Appendix table to Social structure and shrines (Wim van Binsbergen 1976 ASA paper) -- part of: Historic Berber culture: Wim van Binsbergen's webpage on Khumiriyya (N.W. Tunisia), late 18th

Appendix table: Systematic comparison Khumir and Nkoya

Shrines, cults and society in North and Central Africa

Wim van Binsbergen's webpage on Khumiriyya (N.W. Tunisia), late 18th - mid-20th century

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Appendix . Systematic comparison of Kroumir and Nkoya society, shrines and cults

Legend: K = Kroumirs N = Nkoya + = yes - = no n.a. = not applicable

( ) difficult to classify; estimate * major diference between Kroumirs and Nkoya

VARIABLE	Khumiriyya		Nkoya		Remarks
1. Macro structure and history
1.1. Local society belongs to a general linguistic, cultural and social-structural complex extending over whole subcontinent	+		(+)		K: Maghreb; N: Central Bantu, but more distinct vis-à-is neighbours , than K
1.2. Participants consider their religion a local variant of a general religion shared with neighbours	+		(+)		K: Islam; N: recognise identity in neighbours’ veneration of High God , ancestors etc .
1.3. prior to European colonisation, local pol. system in periphery of sphere of influence of remote state	+		+		K: Bey of Tunis etc.; N: Lozi
1.4. Year of European colonisation	1881		1900
1.5. The rigid monopoly of central power was inherited by the independent state without major changes	+		+
2. Local social structure
*2.1, Density of population (inh/km2 )	60		7
2.2, Effective local communities (valleys) are imposed by ecological/ geomorphologic features	+		+
*2.3. High social-organisational density of the community	+		-		K: highly segmented on many well-defined levels; N: villages only
*2.4. Local communities have a stable membership and are highly endogamous	+		-
*2.5. Marriage tends to be stable and (for women) once in life	+		-
*2 .6. Women become effectively incorporated in the group into which they marry	+		-
2.7. Whatever the explicit participants ' ideology, the underlying kinship structure is bilateral	+		+		K: cf. Van Binsbergen 1970a, 1970b; N: 1976b"
2.8. Subsistence economy, predominantly horticulture"	+		+
2.9. No stratification	(+)		(+)		"K: rural classes beginning to emerge; N: headmanship, slavery was individual, achieved status, did not precipitate ascribed and endogamous classes
2.10, Multiplex, inclusive relationships dominant	+		+
*2.11. Outside central power, local leadership is diffuse and shifting	+		-
*2.12. Women lack economic opportunities of their own	+		-
3. Community shrines	K		N village	N valley	in K/N comparison, N. village shrines prevail since they feature much more in ritual than valley shrines
*()3.1. Material form of shrines**	see remarks		see remarks	see remarks	"K: trees, springs, huts, stone buildings;" N(vil): wooden poles, shrubs N(val):poles
*()3.2. Shrines are places where an important man or woman was buried**	(+)		-	+	K: also other associations than burial occur
*3.3. Regular cemeteries are located around shrines	+		-	-
3.4. There are keepers for shrine at maximum community level	+		n.a.	+
3.5. Shrine cult has ecological connotations mainly	(-)		(-)	+
3, 6. No residential groups without a shrine	+		+	+
*3.7. Cult at maximum community level involves all members in collective ritual	+		n.a.	-
*3.8, Shrines are permanent structures	+		-	-
*3,9, Shrines are linked to other similar shrines through myths and ritual	+		-	-
*3.10, Shrines are named and associated with individual, supernatural beings	+		-	+
3.11. Shrines are a focus of identity and collective ritual	+		+	-
3.12. Shrine cults have a major rallying function for community members and outside contacts	+		+	-
*3.13. Compulsory pilgrimages form a device to maintain interlocal contacts	+		-	-
*3.14. dissociation with shrines legitimates local leadership	(-)		+	(+)	K: used to be so when the lodge/shrine complex was still in power, while nowadays govt.-appointed chiefs strife in vain to derive legitimacy from association with shrine; N(val): officiants must be community leaders, but effect is reinforcement not legitimation
*3.15. The beings associated with the shrines are believed to take a moral interest in the interaction between community members	–		+	(+)	N(val) :scarcely documented in Nkoya data but ties in with general Central?African equation of sin/sorcery/murder, drought, and infertility
3.16. Affliction attributed to beings associated with community shrine reflects in-group socialprocess	+		+	n.a .
*3.17, Collective shrine ritual is mainly a women's affair	+		-	-
*3.18, Cult staff, as such, pronounce on matters of moral concern	(-)		(+)	-	K: did so in past, before eclipsed by govt. chiefs (1930s); N(vil): leadership in cult coincides with village leadership, no special cult staff, but moral issues abound
4. Ecstatic cults	K lodge	K outside lodge	N non-pro-phetic	N pro-phetic
4.1, Percentage of male population inv.	20%		20%		N: extensive quantitative data now being processed
*4.2. Percentage of female population involved	5%		80%
4.3. Membership through initiation	+		+
4.4. ritual involves ecstasy	+		+
4.5. Individual affliction is the cult’s central theme, affiliation come in less frequently	+	(-)	+	+	K (outside lodge): Veneration of local saints main theme, affliction coms in less frquently
4.6. Leaders have cult shrines	+	(+)	+	+	K (lodge.): the lodge building itself; K (outside lodge): fekirs concentrating on a particular local saint have special relation with that saint’s shrine
4.7. sessions usually involve sets of performers , in a role structure of leader and adept(s )	+	(-)	+	+	K (outside lodge): village fekirs usually? perform alone
4.8, Cult membership is exclusive	(+)	(+)	-	(+)	K (inside and outside lodge): brotherhhoods represented locally are tolerant of multiple membership, but each faqir sticks to one major Saint as his object of veneration; N(prophetic): prophetic cults in their first phase are exclusive, but e.g. bituma is not anymore
4.9. Cult ritual is mainly devoted to recruitment (as a means to treat affliction)	+	(-)	+	+	K(outside lodge): only rarely so –veneration of local saints predominates
4.10. Cult sessions have a moderate rallying function of the local group, not encompassing the total community	(+)	+	+	+	K (lodge) only if lodge-attached fekirs perform outside the lodge
*4.11. Major cash transactions take place between cult leader and sponsors	(-)	(-)	+	+	K(inside and outside lodge): gifts are only given for divination, not for treatment
*4.12, During the session the cult leader makes public moral pronouncements concerning the sponsoring community	+	+	(-)	(-)	N(prophetic, non-prophetic) : may allude to in–group strife
4.13. There is a regional cult centre	+	-	-	+
4.14. There is an interlocal organization	(+)	-	-	(+)	K (lodge), Nkoya (prophetic): weak and declining
4.15. Strong political aspect	(-)	-	-	-	K(lodge): before colonisation major political functions, since collapsed
4.16. Prototypes of the cult have an ancient history locally, but specific cult forms date from about 1900 or even more recently	+	(+)	+	+	K(outside lodge): most songs feature local saints whose shrines locally date from the 19th century
1,17. Linked to communal shrine cult (?)	(-)	+	-	-	K (lodge): closely linked in the past
4.18. Continuity with non-communal cults beyond the linguistic and ethnic confines of the local society under study	+	(+)	+	+	K (outside lodge): cult forms are identical outside the Khumiri highlands , but other local saints are substituted

