essay

Leadership, authority and the village community

King's men : leadership and status in Buganda on the eve of independenceLondonPublished In 1964 • Pages: 211-255

By: Southwold, Martin.

AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this paper, Southwold looks at authority and status patterns in village Buganda. Traditional chiefs had the power to grant and revoke land rights and also the power of life and death over their subjects. However, most chiefs avoided such despotic measures for fear of losing their constituents, who worked their estates and were free to pick up their belongings and leave at anytime, land and chiefs being plentiful. Therefore, to govern well, a chief had to ingratiate himself with his people, showing 'justice, generosity and humanity.' In 1900 the establishment under the British Protectorate of a freeholding system (MAILO) and modern bureaucratic state transformed the function and duty of the local chief to largely one of implementing state development policies. Southwold comments on the contradictory position local chiefs found themselves in trying to implement state policies without the traditional means of authority.
SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
Real property
Status, role, and prestige
Territorial organization
Education system
cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
Ganda
HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
1998
RegionThe area the document pertains to
Africa
Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
Eastern Africa
Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
essay
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.
4: Excellent Secondary Data
5: Excellent Primary Data
AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
Ian Skoggard ; 1997
Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
1954-1956
Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
1900-1956
Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
Uganda
NotesAdditional notes
Martin Southwold
Includes bibliographical references
LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
64002741
LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
Ganda (African people)