established in a series of documents, including the Local Government Act (GOSL 2004a) and the Chieftaincy Act (GOSL 2009). The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone ratifies the official position of paramount chiefs by stating that “the institution of the Chieftaincy, as established by customary law and usage” and “its non-abolition by law” are to be “guaranteed and preserved” (The Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991:72(1)). By law, the government thus has an obligation to restore the ‘traditional role’ of paramount chiefs, including their administrative and customary judicial responsibilities. With reference to the colonial era, this is done on the basis of the Ruling Houses that existed at independence in 1961. (One to three Ruling Houses exist in each chiefdom; paramount chiefs can only be drawn these families).78
That chiefs in Sierra Leone continue to be articulated in ‘languages of stateness’ and that they are partly the expression of a state effect, to borrow a term from Mitchell (2006 [1999]), is thus undeniable. In this regard, boundaries are drawn between state and society, which makes the former appear as an “inert ‘structure’” (ibid.) that somehow stands apart from individuals (including chiefs), precedes them, contains them and give a framework to their lives and authority. It is in this way that the authority of chiefs continues to be based around their symbolic representations in state legislation, which projects the impression
78
The concept of a ‘ruling house’, specifically related to northern Sierra Leone, passed into professional ethnography as a result of the work of the colonial administrator and Africanist scholar E. F. Sayers. It was Sayers who discovered that the principles of Manding clanship are general to this area (Sayers 1927; McCulloch 1950: 54-65; Parsons 1964:125-9; Jackson 1974). Only Ruling Houses established prior to 1961 can formally run for chiefdom elections, but during my fieldwork rumors were rife that the paramount chiefs in both Sandor and Nimikoro had come to power through political manipulation by Kabbah’s government. In Sandor specifically, there were continuous violent clashes over the issue.
that they are produced and given authority by, rather than being co-constitutive of the state.79
Indeed, the chiefdom constitutes the basic unit of local government, and paramount chiefs sit on District and Town Councils across the country. The 2004 Local Government Act stipulates that the paramount chiefs have a ‘traditional function’, for instance, in preventing offences in their area; prohibiting illegal gambling; making and enforcing by-laws, and so
forth (GOSL 2004a:28).80 At the core of their state-sanctioned power lies their legal
mandate to hold the land in trust for the people of the chiefdom (ibid.), which in a place such as Peyima means that they hold almost exclusive powers over the distribution of the most important source of income generation. Nationally, paramount chiefs are members of parliament and advisers through the National Council of Paramount Chiefs.
In principle, the Minister of Internal Affairs has the legal authority to recommend the suspension of chiefs. However, a ministry official once told me, and this may be considered of general validity, the Minister does not have “much by way of a structural thing that will link him to the chiefs. Except if he decides to visit some place; but there is nothing there really [by way of representing him]. There is no requirement for the chief to communicate with him. Now, there is no real requirement for the chief to communicate with anybody” (interview, ministry official, 29 November 2008). This indicates the obvious point that there is a basic disconnect between state legislation and state practices.
79
Indeed, the 2009 Chieftaincy Act attempted to institutionalize the status quo of chiefly power, and even more recently the paramount chiefs’ role as the highest political authority in rural areas has been reconfirmed by the government (by amending the 2004 Local Government Act).
80
According to the Local Government Act (GOSL 2004a:90), a bye-law may “not [be] inconsistent with the Constitution or this Act [i.e., Local Government Act] or any other enactment for the purpose of any function conferred on it by or under this Act or any other enactment.” In Peyima, however, and Kamara Chiefdom, it was within the remit of the of the paramount and lesser chiefs to develop bye-laws prohibiting ‘abusive language’, ‘fighting’, ‘trespassing’, ‘stealing’, ‘passing through the town with a fishing net’, ‘passing through the town with palm kernel on the head’, ‘women quarrelling in public’, ‘interference of non-members into secret society activities’, and so forth (these different bye-laws are taken from the 90 questionnaires that were completed in Kamara Chiefdom, Nimikoro Chiefdom and Nimiyama Chiefdom). Bye-laws can differ from village to village. Bye-law violations are decided by the chief of Peyima, and can lead the accused being fined as the following example suggests. I witnessed the hearing of the case by the town chief in Peyima, Gborie. A man had been in a fight with his wife, and told her that he had initiated her mother in the secret society. This was considered a severe crime, and the ‘Mammy Queen’, the women’s leader, had taken the matter to Gborie. The man had tried to pay off the women with Le20,000, but they did not accept the offer – they wanted him to be severely punished, both in monetary and material terms. Indeed, Gborie allowed the women to decide what the fine should be, and he was forced to pay Le50,000, the highest that a local court can demand, a goat, a bag of rice and 5 gallons of oil. The accused grudgingly accepted.
The next section of the chapter provides insight into how authority is sourced in local space to co-constitute a hybrid order, and why it would seem inevitable that state-building reproduces this order. It is the simultaneity of languages that the chief is articulate in that fortifies this order. In the following, I provide insight into how hybridity is sourced locally in Peyima. While making a split between state and society may have an analytically clarifying effect, it inevitably obscures our understanding of how hybrid authority is articulated.
Understanding the dynamics of how a large-scale political entity such as Sierra Leone developed and was recognized internationally as a sovereign state in 1961 is fundamental to how the production of hybridity has occurred in Sierra Leone, but so is the way in which authority is produced, reproduced and manifested in localities across Sierra Leone. This is not to imply that the analysis now enters an untouched ‘anthropological place’ (Augé 1995), but to bring out in the analysis some of the local sources of authority that enter into making the foundational hybrid order, and to de-emphasize the productivity of the state in this regard.