Violence, Sacrifice and Chiefship in Central Equatoria, Southern Sudan

This article explores specific oral histories and chiefship debates in the aftermath of the SPLA war in two Southern Sudanese chiefdoms. It argues that these local histories reveal much about the historical relationship between state and society – and in particular the mediation with external violence – which is central to understanding the legitimacy of local authority. Rather than being the strong arm of the state, chiefs have ideally mediated and deflected state (and rebel) violence. Unlike other African examples, they have been marginal both in landowning and patrician structures, so that chiefship has offered a more inclusive and pragmatic definition of community than have patrilineal discourses. As elsewhere in Southern Sudan, the early chiefs were often proxy mediators with marginal or outside origins and their access to government force has been balanced by the continuing authority of rain chiefs, elders, senior lineages and ‘maternal uncles’. Current governance interventions which treat chiefs as sole custodians of community land and customs may not be compatible with local understandings of the role of the chief. Oral histories of chiefship origins reflect a symbolic bargain made with government and with chiefs, whereby the latter use their ‘good speech’ to mediate violence, and if necessary sacrifice themselves to ‘bail’ people from external/government force.

Use of the Integrated Flexpin Bearing for Improving the Performance of Epicyclical Gear Systems

Epicyclical gear systems have typically been equipped with straddle-mounted planetary idlers having pins supported on the input and output sides of the carrier. Torsional wind-up of the carrier, position accuracy of the pins, machining tolerances of the planetary gear system components and bearings clearances can all contribute to a poor load sharing among the planetary idlers as well as misaligned gear contacts in the deflected state. Use of the double-cantilevered flexible pin concept to achieve better load sharing and gear contact patterns among a multiplicity of planetary idlers, has been used to improve reliability in advanced gear drives for many years. The consequence of this practice is to build a compliant epicyclical system that improves power density in the gear length direction because the probability of achieving a properly centered gear contact is increased. The Integrated Flexpin Bearing, the subject of this paper, is capable of achieving additional power density in the gear diameter direction through integration of bearing components, gearing and shafting. This paper presents one designer’s approach to optimizing an Integrated Flexpin Bearing to improve the reliability of an epicyclical gearbox.