International African Institute

Review: Headpanners and Dredgers: Theory in Plateau Studies

Author(s): Barrie Sharpe
Review by: Barrie Sharpe
Source: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 53, No. 4 (1983), pp. 84-91
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159717
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Africa 53(4), 1983

Reviewarticle
HEADPANNERSAND DREDGERS:
THEORY IN PLATEAU STUDIES
BarmeSharpe
Capital and Labour in the Nigerian Tin Mines, Ibadan history series, London,
Longman,1981, 275 pp., maps, bibliography, index, ?21.

B. FREUND,

J. C. MULLER,Du Bon Usage du Sexe et du Marnage:structuresmatrimonialedu Haute Plateau

Nigerien, Serge Fleury (ed.), C.P. 67, Succursale B, Quebec, Canada, pp. 283, maps,
plates. No price.
E. ISICHEI (ed.), Studiesin theHistoryofPlateau State, Nigeria, London, Macmillan, 1982, 304
pp., maps, plates, ?25.
SISTER M. DE PAUL NEIERS, The Peoples of the Jos Plateau, Nigeria: their philosophy, manners,

and customs,Peter D. Lang, 1979, 215 pp., maps, plates, Cirencester. No price.
Parente et Mariage chez les Rukuba, Paris, Mouton, 1976, 206 pp., figs. No
J. C. MULLER,
price.

The publication of these five books indicates a significant increaseof interest in the history and
sociology of a hitherto peripheral part of Nigeria. For many years the Jos region has been
conceived of as a refuge area inhabited by 'archaic'societies. In the course of the last decade
and a half, improvements in our understanding of Plateau society have stemmed largely from
anthropological studies by Netting, Sangree, Muller and, in a rather different discourse,
Plotnicov (1971). The books reviewed here can be grouped in relation to the currently
prevailing anthropological bias of Plateau studies. Freund and some of the contributors to
Isichei's volume use very little of the anthropologicalliterature. Professor Isichei and Sister
Neiers both use ethnography within the context of their respectively historical and pastoral
projects. The two works by Muller are entirely within the ethnographic and theoretical
discourse to which Muller has contributed largely, and Du Bon Usage is in fact a structuralist
overview of the existing ethnographicliterature. In this review I shall be concerned to create a
confrontation between these historical, ethnographic and economic analyses.
Probably the most significant of the works under review is Freund's Capital and Labour, a
thesis-length study of the development of the Plateau tin-mines from the pre-colonial period
almost to the present day. Freund argues that this development has been largely conditioned
by developments in the composition of capital, the vicissitudes of tin prices on the world
market and the kinds of articulations existing between Plateau and capitalist modes of
production. The book is wide-ranging in its scope. The early chapters sketch the organization
of tin production before colonial penetration as a system embedded in the gida
(Hausa/'house'). According to Freund, thegida was an extended family compound, expanded
by the presence of clients or slaves so as to form a unit which provided for its own production
and reproduction. The gida also provided for the production of the exchange good (tin),
which linked it to the wider economic system and political hierarchy, via the gandu system,
which is familiar from the work of Hill (1972: 1977), Wallace (1978) and Usman (1981).
Freund is here concerned to show the relativelylarge scale of the pre-colonialtin industry and
also to characterizeit as something other than petty-commodity production. To me at least,
the precise characterizationof the industry remains unclear, but this imprecision is more than
compensated by the archival material which is assembled here, and elsewhere, in the book. I
shall return to the problem of the pre-colonial production organizationand exchange below.

