| or 'forebears'. The real point, though, is that the word used to translate'ancestral spirt' (rather than 'ancestor'), which in Bantu languages is mostfrequently a variant on the root -zim-, is assigned to a noun classdifferent from that used for living persons or animals. Kopytoff attempts tohoist me with my own petard when he claims that I admit to the several possiblemeanings of this term, but the fact remains that while living being classes canbe and are used to gloss the words we translate as 'elder' etc. to render'ancestor', the reverse is not true. An elder among the Luguru maypossess an mtsimu (pl. mitsimu); he cannot be oneunless he is dead. As I also noted before, it is significant that in Swahilithe only other words used to describe things which are assigned to this class(commonly used for trees, plants, rivers, mountains, the moon) are those wegloss (I would say 'translate') as god, mungu, pl. miungu andprophet, mtume, pl. mitume. Kopytoff also chooses to disregard my other point: that in Ndebele the wordused for ancestral spirit has the root -loz- (-loy- -log- and-loj- are cognates and connote witchcraft/sorcery). From this Ideveloped the hypothesis I have discussed widely with African colleagues andwith which they concur: namely, that there exists a spiritual power which canbe tapped licitly or illicitly. The elder can tap it by way of the ancestralspirits to uphold his authority. The witch can tap it by his/her evil powers.But the source of the spiritual power tapped is the same. As I made clear in my original article, I found myself in general agreementwith much of what Kopytoff said, and am grateful to him for giving me thestimulus to carry out further research. J.L. Brain
State University of New York
New Paltz
Brain, James L. 1973. Ancestors as elders in Africa: further thoughts.Africa 43, 122-33.
Kopytoff, Igor 1971. Ancestors as elders in Africa. Africa 41,129-42. Followers of the controversy that Igor Kopytoff's paper 'Ancestors as elders inAfrica' has stimulated may be forgiven a certain bemusement, for whilstKopytoff is claiming a different methodology ('cultural semantics') it is notclear that he is saying anything positively different from his adversaries. Heis of course making a number of negative, polemical points, largely to do withthe dangers of false conceptualisation, but these points (whose problematicalsubstantiation has been demonstrated in recent correspondence) do not clear theway to any new interpretation of the role of ancestors, or of elders. I wonderwhether the trouble does not lie with the view, which all | parties seem to haveaccepted (and which is reflected in the heading to this correspondence), thatwhat most characterises African ancestors, or elders, is their authority. Let us return to the common Bantu terms that Kopytoff (I think veryprofitably) focuses upon: the nominal or adjectival stem -kulu(Guthrie's CSS*-kúdù) that can be associated with theverbal radical -kula (Guthrie's *-kúd-). The latter isgeneral to a very large number of Bantu languages and has the virtuallyconstant meaning 'to grow up', 'to grow (instransive)', 'to mature'. Where wehave detailed accounts of the contexts of its use (e.g. Bemba or Ndembu) it isclear that when the word is used of persons the growth so denoted is bothphysical and social, and that it does not happen all at once but isgradual and relative (cf Turner 1968: 83; Richards 1956: 121 sqq. and AppendixA). The nominal and adjectival form, -kulu, often carries the sense of'adult', 'grown-up' or 'mature' but it also appears frequently in kinship termsand other words denoting relative status, meaning 'elder', 'senior' or simply'big' in the sense of socially important. Kopytoff's own suggested gloss isthe French grand- an imaginative translation since this term did in factcome into our own kinship terminology to distinguish very much the samecategories of kin (grandparents, grandchildren) that are distinguished by theBantu -kulu (e.g. Bemba shikulu, grandfather, mwishikulu,grandchild). Returning, however, to the Bantu word, the point to make is that-kulu, even when its sense is simplest and most matter of fact (as inthe Swazi 'great hut' of a homestead, indlunkulu, or Lugandamukulu meaning 'headman' or 'boss'), its reference is stillintrinsically social and relative. Hence its widespread use in kinship terms -a feature that Kopytoff largely ignores. It is used to distinguish older fromyounger siblings (as in Ganda, Luba, Kikuyu, Kaguru) but even more commonly itdistinguishes generations - the senior or 'grown' parents from those who aremore immediately parents, the extended or 'grown' children from those who aremore immediately a person's children. The former distinction, that is-kulu in grand-parental terms, is variable and exists alongside otherterms for grandparents (e.g. the Swazi alternatives of babe'mkulu orgogo for grandfather) but the word for grandchild in eastern andsouthern Bantu languages is extraordinarily constant; Nyoro mwijukuru,Gisu umwitzukhulu, Kuria mocokoro, Ambo musikulu, Gogomwizukulu, Nyanja mdzukulu, Ndembu mwijikulu, Zulumzikulu, and so on. In all these terms -kulu (or -koro)is clearly present, associated with an only slightly less constant middleelement -iju/-itzu-/-co-/-iji-/-zi-. How one should derive this termetymologically as a series in common Bantu is open to doubt: my |
