Ethnographisch-Archaeologische Zeitschrift (Berlin). 1998. Vol. 39, № 3. P. 367-372 Dmitri M. Bondarenko (Moscow) Peter M. Roese (Lautertal) Pre-dynastic Edo: The Independent Local Community Government System and Sociopolitical Evolution Abstract Of all the West African societies, the Kingdom of Benin is the one most mentioned in contemporary European literature. Since the end of the 15th century, a great deal of material about Benin has been supplied by sailors, traders, etc., returning to Europe. However, information on the Edo people before this date is very difficult to obtain, as there was no written record and the oral record is at best rather fragmentary. But the data the scholar still obtains (plus evidence of ethnography) give reasons to argue that the pre-dynastic and the 1st (Ogiso) dynasty periods were those of different stages of the formation of the Benin society in the consequent processes of the rise of independent agricultural extended families communities, the amalgamation of a part of them in chiefdoms and their growth. At last, the reign of the Ogisos represents the first, eventually unsuccessful attempt to establish effective simultaneously supra-communal and supra-chiefdomous authority. Only the next attempt, made by the Obas was a success and that is why their dynasty exists up till now. This paper deals with the earliest stage of that process: the rise of independent communities. The extended-family community was the primordial, substratum sociopolitical institution of the Edo. It stayed the basic one - sociopolitically, culturally, economically - later, during and after the formation of supra-communal levels of the Benin socium. And just its norms in the sociopolitical sphere, its mentality and picture of the Universe not only permeated and fastened together all the levels of the later complex Benin socium of the Ogiso and Oba kings epochs. They also formed the background and pattern for the evolution of the Edo society though changes at the transition from lower levels to higher were of not only quantitative but of qualitative character as well (see: BONDARENKO 1995 a, 134, 227-230, 257-264, 276-284). Hoe agriculturalism was among the factors which promoted such a course of events. The natural environment of the region prevented the introduction of the plough and individualisation of agricultural production conserving the extended family community as the basic social unit for practically an immense prospect (BONDARENKO 1995 a, 101-117). The extended family community still exists generally the same in Edoland today. And just this stability of the basic sociopolitical unit, the community lets us extrapolate ethnographic data on earlier periods of the Edo sociopolitical history with quite a considerable degree of plausibility (BRADBURY 1964). The fact that the Benin community was of the extended family type, was of fundamental importance because of its essentially hierarchical social structure and antidemocratic value system with the division into the elder and the younger as the primary for both of them. This way the gerontocratic principles and forms of communal government, on the one hand, and the evidently hierarchical (conic) type of the Benin megacommunity since its appearance with the establishing of the Oba dynasty: the extended family - the community - the chiefdom - the megacommunity (the Benin Kingdom), on the other hand, were determined. The principle of seniority, so characteristic in a greater or lesser degree of all the levels of the Edo social being was rooted in the communal three-grade system of male age-sets (for details see: THOMAS 11-12; TALBOT 545-549; BRADBURY 1957, 15, 32, 34, 49-50; BRADBURY 1969; BRADBURY 1973, 170-175; IGBAFE 1979, 13-15; BONDARENKO 1995 a, 144-149). Each age-grade carried out definite tasks, its members shared common duties, distinctive from those of the other two grades. The eldest age-grade members’, just called the edion, the “elders” (sing. odion) obligation was to rule on the family as well as on the communal levels. So the oldest and most experienced man of a community took over the leadership at first. But that was not a rational choice on the background of candidates’ personal qualities and views. The aim and sense of the Edo’s being was the preservation of the balance between the world of the living and the world of the spirits and deities, on what the very existence of the land and the life crucially depended, in his mind. Just for the sake of this balance’s preservation the authority on all levels existed for him (BONDARENKO 1995 a, 24-89, 182-183; BONDARENKO 1997 a; BONDARENKO 1997 b). That is why, in particular it is natural that especially the ancestor worship reached a high-watermark under the rulers of the 2nd (the Oba) dynasty. At the same moment, the ancestors’ cult fixed the position of every person in the Universe and in the Benin society as its the most important part. And just elder people naturally were considered the closest to the ancestors thus being able to play the role of mediators between them and the living better than anybody else. The next step could well have been the forming of well organised councils of elders which appointed a prominent man out of their midth to be their leader. The community council initially consisted of the edion age-grade members, heads and representatives without fail of all the extended families of which a given community was composed (EGHAREVBA 1949, 13-14; BRADBURY 1957, 29; BRADBURY 1973, 156). Just the head of the senior age-grade became the head of the whole community and he easily could represent not the family of his predecessor: there was not one privileged family in the initial Edo community. (In the case when there was only one extended family forming the community, the heads and representatives of its nuclear families became the family and the community council members at one time. And the head of the community and the extended family, odionmwan also coincided in one person. But such communities were exceptions to the rule (EGHAREVBA 1949, 11)). The council gathered on the initiative of the head of the community or an extended family council (SIDAHOME 114). The community council took a real and active part in its governing, discussing and solving (at the head’s right of the decisive voice) a wide range of problems: connected with land use, legal proceedings and so on and so forth (EGHAREVBA 1949, 11; BRADBURY 1957, 33-34; BRADBURY 1973, 172, 179-180, 243; SIDAHOME 127; UWECHUE 145). The most archaic form of government, the public assembly probably was of some significance that distant time, too