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85

Freund'sanalysisproceedsby a quite consciousalternationbetweenthe organizationof

andspeculation
capitalandthe livingconditionsof labour.He showshowover-capitalization
in tin-miningcompanysharesdeterminedthe characterof miningleases and manyof the
conditionsin whichcapitalisttin productionbegan.Latersectionsof the bookdocumentthe
complex,butfairlywell known,relationsbetweenthe RoyalNigerCompanyandthe British
governmentand Nigerianadministration.These relationsin turn providethe contextfor
of mineslabour,portersandthe workerswho builtthe
subsequentanalysisof the recruitment
BauchiLight Railway.The 'Businessof Tin' (Ch. 4) analysesthe economicconditionsin
whichconglomerates
(suchas AssociatedTin Minesof Nigeria)emerged,anddocumentsthe
of the
commoditymarketwhichled firstto mechanisation
developmentsin the international
of unmechanizedproduction
largertin minesand then to the continuationor reappearance
techniques:pickandshovelworkandhead-panning.Suchproduction,Freundargues,is not
a survivalof a pre-colonialmodeof productionbutis ratherthe resultof technicalproblemsof
of smallminingenterprisesas
tin oreextractionand, moresignificantly,of the incorporation
buffersagainstworseningworldpricesandthe risingcosts of productionof the largemines.
Movingoncemoreto labour,we areshownhowthesespecificallytechnicalandmarketfactors
promotedchangesin the proportionof tributersas againstcontractedlabourand led to the
growthof purportedlydisorganized'squatter'communitieswhichgrewup on the minesfield.
Wartimedemandsfor tin led to forcedlabour(Ch. 5), subsequentpopulardissent(Birom
of skilledtradesunions(Ch.7). Finally,we areshownthe
resistanceCh. 6)andtheappearance
political economy of tin and the specific interrelations of tin production and
post-independence
politicsin the Nigerianstate (whichFreund,followingTurner(1976),
Williams(1976)and Girvan(1970), characterizesas a 'rentierstate').
Thisis aninterestingbook.Boththe archiveswhicharecitedandthe presentationitselfare
stimulating,evenwherethe analysisis coveringwell-wornground.Therearerelativelyfewof
us whowouldcareto workin boththe Nigerianarchivesandthe publishedandunpublished
recordsof the tin-miningcompanies.The coverageof the early Nigerian archives,for
example,seems quite thorough,especiallyin comparisonwith a paperby J. Grace('Tin
miningon thePlateaubefore1920')in theIsicheivolume.Thetheoreticalframeworkservesto
take Freund'sanalysisout of the simplydescriptiveor polemicaldiscourseof some recent
histories.But wherethe theoreticalframeworkis overindulged,Freund'sanalysisfalters.
Especiallyin the sectionsdealingwith labourthere are lengthypassagesof unsupported
generalization.For example,the conceptof ganduis invoked(pp. 8, 11, 92) to define the
of ganglabour,yet it remainsunclearhowaganduorganization
orderedtasksor
organization
pay. (Interestingly,given the linkagebetweenmines labourand colonialtaxation,gandu
denotesheadtax ratherthana formof labourorganizationin the languagesof the western
hinterlandof the plateau.)Likewise, Freund notes a work force characteristicof early
capitalism(78), artisans'workshops(129) and a 'swollenbazaareconomy',but nowhere
describesthe socialorganizationof this sector.
Theseterms(gandu,earlycapitalism,artisan,bazaareconomy)arepartof a discoursewhich
Freundobviouslyconsidersprovenandnon-problematic.
But, in fact, we knowlittle about
of theNigerianurbaneconomy,andthe invocationof termssuchas
ganduorthe organization
'earlycapitalism'or 'bazaar'raisesissueswhichmaywell be irrelevantto the specificPlateau
context. Bazaareconomy,for example,unintentionallyintroducesthe entirediscourseon
'orientaldespotism',the positionof merchantsand the economicrole of the state; 'early
capitalism'begs the obviousquestions'how early'and 'where'?The analysisis strongest
whereit is seekingto definethe specificityof tin-productionon the Plateau.Thatspecificity
includesthe characteristics
of tin-miningenteiprises,the natureof leasesand the economic
or free minersworked,all points which Freund
parameterswithin which mine-managers
deals with in some detail. But it also includesthe organizationof labourgangs, and the
networks of exchange, misunderstandingand coercion in which expatriateminers,
contractors,overseers,employeesandcasualmigrantlabourweresituated.These areissues
whichFreunddealswithsensiblybuttoo briefly.Finally,therearefeatureswhicharelargely
or entirelymissingfrom the analysis.There are no oral accountsof mines labourfrom
Nigerianmine-workers,yet Europeanaccountsandimpressionsarecitedat length.This is a
seriouslapse:work in the mines has been experiencedby enormousnumbersof northern

