Book
Leadership and authority in an African society: the Afikpo village-group
University of Washington Press • Seattle • Published In 1971 • Pages: xviii, 336 , plates
By: Ottenberg, Simon.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
This source contains a lucid and lengthy description and analysis of the social structure of the Afikpo village-group. The author builds his discussion from the smallest units (lineages, age sets, and secret societies) on out to larger units including the village and village-group. While there is information on the activities of all these groups, the focus is always on their structure, their place in the local authority structure, their leadership structure, and the process of decision-making within small groups. One of the major conclusions of this study is that, although the Afikpo village-group is organizationally complex in terms of the number of groups to which any person belongs, '…the complexities are reducible to a number of fundamental features, based on descent, age, and sexual distinctiveness, which interpenetrate each type of organization, and to a limited number of types of generalized leadership roles.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Identification
- Age stratification
- Lineages
- Community structure
- Inter-community relations
- Magicians and diviners
- Trial procedure
- Judicial authority
- Legal and judicial personnel
- Sodalities
- Gender status
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Igbo
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2003
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- Africa
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Western Africa
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Eleanor C. Swanson ; 1980-1981
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1951-1953, 1959-1960, 1966
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- esp. 1952-1960
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Afikpo village-group, southeastern Nigeria
- NotesAdditional notes
- Simon Ottenberg
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 323-328)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 77159436
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Igbo (African people)