THE BANTU OF KAVIRONDO 235
gentleness, and freedom from greed and jealousy. The other notion is that spirits remember the treatment received while they were still living persons and that they spare or trouble their living relatives according to the treatment received. Old men, therefore, are more than others feared as potentially troublesome spirits, a fact which considerably adds to their authority. Their power of uttering a curse, and especially a dying curse, is an all-powerful sanction at their disposal.
This review of the different ways of gaining prominence in the clan and tribe shows them to be of such a nature that they are not mutually exclusive. The more qualities of leadership came together in one person, the higher was his authority and the wider the group that recognized it. While primarily based on the organization of the patrilineal kin-group, leadership could, as we have seen, extend to embrace the clan and even a number of clans through the channels of wealth, warfare, and sacrifice. If there were several people in the clan who possessed the different qualifications of leadership, it was divided between them, but such a division does not appear to have led to an institutionalized distinction between different types of leaders, such as war-leaders, judges, and priests. Provided that he possessed the other necessary qualities, the war-leader, as he became old, was recognized as an arbiter in legal disputes and called as a performer of sacrifices, as he had increased the power of the clan and pleased the ancestors. There was a division of authority only in the sense that the leadership of the old men in matters of jurisdiction and sacrifice was paralleled by the leadership of the active warriors in the conduct of fighting.
Political authority thus remained inarticulate. It was not linked up with clearly defined rights and privileges, such as are usually associated with institutionalized chieftainship. The leading elders of a clan or sub-clan were merely those persons whose opinion carried most weight when public matters were discussed on the oluhia and who were called to perform sacrifices. They had no rights that were inherent in their office, such as to collect tribute, to enact laws, to call up warriors for a raid, or to grant or refuse residence of strangers on clan lands. There is no generally accepted term for a clan or tribal head, but a leading elder is referred to by a variety of terms which can also be used with