Pahouin Society
Pahouin society is essentially egalitarian. There are occasional leaders but no rulers. Aside from age groupings, there is little hierarchical structure. Descendants of pioneer settlers in a given area are ranked somewhat higher than others, but this confers respect rather than power. Colonial officials, trying to build up a local administration, experienced difficulty in finding holders of definite authority among the Pahouin.
The building stones of Pahouin society are genealogically related groups that the Pahouin call ayon, a term translated by outsiders as "clan." The group comprises the descendants of a common ancestor, the children of unmarried daughters, and those who have been adopted. Clan members share a common name, a special drum signal, and the same taboos; they never intermarry. Sometimes they are spread over several hundred square miles and live dispersed among villagers belonging to other clans.
Clans do not have chiefs, and they do not represent political units. But members call each other brother, have strong feelings of mutual loyalty, and meet periodically. Such meetings are presided over by the clan elder who may live hundreds of miles away and who has certain ritual powers because he is considered a living link to the dead ancestors.
Beyond the clan exists the tribe, which is also a word used only by outsiders. The Pahouin themselves have no term expressing this concept. They use the words ayon or mfulane meyon, meaning "all the clans together," to indicate a more comprehensive social unit; or they simply use Fang, Boulou, Ewondo, or other names designating one of the various component groups of the Pahouin. Whatever cohesion exists at this level is expressed not so much in feeling for each other as against members of other ethnic groups. In the past, tribal ties were most strongly expressed in occasional warfare during which individuals were given temporary authority to lead. There also existed religious associations at the tribal level, usually for the purpose of conducting initiation rites. Dignitaries in charge of these rites exerted influence beyond their clans, but their power, too, was short lived. Clans are subdivided into lineages that also group the male descendants of a common ancestor. Learning the names of their forebears used to be an important part of traditional education. Even in the early 1970s most people could enumerate the genealogical steps back to the lineage founder.
Lineage members also live dispersed. The only kin group that is tied to a geographic location is that which the Pahouin call nda bot, which is usually translated as extended family. Literally, it means "house of the people" and includes within one homestead a man and his children, his elderly parents, his younger brothers and their children, unmarried sisters, and perhaps their illegitimate children. Also living within the homestead as part of the nda bot, but considered still part of their own patrilineage, are the wives. The nda bot is thus an extended family because it groups people related through descent and through marriage within a residential unit. Its core, however, is a minimal lineage because patrilineally related males are the basis upon which the nda bot is established. Usually the nda bot group includes about twenty people. The head of the family is the oldest of the active men.
In former times the nda bot was a religious, economic, and — occasionally — military unit. Central to traditional religious beliefs was the concept of a vital force inherent in both men and nature. This vital force did not cease with death, and thus ancestors were believed to be watching over the living. The family head had ritual functions as guardian of the altar, which contained the ancestral skulls. Before the establishment of peace under colonial rule, he also organized the defense of the homestead. He determined the day on which seeds were to be planted and when to start the harvest. He managed the family's common property. After the introduction of cash crops, he kept whatever profits accrued. He made the decisions regarding expenditures, mainly marriage payments for sons and younger brothers.
The tendency has been for the nda bot to split up into small families. There is no special Pahouin word to designate this small unit; most Pahouin call it simply nda (house). The very dispersal of settlements attests to this tradition. There are no villages proper in Pahouin country, only small agglomerations, each with an average population of 230 people. They consist of a few homesteads, each grouping five to twenty houses around that of the family head. Young men, anxious to manage their own affairs, establish their own farms out of a spirit of independence and ambition or, sometimes, because they fear witchcraft.
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