Beschreibung
This was the first full-length account of this hitherto
little-known people and remains one of the very few modern
accounts of an African ancestral cult. The Lugbara are an
African people in whose society formal political authority
and sanctions are almost completely lacking. There are
neither kings nor indigenous chiefs, and holders of what
authority there is are merely the senior men of families.
The Lugbara sacrifice to their ancestors, and in this book
the author shows how the significance of their beliefs and
rituals may be understood only within the context of a
struggle for power between family heads and their
dependents. In addition, ritual involves oracles and
diviners, and belief in witches and sorcerers. But in spite
of logical contradictions between many of their beliefs and
actions there is a sociological consistency and the whole
forms a single coherent pattern. The Lugbara also have the
concept of a creator God, who watches over the ultimate
well-being of their society. Though rapidly changing, the
Lugbara conceive of it as being ideally unchanging: they can
accommodate this apparent inconsistency in their thought by
their notions of God and myth.
This reprint has a new introduction by Thomas Beidelman,
Professor of Anthropology at New York University.
“A notable ethnographic tour de force”, American
Anthropologist
“The best and most detailed study of the
ancestral rites of an African people which has yet been
published. As such, it is essential reading for anyone
interested in the study of the relations of primitive
peoples.” Anthropos
John Middleton is an anthropologist who has
taught in many
different institutions, including the School of Oriental and
African Studies and University College London in the UK, and
Northwestern, New York and Yale Universities in the USA.
