Terence and Earle (D’Altroy Terence and Timothy Earle : Staple Finance, Wealth finance, and Storage in the Inea Political economy, current Anthropology : 1985 : 26 : pp 187-206) are of strong view that in order to effectively finance dynamics of chieftainship structure of the institution, either group oriented or individualizing has to be ascertained, Colin (Renfrew, Colin : 1974 : Beyond a subsistence economy : The evolution of social organisation in Pre-historic Europe “in reconstructing complex society”: Edited by C. Renfrew and S. Shennan, pp. 1-9, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) is of strong opinion that history of a particular type of chief-tainship has to be thoroughly looked into so as to effect proper implementation of the development plan envisaged and inherent in it.
On ensuring these aspects, dynamism of chieftainships as political institutions can be understood and achieved. For this purpose outlining the various strategies with which rulers tried to extend and maintain political and social control through economic measures or even religious rites and rituals and the conditions that affected the success of these strategies need to be determined in the light of the customary laws which always remained an inseparable part of any society, tribal or otherwise, as an effective tool for social control.
It appears that unstable and cyclical characters of most chieftain-ships were apparently inherent.( Feinman Gary and Linda Nicholas, 1987 : “Labour, surplus and Production – A regional analysis of Formative Oaxaca Socio-economic organisation” in Anthropological research papers.)
A question arises relating to power relationships of followers’ evaluation of the cost of compliance with the demands of leader relative to the cost of refusal as contended by Jonathan (Haas Jonathan : 1982, The evolution of the pre-historic state, New York, Columbia University Press).
He strongly felt that construction of a complex polity required a leader to find a following to himself. Simply, he must control people’s labour, and lead in difficult situations. Meitei history is replete with factional leaders – an unwanted factor, towards regional integration.
Johnson (Allen Johnson and Timothy Early : The Evolution of Human Society; Standford, Standford University Press, 1987) has questioned as to what keeps such leaders from moving away from the centres of power and attraction.
Historically we know larger groups do not form centres of power. Technological and social adjustments are necessary to concentrate and co-ordinate increasing numbers of people. The quality of leadership lies therein. The traditional answer to this question has been to point to the management functioning that leaders perform.
Much of new-evolutionary thought since the 1950s has emphasized the function of leaders in maintaining their groups. To understand the evolution of chieftainship is to identify the new conditions created by technology or population growth that require central management for their effective and efficient operation.
Often it is true but there are other parameters which must also be taken into consideration e.g. control and use of land for food production and settlement for new incumbents. The inheritance of land in the Thadou group is through patrilineal laws of primogeniture.
All the land in a Thadou village often belongs to the Chief who exercises absolute power over it. He distributes the cultivable land to all the villagers at the beginning of every year after having consulted the village elders, Semang Puheng, for each elder represents different kin group in the village.
Customarily speaking he is not compelled to abide by the decision of the Council of elders but the power of the council is real and irrefutable for the simple reason that the individual household has no right in land. He cannot alienate the plot of land nor transfer it when one has been allotted to him.
The most important aspect is that the land is not inherited by the individuals. So the chief often enters into politics and tries to marginalize a section of the community which does not honour him or pay taxes as per the customary laws. The next result is that several families migrate to set up new settlements.
Population growth has received considerable attention since Ester’s (Boserup Ester : The conditions of Agricultural Growth, Chicago, Aldine : 1966) work in 1965 on condition of agricultural growth which served as a catalyst in the most recent theories about the general synthesis of cultural evolution.
Johnson and Earle (Allen Johnson and Timothy Earle : Opo. Cit.) in their work on ‘Evolution of Human Society’ have contended that population factor has received little support as a prime mover.
Drennan, Feihman and Steponaitis have attributed the low population densities as revealed from the intensive surveys documented for the chiefdoms.
( Richard Bradley : The Social Foundations of Pre-historic Britain, London, Harlow, 1984. Several countries in the Oaxaca Valley of highland Meso-america, for the Black Warrior Valley of Alabama and for the Valle de la Plata in Columbia. Population density appears also to have been low for the early chiefdoms of southern England, said Richard Bradley.)
In every case customary laws have prevailed over constraints in demographic propagation in the tribal belts. However, in case of Manipur population has indeed been a prime mover since the seventeenth century.
The substantial immigration of Muslims and the Brahmanas compelled the societal managers to reorganize the settlement pattern and the increase in the formation of the sub-sub-clans. It was a force, which developed into organized sectors and got channelized through the clan and the Sagei/Salai formations at the operative level.
Thus, we see that population increase is certainly associated with evolution of political systems in Manipur (Patrice Kirch : The population of the Polynesian Chiefdoms ; Cambridge, Cambridge University Press : 1984.
On the Marquesas, population growth and resulting environmental deterioration created a susceptibility to drought that bound a local population to its leader and his breadfruit stores, contended Patrice Kirch.
In Greece, population growth accompanied Mycenaean State formation and, following the precipitous “Dark Age” decline contributed to the emergence of the Polis, added Ferguson).
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to be continued ..
* Dr. (Mrs.) Priyadarshni M Gangte wrote this article for The Sangai Express .
This article was webcasted on January 28 , 2008 .
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