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			The illustrations in the heading of this webpage: The background photograph shows a women's work group (mainly drawn from the family of chief Hillal bin Hassuna), from the village of Sidi Mhammad, harvesting rye near the shrine of Bu Qasbaya al-Kabir, late spring 1968; the same illustration repeated in the original black and white, bottom left of the page head; top centre left: the shrine (mzara) of the neighbourhood of Qa'a Raml, village of Sidi Mhammad, late spring 2003 -- the fresh pious gifts show that the cult is still alive and kicking -- note the car bumper which has come to replace cork plates as the shrine's traditional roofing; top centre right: the domed shrines (qubba) of Sidi Mhammad al-Wilda (the Son) in the village of Sidi Mhammad, late spring 2002 -- note how the excessive erosion of 1968 is no longer in evidence, due to the local villagers' decades of reafforestation efforts, in the context of the Tunisian state's unemployment relief work -- the photo is slightly misleading in that it just keeps out of view the extensive Qur'anic school complex which external, formal Islamic interests have erected just twenty meters north of the shrine of Sidi Mhammad, in the mid-1970s; right: a Khumiri warrior, photographed (no doubt under carefully arranged near-studio conditions( by Garrigues c. 1880, and reproduced in Bertholon, L., & Chantre, E., 1913, Recherches anthropologiques dans la Berbérie orientale, Tripolitaine, Tunisie, Algérie, 2 vols., Lyon: Rey -- a colonial anthropological study on Tunisia.