Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

62
Benin served as the matrix for the upper levels of social complexity) was not
democratic, at least as far as the members of its council – all the nuclear
families heads were not elected or, most often, even selected from a number of
candidates but were recognized “in a natural way”, just the same as they
became the heads of their small families.
At the inheritance of the office of the extended family head (odafen
noyanwa or odionmwan) a certain division of power between the eldest brother
and the eldest son of a deceased took place. This controversy could arise out of
ambivalence of the brothers’ position: they were not only brothers of the new
ancestor but, like he, also sons of another ancestor – their common father. In
the result, a brother acquired power over the deceased’s siblings (though more
correctly, he was to get it, as in reality that did not go without saying [Bradbury
1973: 278–279]) while a son started exercising power over his descendants. 42
But in any case, the major determinant of the high status, the right and
obligation to perform the rites of the new ancestors’ worship, remained with the
deceased’s eldest son who either had already been promoted to the odion agegrade
or actually joined it due to his new position in the family (Sharevskaja
1957: 204; Bradbury 1957: 54–55; 1973: 233–238; Forman, W. et al. 1960:
14). Thus, he became the principal person responsible for guaranteeing the
internal integrity of the lineage, as far as just the ancestor cult made a lineage
such and sanctioned its existence. The new status, rights, and duties were being
acquired by the son gradually, in the course of his thorough and diligent
performance of a long-lasting series of burial, funeral, and mourning rites
(Thomas, N. W. 1920; Ajisafe 1945: 49; Bradbury 1965: 99; Uwaifo 1965;
Roese 1992a). So, in general, in Benin the rule of inheritance by son did not
stabilize (remind at this point the controversies in the royal family – see above,
in section 2 of this chapter). As a matter of fact, the question was in
recognition of a junior in age (a son) as the one closer to the family’s ancestors
than a senior in age person – a deceased’s brother. In social respect this would
have led to strengthening of nuclear-family ties at the expense of the ties in the
extended family what would have been at variance with the general sociocultural
atmosphere in the Bini society.
The head of the extended family (odafen noianwa), and hence its
council “chairman” and “spokesman” was recognized as the closest to the
family’s patrilineal ancestors and thus potentially the best mediator between
them and their living offspring (Egharevba 1949: 13–14; Bradbury 1957: 29,
54–56; 1973: 155–157, 160–164, 230–250; Sidahome 1964: 114). The odafen
noianwa was considered and respected as the father of all the members of his
extended family (Bradbury 1957: 54–56; 1973: 156, 157, 160–164, 230–250).
He performed all the duties, including punitive (Thomas, N. W. 1910a: I, 121),
the performance of which was necessary for the preservation of the collective
stable being under the conditions of the ideology of gifts-and-servicesexchange
dominance. First of all, the odafen noianwa was responsible for the