bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
La Situation Linguistique en Afrique Occidentale Française
Authors: Labouret Henri
Published: April 2006

Si l'on consulte un tableau des langues parlées dans les possessions françaises de l'Ouest-africain, ou si l'on examine une carte linguistique de ces régions, on est frappé par la multitude des idiomes qui y sont en usage. On peut en compter, en effet, cent cinquante environ des rives de l'Océan Atlantique au Tchad. Plusieurs sont connus seulement de quelques milliers d'individus, beaucoup, qui s'étaient conservés intacts dans le sauvage isolement de la barbarie, disparaissent lentement avec la facilité plus grande des moyens de communication, des voyages, des échanges et l'introduction du commerce dans les parties les plus reculées du territoire. Bientôt, dans une génération peut-être, ils cesseront d'être compris en dehors du cercle des vieillards. Le Comité Permanent de Linguistes, dont Monseigneur Schrijnen est l'actif secrétaire-général, s'est inquiété de cette extinction rapide et étudie les moyens de faire noter par des spécialistes les langues menacées, avant qu'il ne soit trop tard. On ne peut évidemment qu'applaudir a un tel programme. Aussi ai-je été heureux de me mettre en rapport avec l'organisme en question, de lui fournir quelques suggestions et de collaborer dans une certaine mesure à son œuvre en recueillant, au cours de mon dernier voyage en Afrique, dix-sept vocabulaires de parlers soudanais qui n'ont pas encore été notes à ma connaissance.
The Principles of Bantu Marriage
Authors: Torday E.
Published: April 2006

Initiation, through which a Bantu establishes spiritual communion with his ancestors, is also a necessary preliminary to marriage; thus the place of initiation of the Bakongo is called nzo longo, i.e. the house of legitimate wedlock. It is during the ceremonies attending it that both sexes are supposed to receive their sexual education. It must, however, be admitted that, as a rule, boys and girls know at an early age as much about the animal, if not the social and spiritual, side of matrimony as their elders, for we have ample evidence that they indulge freely in promiscuous sexual intercourse long before marriage and even puberty.
Die Bergdama in Südwest-Afrika
Authors: Vedder H.
Published: April 2006

In Südwest-Afrika wohnt zerstreut unter Herero, Hottentitten und Bastards ein rätselhaftes, nur etwa 25,000 Seelen zählendes Völkchen, das in der einschlägigen Literatur unter dem Namen Bergdamara bekannt ist. Diese Bezeichnung ist die wörtliche Uebersetzung von ‖Hom-dama, dem Namen, mit dem die Hottentotten diese ihre früheren Knechte zu bezeichnen pflegen. Gebräuchlicher unter ihnen ist aber die Bezeichnung Xou-dama, Schmutzdama, zum Unterschied von den Herero, die von ihnen Gomaxa-dama d.h. rinderreiche Dama genannt werden. Hieraus ist schon ersichtlich, dass man in der Literatur nicht von Damara, sondern von Dama reden sollte. Die Endsilbe ra ist der Volksbezeichnung zu einer Zeit beigefügt worden, in der man den Bau der Hottentottensprache noch nicht kannte. Ra ist 3. Person Dual, et Com. des Personalpronomens, und ergibt in der Zusammensetzung mit der Bezeichnung für das Volksganze keinen oder nur einen irreführenden Sinn. Es sollte daher in wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen nur der reine Stamm des Volksnamens in der Form Bergdama gebraucht werden. Die Bergdama selbst haben keinen eigenen Volksnamen gebildet oder angenommen. Sie bezeichnen sich einfach als Nu-khoi, schwarze Menschen. In der Tat haben sie von alien Eingeborenen des afrikanischen Südens die schwärzeste Hautfarbe, die allerdings in den Handflächen und unter den Fusssohlen einem hellen grauschwarz weicht, und in der Kreuzbeingegend in einen tiefschwarzen, mehr oder weniger breiten Gürtel übergeht.
The Linguistic Situation in South Africa
Authors: Doke C. M.
Published: April 2006

In this article I shall confine my remarks almost exclusively to that portion of South Africa south of the Zambezi and the Kunene rivers, a territory comprising the Union of South Africa, South-West Africa, Bechwanaland, Southern Rhodesia, and the southern portion of Portuguese East Africa. In this large area, quite apart from the European languages used, we have representatives of three distinct linguistic types. Two of these types, the Bushman and the Hottentot, will not delay us any length of time; but the third, the Bantu, presents many difficulties at this stage of the opening up of Africa to European civilization, difficulties which the missionary societies, the European administrations, and the Natives themselves are beginning to face, difficulties which are bound up inextricably with questions of economics, sentiment, and growing racial consciousness. The work of the linguist in this connexion is not eased by the fact that this area is not under one administration, and I fear that some of the movements towards a unification and centralization of some of the languages will be hampered for this reason.
Three Berta Dialects in Western Ethiopia
Authors: Cerulli E.
Published: April 2006

