Theory A: Preliminary Perspectives on an African Model of Leadership

The Ancestral Context

Somé (1999, pp. 88-89) goes on to note that the foundation of these ceremonies (and clan structure) is to be found in the presence of ancestors in the life of the African community. All conflict and crisis is mediated on behalf of the ancestors (and they are consulted when conflict and crisis endures). As already noted, the cosmology of African life is not only expansive in space (including both heaven and earth), but also expansive in time (with those who are dead still being alive and active in the community):

The responsibility of each chief is to maintain the shrine of the group as well as to ensure that crises are ha:1dled the proper way. Each time a crisis occurs between two people is resolved by ritual in the presence of everyone else and only after it has been examined through divination to ensure that it is just a conflict and not something deeper affecting more people, like a plague. The parties in the conflict come together in an ash circle. They sit facing each other, and the defendant listens to the story of his accuser first. The accuser speaks about how the action of the other made him feel, and the crowd, led by the chief, guides the two parties along. The whole crisis usually ends up looking like an unpleasant misunderstanding, and the two opponents become friends with the applause of everyone witnessing.

This is where the ancestors most actively enter the affairs of the community (Somé, 1999, p. 89):

Of course things may not always work out like this. It may be that the crisis, because it has been simmering for a long time, does not cool off in the circle of ash. At this point healers are brought in to make an offering to the ancestors so that they can tune up the energies of the two parties in order to allow for a healing ash circle. So a failed ash-circle ritual means that healers have a job to do–to reduce the heat between the two people before they meet again. Should none of this work, it shows that one of the parties is not doing his part. At such a time, the chiefs of all the elements will deliver their warning to the renegade party, making him responsible for the lingering of the crisis.