o - Aceh Books website

506 MEIDOB
time, when political and moral leadership rests more on individual prestige and
wealth than on hereditary status.
In Dar Meidob today, the five tenets of Islam are strictly followed, and the
men observe all the main Muslim festivals. Mosques, often consisting of simple
marked plots of ground, are found throughout the Dar. Quranic schools are
uncommon, and women, who are less in contact with Arabic and outside influences,
are the focus of the maintenance of certain traditional practices such as
fertility rites, other marriage rituals and divination and oracular consultation in
connection with illness. Since public non-Islamic rituals have ceased, there
appears to be no pressure to avoid these remaining traditional practices, parallel
to the situation in most parts of Sudan.
Prior to the Mahdiyya, the Meidob seem to have practiced matrilineal succession
and inheritance exclusively. This is borne out by the genealogies of the
various maliks and other oral traditions. There are 13 matriclans with totemic
names of animals or insects, and these are found among all the three sections
of the group. In addition, patricians and groups of descending kin (dirria) based
on male and female links are now recognized. The dirria comprise a group of
from three to five generations back to a male ancestor. Close kin marriage is
preferred among the Meidob, excluding members of the same matriclan, with
father's brother's daughter/son as the ideal. Polygyny is practiced, with a strict
exclusion on taking two wives from the same section of the matriclan. This
exclusion is linked with residence patterns. Polygyny is linked with wealth and
status, and its incidence increases with age. Residence after marriage does not
depend on matriclan or patrician affiliation but seems to depend primarily on
the needs (other things being equal) at the basic settlement level (kar). In this
context, the dirria operates as a residence group, and as such an individual,
whose matriclan and patrician affiliations are determined by birth, may choose
to identify with one of a number of dirria, since they have overlapping membership.
The choice then is usually based on residence, and if a member moves
away from that locality, his membership ceases to be effective.
Residence is conditioned by two factors: the physical settlement pattern and
the marital/kin status. The basic settlement unit, the kar, consists of a small
number (typically four to five) of separate huts. These huts are permanent, and
a nomad group would have three different kar associated with the grazing and
watering patterns of the year: sagan-kar (rainy season hamlet), where the longest
continuous residence is kept; iccin-kar (winter hamlet) for the coolest, post rains
residence and pargan-kar (dry season hamlet) for the least abundant grazing
period. Each adult woman has her own hut and lives with her children and
possibly her husband. While virilocal residence is the norm, a number of other
patterns are common, and the demands of herding and herd size condition the
residence patterns and following from these needs also affect the choice of
marriage partner. For example, in a family which needs manpower for herding,
a daughter may be married as a second wife, in which case she and her future
children would commonly remain in her parental settlement and provide contin-