During my travels in Western Ethiopia in 1928 I collected some linguistic and ethnographical information on the peoples locally known (in Sudan Arabic) collected some linguisticas Beni Shangul. They now inhabit the region south of the Blue Nile and east of the former Sudan province of Dar Fung. Their eastern limit in Ethiopian territory is usually indicated as the River Dabus (or Yabus); but some scattered groups of Negro tribes, probably akin to the Beni Shangul, live east of the Dabus as far as the confluence of the River Didessa with the Blue Nile.
Les Sorkawa Pêcheurs Itinérants du Moyen Niger
Authors: Rouch Jean
Published: April 2006

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Cette étude des pêcheurs itinérants sorkawa du Moyen-Niger fait partie d'un travail général sur les pêcheurs du Niger. C'est le résultat d'enquêtes menées à deux reprises sur le terrain, en 1946-1947 au cours de la descente du Niger en pirogue de sa source à la mer, et en 1948-1949 au cours de séjours parmi les pêcheurs sorkawa en campagne de pêche au Niger français.

Il est difficile de séparer les Sorkawa du reste de la caste des pécheurs sorko de la population songhay, desquels ils sont issus et dont ils ont conservé un grand nombre de traditions. Mais en fait, la situation géographique, historique et ethnique des Sorkawa, leurs manières de vivre et de penser en font un groupe très à part.
The Final Obsequies of the Late Nana Sir Ofori Atta, K.B.E. Abuakwahene
Authors: Frimpong Kwame
Published: April 2006

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Nana Sir Ofori Atta, K.B.E., died on 23 August 1943 after occupying the Paramount Stool of the tribe of Akim Abuakwa since 1912. He was a striking personality and without doubt the outstanding African of his generation in the Gold Coast. His statesmanship both in his tribal affairs and in the general politics of the Colony was exceptional. He was at once the chief of his own people, the acknowledged leader of his brother chiefs in the Colony, and the valued and trusted adviser of the Government.
Notes sur les Groupements Ethniques en Afrique Équatoriale Française
Authors: Sicé A.
Published: April 2006

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Les documents dignes de foi que nous possédons sur le milieu humain en Afrique Équatoriale Française ont fait l'objet de travaux scientifiques, pour la plupart restreints et s'adressant souvent à des agglomérations limitées. Or, l'évolution des autochtones, les mouvements qui s'opèrent, de plus en plus amples avec le développement des moyens de transport, estompent peu à peu les traits fondamentaux des tribus. Elles formaient, il y à 50 ans à peine, des groupements distincts dont les membres, répartis sur un espace généralement bien circonscrit du territoire, étaient individualisés par des caractères secondaires spéciaux, parlaient un dialecte qui leur était propre, restant attachés à des coutumes que pratiquaient leurs ancêtres. Les notes qui suivent ne sont qu'une contribution fragmentaire à cette étude des tribus installées sur les terres de l'Afrique Équatoriale Française, elles feront peut-être ressortir certains traits bien moins connus qui pourront intéresser ceux qu'attirent l'anthropologie et la sociologie de la race noire en Afrique.
The Kin Terminology System of the !Kung Bushmen
Authors: Marshall Lorna
Published: April 2006

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The Peabody Harvard Kalahari Expedition, under the leadership of Laurence K. Marshall, has made four field trips between 1950 and 1955 into the Kalahari Desert in South West Africa and the Bechuanaland Protectorate to find and study Bushmen who were living in their own way, and not working for white farmers or for Negroes. The last of the four expeditions, that of 1955, was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution as well as by the Peabody Museum of Harvard.

Our principal study was made with the !Kung Bushmen of the Nyae Nyae region of South West Africa. The Nyae Nyae region extends about 150 miles north and south, about 100 miles east and west, and is centred approximately at Gautscha Pan, which is located at c. 19° 48′ 30″ S. and 20° 34′ 36″ E. on the map of a survey of the area by the Administration of South West Africa dated 7.11.1935. The Nyae Nyae region is separated from the farmed areas of South West Africa by a stretch of waterless, uninhabited country over 100 miles wide.
Animals in Lele Religious Symbolism
Authors: Douglas Mary
Published: April 2006

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Lele religious life is organized by a number of cult groups. For a long time they seemed to me to be a collection of quite heterogeneous cults, uncoordinated except for a certain overlap in membership. In one of them, the Diviners' group, entry is by initiation only, though the candidate is supposed to give evidence of a dream summons. In another, the Twin Parents, there is no initiation. Parents of twins have no choice but to pay the fees and become Twin Diviners. In another, the Begetters, candidates must have begotten a child, pay fees and undergo initiation. Members of this group, who have begotten children of both sexes, are qualified for entrance into another group, which makes a cult of the pangolin (manis tricuspis) (see fig. 1). Lastly there are Diviners of God (Bangang banjambi) who are supposed to acquire their power not by initiation, but by direct communication with supernatural beings, the spirits. The primary objects of all these cults are fertility and good hunting.
Wood-Carving in the Yoruba Country To-day
Authors: Meyerowitz Eva L. R.
Published: April 2006

