Between ethnicity and medicine : reinventing legitimacy in Chokwe and Sukuma chieftaincies

This chapter illustrates the relevance of precolonial political systems in equatorial Africa, specifically in relation to the new ways in which some chiefs today seek legitimacy in their communities. We observe a postcolonial turn in the rekindled interest in the ‘life-medicine’ required of precolonial rulers. In parallel exists an alternative legitimacy justifying a chief’s position on the grounds of his representing an ethnic or regional identity within the national context. This ethnic basis of chieftaincy took root particularly during Belgian colonization. After briefly touching on the latter ‘colonial’ chieftaincy with ongoing salience, the chapter presents examples of the first, neo-traditional type of legitimacy as well as a hybrid contemporary form promoting inclusive ethnicity. The chapter recounts the chequered past and present of festival-based authority in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Tanzania. Our propositions are based on recent participant observation of the festival Likumbi Lya Mize and in-depth interviews with a Chokwe chief in the DRC and a Sukuma chief in Tanzania. As a baseline serves the first author’s ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 1999 in collaboration with two Sukuma chiefs