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Nigerians, either as a stage in the life cycle or, as in the case of the forced labour of 1941-44, as
a major and traumatic event. Men and women who had worked in the very first capitalist
tin-mines were still living when Freund was researching this book. Only such informants
could have given us the details of labour organization,of passive resistance to management, of
living conditions and of the cultural matrix within which popular political consciousness
developed. (The poverty of an analysis without this 'living record' can easily be seen if one
comparesthe 'labour' sections of this book with work on South American and CentralAfrican
mine workers (cf. Taussig, 1980)- or, incidentally, with the current revival of interest in the
life of labour in European history. See, for example, the characterizationof the 'migratory
trades'ofleadminers, brickmakersand quarrymenin Samuel (ed.), 1977: 1-98, especially pp.
71-3). Freund is awareof this Africanand Britishliterature:he cites the work of Rule (1971) on
Cornish miners and the organization of the tributing system and relies heavily on recent
English social history (Hay et al., 1977) and an excellent unpublished B.Sc. thesis
(Onmar-Shittien, 1973) to analyse 'theft' of tin as a response to exploitation. Yet, even here,
some significant issues escape his analysis. What for example were the 'models' of
management/labour relations, of contracts, work-gang discipline, responsibilities and
expectations which the expatriatemining community brought to the Plateau?Were miners as
fully professionalized as the literary sources (Colonel Laws or the colonial inspectorate for
example) would lead us to expect? What was the relationship between miners and the mining
engineers who seem to have worked with or within large enterprises and colonial
administration?In what ways were expatriateminers' models of the tribute system combined
with pre-colonial forms of contract or political inequality to establish working practices?And
precisely which English system and which northern Nigerian systems were involved? These
questions could be multiplied. They are significant when one considers that mines labour (and
cash cropping of food for the mining population) were important, perhaps major, factors in
the appearance of new kinds of farm labour contract and new forms of politico-economic
stratification in the communities of the Plateau and its hinterland.
In the conclusions, Freund argues that tin-mining '. . . has inspired no industrialisation
and no linkages, backwardor forward, within Nigeria . . . the mines were an enclave (whose)
development must be understood in the structure of corporatecapitalism.' The fundamental
effect of tin-mining has been to push peasants on to a labour market and to make them
dependent on a capitalist commodity trade. They have become a proletariat and Freund
argues, 'it is from labour that an answer to the contradictionsgenerated by capital penetration
in Nigerian society can be evolved' (229). Why then, does Freund fail to describe the life of
labour and the specifically cultural practices of that class?
The other works which are reviewed here might be expected to illuminate the pre-colonial
economy (in which tin and tin production were only subordinate parts) and to fill out our
knowledge of the people, societies and popular culture(s) of the region.
I feel competent only to let Sister Neiers speak for herself: in her 'reply to Father Tempels'
(Neiers, 1979, 162-4), she first defines the Plateau 'pagan philosophy' concerning God (a
distant but supreme being) then notes Tempels' notion of 'Power'('a vital principle, or energy
which animates the entire pagan system from within' p. 163)and then notes that she has failed
to identify 'its inmost nature' (ibid.). Then:
Philosophically speaking, how does it happen that systems of thought which accord such
an important role to the living, driving, dynamic element of being should not have led to a
more advanced state of technical progress? [on the Plateau]. The sociological reasons for
its failure to develop in this way are obvious: particularly difficult physical conditions,
restricted and closed societies, geographical isolation, languages only a little beyond the
threshold of formalisation . . . Must not that failure [of technical progress] be ascribed to
over attachment to Mother Earth . . ? The natives give the impression that it hurts them
more than it hurts us to see old trees cut down . . . We would hazard, just as a theory and
with no factual information . . . that research in this direction might bring to light the
underlying causes of this surprising sterility in the technical sphere.
There is more, including over a hundred pages of data which are set well within such

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87

ethnographiccategoriesas descriptionof initiationrites,politicalorganization,morality,etc.

