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Angola Ovimbundu Social Structure
Before the twentieth century, neither matrilineage nor
patrilineage dominated Ovimbundu society. Economic
matters, such as
property rights, seem to have been linked to the
matrilineage,
while political authority was passed through the
patrilineage. The
lineage system declined in the twentieth century, as more
and more
Europeans settled on the highly arable plateau. The
results were
land shortage and commercialization that loosened the
control
either lineage system might have over what had become the
primary
resource in the Ovimbundu economy. By the mid-1950s, terms
formerly
used for the patrilineal and matrilineal descent groups
were still
heard, but they no longer referred to a cohesive group.
They were
applied instead to individual patrilineal and matrilineal
relatives. Significantly, the Portuguese term
familia had
also come into use by this time.
The development of cash-crop agriculture and changes in
land
tenure, in combination with inadequate soils and Ovimbundu
agricultural techniques, led to soil depletion and the
need by
nuclear families for increasingly extensive holdings.
Nucleated
villages, consequently, became less and less feasible.
Increasingly, particularly in the coffee-growing area,
the
homestead was no longer part of the nucleated village,
although
dispersed homesteads in a given area were defined as
constituting
a village. The degree of dispersal varied, but the
individual
family, detached from the traditional community, tended to
become
the crucial unit. Where either Protestants or Roman
Catholics were
sufficiently numerous, the church and school rather than
the
descent group became the focus of social and sometimes of
political
life. In at least one study of a section of the Ovimbundu,
it was
found that each entity defined as a village consisted
almost
exclusively of either Protestants or Roman Catholics
(see Christianity
, this ch.).
But given the problems of soil depletion and, in some
areas, of
land shortage, not all Ovimbundu could succeed as
cash-crop
farmers. A substantial number of them thus found it
necessary to go
to other regions (and even other countries) as wage
workers.
Consequently, some households came to consist of women and
children
for long periods.
In 1967 the colonial authorities, concerned by the
political
situation east of the Ovimbundu and fearing the spread of
rebellion
to the plateau regions, gathered the people into large
villages to
control them better and, in theory at least, to provide
better
social and economic services
(see Angolan Insurgency
, ch.
1). The
Ovimbundu, accustomed to dispersed settlement, strongly
resented
the practice. Among other things, they feared that the
land they
were forced to abandon would be taken over by Europeans
(which in
some cases did happen).
By 1970 compulsory resettlement had been abolished in
part of
Ovimbundu territory and reduced elsewhere. Then the
Portuguese
instituted a rural advisory service and encouraged the
formation of
what they called agricultural clubs. The old term for
matrilineal
descent group was sometimes applied to these
organizations, which
were intended to manage credits for Ovimbundu peasants.
These
units, however, were based on common interest, although
traces of
kin connections sometimes affected their operation, as did
the
relations between ordinary Ovimbundu and local rulers.
Moreover,
conflict within the group often took the form of
accusations of
sorcery. The effects on these units of independence, the
stripping
away of the advisory service, and the early years of the
UNITA
insurgency were unknown. It is unlikely, however, that the
Ovimbundu took to enforced cooperation or collectivization
easily.
The effects of the UNITA insurgency on Ovimbundu life
were
extensive and frequently devastating. Much of the fighting
between
government troops and UNITA forces, especially in the
1980s, took
place on Ovimbundu-occupied territory. Largely dependent
on
agriculture, Ovimbundu village life was seriously
disrupted, and
large numbers of Ovimbundu were forced to flee, abandoning
their
traditions along with their homes.
As UNITA gained control over a growing area in
southeast
Angola, however, the organization tried to preserve the
integrity
of Ovimbundu life-style and customs
(see
fig. 16). UNITA
established a series of military bases throughout the
southeast
that served as administrative centers for the surrounding
regions.
Under Ovimbundu leadership, the bases provided
educational, social,
economic, and health services to the population, operating
much
like the village system on the central plateau. To what
extent this
system preserved at least some aspects of Ovimbundu
traditional
life in the late 1980s was unknown.
Data as of February 1989
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