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In no other part of West Africa has the art of wood-carving flourished to such an extent as in the Yoruba country in south-western Nigeria. Even to this day, this part of Africa is still the richest field for traditional wood-carving of all descriptions, although there are signs that this art is rapidly dying out. Nevertheless, orders can still be given to carvers in some districts for the richly carved posts, the beautifully carved doors, stools, masks, and all the different items connected with the various rituals. There are, for instance, little figures or heads, trays, casks, and wooden staves for the Ifa worship, statuettes called Ibeji used in the cult of the God of the Twins, wooden stands, dancing-clubs, double axes, and other symbols used in the Shango cult, quite apart from figures depicting Shango or more frequently his priests and worshippers decorated with his emblems.
An Estimate of Fertility in Some Yao Hamlets in Liwonde District of Southern Nyasaland
Authors: Mitchell J. Clyde
Published: April 2006

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Kuczynski has drawn attention to the deplorable incompleteness of censuses of colonial populations. In order to make estimates of population trends among non-literate peoples, therefore, we have to rely on the analysis of samples drawn at random from the population as a whole. The difficulties to be surmounted even for so limited an objective are considerable.
Ward Organization among the Yakö
Authors: Forde Daryll
Published: April 2006

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The Yakö of the Middle Cross River area of Obubra Division in SE. Nigeria live in five compact villages a few miles apart, each of which was formerly autonomous in its political as well as its ritual organization. They have a common tradition that their forebears all came from Okuni, a settlement some 50 miles away up the Cross River, from which they came overland, for they were not river people, in several parties and over some years. Among the Yakö settlements distinction is made between those in which the original migrants settled—that is, Idomi, where stopped a section of the main group which founded Umor, Umor itself, and the separately settled community of Nko—and the remaining villages of Ekuri and Nkpani which are held to have been founded a generation or two later by local migrations, following dissensions, from Umor.
The Kalimba of the Lala Tribe, Northern Rhodesia
Authors: Jones A. M.
Published: April 2006

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Alexander Mayunge's father was, before he died, headman of Mayunge Village in the Lala area of Northern Rhodesia—that is, some 100 miles east of Broken Hill. He was a professional Kalimba maker, and Alexander his son, to whom I am indebted for the facts in this essay, used to help him. Mayunge used to make all kinds of Tulimba—the Kankoŵela, the Ndande, and the Tulimba-twa-masaŵu: he also made Malimba which, among the Lala, means single-note xylophones.
La Parenté des Yoruba aux Peuplades de Dahomey et Togo
Authors: Bertho Jacques
Published: April 2006

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Les traditions unanimes des principaux groupements, qui peuplent actuellement le bas-Dahomey et le bas-Togo: Adja, Allada-nu, Ouatchi, Ewé, etc., indiquent clairement que leurs ancêtres sont venus de l'ouest, et elles permettent de localiser quatre étapes successives dans leur marche vers l'Ouest:

1. Le pays Yoruba, à Pouest du fleuve Niger, en Nigéria Anglaise.

2. La région de Kétou, au Dahomey (région située à 100 km de la mer et à 25 km à l'est du fleuve Ouémé).

3. La ville fortifiée de Tadô, au Togo (localité située à environ 100 km de la mer et à 12 km à l'est du fleuve Mono).

4. La ville fortifiée de Nuatja, au Togo (localité située à environ 90 km de la mer, sur le chemin de fer allant de Lomé à Atakpamé).
Sir ‘At' Adkeme Milga’—A Native Law Code of Eritrea
Authors: Duncanson Dennis J.
Published: April 2006

The Abyssinian farming communities of the three highland provinces of Eritrea (Ḥamasên, 'Akele Gûzay, and Serawê) may be said always to have had two agencies of government: on one hand, the institutions of village society, and, on the other hand, the central government of Ethiopia, known in Eritrea as the mengiśti and comprising the military organization of the Solomonid monarch—the Nigûśe Negeśt—and the quasi-feudal establishments of his provincial governors and of the Coptic Church. To the latter of these agencies, in constitutional theory, there succeeded the Italian monarchy when the Eritrean Colony was proclaimed on 1 January 1890. Even before that date the scope of the mengiśti in Eritrean affairs had never been well defined, but had been modified or intensified as political conditions changed in the Empire generally. Thus when highland Eritrea was governed by a Bahre Negȧśê, before the Somali and Turkish invasions of the sixteenth century, the Nigûś and his nomadic Court were probably an appreciable factor in village government. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries scarcely any functions of imperial government can be traced in Eritrea, and the villages, in the words of the contemporary Abyssinologue Job Ludolf, ‘Regi Habessinorum quidem parent, sed sibimet Rectores præficiunt, ac suis legibus in modum alicuius parvæ Reipublicæ utuntur.’ During the nineteenth century political authority—which may be summarized as power to exact tribute (the strict etymological implication of mengiśti), to requisition and re-allocate land, and to beat the war-drum (kitet)–passed into the hands of mesafinti, chiefs of local peasant origin who claimed a dubious imperial sanction for the authority they had won by their arms. This phase culminated in the unsuccessful attempts of John IV (1870-89), himself a mesfin from the Tigray, partially to reorganize Eritrean village society on a feudal basis that would enable him to reassert the lapsing imperial authority. The only code of laws known in Ethiopia was the Fitha Negeśt, or Canons of the Kings, culled from Scripture, from ancient canons of the Church, and from early Byzantine statutes by a Syrian compilator of the fifth century and translated into Ethiopic in the fifteenth. The Fitha Negeśt stood until the twentieth century as the basic law of the Empire beside the Law of Moses, and was no less inept in village affairs for being highly revered by the Abyssinians.
The Changing Position of Swahili in East Africa
Authors: Whiteley W. H.
Published: April 2006

