Bondarenko Dmitri M. Homoarchy

102
revealed themselves especially clearly (see Palau Marti 1964; Kochakova
1986: 197–224; 1996b; Bondarenko 1991c; 1995a: 203–231). In particular, the
supreme ruler’s family (as well as those of titled chiefs) had not only been
preserving its traditional structure but also generally existed in accordance with the
norms determined by that very structure (see Bondarenko 1995 a: 194–203).
Indeed, all the initial backgrounds of power in the community (the selection of
the odionwere from the family considered as that of the community founders,
the sacrality aspect, functions of the priest, manager of public lands and judge,
“inspirer” of public works, etc., etc. at the lack of absolute power) found their
continuation and further development in the institution of the Oba. For
example, the ancestor cult of the Oba became an all-Benin one and he himself
was an object of worshipping, and the Oba himself was the supreme priest of
the whole country. He was considered all-mighty and the only legal lawgiver. In
the course of time the supreme ruler received the right to appoint lineages from
which the majority of the central government chiefs were recruited. If in the
community the property was inherited alongside with the title, on the
megacommunity level material values and the prestigious position, that of the Oba
first of all were distinctively separated from each other (see Bondarenko 1993a:
151–158; 1995a: 203–229). The Oba was considered the master of all the lands,
though in reality he had not more rights for them than an odionwere for his
community’s fields, and so on and so forth. At the same moment the Benin
evidence does refute unreservedly the scholars (e.g., Guliaev 1972: 261–262) in
whose opinion sacrality of a supreme ruler is an a priori testimony of a
despotic political system. The Benin Obas never had absolute profane power;
even more so, during the first about half a century after the Second dynasty’s
establishment and the last about three hundred years before the Kingdom’s loss
of independence in 1897 their profane power was far even from being called
considerable. 75
Megacommunity institutions towered above communities and
chiefdoms, established their dominance over them but in the essentially
communal Benin society with lack of pronounced priority of territorial ties over
kin ones, even those who governed at the supreme level could not become
professional administrators. The Benin megacommunity’s specificity was in
integration on a rather vast territory of a complex, “many-tier” society
predominantly on the basis of the transformed kin principle supplemented by a
“grain” of territorial one. This basis was inherited from the community, within
which extended families preserved kinship relations not only within themselves
but with each other as well, supplementing them by the relations of
neighborhood.
Sex and age remained the basis of socio-political stratification well
beyond the community. At all the socio-political levels women were generally
deprived from control sticks while at determining a man’s status and social
opportunities his membership in this or that age-grade could be not less