Strips and Patches: A Demographic Dimension in Some African Land-Holding and Political Systems

This article describes a correspondence between population pressures, political systems and modes of land tenure in societies of the lake region of east Africa as observed in the mid-twentieth century. In this area, agrarian systems organised on the basis of segmentary lineages were found mainly in areas of land shortage, whereas agrarian systems organised on the basis of territorially defined chiefdoms and communities with political hierarchy were more commonly found in areas where land was relatively abundant. The correspondence is confirmed by cases where changes in demographic pressure over time were accompanied by dramatic changes in forms of sociopolitical organisation. The distribution of the two broad types of systems can be accounted for partly in terms of decisions of farmers about postmarital residence and landholding under crowded and uncrowded conditions. Parallels may be observed outside Africa. Rural population pressures commonly increase restrictions on access to land in east African descent groups, but the development of localised lineages in conditions of rural crowding is not always a simple, one-way process.