce, the sale of their own

labour, herding cattle or running a village shop etc., although in the vast majority of

cases, the amounts of money brought in are minute. There is also a growing degree of labour migration to Mombasa and elsewhere on the coast. Land is not yet being bought and sold, but fairly large sums of cash can be raised through the pledging of land. A small middle class of Pokomo is developing. The main agencies through which the area is being integrated into the national economy are (i) the provision of labour for the tourist industry, and other industries located at Mombasa, (2) the establishment by the Government of large-scale irrigation schemes in the area, employing many hundreds of Pokomo as tenants (growing cash crops) and labourers, and (3) the encouragement of cattle trading (this mainly affects the local Galla).

CONCLUSION I have argued that Pokomo society in the i9th century was a male gerontocracy, in which the power held by the elders depended very largely on their control over the

process of reproduction, especially over the processes leading to the formation of new units of production, and over the circulation of luxury imported goods. The social relations constituting this position of control (or appropriation) cannot be described as beingpredominantly structured by either descent or age organization. Thus, instead of

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arguing whether or not the political importance of the clan structure is inversely correlated with that of the age set system, I have found it more useful to relate both to the structure of control over production and reproduction.

For the younger men and the elders stand in a relationship which, as regards control over the productive resources, is mutually exclusive. Moreover, the young men contribute proportionately more to the general stock of food and material goods in society than they take from it. In times of conflict with the Somali, Galla and others, they were called on to make greater sacrifices than anyone else. Furthermore, they have always faced restrictions in matters such as access to land, age at marriage, choice of spouse, access to positions of authority, and access to God and the ancestors. In marriage negotiations, and in village moots, they are not allowed to speak for themselves. In their day-to-day lives, they have always been exposed to the authority and domination of older men; their scope for personal autonomy was small. The knowledge that youth is only a temporary status seems not to have mitigated the violence of the confrontation between the generations, especially during the I940s and 9 5 os. Age organization may appear egalitarian, but an age set cannot reproduce itself:

its members need access to land and women, and this will inevitably involve them with other sets, in unequal relationships. That age should be such an important concept should perhaps lead us to closer investigation into the ideology of age in Africa, to complement the considerable attention now being paid to rethinking kinship.

NOTES

1 Research was carried out among the Upper 2 That they are living members is, I would argue,

Pokomo from I971 to I973, and was generously to be seen in the light of the shallow time-depth of funded by the Canada Council and by the the local view of history, itself a reflex of the International Studies Program of the University of considerable mobility that the economy tradi- Toronto. Dr. J. Freedman and Dr. M. G. tionally has required. Silverman made valuable criticisms of earlier drafts 3 cf. Rey 1971: 65 ff. on the inflation of of this article. bridewealth in colonal Africa.

REFERENCES

Bernardi, B. 1959 The Mugwe. London: Oxford University Pressfor International African Institute. Bottomore, T. 1975 'Structure and History,' in P. Blau (ed.) Approaches to the Study of Social Structure. New

York: Free Press. 1 59-171. Bunger, R. 1973 Islamigation among the Upper Pokomo. New York: Program of Eastern African Studies,

Syracuse University. Elam, Y. I975 'Family and Polity in Ankole,' Ethnology 14 (2): I63-I71. Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 195 Kinship and Marriage among the Nuer. London: Oxford University Press. Forde, D. I 97 I 'Ecology and Social Structure,' in Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute for 7970.

15-29. K.N.A. T.R.D. (Kenya National Archives, Tana River District) 1933 Handing Over Reports. Kraft, A. 1903 'Die Wa-Pokomo,' in S. Steinmetz (ed.), Rechtsverhaltnisse von Eingeborenen Volker. Berlin. Lamphear, J. 1970 'The Kamba and the Northern Mrima Coast,' in R. Gray and D. Birmingham (eds.)

Pre-Colonial African Trade. London: Oxford University Press. 75- 01. Legesse, A. 1973 Gada. New York: Free Press. Mannheim, K. I959 'The Problem of Generations,' in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge. London:

Routledge and Kegan Paul. Meillassoux, C. I960 'Essai d'interpretation du phenomene economique dans les societes traditionelles

d'auto-subsistence,' Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines 4: 38-67. Meillassoux, C. 1973 'The Social Organization of the Peasantry: the Economic Basis of Kinship,' Journal

of Peasant Studies (i): 8 I-9o.

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AGE, DESCENT AND ELDERS AMONG THE POKOMO 397

Rey, P. P. 1971 Colonialisme, Neo-Colonialisme et Transition au Capitalisme. Paris: Maspero. Southall, A. 1970 'Rank and Stratification among the Alur and Other Nilotic Peoples,' in A. Tuden and L.

Plotnicov (eds.) Social Stratification in Africa. New York: Free Press. 3 1-46. Werner, A. 1913 'Some Notes on the Wapokomo of the Tana Valley,' Journal of the Africa Society 13:

359-384.

Resume

LES NOTIONS D'AGE ET DE FILIATION ET LEURS RAPPORTS AVEC LES ANCIENS CHEZ LES POKOMO

LE present article etudie une societe dans laquelle les concepts d'age et de filiation servent a structurer des formes sociales. Mais, au lieu de se concentrer sur les fonctions positives d'allegeances opposees, l'auteur entreprend de montrer de quelle maniere l'age et la filiation se renforcent mutuellement afin que seuls les anciens aient acces aux moyens de production et de

reproduction et les controlent. Les Pokomo exploitent les rives du fleuve Tana dans le Nord- Est du Kenya et les terres arables sont en nombre limite.



age, descent and elders among the pokomo

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