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The initial spread of Swahili from the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanganyika during the last century must, in large measure, be attributed to the Swahili traders, who, with their often unsavoury reputations and their caravans, took the language as far as the Congo. Where these traders settled in any numbers, as at Tabora, Mwanza, Ujiji, Usumbura, Lake Nyasa, and, to a smaller extent, at Mumias, small Islamic islands of coastal-Swahili-speakers have persisted: some flourishing like Usumbura, others, like Mumias, declining. In general, however, the language became more emasculated the farther it extended from the coast, so that in North Uganda and parts of the Eastern Congo it is essentially a highly simplified means of communication for individuals of widely differing groups; pruned of all refinements, its link with the coast is a tenuous one.
Adaptation and Integration in the Social System of Temne Immigrants in Freetown
Authors: Banton Michael
Published: April 2006

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This paper presents a study of what is sometimes called detribalization—the process by which tribal people, especially those who have left their homeland and obtained paid employment in towns, are separated from the social and cultural heritage of their tribe. But this is too superficial a statement of the matter. It is necessary to define the problem in sociological terms before attempting a systematic analysis of the process. Accordingly I shall start by describing the system of social relations prevailing among Temne in Freetown, and shall examine the forces which, over the past fifty years, have influenced its character. At the beginning of this period relationships among the Temne immigrants appear to have been relatively close and stable, but, from the 1920's, disintegrative tendencies became progressively more marked until, at the end of the 1930's, the young men carried out a series of swift changes which resulted in a more successful adaptation of the system and its closer integration.
L'Héritage chez les Agni: L'Influence de L'Économie de Profit
Authors: Köbben André J.
Published: April 2006

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Les Agni, dont nous examinerons ci-dessous l'organisation sociale, peuplent dans l'Est de la Côte d'Ivoire tout le bassin de la Comoë, depuis le 8e degré de latitude Nord jusqu'à la Côte. C'est une zone de la forêt tropicale où la forme primaire, d'ailleurs, a presque disparu, remplacée par la forêt secondaire, tandis que de grandes superficies sont plantées en cacao et café, Ia richesse du pays.
Some Observations on Religious Cults in Ashanti
Authors: Ward Barbara E.
Published: April 2006

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Recent happenings in the Gold Coast, and particularly in Ashanti, have tended to focus interest upon the structure of the constitution and the struggle for political power. Ten years ago two other movements were attracting at least as much attention. In a preliminary report on the work of the Ashanti Social Survey, published in 1948, Fortes described these as first, an apparently insatiable demand for schools, and, second, an almost equally if not more powerful development of what he called ‘new witch-finding cults’. That the demand for education of all kinds continues and is gradually being met is well known; it would be interesting, and perhaps, in the light of occurrences in other parts of Africa, significant to learn what has happened to the new cults.
Yoruba-Speaking Peoples in Dahomey
Authors: Parrinder G.
Published: April 2006

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It is one of the disadvantages of the division of West Africa between various colonial powers that, in many instances, tribal and language groups are cut across or artificially limited. It is not always realized that the Yoruba-speaking peoples, so numerous in Nigeria, extend beyond the frontiers of that colony. Right across the centre of what is now the French colony of Dahomey is a band of Yoruba-speaking peoples, and even in Togoland this wave continues. These are not isolated groups of traders, such as may be found in many large coastal towns, but continuous towns and villages of people who, whatever their origins, speak dialects of the Yoruba language. These peoples are often denominated ‘Nago’ on French ethnographical maps, and the use of this term has been an additional factor in obscuring their kinship in language, and also probably in race, with their Yoruba neighbours in the adjoining British colony of Nigeria. The word Nago has entered maps and official documents; frenchified as Nagot, it sometimes even takes on the ugly feminine form of Nagote.
The Representation of Structural Tones, with Special Reference to the Tonal Behaviour of the Verb, in Bemba, Northern Rhodesia
Authors: Sharman J.C. , Meeussen A. E.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

1.1. On the structural level, it is usual to consider and write each element (radical, affix, &c.) as it occurs, both in the form quoted and in all other forms, as an abstraction. On the phonological level, we normally discuss and note down each word in terms of relevant sound units, disregarding structural variations if they happen to be neutralized for the hearer. On the phonetic level, we consider and try to write each sentence as it sounds in the particular utterance under examination. The relationship between the phonological and the phonetic levels is simple and clear, though one should not be misled by this clarity into assuming identity.
Improvement Associations among the Afikpo Ibo
Authors: Ottenberg S.
Published: April 2006

