Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

INSTITUTIONALIZED ENVY 61
district, since the social controls inhibiting an individual's financial
success and the community's redistributive claims are then not so great. 4
Watson records one case of a self-made man of this kind, a 'commoner,'
who, by marrying into the 'royal family' of another chief, was
able to obtain permission to take an eminent political position within the
tribe in keeping with his wealth. This can sometimes succeed. But
Watson describes another man whose success story clearly shows not
only how one who is economically superior in a primitive society is
suspected of supernatural machinations, but how the effectiveness of his
powers is believed to be in direct proportion to his ability to damage his
neighbour.
Adam was forty-one years old and had been educated as a carpenter at
a mission school. He now owned, after various excursions as a wageearner,
the only brick house in the village. He also did a great deal for his
relatives. But, 'Like all successful men, Adam is supposed to "know
something" (Le., to possess magical knowledge). He is said to know
how to tame crows through magic, so that they take maize from other
people's gardens and grain-bins and bring it to his own. ,5
Watson also describes some successful farmer-traders who live under
considerable social pressure, not only because they have to reckon with
competition in a limited market, but also because they are constantly
suspected of black magic. 'The Mambwe accuse all successful men of
practising sorcery.' Exactly like the Dobuans in the Pacific, the Mambwe
are convinced that if the field a man has sown regularly produces a
crop better than his neighbour's, this is not the result of better methods of
cultivation but of sorcery, which has inflicted a corresponding degree of
damage on other fields. Successful men are regarded as sinister, supernatural
and dangerous. A contributing factor is that they do not live like
the rest of their tribe. Their brick houses isolate them from the others,
and if the village community migrates they stay behind. 6
4 W. Watson, Tribal Cohesion in a Money Economy. A Study of the Mambwe People of
Northern Rhodesia (The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute), New York, 1958, pp. 82 f.
sOp. cit., pp. 122 f.
6 Op. cit., p. 209. In connection with this, Watson points out the similarity with the
Bemba, a neighbouring tribe, of which A. I. Richards reported: ' ... to be permanently
much more prosperous than the rest of the village will almost certainly lead to
accusations of sorcery.' (Land, Labour and Diet in Northern Rhodesia, London,