Medicinal Rule

A Historical Anthropology of Kingship in East and Central Africa

Nonfiction, History, Africa, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Anthropology
Cover of the book Medicinal Rule by Koen Stroeken, Berghahn Books
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Author: Koen Stroeken ISBN: 9781785339851
Publisher: Berghahn Books Publication: September 7, 2018
Imprint: Berghahn Books Language: English
Author: Koen Stroeken
ISBN: 9781785339851
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Publication: September 7, 2018
Imprint: Berghahn Books
Language: English

As soon as Europeans set foot on African soil, they looked for the equivalents of their kings – and found them. The resulting misunderstandings last until this day. Based on ethnography-driven regional comparison and a critical re-examination of classic monographs on some forty cultural groups, this volume makes the arresting claim that across equatorial Africa the model of rule has been medicine – and not the colonizer’s despotic administrator, the missionary’s divine king, or Vansina’s big man. In a wide area populated by speakers of Bantu and other languages of the Niger-Congo cluster, both cult and dynastic clan draw on the fertility shrine, rainmaking charm and drum they inherit.

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As soon as Europeans set foot on African soil, they looked for the equivalents of their kings – and found them. The resulting misunderstandings last until this day. Based on ethnography-driven regional comparison and a critical re-examination of classic monographs on some forty cultural groups, this volume makes the arresting claim that across equatorial Africa the model of rule has been medicine – and not the colonizer’s despotic administrator, the missionary’s divine king, or Vansina’s big man. In a wide area populated by speakers of Bantu and other languages of the Niger-Congo cluster, both cult and dynastic clan draw on the fertility shrine, rainmaking charm and drum they inherit.

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