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In recent years a new type of association, the improvement union or ‘meeting’, has become common in Southern Nigeria. Associations of this kind may be formed on a lineage, clan, village, village-group, divisional, or tribal basis, and may carry out various economic, educational, political, social, and general improvement activities directly related to changing cultural conditions. The present report is concerned with the development of this kind of association in the Afikpo villagegroup of the Ibo-speaking people. Its growth in this section of Ibo country has been more recent than in the more central Ibo areas, where European contact has been of longer duration, a circumstance that has made it possible to study its initial development in detail.
Nilotic Kings and their Mothers' Kin
Authors: Lienhardt Godfrey
Published: April 2006

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This paper offers an interpretation of some details of the myth and custom of two Nilotic tribes, the Shilluk and the Anuak of the Southern Sudan. Each of these tribes has a noble or royal clan in a centrally important position in its political system, and the royal myths of both tell of the founding of kingship. In both also we find represented in myth a conflict between the first kings and their maternal uncles and grandfathers. It is this representation of conflict which we attempt to explain, by reference to the political structures of the tribes.
Swahili Popular Verse
Authors: Lambert H. E.
Published: April 2006

In Mr. Lyndon Harries's ‘Popular Verse of the Swahili Tradition’, published in Africa, April 1952, there appears a poem ‘The Song of the Poor Man’, taken from Muhammad Kijuma's collection of manuscripts made early in the present century. It might be of interest to students of Swahili to compare it with a version from Siu, which was recently dictated to me by a native of Siu and checked with another native of the same place. These two depended solely on memory and had no written record-to assist them.
Obεri Ɔkaimε: A New African Language and Script
Authors: Adams R. F. G.
Published: April 2006

In November 1927 bands of professing Christians were found going about the Itu Division of Calabar Province, in the extreme south-east of Nigeria. Members of these bands declared that they were spirits. It was clear that although they professed Christianity, what had become uppermost in their super-excited minds were pagan ideas: of Ekpo, a disembodied spirit which takes many forms according to the belief of the Ibibio, and has many characters most of which are injurious, so much so that in the past in Calabar town a ceremony used to take place every second year to drive all the Ekpo out of the town and into the river; and of Mmeo, who are the spirits of good or evil to whom sacrifice in the form of chickens, yams, eggs, &c. is offered by the Igbo at the appropriate shrine when trouble threatens a person or place. After considerable disorder, lasting about a fortnight, order was restored by the aid of a detachment of police. Those who were arrested were put on to making a road, and this manual labour caused an almost immediate return to sanity.
An Ashanti Case-History
Authors: Canham Peter
Published: April 2006

Ata Kwasi was a young Ashanti, about twenty-one years old. He had gained the Primary School leaving certificate and shortly after leaving school got a job as a junior clerk. In March 1945 he complained of a persistent cough and was admitted to hospital where pulmonary tuberculosis was diagnosed. Pressure on the limited accommodation, the impossibility of a cure and his own dislike of a hospital regimen made him leave after a few weeks. The following are the letters and reports of his illness which he wrote in English to a friend during the last four months of his life. They are produced without alterations except for the deletion of place-names.
Witch Beliefs in Central Africa
Authors: Douglas Mary
Published: April 2006

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Professor Marwick's Sorcery in its Social Setting is only the third major J- work to be dedicated to this theme since Evans-Pritchard's publication of Oracles, Witchcraft, and Magic among the Azande in 1937 and Kluckhohn's Navaho Witchcraft in 1944. He has produced a comprehensive and balanced survey of sorcery beliefs and accusations among the Cewa. The study is particularly rich in ethnographic depth. The attitudes of the people to witchcraft are portrayed with a rare sensitivity and warmth.
The Development of Credit Associations in the Changing Economy of the Afikpo IGBO
Authors: Ottenberg Simon
Published: April 2006

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One problem in the rural areas of developing countries is the question of securing new sources of capital as the economy moves from a traditional agrarian system to a more fluid and flexible economic condition. New capital resources seem necessary to ensure this flexibility, to satisfy the needs of individuals in a world where economic achievement is highly stressed whatever its role in the more traditional society. Yet in the absence of banking facilities, or of government-sponsored loan organizations, the sources of funds for expanded or new economic endeavours must arise from the activities of the entrepreneurs themselves.
Some Nuer Notions of Nakedness, Nudity, and Sexuality
Authors: Beidelman T. O.
Published: April 2006

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Although the Nuer are generally described as ‘naked’, the ethnographic literature and photographs suggest that they hold certain notions about ‘nakedness’ and ‘nudity’ which prescribe wearing or not wearing certain garments or ornaments in certain social situations. Some of these notions seem closely related to important Nuer conceptual categories of their social groups and their world, especially those related to sexuality, marriage, and affinity, and the process of changing from one social status or moral state to another. Some of these are considered in this paper.
Main Verb-Markers in Northern Gurage
Authors: Hetzron Robert
Published: April 2006

