Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T10:37:20.068Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

‘Beer Used to Belong to Older Men’: Drink and Authority Among the Nyakyusa of Tanzania

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Justin Willis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The Nyakyusa were the subject of a classic series of ethnographies. This article suggests that these works took insufficient account of struggles over authority in the colonial period. Consequently they overstated the formalisation of chiefly power and understated the complex relationship between generational tensions and political authority in the pre-colonial period. Following discursive and practical changes in the use of alcohol, the article identifies a shift in the nature of power among the Nyakyusa over the twentieth century and develops the idea that drinking talk, and drinking practice, are central fields for the creation and recreation of the assumptions of power which underpin authority.

Résumé

Les Nyakyusa ont fait l'objet d'une série classique d'ethnographies. Cet article suggère que ces études n'ont pas tenu suffisamment compte des luttes de pouvoir au cours de la période coloniale. Elles ont par conséquent surestimé la formalisation du pouvoir des chefs et minimisé la relation complexe entre tensions générationnelles et autorité politique au cours de la période précoloniale. A la suite d'une évolution discursive et pratique de la consommation d'alcool, l'article dénote un changement dans la nature du pouvoir chez les Nyakyusa au cours du vingtième siècle et développe l'idée selon laquelle la discussion accompagnée d'une consommation d'alcool et la pratique de la consommation d'alcool sont des domaines fondamentaux de création et recréation des prises du pouvoir qui étayent l'autorité.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 71 , Issue 3 , August 2001 , pp. 373 - 390
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2001

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

REFERENCES

Adler, M. 1991. ‘From symbolic exchange to commodity consumption: anthropological notes on drinking as symbolic practice’, in Barrows, S. and Room, R. (eds), Drinking: behavior and belief in modern history, pp. 376-98. Berkeley CA, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akyeampong, E. 1996. Drink, Power and Cultural Change: a social history of alcohol in Ghana c. 1800 to recent times. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann; Oxford: James Currey.Google Scholar
Barkan, J. 1994. Beyond Capitalism v. Socialism in Kenya and Tanzania. Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrows, S. 1991. ‘“Parliaments of the people”: the political culture of cafés in the early Third Republic’, in Barrows, S. and Room, R. (eds), Drinking: Behavior and Belief in Modern History, pp. 87-97. Berkeley CA, Los Angeles and Oxford: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chabal, P. and Daloz, J-P. 1999. Africa Works: disorder as political instrument. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press; Oxford: James Currey, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Charsley, S. R. 1969. The Princes of Nyakyusa. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Dennis, P. 1979. ‘The role of the drunk in an Oaxacan village’, in Marshall, M. (ed.), Beliefs, Behaviors, and Alcoholic Beverages: a cross-cultural survey, pp. 54-64. Ann Arbor MI: Michigan University Press.Google Scholar
Douglas, M. 1987. Constructive Drinking: perspectives on drink from anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Elton, J. (1879) 1968. Travels and Researches among the Lakes and Mountains of Eastern and Central Africa. Reprinted 1968, London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Emerson, H. 1934. Alcohol: its effects on man. New York and London: Appleton-Century.Google Scholar
Feierman, S. 1990. Peasant Intellectuals: anthropology and history in Tanzania. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Fotheringham, L. 1891. Adventures in Nyasaland. London: Sampson Low.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, M. 1999. ‘Trading on inequality: gender and the drinks trade in southern Tanzania’, Africa 69 (3), 404-25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gulliver, P. 1958. Land Tenure and Social Change among the Wanyakyusa. Kampala: East African Institute of Social Research.Google Scholar
Hall, R. de Z. 1943. ‘Nyakyusa law from court records’, African Studies 2, 153-61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Jonge, K. 1985. ‘Demographic developments and class contradictions in a “domestic” community: the Nyakyusa (Tanzania) before the colonial conquest’, in van Binsbergen, W. and Geschiere, P. (eds), Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment, pp. 39-70. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Kerr-Cross, D. 1890. ‘Geographical notes on the country between Lakes Nyassa, Rukwa and Tanganyika’, Scottish Geographical Magazine 6, 281-93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levine, H. 1983. ‘The good creature of God and the demon rum: colonial American and nineteenth-century ideas about alcohol, crime and accidents’, in Room, R. and Collins, G. (eds), Alcohol and Disinhibition: nature and meaning of the link, pp. 111-61. Rockville MD: National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.Google Scholar
MacAndrew, C. and Edgerton, R. 1970. Drunken Comportment: a social explanation. London, Accra and Lagos: Nelson.Google Scholar
Marshall, M. 1979. Beliefs, Behaviors and Alcoholic Beverages: a cross-cultural survey. Ann Arbor MI: Michigan University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKenny, M. 1973. ‘The social structure of the Nyakyusa: a re-evaluation’, Africa 43, 91-107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, D. 1925. The Spirit-ridden Konde. London: Seeley Service..Google Scholar
Meyer, T. 1993. Wa-konde: maisha, mila na desturi za Wanyakyusa, trans. J. Siegrist. Mbeya: Motheco..Google Scholar
Moore, S. F. 1986. Social F acts and Fabrications: ‘customary’law on Kilimanjaro, 1880-1980. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press..Google Scholar
Morgan, P. 1983. ‘Alcohol, disinhibition and domination: a conceptual analysis’, in Room, R. and Collins, G. (eds), Alcohol and Disinhibition: nature and meaning of the link, pp. 405-20. Rockville MD: National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism..Google Scholar
Scott, J. C. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: hidden transcripts. New Haven CT and London: Yale University Press..Google Scholar
Wilson, M. (1951) 1963. Good Company: a study of Nyakyusa age-villages. London: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute. Reprinted, Boston MA: Beacon Press; 1983 Westport CT: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1957. Rituals of Kinship among the Nyakyusa. London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute..Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1959. Communal Rituals of the Nyakyusa. London, New York and Toronto: Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute..Google Scholar
Wilson, M. 1977. For Men and Elders: changes in the relations of generations and of men and women among the Nyakyusa and Ngonde. London: International African Institute..Google Scholar
Wright, M. 1971. German Missions in Tanganyika, 1891-1941: Lutherans and Moravians in the Southern Highlands. London: Oxford University Press..Google Scholar
Wright, M. 1972. ‘Nyakyusa cults and politics in the later nineteenth century’, in Ranger, T. and Kimambo, I. (eds), The Historical Study of African Religion. London: Heinemann..Google Scholar