Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

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and agricultural producers’ attachment to land were unknown (Bondarenko
1995a: 251–253; 2001: 188). What is characteristic in the context of Benin
realities is that the Obas could grant titled chiefs only those communities that
did not form parts of traditional Bini chiefdoms. Those chiefs actually never
resettled there and remained members of their native lineages and communities.
The Obas could not subdivide a chiefdom or grant it as a whole to a titled chief.
Thus, the pseudochiefdoms of titled chiefs could be compiled exclusively of
neighboring autonomous communities. The titled chief who was posed above
them carried out in respect to those communities and their members all the
same functions as the head of a chiefdom (Bradbury 1957: 33) though these
responsibilities were secondary for them compared to the duties inflicted on
them by high all-Benin titles. Their obligations to the supreme authority were
also just the same: collecting tribute, attracting communalists to corvйe labor,
recruiting of soldiers, etc. It is also very important to point out one more time
is that Obas could not subdivide or change the self-administrative system of a
community or chiefdom. No chiefdom and only an autonomous community as
a whole (not a part of it) could be granted to a titled chief (see Bondarenko
1994: 6–7; 1995a: 183–186, 189–190; 1995с: 140–142, 144–145, 147–150;
2001: 191–193). Last not least, pseudochiefdoms, chiefdoms, and autonomous
communities’ heads – all were subordinated directly to the Oba and were
regarded as equals in this respect (Egharevba 1949: 79; Bradbury 1957: 34;
1973: 177). Thus, in spite of differences in the degree of internal structural
complexity, in the ways and time of appearance, the three basic types of the
socio-political units which formed the Benin society were regarded equal to
each other. 57 What equalized them was a “common denominator” – the
supreme ruler’s all-Benin power which surpassed them all.
However, though the autonomous communities, chiefdoms, and
“neochiefdoms” were equalized to each other in the aforementioned respect, the
real opportunities of their heads were not equal. For the chiefs-courtiers their
duties as of neochiefdoms’ heads were secondary to those imposed on them by
high all-Benin titles. It can be said that their position in the society and its
political circles was privileged by definition. In the meantime, for the heads of
chiefdoms the way to the high life lay across a struggle for receiving or
usurping of the all-Benin titles. As for the autonomous communities’ heads, it
looks like they did not have real chances to be reckoned among the political
йlite at all. Finally, as has been mentioned above, the heads of chiefdoms were
more powerful farther from the capital their possessions were situated. It was
so because they displayed personal arrogance and enterprise. But in
neochiefdoms the Oba usually himself gave their heads more power father from
Benin City those units were situated. Thus, “voluntarily” or “in the
performance of duties” the heads of socio-political units filled in the
insufficiency of central authority’s power in distant parts of the country that
was still felt even in the Second dynasty time.