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The Northern Gurage subgroup of Ethiopian Semitic consists of three languages, Soddo (also known as Aymälläl), Gogot (or Dobbi), and Muxǝr. Grouping these languages together is contrary to the general classification of Gurage hitherto adopted, which puts Soddo as the unique representative of Northern Gurage, and Masqan, Gogot and Muxǝr as a special branch of Western Gurage. We disagree with this classification, propose a new one with three Northern Gurage languages, and dissociate Mäsqan from Gogot by putting it as the easternmost representative of Western Gurage, the only one of its type. It is considered that the phenomenon to be dealt with—a common feature of Soddo, Gogot, and Muxǝr, and of these three only—is enough to justify this new classification, though there is other evidence.
The Introduction of Maize into West Africa: An Assessment of Recent Evidence
Authors: Willett Frank
Published: April 2006

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It is important to establish the date and route of the introduction of maize into West Africa for several reasons. It could throw light on early documents about the area, it would help to clarify certain questions of the contact of indigenous cultures with each other as well as with intrusive cultures, and it could introduce an element of absolute dating into the chronology of archaeological deposits in the area. The last point may well be the most important, since most techniques for dating archaeological material in absolute terms cannot be employed in the study of the ethnohistory of West Africa. The cob of the maize plant is widely used in West Africa as a decorative roulette on pottery, usually on the coarser wares. The presence or absence of such decoration is therefore used as a horizon in excavating archaeological sites in West Africa. (Cf. Goodwin, 1953, and Willett, 1959.) Moreover, botanists have studied the genetics of maize in West Africa in great detail so that a statistical study of maize impressions on pottery, although not permitting the identification of particular varieties of maize, could in theory permit the identification and relative location in time of changes in the maize population cultivated at a given site, and thus serve to date the pottery. (Cf. Jones 1959, Stanton and Willett.)
Changes in the Marriage System of the Okrika Ijo
Authors: Williamson Kay
Published: April 2006

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In this paper I shall present some data on the marriage and family organization of an Eastern Ijo town, and shall try to analyse changes in this organization against the background of broader social changes affecting the area.

Okrika is the chief town of the Okrika section of the Ijo-speaking people of Nigeria. The Okrika dialect, with Kalahari and Bonny, falls into the North-Eastern group of dialects which are partially interintelligible with Brass-Nembe but not with the Central-Western dialects. The Ijo occupy the greater part of the Niger Delta. The Okrika section consists of eight towns and dependent villages on the extreme eastern edge of the Delta, where the saltwater creeks and mangrove swamps give place to the extensive dry ground of the mainland. Administratively, Okrika forms part of the Degema Province of the Eastern Region of Nigeria. With three other communities of the section, Okrika itself is sited on an island about half a mile long and a quarter broad.
Dogon Culture—Profane and Arcane
Authors: Douglas Mary
Published: April 2006

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Some years ago Madame Dieterlen astonished the anthropology students in London University with the wealth of detail about Dogon culture which was at her command. They were not less impressed when she explained that the first twenty years of field research among the Dogon had been the most arduous and that subsequent work was more and more rewarding. Now the already considerable ethnography of the Dogon is enriched by two major documentations, Le Renardpale by Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, and Ethnologie et langage by Geneviève Calame-Griaule.
A Note on Alkali Fulfulde: A Reformation Movement among the Nomadic Fulbe (Fulani) of Sokoto Province
Authors: Hopen C. Edward
Published: April 2006

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The phenomena variously described as ‘nativistic’, ‘messianic’, or ‘reform movements’ have usually been very dramatic, have brought about important culture change, and have often occasioned some disquiet on the part of the authorities. One has only to think of the Ghost Dance, the Sudanese Mahdi, the Taiping Rebellion, and Mau Mau—among recent examples—to say nothing of the birth of Christianity and Islam. For these dynamic cultural innovations Anthony Wallace (1956) has suggested the term ‘revitalization movements’, of which there are thousands of documented cases throughout the world. Such movements are conscious, deliberate, and organized; they emerge out of acute social and economic dissatisfaction and as an attempt to create a more satisfactory culture.
The Gambia Section of the National Congress of British West Africa
Authors: Langley J. Ayodele
Published: April 2006

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The Gambia was the last of the four English-speaking West African colonies to organize a local branch of the National Congress movement. As in Sierra Leone the local committee was dominated by ‘middle class’ Creoles, although active Muslim members included Sheikh Omar Fye, who played a leading role in local politics up to the early 1950s and was a leading spokesman of the Muslim community in Bathurst. Other Muslim members were Njagga Saar, a local carpenter; Omar Jallow, described as a ‘prominent agriculturist’; Amar Gaye Cham, vice-president of the 1923-4 local executive committee and a dealer. Creoles active in the local committee came largely from the mercantile and legal professions. Isaac J. Roberts, who was president of the 1925-6 committee, was a prominent solicitor of Sierra Leone descent. He was a merchant before going to England to read law; he practised in Bathurst and Lagos despite the loss of his eyesight which occurred during his student days in England. He represented the Gambia at the Lagos Session of the NCBWA in 1930. He died in Freetown in April 1933 at the age of eighty-two. M. S. J. Richards, one of the vice-presidents of the 1923-4 local executive committee, was a local trader; J. A. Mahoney (later Sir John Mahoney and Speaker of the Gambia House of Representatives) was formerly a government employee who later worked for the French firm C.F.A.O. as a mercantile clerk; the Hon. S. J. Forster, first president of the local committee, came from a distinguished Creole family and served for several years on the Legislative Council; J. E. Mahoney was the nephew of S. J. Forster and was also a trader. B. J. George, local secretary of the committee from 1921 to 1923, and delegate to the Freetown Session in 1923, was a commission agent; Henry M. Jones was a wealthy trader and was one of the Gambian delegates to the NCBWA London committee in 1920-1; until the 1921 slump and the depression of the 1930s, ‘Pa ’ Jones was influential in both business circles and in local politics. Other prominent Creole traders associated with the local committee were E. F. Small, delegate to the Accra Conference and the London committee; E. A. T. Nicol, E. J. C. Rendall, and E. N. Jones.
The T/K Languages: A New Substratum
Authors: Bryan Margaret A.
Published: April 2006