dataand
Onecannotdoubtthesincerityof thisbook,norclaima monopolyoverethnographic
method,but it is hardto see whatit intendsto show.Perhapsit mayserveas a charterforthe
elaborationof a novelCatholicismwhichseeksan Africanauthenticity,as has happenedto
Tempels' 'Bantu Philosophy'in the Jamaamovement(Fabian, 1979; cf. Wambudtain
Isichei).Thereis a largecommunityof Catholicson andaroundthe Plateauwhosebeliefsare
unknownto sociologists:this book may be put in context, or ratheracquirea context,in
relationto the texts and tractsof the variousProtestantalliancessuch as the Evangelical
Churchof West Africa, (ex-SudanInteriorMission) and the devotionalliteratureand
philosophyof Islamin Nigeria.
Religiousconversion,socialchangeandeconomyareall significantby theirabsencein the
two booksby Muller.A furtheranalysisof Rukubachiefdoms(LeRoi BoucEmissaire,1980)
has been reviewedin a previousissue of Africa(1980)and in Man (1983).
ParenteetMariagechezlesRukubais anemendedtranslationof a thesisin English(Muller,
1970). Both the Englishand Frenchversionsare carefulanalysesof the organizationof a
systemof secondarymarriagewhich systematicallydifferentiateslocal residentialunits by
meansof complexmarriagerules, into an implicitmoietyorganizationof wife-abduction
units. 'Moieties'exchangewomenin primarymarriage.Constituentwife-abductionunitsof
each moiety take each other's wives in secondarymarriage.Unmarriedyouths contract
pre-maritalrelationshipswithineach 'wife-abductionunit'; thereis a preferentialmarriage
ruleby whichthe eldestdaughterof a womanmarriesthe sonof the woman'slastlover.(This
preferential
marriagebyruleoccurseitherbeforeorshortlyafterthe girlcontractsherprimary
marriageand beforeany secondarymarriagetakesplace.)A womanremainspermanently
marriedto all of her primary,secondaryand preferentialhusbands.Therearemanyother
detailedramifications
of thissystem:notablythata technicallysecondarymarriageis enjoined
as part of the male initiationceremony,and that the son of a preferentialmarriageis the
'preferred'candidatefor chiefship(Muller, 1980:22, 152ff).
This marriagesystem(which,incidentally,was emendedby 'the Rukuba'in 1956),has
subsequentlybeen shown to underliethe organizationof Rukubachiefdomsvia a rather
specializeddiscourse on the nature of power, and an appeal to a specific 'ideology'
characteristic
of chiefdoms,a categoryof politico-ritual
systemsbetweenlineagesocietiesand
states founded on divine kingship. To return to the texts at hand. ParenteetMariage ... or the
more accessible (and cheaper) Kinshipand MarriageamongsttheRukuba (Muller, 1976/1970)

are highly systematicaccountsof the marriagesystemin Rukuba.There is considerable

internalevidencethatthe reportedsystemis theoneconceivedof by Muller'sinformants.The
complexityof the Rukubamarriagesystemis, moreovernot unique:similarlycomplicated
systemshavebeenreportedfor manyof the 'societies'or 'tribes'in centralNigeria.But the
accountsof thesemarriagesystems(includingMuller'saccountof the Rukubasystem)havea
ratheruneasyrelationshipto accountsof practiceandto certainotherfieldsof discourseon
custom. In this literature,for example,little is said aboutthe effectsof the 'circulationof
women'(the 'marriage-go-round'
as Mullertermsit) on householdformationor inter-and
intra-householdinequalities;nor on the wider pre-colonialeconomywhich might situate
marriagesas exchanges;nor (with the exceptionof Smith'swork on Kagoroand Kadara,
1980, 1982)on the reconstructionof marriage'custom'in relationto colonialand national
politics.In fact, it is not improbablethat the systematiccomplexityof Rukubacustomis a
reconstructionfrom more contingent,less rule-governedpractices,which had ceasedlong
before1956.If it is a reconstruction
onewondersjustwhoare'theRukuba'andwhatwerethe
purposesof thisversionof postsocialorder.The peculiarhorizonsof thissecondarymarriage
literaturepredisposecurrentanalysesto emphasizeruleasanadequateaccountof socialorder;
ParentietMariage... andDuBonUsage... bothtakethisemphasisto itsultimateconclusion.
Thus, intormationon economyor the exceptionto 'the rules', whichwas given in Muller
1970, is excised fromParente etMariage . . . (cf. Muller, 1976: 121, 124with 1970: 194-207,

212-13.) The additionalmaterialwhich is included in the 1976 version elaboratesthe

classificationof secondarymarriagesystems(fromthreetypesin 1970,to fourtypesin 1976)
or drawsout analogiesbetweenRukubareasoningandanthropological
theory.For example
(1976: 120-1),the extensionof the termhusbandto the husband'ssisteris explainedby 'the

