Elders' Klamas: The Council System
Existing evidence suggests that the Mbwaa community was guided by three interrelated systems of thought. The first was a system of legal precedents, administered by elders' councils, which governed according to traditions passed down by tribal ancestors. The second was a system of beliefs involving the spirits of these ancestors, thought to remain in contact with the living to enforce obedience to the traditions. The final system was one of supernatural rituals, used by a class of specialists believed to be in contact with these spirits to regulate conflict within the tribe. In theory each system operated independently. In fact they combined as often as required to guide the society.
The island's limited economic base permitted little social specialization. The basic social unit was the clan, composed of families claiming descent from common ancestors. Within each clan, conflicts were
Map 2
Lamu archipelago
resolved by governing bodies known as councils (Biama; Kiama, the singular form, is used throughout for convenience). The council system ran parallel to that of the age-sets. At each stage of life males (and females) submitted to the authority of Kiamas composed of individuals their approximate age.[10] Thus, boys, youths, warriors, family heads, and ruling elders each formed councils of their own, intended to regulate whatever conflicts might emerge among themselves.[11]
Foremost among these was the council of ruling elders, composed of men whose sons had reached warrior age. In theory fathers and sons formed a partnership in which the ruling group could call upon its warrior sons to enforce communal decisions. In addition ruling elders could turn to survivors of their grandfathers' age-set, two above their own, for guidance in affairs that concerned the community as a whole. Ideally, the ties of blood bound those holding formal power into a coherent whole in which males of a single family line provided consultation, administration, and military enforcement.
The three age-sets—grandfathers, fathers, and warrior sons—thus formally shared power during the time required for a new generation of males to be born and reach puberty in numbers sufficient to fill the ranks of the war bands. Eventually, their numbers grew until they claimed a monopoly of military power, seizing it from the age group just above them by physically ejecting them from the military barracks. Those expelled in this fashion moved "up" into the next ranking, sought mates, and settled down to become both apprentice elders and the heads of families.
This action would then set every older age-set into social motion. The former family head/apprentice elders, having raised sons to warriorhood, ascended in turn into the role of ruling elders. In that capacity they then joined forces with their sons in governing the tribe. The age-set they displaced assumed administration of the people as a whole. The former ruling elders assumed the status of retired elders. Released from the responsibilities of government, they became free to turn their energies toward education of the newborn generation—their grandchildren—children of their sons, now family heads.
The oldest men in Meru—should any survive—rose to the ultimate status of ritual elders. As the age-set nearest death, they were also closest to the ancestors. Logic required, therefore, that they maintain the ancient rituals to ensure contact with the spirit world and thus advise the ruling elders and warriors—respectively, their sons and grandsons—as to the dictates of ancestral will.
Formal authority, therefore, alternated between one-half of male society and the other, passing back and forth every twelve to fifteen years. At any given moment three age-sets—grandfathers, fathers, and sons—were responsible for the spiritual, administrative, and military guardianship of society. The other three age-sets, also grandfathers, fathers, and (growing) sons would be released from such responsibilities in order to create and nurture families.
This division of the entire society into "ins" and "outs" was formalized, and had been since the beginning of Meru history, by assigning a "praise name" to each group. At any point in time members of the three related age-sets were known as "Ntiba." The other three, whether in or out of power, were called "Kiruka." The two names stayed with the members of each group throughout their lives, creating a political pattern in which it could be said that "first Kiruka and then Ntiba is in power."
Every elder joined his clan Kiama soon after leaving warriorhood. There were no exceptions. Membership was the mark of adulthood, to be sought soon after the acquisition of a wife. Applicants signified their desire for entry by donating livestock to the Kiama elders as they gathered, supplying the basis for a feast. By consuming the applicants' meat, members signified their willingness to include them in their ranks. On entry each man submitted to a ritualized beating, symbolizing his acceptance of the council's authority.
Once accepted, candidates entered into a period of instruction and apprenticeship. Instruction dealt primarily with the norms of behavior ("secrets of Kiama") to which new members were expected to conform. Beyond that, apprentice elders were expected to spend well over a decade silently listening to the manner in which their seniors settled conflicts within the community; they were expected to absorb and eventually master the vast body of ancestral traditions on which all facets of communal life were based.