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In a recent article, Westphal has drawn attention to two important points which are in danger of being forgotten in attempts at linguistic classification:

1. Phonetic and phonological, lexical, morphological, and other relationships may differ as between the languages being compared. ‘Thus if we say two languages are related, we usually mean something more specific, e.g. they are phonologically related, they are morphologically related, they are lexically related, etc.’

2. In attempting to determine ‘genetic’ relationship, we should be careful not to speak about any language as if there were always only one ‘parent’. Not only may there be more than one ‘ancient language’ involved, but these may have come into the ‘family tree’ at different historical periods, so that one language or group of languages may have evolved from the impingement of one or more other language types upon a substratum. Languages that are of mixed origin in this sense are probably more common than has been suspected, and it would be possible to classify any such language (or group) in a number of different ways according to the different criteria mentioned under (1) above. Even on the plane of lexical relationships, the recent discussions on the position of the ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ languages show that reasonable claims for the ‘Niloticism’ or ‘Hamiticism’ of these languages can be made, the point at issue resolving itself into a statistical one of percentages of words related to one or other of the two Larger Units, Nilotic and Hamitic.
Observations of a Semitist on Recent Etymologies proposed by Africanists
Authors: Leslau Wolf
Published: April 2006

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The Africanists were stirred up recently by Joseph Greenberg's Studies in African Linguistic Classification (New Haven, 1955). Not being an Africanist myself I do not intend to express here my opinion on the validity of Greenberg's classification. Since, however, Cushitic and Semitic comparisons were injected into the discussion I wish to sound a note of caution against certain etymologies and comparisons proposed in the various studies. The Semitist will tend to be rather conservative when dealing with etymologies and comparisons. The reasons for his cautious attitude are easily understandable. He deals with languages for which he has written documents going back as far as the third millenium B.C. (as is the case of Akkadian); the investigation of some of these started hundreds of years ago. This is not so in African linguistics. The African languages came to our attention only recently and for many of them we have only scanty vocabularies at our disposal. We do not know much about the phonetic development of most of the African languages and, as a result of this situation, the Africanist finds himself sometimes comparing roots representing different stages of the language without being able to reduce them to the original form. The Semitist is in a more favourable position. Because of his knowledge of the missing links within the various linguistic groups he is able to bring back, for instance, Ennemor (Gurage) roots such as äč ‘boy’ to Semitic wld, e'ä ‘crunch’ to ḥqā, ny'ä ‘be far’ to rḥq and others, even though these derivations would seem a tour de force at first consideration. In some studies dealing with African linguistics one occasionally finds comparisons and etymologies of the above-mentioned kind, but the Africanist is often unable, through no fault of his own, to justify his comparisons because of his inadequate knowledge of the linguistic history of these languages. There is also a simple human factor. In dealing with languages stretching from the north to the south of Africa it is not always possible to be adequately acquainted with the phonetic history of the various language groups even if sufficient documentation were available. Consequently occasional inexact comparisons and etymologies are established. I am hopeful that the Africanist will not refuse the co-operation of a Semitist and an amateur Cushitist. The purpose of the present note is to rectify some comparisons of Semitic and Cushitic brought into the discussion of African linguistic classification.
The Ascendancy of Blaise Diagne and the Beginning of African Politics in Senegal
Authors: Johnson G. Wesley
Published: April 2006

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The pantheon of African national heroes houses a man forgotten by recent African history. He is Blaise Diagne, who became the first Negro African deputy of the French parliament by winning an unusual election in Senegal on 10 May 1914. This success not only launched Diagne upon a distinguished career of public service but also marked the beginning of African participation in modern politics in Senegal. Diagne, who was an incipient nationalist, broke the French and Creole domination of Senegalese representative institutions, introduced new campaign techniques and political methods, and gave a sense of purpose and unity to a badly divided African electorate. He was allowed to keep his parliamentary seat, despite attacks from many quarters, and thereby gave the French assimilationist theory its highest expression. He initiated a pattern of African involvement in metropolitan affairs that characterized French-speaking African politics for the next two generations; he set a style and created a mystique which inspired later African politicians; he can be called with great justice the precursor of modern African politics.
A Note on the Ethnic Interpretation of the Fulani Jihād
Authors: Waldman Marilyn Robinson
Published: April 2006

