Cattle complex
Melville Herskovits's 1926 term for the central place of cattle in the social and religious life of East African peoples.
Also: East African cattle complex
The cattle complex is a phrase coined by the American anthropologist Melville Herskovits in a study published in 1926, describing how, among many peoples of East and southern Africa, cattle were bound up with marriage, status, religion, law and identity, not only food. He suggested that cattle were valued more for prestige than for economic use. Later scholars, among them Harold Schneider, challenged that view, showing that keeping large herds is a sensible strategy in dry, uncertain country and that cattle serve as a store of wealth and a form of insurance. The phrase is still used, more carefully, for societies such as the Dinka, Nuer, Maasai and Fulani.