Afrique Archéologie Arts (Dec 2018)
Le monumentalisme funéraire récent d’Éthiopie et la question des démocraties primitives
Abstract
In this paper I continue the reflections I presented at the meeting held at Strasbourg in 2015 concerning Ethiopian megalithism. Here I aim more particularly to investigate the issue of the relationships between the notion of primitive democracy and the concept of the aristocratic class developed by A. Jensen (1936). The understanding of these issues requires the explanation of a distinct number of theoretical anthropological concepts related to politics, more particularly the concept of primitive democracy advanced by Alain Testart. The funerary monumentalism of the Konso people can only be understood within the context of distinct ranking of the society, which is founded on warlike or religious prerogatives that prevail depending on the historical circumstances. As regards the monuments it is possible to distinguish stones erected in the village squares and tombs with statues carved from wood, the waga. These latter monuments figure either renowned warriors, which are considered to be heroes, or poqolla, currently ritual chiefs who are excluded from soldiery. The monograph written by A. Jensen (1936) nonetheless poses the difficult problem of interpretation in that it presents the poqolla as building an aristocracy that draws its legitimacy from its warring prowess and its ritual functions, which appears to be in contradiction with the current situation and with the concept of primitive democracy. Two Omotic-speaking groups, the Gama people and the Yem people, make it possible to widen the debate. On a cladistics basis a dynamic structure of the considered societies can be proposed founded on ten stages of transformation. From a historical perspective, this structure leads to possible correlation between the ranking observed by A. Jensen for the Konso people and the emergence of slave trade. This theoretical proposition is in accordance with the knowledge of social anthropology regarding the local and African groups as well as with the recent historical context.
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