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The religious government and society of contemporary Northern Nigeria have their historical roots in a jihād (Muslim holy war) which was waged there in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The leader of thai jihād, Usuman dan Fodio, sought to establish a Muslim form of government over the Hausa city-states of what is now Northern Nigeria; his movement had the effect of replacing most of the nonorthodox, and in some cases non-Muslim, Hausa rulers with orthodox Muslims who, like himself, were Fulani.
Marriage and the Girl's Puberty Ceremony of the G/wi Bushmen
Authors: Silberbauer G. B.
Published: April 2006

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The G/wi Bushmen referred to in this article live in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Although the census of the Reserve is not yet complete, its permanent Bushman population is estimated as being 3,000, plus another 2,000 summer migrants. The Reserve is 20,115 square miles in extent and its Bushman inhabitants enjoy exclusive hunting rights, unrestricted except for a prohibition on the use of firearms and certain types of steel traps. The puberty ceremony described here was performed in the central portion of the Reserve. Although I have not had the fortune of a field-trip coinciding with another ceremony I had previously been told by members of three bands what would happen. This agreed in detail with what I saw. Later descriptions from all five bands of the vicinity do not differ, so this version is presumably representative of the ‘wild’ G/wi of the region. These Bushmen have had almost no contact with Europeans other than the personnel of the Bechuanaland Government Bushman Survey.
Traditional Politics in Nsaw
Authors: Kaberry Phyllis M.
Published: April 2006

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While I was doing fieldwork in the Tikar chiefdom of Nsaw in Bamenda (Southern Cameroons) for short periods during 1945–6, 1947–8, and again in 1958, one of the main topics of conversation was the long-standing dispute between the Fon (Chief) of Nsaw and a succession of men who had held the title of Fai wo Ndzendzef. Fai wo Ndzendzef is the most senior of the state councillors (vibai; sing. kibai), and may be described as the Great Councillor. By virtue of his office he is the most senior man in his own patrilineage and acts as lineage head. His title is vested in his lineage which forms part of a clan said to have originated a number of generations ago from Mbot, in what is now the Nkambe Division to the north of Nsaw.
Language Policy in Tanzania
Authors: Harries Lyndon
Published: April 2006

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It is generally understood that Swahili is the official national language of the Republic of Tanzania. Perhaps because the concept of a national language has never been clearly defined within the Tanzanian context, there is some misunderstanding in the minds of many Tanzanian citizens as to the factual linguistic situation in their country. Certainly at the time when the country became independent and Swahili was first proclaimed a national language, it was proclaimed as such in opposition to English. The original intention was eventually to replace the language of the former colonial rulers, English, with Swahili. Comments by responsible African writers support this original intention. For example, Professor Ali Mazrui in an article published as recently as 1967 commented on the comparatively mild and smooth conclusion of British colonial rule and contrasted this with the anti-British language policy in Tanganyika after independence. ‘While Kenya had a violent anti-British insurrection and Uganda had its moments of rioting and boycotting against this or that aspect of British rule, the nationalist movement in colonial Tanganyika sometimes seemed to be almost Anglophile. Yet that old Anglophile Tanganyika has now become, in the area of language policy, anti-English’.
The Financing of the Ashanti Expansion (1700–1820)
Authors: Arhin Kwame
Published: April 2006

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The arrival of Europeans, and the introduction of guns, first in the coastal areas JL and then into the interior of West Africa, altered the nature of warfare. Already in the seventeenth century, the Akan-Fanti, Akim, Akwamu, and other peoples on the Gold Coast no longer relied entirely on bows and arrows, spears, and javelins which were the traditional weapons but used guns and even a few cannon. Besides the change in weapons, wars were undertaken on a larger scale than ever before—a situation which was aggravated by participation in the slave trade. Among the peoples of the Gold Coast, now Ghana, none excelled the Ashanti in either the scale or intensity of their fighting. From the turn of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, they fought major wars of conquest and minor ones of consolidation throughout the area of present-day Ghana, and after 1820 they were involved in four major clashes with the British until the latter dissolved their kingdom in 1900.
Neighbourhood Organization: A Major Sub-System among the Northern Nyamwezi
Authors: Abrahams R. G.
Published: April 2006

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Relations between neighbours simply in their capacity as neighbours rather than as kinsfolk, age-mates, or fellow subjects of a chief or headman have received relatively little consideration in the study of African tribal societies. In many cases this has clearly been determined by the nature of the ethnographic data. At least in the East African area, however, a concentration upon other principles of social organization seems occasionally to have diverted attention from neighbourhood relationships, so that we possess comparatively little information on this subject. In his penetrating and well-documented analysis of Soga state and kinship organization Fallers tells us that the Soga ‘peasant's daily interaction is largely carried out with his neighbours and in Busambira few of the latter are lineage-mates or, indeed, kinsmen of any kind’. We are, however, given no detailed account of this aspect of Soga society. In the case of the Toro we are informed that descent groups are generally not localized and that hunting, millet-planting, and beerbrewing were co-operative activities usually organized on a village or neighbourhood level. We are also told that traditional neighbourly values are becoming less important. Further details are, however, not presented.