essay
The Kingship in Bornu
West African chiefs : their changing status under colonial rule and independence • New York • Published In 1970 • Pages: 187-201
By: Cohen, Ronald.
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
In this article, Cohen examines state development in the Chad basin from the first millenium A.D. up to 1968. The earliest state was a loose confederacy of clans under the leadership of a dominant lineage. The arrival of Islamic teachers at the end of the thirteenth century brought knowledge of centralized statecraft, warfare and courtly life. The Kanem confederacy was followed by the Bornu conquest state in the fifteenth century which subjugated and absorbed the surrounding tribes to form the Kanuri people. Centralization of power increased with long-distance trade and with the establishment of a tenure system of fragmented and widely dispersed fiefs whose owners resided in the capital. Dynastic changeover in the nineteenth century forced the new monarch to rely on clients and household slaves to rule. At the turn of the century the British established new administrative and taxation systems, which reduced kingship to a constitutional monarchy and created a new western-educated bureaucratic elite.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Sociocultural trends
- Form and rules of government
- Chief executive
- Taxation and public income
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Kanuri
- 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
- Western 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 ; 1996
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- 1955-57, summers 1964-66
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1820 - 1968
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- Borno State, Nigeria
- NotesAdditional notes
- by Ronald Cohen
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 209-210)
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 70116638
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Kanuri (African people)