Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

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on the list of “major characteristic features of the Edo-speaking peoples.”
Through the age-grade system the intergenerational transmission of culture in
the broadest meaning of the notion was carried out; the traditional social norms
reflected in myths and legends first and foremost (Uwechue 1970: 146). Lack
of doubt in fairness of the sanctified by tradition socio-political norms and
relations, and of consciousness in observing them is the most fundamental
pledge of the archaic cultures’ vitality (Mead 1970).
The male dominance in the Bini community was related to the fact
that men had the age-grade system whereas women did not have it (Bradbury
1957: 32, note 14; 1973: 182). Clearly, this was an outcome of the situation
typical of patrilineal cultures when “women have their hearth as the rear
[while] men have the community hearth… Her own home, the hearth as a part
of the community… is the background of the woman’s social functioning…
[whereas] [t]he community as a whole is the background of the man’s social
functioning…” (Girenko 1991: 154; see also Ksenofontova 1990: 51). In life
of the family the Bini women played a well noticeable part but at the
community level they were overshadowed by men almost completely and the
degree of their involvement in the all-community affairs was generally
insignificant (Mercier 1962: 289–292).
Hence, in practice only men operated at the level of the suprafamily
level of the collectivity’s being – just the one at which the age-grade system
existed. Only those incorporated into it could become possessors of the
esoteric knowledge: the community’s myths, history of the ancestors, rules of
communication with them and deities for the whole collectivity’s benefit.
However, men also got this knowledge not at once but in the course of their
lifes, as they were approaching the ancestors. The whole amount of such
information became accessible to them only with transition to the senior agegrade
what was underlined particularly by the co-incidence of that grade’s and
ancestors’ names: in the Edo language edion means both ancestors and
elders. 38 Thus, the age-grades institution sanctioned the system of government
in the community based on typical of it perceiving of any social relations as
those between not individuals but collectivities, in this case – on the idea of
proximity of a group of men to a group of male ancestors. The immense
prestige of old men in general was based on the same premise (Dennett 1910:
82; Uwechue 1970: 145; Bradbury 1973: 157, 172, 243–244, 249–250;
Eweka, I. 1998: 157).
So, the three age grades – “[e]roghae, eghele and edion represent, for
the Edo, the three natural stages of life through which every man, as a useful
member of the community, should pass” (Bradbury 1973: 172). Each agegrade
carried out definite tasks, its members shared common duties, distinctive
from those of the other two grades. The senior age-grade members, just called
edion – “the elders” were released from physical work, and their main
obligation was to exercise power and support proper relations with the