for we find reminiscences of it in the council members’ right to apply to wide circles of communalists for consultations and maybe in rare “deaf” hints of the oral tradition (EGHAREVBA 1965, 15). The existence of the public assembly is ethnographically fixed among sociopolitically less developed ethnic groups of Southern Nigeria including some Edo and kindred to them (TALBOT 565) what also can be considered an indirect proof of its presence in early Benin. So, in such a way, though the age-grades system sanctioned not but the collective way of governing based on the closeness of a group of male to male ancestors, came the office of the odionwere into being. Egharevba relates how the country was governed in turn for one century before the establishment of the Ogiso rule. The following names (or titles?) have been handed down to us: Ese, Otua, Uwurumwen, Odin, Ogbon, Udu, Odion, Iroro, Owere, Agba of Uselu. According to oral traditions, Odion and Owere became odionwere (pl. edionwere), the chairman of the council of elders (edion) of a community, group of communities or town quarters (EGHAREVBA 1952, 26; 1965, 12). Joint meetings of councils of such unions members’ communities were presided over by the senior odionwere, chosen according to age or in conformity with the precedence of certain villages over others (BRADBURY 1957, 34). But such a union of communities was not a chiefdom, “an autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief” (CARNEIRO 45) for such unions voluntarily comprised basically still independent and politically equal to each other communities. The head of a union was the oldest man of all the union’s edion, not obligatory a representative of a concrete community (“a paramount chief”) for, due to the fact of independence and equality of communities-members of the union, there was not a privileged, politically dominating one among them though a prominent odionwere taking over political responsibility and caring for the people may have acquired great power. The major reason for the very existence of the institution of edionwere in people’s minds reflected in the principles of their electing, defined the ritual function as the most important among edionwere’s duties. Besides this, the worship of the deities and the ancestors on behalf of the people by the odionwere further strengthened the position of this dignitary. But in the initial Edo community its head, the odionwere was not merely the ritual leader. He was responsible for the division of the communal land, was the judge on the communal level, the keeper and guard of traditions, etc. (BRADBURY 1957, 32-33; BRADBURY 1973, 176-179) Edionwere received gifts from those governed by him but practically entirely of the prestigious and ritual character (TALBOT 914) Economically they depended on their families. The division of authorities in the community into ritual, left for the odionwere, and profane was the next step of the Edo sociopolitical organisation evolution connected with the process of overcoming the communal level as the utmost in the hierarchical form, with the formation of the first major supra-communal level of their being. That was the level of the chiefdom. The chiefdom as a form of sociopolitical organisation quickly superseded the union of independent and equal communities in the degree of spread over Edoland and its role in further sociopolitical and historical fortunes of the people, although both independent communities and unions of independent equal communities went on existing alongside with chiefdoms (BRADBURY 1957, 34; BONDARENKO 1995 a, 184-185). (As well as all the mentioned forms of sociopolitical organisation later co-existed with and within the kingship (see: BONDARENKO 1994, 9-10; BONDARENKO 1995 a, 183-194, 276-284; BONDARENKO 1995 b; BONDARENKO 1996)). It was not basically obligatory for the division of authorities in the process of chiefdoms’ formation to happen. Some scholars even postulate the sacrality of the supreme authority as one of the chiefdom’s characteristic features (see: KRADIN 16-17). There are some indications that powerful personalities among the edionwere may have gone a step further and undertook the venture to bring under their rule neighbouring communities with less fortunate leaders. Igbafe describes such a situation as follows: an odionwere “... would justify his claim to rule other rulers of small communities by surrounding himself with supernatural airs and attributes and would plead divine mission as an explanation for his leadership role” (IGBAFE 1974, 2). And even in this century there are some communities in Edoland in which the hereditary, not elect of the edion members ruler is the priest (ohe) of a communal deity, though these cases may be of the later, the Kingdom period origin (BRADBURY 1957, 33). But under concrete Edo conditions edionwere generally proved to be unable to ensure the success of military activities via which the road to the chiefdom unavoidably passes. Then, the odionwere still was too tightly connected with his local community, was associated with it only and was considered only its legitimate ruler as the descendant of just its inhabitants’ ancestors. Due to these reasons, the Edo chiefdom exclusively formed having the community with the division of authorities into the odionwere’s ritual (“master’s of the land” as he is sometimes not correctly enough called) and the onogie’s (pl. enigie) profane including military offices as the dominating one though the odionwere exists in every Benin community up till now. So only the bearer of the profane office could become the head of the chiefdom (BRADBURY 1957, 33; EGHAREVBA 1960, 4). The definition of the odionwere and the onogie’s offices as correspondingly ritual and profane is to some extend conditional for the former might preserve some duties of the latter kind. But they could never be the most important, essential for him, on the contrary to the onogie who was concentrated practically on profane responsibilities only. Not by chance “in villages without enigie meetings of the village council take place either at the house of the odionwere or in a special meeting-house, ogwedio, which contains the shrine of the collective dead (edio) of the village.” But “in villages with a hereditary headman meetings are convened at his house” (BRADBURY 1957, 34). Thus sometimes the odionwere and the onogie’s spheres of activities could overlap and the actual division of authority in a concrete village partially depended on relative strength of its two rulers (BRADBURY 1957, 33, 65, 73-74). 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