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Rukuba' in terms of either familiarity and co-residence or sibling unity, explanations which
Muller terms 'functionalist' and 'structuralist' theories respectively. He notes 'c'est que les
Rukuba discutent naturellement en termes des deux theories'. Sophisticated sociological
reasoning is characteristicof Plateau systems of thought (although, as he notes [Muller, 1981:
257], there are few accounts of either the popular sociology or the interests which this
indigenous sociological thinking serves.) Professor Muller has thus correctly identified an
important cultural element in Plateau society. But the significances or functions of this
discourse are unknown and the strategic significance of 'rules' is obscured by a presentation
which privileges 'structure' and excludes 'event'.
Du Bon Usage du Sexe et duMarnagesuggests an explanation of this indigenous structuralist
discourse but mainly consists of summariesof the existing literatureon marriagesystems. The
basic premise of the book is that the marriagesystems of the Plateau and neighbouring areas
are a group of transformationsof underlying structures: secondary marriage, sister exchange
and cicisbeism. Secondary marriage systems are themselves transformations of even more
basic structures which oppose endogamy and exogamy, residence and exchanges, and rights
in married versus unmarried women. Du Bon Usage . . . arranges the reported marriage
systems (of sixteen Plateau 'societies') into sequences which show increasingly complex
combinations of such basic structural elements. Thus, in part I ('Les Modeles formels'),
Katab is first presented as a simple moiety system, then complicating subdivisions are
introduced to produce a 'global system' which, according to Muller, stipulates the different
patterns of possible marriagesfor women of each marriageunit. This formal model of Katab is
followed by similarly formal models of Kagoro (an analysis which involves a form of
preferentialmarriagewhich the ethnographer, M. G. Smith, does not confirm), Kaje, Moroa,
Kachichere and Chawai. These formal models are neither theoretically informed constructs
nor verbatim translations into French of the original ethnographic accounts. Instead, they
paraphrasethe sources without detailed page referencesto produce synthetic 'systems' whose
'rules' go beyond, or sometimes even contradict, the original data. These sections of the book
(pp. 33-89 and the accounts of Anaguta, Buji, Chara,Amo, Jere, pp. 149-82) do not give any
new information and misrepresent the information we do have in Gunn (1953; 1956) and
Meek (1931). The other much more lengthy ethnographic accounts, of Piti, Irigwe, Birom
and Ganawuri are based upon the published and unpublished work of Chalifoux, Sangree,
Baker, Smedley, Davies and Berthoud. The core of the book, therefore, is the section on
Rukuba (which summarizes Muller 1970/1976), and the Introduction and Conclusion. The
introduction asserts that the marriage systems of the Plateau are a set of transformations
motivated solely by the desire of each ethnic group to distinguish itself from its neighbours.
These transformationsdo not reflect ecological, economic or political dissimilarities since, we
are told, these societies have a fundamentally similar ecology and mode of production.
Historical data are also explicitly excluded from the analysis (p. 28). 'Societies choose a
marriagesystem . . . in a vast socio-logical bricollage which makes one sense for each of these
societies in particular and another sense for their totality' (p. 272). By invoking this
structuralistlogic and the motive of ethnic differentiationMuller is able to argue that marriage
systems 'think themselves', constrained only by the principle that alliances be diversified (pp.
256, 274). This is a self-fulfilling argument: marriage system differentiation is central to
discourse about social organization, which is, or was, intended for officials, ethnographers
and 'strangers', and this folk-sociology has been, in its turn, appropriatedby a purportedly
theoretical discourse of anthropology in which the possibility of elaborated links between
social units is transmutedinto a logical demand for ramifiedalliances. Muller in fact notes that
Meek and Smith give formal accounts of marriagesystems without explaining how Katab or
Kagoro themselves conceptualize the marriagesystem. It is clear that Muller, and his sources,
recognize that these 'marriagesystems' are the scholastic constructs by which intellectuals and
administrators of different 'societies' explain (and legitimate) their own world (cf. Smith,
1982)and hence their own position in it. However, the concluding pages toDu Bon Usage . ..
do make some useful points: Muller notes that a common feature of these marriagesystems is
that they allocate group membership on bases other than kinship or descent; he also notes
orderly variationsin brideservice obligations, marriageward systems and the constitution of
production groups (which variations, incidentally seem to contradict the uniformity in modes

