East African age sets: a new approach

<Age, generation et temps> chez les Meru tigania-igembe du Kenya

Anne-Marie Peatrik

Abstract

Our understanding of the sociahorganisation of the Meru Tigania-Igembe (Kenya) now makes it possible to propose a new approach to those East African societies which have age and generation classes. The way these classes are defined and the various rules by which they are set up and recruit members reveal the interconnections between the system of classes and other aspects of Meru society. Most illuminating is the way an individual's actual progress through the stages of life does or does not match his or her progress through the age classes, with their ramifications into descent and marriage as well as into territorial organisation. It is now possible, we believe, to construct a sociology of age and generation class societies, building a model that can be used comparatively. With the data from Meru, we can now include Bantu societies alongside the well known Cushitic and Nilotic examples, and thereby elucidate both the social variables involved and the underlying structures.

Résumé

L'étude de l'organisation sociale traditionnelle des Meru Tigania-Igembe du Kenya est l'occasion de proposer une nouvelle approche des sociétés à classes d'âge et de génération est-africaines. La distinction des critères d'âge et de génération, la recherche des règies principales et secondaires de recrutement et de constitution des classes ont permis de mettre au jour certaines articulations de ce système de classe avec les autres sphères de la société meru: la concordance ou non des cycles de vie et de la progression des classes, la filiationet L'alliance, l'organisation territoriale. On pense avoir trouvé là les cadres d'une sociologie des sociétés à classes d'âge et de génération ainsi que les axes d'une comparaison. La configuration meru permet d'inclure des Bantous aux côtés des situations mieux connues des Couchites, des Nilotes et des Omotiques, et de jeter les bases d'un comparatisme, seule méthode qui permettra au travers des variations des configurations particulières de faire progresser la comprehension de ces organisations.

Anne-Marie Peatrik is a member of the Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Compai tive at the University of Paris X, Nanterre, and works for the Cnrs. She received her Ph.D in 1990 for a dissertation on the traditional social organisation of the Meru Tigania-Igemb in Kenya.