ABSTRACT
If the man in the street knows nothing else about the traditional, political institutions of Africa, he is nevertheless sure of one thing—Africans are, or were, governed by chieftains or chiefs. The idea of ‘chief’ was strong in the minds of the British who colonized East Africa, and the search for authentic chiefs was fundamental to the British policy of indirect rule. ‘Who is Chief?’ was among the first questions asked by the conquerors. That this question could have had any one of a hundred meanings does not seem to have occurred to the questioners. Equally, it could have had no meaning at all. The English words ‘chief’ or ‘chieftain’ (and the Swahili word sultani, with its Arab and Islamic overtones) suggest the political rule of a single man, or the supreme command of a military leader. We have already seen, in the last chapter, that such rulers or leaders hardly existed in the pastoralist societies of East Africa. In many other societies political and cultural identity was focused on an individual who was, either wholly or mainly, a ritual officer, and even where the political and military functions of the ruler were more discernible, there were the problems of hierarchies of chiefs and associations of chiefdoms. There were also striking differences of degree among autonomous chiefs, as, for example between the King of Buganda (Uganda) ruling nearly two million people, and the Chief of Ubungu (Tanzania) ruling some 20,000. It is small wonder, therefore, that many of those who put themselves forward as ‘chiefs’ under British rule either did not meet the expectations of the colonial government, or were regarded as imposters by those they ruled.
