On many occasions throughout history, it was the very act of conquest that allowed an aggressive society to develop the exploitative and administrative forms necessary to become a state. So far, we have looked at the model of the conquest state using a specific optic: militarization, whereby a relatively egalitarian society cleaves, and masculine organizations, the military brotherhoods of the Romans or the Germans, become a politogen, conquering other populations and forming states. Imitation was another motor in this process, certainly with the Germanic tribes, who had been under the tutelage of the Roman Empire, and probably with the Romans as well, who had plenty of contact with neighboring states or militaristic chiefdoms as they were founding their city.
The Congo basin states, the Lunda, Bakuba, and Baluba, provide a different example. Until the nineteenth century, they had no direct contact with other states. At that point, they adapted their endogenous forms of statist organization, shifting from exacting tribute to seizing captives or condemning criminals, whom they sold to European and Arab-Swahili slave traders. But they already had a state organization prior to Western contact.
These states were constituted by militarily aggressive ethnic groups that conquered other peoples. The Balunda conquered several peoples, such as the Chokwe and Aushi, to form the Lunda state; the Bushongo (shongo was the name of the double-edged blades they used) conquered the Bteng, Pyang, Bangongo, and another fourteen tribes to form the Bakuba state (Bakuba means “men of lightning,” another reference to their weaponry); and the Baluba (whose name means “conquerors” or “destroyers”) conquered the inhabitants of what is now Northern Zambia.47
Initially, the eventual conquerors practiced forms of external exploitation, robbing their neighbors through raiding. Over time, they ritualized and pacified this process; instead of raiding and plundering, they took to exacting tribute. At the time, the Balunda, Bushongo, and Baluba barely practiced internal forms of exploitation, though they had kinship hierarchies based on lineage: families who enjoyed a higher status and so constituted a form of nobility, although there were scant economic structures to differentiate them on a material level.
Eventually, the tribute-paying populations who were nearest and most vulnerable to the political power of the conquerors became fully integrated into a state society, and divided into provinces. War raiding and the exacting of tribute continued against external populations, whereas in the provinces, the tribute took on the form of a civic obligation.
So, while a fisher caught ten baskets of fish, he reserved for himself only four baskets. The rest of it was distributed […] as follows: one basket was for the old men of his village, three baskets were for the village chief and his clan, and two baskets were a tribute in favor of [the] supreme power.48
Land was inalienable, but peasants had to pay a tribute in agricultural goods, as in the feudal system, and to turn over a portion of their catch from hunting and fishing, as described above. They also had obligatory labor duties, corvée labor, but these were irregular, in contrast to many other early states. Any status goods, such as ivory, leopard skins, and eagle feathers, had to be given to the chiefs, who could then redistribute them as status and political needs dictated.
The hierarchies of the conquered peoples were integrated into the new states (showing the wisdom of having horizontal internal relations as a means for avoiding conquest and co-optation by a state).
The chiefs of conquered ethnic groups were also included into the top governmental strata of Kuba, Luba, and Lunda states. But they were forced to recognize the rulers […] as supreme chiefs. Sometimes, these new relations were registered through real [or] symbolic matrimonial rituals between the supreme chief and chiefs of conquered peoples.49
Interestingly, this symbolic matrimonial ritual shows a parallel with the immixtio manuum ritual in the vassalage ceremonies of Western Europe, as pointed out by Jacques Le Goff.50
These states also had armies, law courts, secret fraternities, councils of nobles, and the institutions of servility and clientage. The armies were not regularized, but functioned as a “home guard,” with all the adult males of a certain age group liable to be called into service. In the Kuba state, unlike the other two, “a number of war leaders […] conserved their posts in peacetime.” In all three cases, however, the armies were at the service of the government, being “used for territorial usurpation, war robbery expeditions, suppressions of revolted vassals, and so on.”51
The law courts were most extensive in the Kuba state, with a multi-stepped structure spanning village, province, and capital. The highest judges were the paramount ruler and the head of the council. There were also “different judges for making decisions on definite crimes and cases: on sorcery, on killings, on fights and mutilations, on stealing, on heritage, on trade and so on.”52 The secret fraternities, for their part, executed the sentences. In early states on multiple continents, such fraternities played an important role in backing up what was otherwise a weak state power, both symbolically and physically. A famous example is the cult of Ares in the Athenian city-state, which carried out executions on the hill of Areopagus.
Sometimes the secret fraternities comprised young men recruited to support the old men who occupied the positions of judges and rulers. Recruits were given the privilege of being sanctioned to commit what would otherwise be blood crimes, a great power both symbolically and psychologically (and also quite revealing in terms of the psychology of state supporters: the “anti-social elements” that apologists for the State always warn us against have from the very beginning been the agents of the State itself). Other times they were power-holders in their own right. Their anonymity played multiple functions: ritualizing the mystical execution of justice and encouraging the view that justice was the dispensation of a divine principle and not the politically motivated action of specific people with names and faces; excusing the families of the executed from the obligation for vengeance, in cases where they supported the justice process; and protecting the executioners from vengeance, in cases where the families of the executed were defiant. This last element is perhaps the only one that has remained unchanged today, when state executioners are still faceless, and police in anti-terrorism or other high-profile operations of a political nature cover their faces and badge numbers.
In all three Congo basin states, the authority of the paramount ruler was complemented by that of a council of nobles. In the Kuba state, this council had a leader.
The relations between the council and the [paramount ruler] were ambiguous. Members of the council outwardly showed obedience but they were very powerful in reality […]. Having meetings not less than once a week the council decided practically all the important questions. The nyimi [paramount ruler in the Kuba state] was allowed only to submit proposals for consideration. He was not allowed even to be present at the sittings of the council. A kikaam [head of the council in the Kuba state] could make a decision opposed to the will of a nyimi.53
The paramount rulers were also surrounded by a large number of noble courtiers, some of whom played a “crucial part in the state apparatus” while others were only the bearers of honorary titles. It is important to note that while the paramount rulers may seem like figureheads from a modern standpoint, they played a vital role as “priest-king,” which will be discussed in Chapter XI. The ascendance of the council and other institutional forms of leadership in the Kuba state reflect a push by the elite to extend their power beyond what