Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa

450 Pages·1990·10.027 MB·English

by  Jan M. Vansina

Paths in the Rainforests

Paths in the Rainforests
m
Toward a History of Political
Tradition in Equatorial Africa
Jan Vansina
The University of Wisconsin Press

Contents
Maps and Figures ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xv
Note on Spelling xix
Chapter One
Voids and Blinders, Words and Things 3
Preamble 3
Words as History 9
Historical Linguistics 10
Words and Things 11
Glottochronology 16
Information and Evidence 17
The Pivotal Role of Writing 17
Tribes and Space 19
Time 21
The Question of Authorship 23
Special Contents 26
Reliability of Bodies of Evidence 28
Research Design 31
Chapter Two
The Land and Its Settlement 35
The Landscapes 35
Physical Geography 38
Mythical Jungles and True Rainforests 39
Western Bantu Expansion 47
Early Inhabitants 47
Western Bantu Expansion 49
Dynamics of the Expansion 55
Farmers and Autochthons 56
V
vi Contents
From Ancestral to Forest Tradition 57
The Adoption of Metals 58
The Arrival of the Banana 61
New Neighbors 65
Equatorial Africa by A.D. 1000 68
Chapter Three
Tradition: Ancient and Common 71
Reality and Reality 71
Communities and Big Men 73
The House 74
The Village 77
The District 81
Making a Living 83
Farming 84
Finding Food 88
Industries 92
Exchange and Trade 93
The Meaning of the World 95
A Historical Watershed 99
Chapter Four
The Trail of the Leopard in the Inner Basin 101
Inventing Lineages 104
Dominant Houses 105
Lineage and District 106
Expansion and Counterinnovation 111
Continued Expansion I 14
Dividing the Sacred Emblems 119
Nkumu 120
Spread of the Nkumu Complex 123
Chapter Five
Between Ocean and Rivers 129
The Northwest 129
Early Developments 130
The Sanaga-Ntem Expansion 134
Bioko 137
Contents vii
The Southwest: The Growth of States 146
Chiefdoms Emerged 146
Principalities Appeared 149
The Invention of Matrilinearity 152
Kingdoms Arose 155
North of the Kingdoms 158
Original State Formations in the Lower Kasai Region 162
Chapter Six
The Eastern Uplands 167
Uele and Ituri 169
A Congress of Traditions 169
Birth of a New Tradition 172
From Big Man to King 175
The Southeast: Associations and Brotherhoods 177
A Rule of Wealth and Wisdom 181
Ministates in the Mountains .185
Brotherhoods in Northern Maniema 186
Dynamics of Tradition 191
Chapter Seven
Challenge from the Atlantic 197
The Atlantic Trading System in Equatorial Africa 198
The Formative Phase: c. 1550-c. 1660 200
The Heyday of the Slave Trade: c. 1660-c. 1830 204
The Industrial Age: c. 1830-1880 207
The Economic Impact 211
Trade Routes and Agricultural Innovation 211
Complementary Regional Specialization 216
The Atlantic Trade and Population Losses 218
Equatorial Societies in the Days of the Atlantic Trade 220
The Fate of the Kingdoms 220
Firms and Towns in the Inner Basin 225
The Northern Coasts 230
Conclusion: Tradition Under Stress 235
Chapter Eight
Death of a Tradition 239
Conquest and the Four Horsemen 240
The New Rural Colonial Society 245
viii Contents
Chapter Nine
On History and Tradition 249
The Probable Past 249
History, Habitat, Evolution 251
Properties of Tradition 257
Comparative Anthropology and Tradition 260
Appendix
Comparative Lexical Data 267
Notes 303
Works Cited 375
Index 411
Maps and Figures
Maps
1.1 Equatorial Africa 4
1.2 General orientation 6
1.3 The quality of the evidence 30
1.4 Western Bantu languages of the rainforests 32
2.1 Orography 36
2.2 Rainfall 37
2.3 Seasons 40
2.4a The rainforests: a simple view 42
2.4b The rainforests: a complex reality 42
2.5 Vegetation 44
2.6 Older Stone Age sites 48
2.7 Western Bantu expansion in equatorial Africa 51
2.8 The major Bantu language groups in equatorial Africa 53
2.9 Neolithic sites 54
2.10 The early Iron Age 59
2.11 Banana plantain (AAB): *-kondo, -bugu 63
2.12 Major outside influences on the equatorial African
tradition 67
4.1 The inner basin 102
4.2 Early expansion in the inner basin 112
4.3 Later expansion north of the equator 115
4.4 Nkumu expansion 124
5.1 Communal building, *-banja 131
5.2 The Sanaga-Ntem expansion: c. A.D. 1400-1600 133
5.3 Bioko 138
5.4 The spread of the term nkani meaning "chief" 148
5.5 The southwestern quadrant before c. A.D. 1200 150
5.6 The three main kingdoms: Kongo, Loango, Tio 157
5.7 Southern Gabon 160
5.8 Northern Congo 161
5.9 Lands of the lower Kasai 163
ix