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89

of production that he emphasizes in the introduction, and also suggest that marriagesystems
might have some economically strategic implications). He notes the rich economy of these
societies, yet he couples this with the argument that this allows a special form of
determination: not underdetermination but rather determination by contrast with
neighbouring societies at the (ill-defined) level of ideology. In the end marriagesystems are, it
seems, the same as myths (p. 257).
The last of the works under review is Studies in the History of Plateau State. As the title
indicates, this collection is not primarily concerned with the history of Jos Plateau society. In
fact on three of the papers (Nengel, Ojoade and Grace on Pengana history, Birom proverbs
and early colonial tin-mining respectively) refer to the high Plateau, and only one (Morrison
on 'Resistance to Jihadist penetration') deals with the northern borders of the Plateau. Two
papers discuss recent religious change among Pyem (Bruce) and Ngas (Wambudta) of the
eastern Plateau fringes, whilst another paper by Bruce analyses the history and organizationof
a Fulani slave settlement close to the Pyem settlement of Gindiri. The remainderof the papers
are concerned with the history of areas south of the Plateau: Yergam (Banfa), Goemai (Agi),
Alago (Adefuye), Gwandaraof Lafia and the lowlands salt industry (both papers by Unomah).
The editor herself provides three lengthy overviews of Plateau State history which connect the
specific papers of this collection to the extensive archival material and unpublished oral
history texts which have been collected by the Jos history department.
The papers in this collection are all useful in one way or another. Banfa's presentation of
Yergam history is notable for its elegant defence of a 'holistic' approach to history. Banfa
argues that ethnographical accounts and oral histories should be treated as equal but variant
readings of historical events. He raises a Levi-Straussianargument that the traditions of origin
of different settlements are but 'a contemplation of the contradictions in the basic premises of
Yergam culture' (p. 92), and then dismisses such an analysis as 'gratuitous and intellectually
arrogant' (ibid.). Cross-cultural evidence for a tradition is a 'significant indicator of its
authenticity'. Banfa makes explicit an approachwhich most of the other contributors simply
subscribe to implicitly. Unomah's paper on the lowlands salt industry is mainly based on fairly
recently collected (1974-76) oral histories. It is particularly interesting as an account of the
manufacture and control of an important pre-colonial commodity and as an account of the
politics of salt production and intensification of that production in the nineteenth century.
What we now need is an account of the salt trade on and around the Plateau. (Incidentally, the
statement that pre-colonial caravan routes passed through Kaduna (p. 170) is surely
incorrect). Morrison's description of the interrelations of northern Plateau groups and their
resistance to emirate rule relies very heavily on single interviews with groups of informants in
each community, but in spite of this it does indicate some significant political alliances and
economic networks among the 'societies' described by Muller. The oral history presented by
Morrison, Nengel, Agi, Adefuye and Unomah (on Gwandaraof Lafia) tends (strangely) to
complement the archive sources. Might this not be evidence that these 'oral histories' are only
'official' accounts of history? Considerably more information is necessary before we can
construct local histories or analyse historical changes in pre-colonial regional
politico-economic systems.
The papers in this volume which deal with colonial history are inevitably more coherent
than those that explore pre-colonial themes. Elsewhere in the book the distinction between
pre-colonial and colonial history is not always too clear but the subject matter of the chapters
by Isichei, Bruce, Graceand Wambudta clearly dates their accounts. In both of his chapters,
Bruce (an anthropologist) gives detailed accounts of the social processes and cognitive changes
which were involved in religious conversion or slavery. The paper on conversion describes the
association or religious change and changes in the economy (especially the appearanceof new
occupationalroles). The chapter on slavery provides a rareaccount of a localized slave-trading
system and of the supernaturalbases of social control in slave settlements. Professor Isichei
deals with resistance to colonialism and changes and continuities under colonial rule in two
chapters which cover Plateau state as a whole. Perhaps because of the data-base (colonial
reports and oral data collected by undergraduateresearchers), these chapters are histories of
events rather than processes. Some of the oral sources have been published (in a stencilled
format) asJos Oral History and LiteratureTexts, Vols. 1 and 2, 1981. Professor Isichei has

