#ndembu

The position of senior or paramount chief among the Ndembu, as in many other African societies, is a paradoxical one, for he represents both the apex of the structured politico-legal hierarchy and the total community as an unstructured whole.

In an Ndembu ritual context, almost every article used, every gesture employed, every song or prayer, every unit of space and time, by convention stands for something other than itself. It is more than it seems, and often a good deal more. The Ndembu are aware of the expressive or symbolic function of ritual elements. A ritual element or unit is called chijikijilu. Literally, this word signifies a "landmark" or "blaze." Its etymon is ku-jikijila, to "to blaze a trail"--by slashing a mark on a tree with an ax or breaking one of its branches. This term is drawn originally from the technical vocabulary of hunting, a vocation heavily invested with ritual beliefs and practices. Chijikijilu also means a "beacon," a conspicuous feature of the landscape, such as an ant hill, which distinguishes one man's gardens or one chief's realm from another's. Thus, it has two main significations: (1) as a hunter's blaze it represents an element of connection between known and unknown territory, for it is by a chain of such elements that a hunter finds his way back from the unfamiliar bush to the familiar village; (2) as both blaze and beacon it conveys the notion of the structured and ordered as against the unstructured and chaotic. Its ritual use is already metaphorical: it connects the known world of sensorily perceptible phenomena with the unknown and invisible realm of the shades. It makes intelligible what is mysterious, and also dangerous. A chijikijilu has, further, both a known and unknown component. Up to a point it can be explained, and there are principles of explanation available to Ndembu. It has a name (ijina) and it has an appearance (chimwekeshu), and both of these are utilized as the starting points of exegesis (chakulumbwishu).

Resolving tensions in Ndembu society