Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

74
establishment of the colonial rule had not resulted in socio-political
homogenization: autonomous communities and chiefdoms with political
institutions of their own continued to exist within the kingdom. Benin
remained a “multipolity”, that is a polity within which structural elements of
different socio-political types and complexity levels coexisted and interacted
(see Korotayev 1995b: 72–73; 1998b: 125–127; 2000: 195; Korotayev et al.
2000: 23–24). Undoubtedly, this situation’s lasting for all the many – probably
seven, centuries of the Obas Benin history testifies to the fact that such
polystratumness was the society’s essential feature and not a manifestation of
its as if “transitional character”.
Just this status of the society provided, above all, the presence of
elements of heterarchy in the generally homoarchic socio-political order of the
Benin Kingdom. In order to understand the nature of the relations between the
socio-political whole and its components in the 13 th – 19 th centuries Benin, we
must first look at the way they had co-existed in the preceding period of the
First (Ogiso) dynasty, approximately in the 10 th – 12 th centuries.
The scarce evidence on these “Dark Age” of Benin history prompts
that in those days the country was an agglomeration of chiefdoms. Chiefdoms
had started to form in Biniland in the mid-1 st millennium AD (Es’Andah 1976:
12–13; Obayemi 1976: 256; Bondarenko and Roese 1998; 1999: 545–546;
Bondarenko 1999: 23–30; 2001: 55–65). A chiefdom could appear only under
the leadership of an onogie (Bradbury 1957: 33; Egharevba 1960: 4), i.e. round
a village with two heads of the local community as its center. For being able to
place himself at the head of a chiefdom, the odionwere was too strongly
connected with his native local community, was associated with it only, and
was regarded to be the legitimate head of this community only as a descendant
of its members’ ancestors. His profane endeavoring was restrained by his
sacral, ritual duties that were his most fundamental obligation, irrespective of
whether the odionwere was the only head of the given community or shared his
power with the onogie (see Bondarenko and Roese 1998: 369-371). The duties
of the head of the chiefdom were similar to those performed by heads of
extended families and communities at lower levels (Bradbury 1957: 33). There
also was the chiefdom council that was similar to corresponding family and
community institutions. Besides the heads of the whole chiefdom and
constituent communities the council was formed by the chiefdom edio
(Egharevba 1949: 11; Sidahome 1964: 100, 158, 164). Thus the senior agegrade
played the leading part in managing the chiefdom, as it played it at the
family and community levels (Bradbury 1957: 16). The onogie’s community
was as privileged within the chiefdom as the family of the community head
within the latter. On the other hand, the ancestors’ cult of the chiefdom head
was similar to those of the family and community heads but was performed at a
higher level. At the same time it resembled the royal ancestors’ cult but was
performed at the lower level (Bradbury 1973: 232).