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written an account of recent colonial history which points up certain common themes in those
texts. These chapters go some way toward illuminating that popular consciousness which
eludes both Freund and Neiers, and also toward establishing those experiences and events
which are common to Plateau State history and other regional traditions in Nigerian
historiography.
There are relatively few specific issues which are common to all of the books under review.
All of the authors, except Neiers, insist, quite rightly, that the Jos Plateau was not primitive,
isolated or impoverished. Most emphasize the brutality of colonial conquest and colonial
economy and all have a somewhat uneasy relationship to the documentation of history
provided by colonialism. There are confrontations over method (for example the absence of
oral history in Freund, the group interview techniques of Morrison, the explicitly
anti-structuralistposition taken by Banfa and the purely formal structuralismof Muller). But
these problems need not be pursued: they reflect attempts to write respectably comprehensive
work from very little information. All of the methodological and theoretical perspectives are
complementary, or even mutually necessary, until we know more about this region.
The specific features of Plateau history and sociology remain to be discovered, but from
these books at least three issues emerge. Firstly, Muller has clarified the systematic
transformationof social structure on and around the High Plateau. What we now need is an
account of the economic history of that region, an account which traces the interrelations of
this indigenous discourse about structures to specific economic and hence historical
developments. The materials to construct such a social history are pre-figured in the books
reviewed here: Muller's structures are recognizably the ideological property of chiefs, elders
and household heads rather than of subordinate men and women, simply because colonial
investigators sought 'authoritative' accounts of Plateau society. Yet we can assume that the
authorities of each community gave accounts of society which were, on the one hand,
'traditional'(and hence closely related to pre-existing economic organization)and were, on the
other hand, a legitimation of authority. The accounts of structures are historically situated
ideologies. As opposed to this structuralism, the merit of the historicist method adopted by
Isichei, Banfa, Morrison and others, is that the reporters of past society are identified
(although their social position, status and interests are commonly unstated). If the two
approaches were to be combined we would acquire a secure, historical account of the
dominant ideologies of Plateau communities. On the evidence presented here, these dominant
ideologies do deal in marriage rules, kinship, household organization, exchange and ritual.
They define locally specific production organizationratherthan some generalizedgandulgida
formation such as that invoked by Freund. The ideologies also serve to define that category of
the dispossessed who were, and are, the 'labouringclasses' of the Plateau. Furthermore, such
locally dominant ideologies have, firstly, articulatedwith the ideology of the state, and have,
secondly, generated locally and historically specific forms of opposition; forms which inform
'grass roots' political movements and an emerging national consciousness.
Secondly, the oral texts which are cited by Isichei and others give us some insight into
pre-colonial or early colonial modes of constructing history or of framing 'events'. All of the
works reviewed here impose those events which have been emphasized by European
historiography:colonial conquest; the development of capitalist tin-mining; the incorporation
of localized polities into the state. Yet even within these books, there is evidence of a different
view of history: Isichei notes the indigenous 'great man' theory of history in accounts of
incipient state formation of Kerang in Mwahaval, which was only curtailed by the death of
Jepnuan, and gives evidence of the Mada, Eggon, Tal and Montol refusal to accept
colonialism as a new period of history. Freund simply ignores periods of tin-mining labour
history where dissent may have taken forms other than outright rebellion or trade union
activity; Muller's account of Rukuba marriageconstructs a 'traditional past' which certainly
seems to reflect the desires and expectations of someof 'the Rukuba' in the present. There is
here an unexplored historical consciousness which may well be specific to Plateau society.
A final problem is raised most directly by Freund: the tin mines certainly were central to
Plateau economy before the Nigerian 'oil boom', and may well become significant to
industrializationin the future. But one doubts whether they were ever quite so encapsulated as
Freund suggests. Indeed, one could argue that the economic decline of the tin-fields and the

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REVIEW ARTICLE

91

growth of capitalist agriculture has reduced the linkages of the tin-field economy (and
community) to the wider society by reducing the ruralnetworks which provided the tin-fields
with food, craft products and seasonal or permanent migrant-labour. It remains to be
discovered how the changes in tin-mining and other industries affected social and cultural
change on and beyond the Plateau. The 'multi-disciplinary' theoretical practice of the people
of the Plateau has much to offer as a model for scholarlyco-operationin understanding Plateau
society.

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