Apprenticeship was followed by authority, which gradually increased within each council as an individual aged. Over time more charismatic individuals within each group of council members would begin to emerge as spokesmen for their fellows in specific areas of mutual concern. This "spokesman system" formed the core of decision making. There were no formal qualifications. Rather, selection resulted from general agreement among those concerned. Qualities that could lead to one's selection might include pleasing appearance, retentive memory, oratorical skill, or the ability to resolve conflicts among the
young. Special expertise could also become a factor. For example, an elder may have acquired firsthand knowledge of specific regions, peoples, or situations unknown to the council as a whole. In such cases knowledgeable elders would become spokesmen on those topics for as long and often as their expertise was needed.
Conflicts between two or more clans were resolved by spokesmen drawn from each of the contenders. In questions involving the entire tribe, spokesmen could come from every clan to form a council-of-councils, empowered to resolve issues of significance to them all. The Kiama, however, was geared to intermittent functions. In times of crisis, whether among individuals or clans, a council of sufficient size and scope was formed to resolve it. Thereafter, however, the group would dissolve, and whatever knowledge had been gained would be dispersed.
While in operation, the system seems to have operated according to six universally accepted principles of thought. The first equated age with wisdom. Informants "pressed this relation in terms of human blood. Youth was described as "hot blooded," and therefore emotional, violent, and selfish. It created conflict within the community, which only the aged could resolve. Aging, in contrast, cooled the blood, thus permitting elders to acquire wisdom. The elders' role, therefore, was to cool (resolve) the conflicts raised by youth and thus restore the harmony required for communal survival.
A second principle equated wisdom with consensus. All decisions were collective. No single elder could expect to gain such wisdom as to resolve completely the conflicts raised by younger members of society. Solutions could emerge only among elders gathering in council, as the result of measured deliberation based on an eventual consent of all concerned.
Wisdom was also equated with timelessness. Resolving conflict was perceived as the most important work of every elder, a function that was expected to occupy them for a lifetime. Because conflict among men was believed to be continual, the resolution of conflicts was also an unending task. Speed in reaching a decision was unimportant. True significance came from the formation of a Kiama to discuss the problem, since the very act of mutual deliberation created a common sense of purpose among those gathered, thus laying a basis for the harmony they intended to create.
Another Kiama principle was based upon the dual role of domestic livestock in reaching communal decisions. At one level specified types of livestock served as symbolic catalysts, their sacrifice having been
required at each stage of the deliberations to permit them to continue. A conflict between younger clan members, for example, required the antagonists to sacrifice a specified number of goats for a Kiama feast. The goats symbolized the emerging conflict. By consuming them, council elders signified their willingness to resolve ("swallow") it.
On a second level livestock also served as a living currency of reconciliation. An individual judged by his Kiama to have wronged another, for example, would be compelled to make restitution to him in units of livestock, usually sheep, which symbolized harmony. This restitution, combined with the sacrifice of other livestock to the communal ancestors, symbolized the offender's desire to reinstate himself within society.[12]
Other punishments were also intended to reintegrate the offender. Guilt was considered collective, its stigma spreading from a single man to his entire clan. A beating, therefore, if ordered by a Kiama, was administered by the offender's closest relations. A livestock fine was intended as an exercise in collective expiation, because the animals were collected equally from the herds of every family in the clan. In contributing, kinspeople symbolically acknowledged both the offender's guilt and the need for reconciliation.
The system's final principle was based on oral precedent. In theory the Kiama's decisions were consensual. The consensus that emerged, however, was grounded not on personal emotion but on historic precedent. A vast body of traditions inherited from the tribe's founding members regulated every aspect of society's behavior. These founders had passed this collective wisdom on to their heirs, who in turn had transmitted it to future generations.
The original traditions were supposedly unambiguous. In fact they had been subject to interpretation by every generation of Kiama elders. in addition each generation wished to pass on the wisdom of its own interpretations. Over time, therefore, a body of oral case law grew up around the founders' teachings, to which new generations both turned for guidance and added interpretations of their own. This "wisdom," existing solely in people's memories, formed the core of the Kiama system.