bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Applied Anthropology
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E.
Published: April 2006

I Do Not intend to say to-night all over again what has been said many times before in admirable addresses to learned societies. I propose only to bring to your notice some features of the subject which have often been overlooked or disregarded and yet seem to me to be important.

May I in the first place mention the confusion which frequently arises when someone asks whether social anthropology can, or should be, an applied science. It is evident that it cannot be applied in the same sense as, for instance, medicine or engineering are said to be applied sciences since it cannot state its findings as laws in the light of which it can predict events. Perhaps it will never be able to formulate laws as these are understood in the exact sciences. Nevertheless social anthropology is a body of knowledge about human societies and, like all knowledge of the kind, can be used in a common-sense way to solve social problems; and there is surely no one who holds that it should not be so used.
Approche Socioloqique des ‘Brazzavilles Noires’: Étude Préliminaire
Authors: Balandier Georges
Published: April 2006

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C'est en 1949 que j'ai pu entreprendre, en liaison avec la Section de Géographie de l'Institut d'Études Centrafricaines, une enquête de sociologie urbaine consacrée aux ‘villes’ noires qui encadrent Brazzaville: Poto-Poto, Wenzé et Bacongo. En 1950, les recherches se multiplièrent grâce au travail collectif de l'équipe de sociologues que je parvins à rassembler à Brazzaville et le travail se poursuit actuellement, durant le répit laissé par les missions accomplies en ‘brousse’.
The Yoruba Lineage
Authors: Lloyd P. C.
Published: April 2006

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The Yoruba, a people numbering over 5½ million, living in south-west Nigeria, need little introduction. They are almost unique among African peoples in that they live in large settlements, many of which were capitals of chiefdoms; 42 per cent, of them live in towns of over 20,000 people and there are nine towns with more than 50,000 inhabitants. Ibadan, now the capital of the Western Region of Nigeria, has a population of nearly half a million. Those towns which were capitals were, in the past, governed by kings (ɔba) and councils of chiefs (oloye or ijoye) who exercised sovereign powers throughout the town and its territory; the titles of these kings and chiefs were usually vested in lineages, so that a chief held a dual position as an elected representative of his lineage and as a member of the council of chiefs in the town. Other towns were governed in a similar manner, their rulers being subordinate to a king. The largest towns, especially those in Ibadan Province, owe their size to the influx of refugees from the crumbling Oyo kingdom in the early and mid-19th century; but it would appear that long before this the capitals of important rulers were towns of 10,000 or more inhabitants. The origin of Yoruba kingship is obscure; the first rulers may have come as conquerers, but their arrival cannot be less than seven centuries ago and may have been much earlier.
The Concept of ‘Bewitching’ in Lugbara
Authors: Middleton John
Published: April 2006

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In this paper I consider some Lugbara notions about witches, ghosts, and other agents who bring sickness to human beings. I do not discuss the relationship of these notions, and the behaviour associated with them, to the social structure. The two aspects, ideological and structural, are intimately connected, but it is possible to discuss them separately: on the one hand, to present the ideology as a system consistent within itself and, on the other, to show the way in which it is part of the total social system. Here I attempt only the former.
The Gbaya Languages
Authors: Samarin William J.
Published: April 2006

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The Gbaya languages are treated in the third part of the recently published volume of the series, Handbook of African Languages. In this work they are held to represent a dialect cluster (a single unit) within the larger unit, the Banda-Gbaya-Ngbandi languages. In thus uniting these linguistic groups, Tucker and Bryan agree at least in part with Greenberg, who includes them as well as some other languages within his Eastern Branch of the Niger-Congo Family. On the other hand, they do not go as far as Greenberg does on the ground that ‘the divergent features of these languages [i.e. those included by Greenberg in the Eastern Branch] would seem to be sufficient to exclude some of them from this “branch”, and possibly to allocate them to other branches . . .’. They therefore ‘feel that Greenberg's “Eastern Branch” grouping cannot be justified (still less the order of his items), except on the grounds of geographical expediency’ (Tucker and Bryan, p. 146).
The Bases of Nationalism among the Bakongo
Authors: Lemarchand René
Published: April 2006

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Nationalist assertions among the Bakongo have been at the forefront of the active resistance movements which ultimately led the Belgian Government to grant the Congo its independence. These reactions to the Belgian presence, which can be traced back to the early twenties, expressed themselves in highly diversified forms and with varying degrees of intensity. From the early days of the Belgian rule, however, a duality of tendencies has been apparent in the Mukongo cultural heritage. The acceptance of certain Western innovations, on the one hand, combined with a manifest attachment to their cultural background, on the other, accounts for the presence of modernist and traditional strands discernible in present-day attitudes towards authority.
Religion and Society Among the Kuria of East Africa
Authors: Ruel M. J.
Published: April 2006

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This paper attempts to answer two broad questions. Firstly, what is Kuria religion about? and secondly, what is the relationship between Kuria religious concepts and their social life and what is the place of ritual in this relationship? Neither of these are questions which Kuria would themselves ask—certainly in this form—but they are perhaps the two leading questions which an anthropologist must ask in examining the religious beliefs and ritual practice of another people. Much depends upon the answer to the first, for it is in terms of the answer that one is likely to establish the particular coherence of ‘integrity’ of a people's beliefs, held existentially in the context of their own social life. The answer is relevant too to an issue which has concerned those writing on related peoples of the same area as the Kuria—the problem of the relation between magic and religious beliefs. Thus Wagner, writing on the Bantu Kavirondo, uses the undifferentiated category of ‘magico-religious’ belief. But what exactly is meant by this umbrella term, and does it not itself obfuscate what it seeks to define? The second question considered—the relationship between Kuria religious concepts and their social life—is a continuation of the first in relation to their very elaborate and, in one sense, autonomous system of ritual based in particular on a complex sequence of rites of passage. These rites are a very striking feature of Kuria culture. It is, I think, by considering them in this double context—as expressing religious values on the one hand while controlling social behaviour on the other—that these rites are most fully understood.
Town-Farm Relationships in Yorubaland: A Case Study from Oyo
Authors: Goddard S.
Published: April 2006

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The Yoruba are generally believed to be the most urbanized of the peoples of tropical Africa, and certainly their propensity for living in large nucleated settlements is one of the most striking features of the settlement geography of the continent. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Yoruba town has attracted a considerable amount of attention from anthropologists, sociologists, and geographers alike. W. R. Bascom and others have emphasized the uniqueness, magnitude, and long history of urban development; W. B. Morgan, A. L. Mabogunje, and N. C. Mitchel have examined the functions and morphology of Yoruba towns; and certain sociologists, notably N. A. Fadipe and P. C. Lloyd, have discussed detailed aspects of Yoruba urban life. From all these writings one dominant feature has emerged: that Yoruba towns are ‘agricultural towns’ in the sense that they are agriculturally based and the product of intimate links between town and country. While it is true that most towns in pre-industrial societies tend to be linked with their immediate hinterlands, in so far as the excess of food production there makes their existence possible, Yoruba towns are linked to their hinterlands by even stronger ties, because the Yoruba living in the country traditionally looks upon the town as his real home and owes direct social allegiance to it.
An Ethnographic Classic Brought to Light
Authors: Marwick M. G.
Published: April 2006

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In 1825, António Candido Pedroso Gamitto, a cadet aged nineteen in one of the Lisbon regiments, was sent to Africa as an ensign. He himself was well aware of how this course of events interfered with his education:

At a period of life when a youth who is his own master and not lacking in means dedicates himself to studies, that is what happened to me. As I grew older I realised that I had lost the best time and opportunity for study; and when I wanted to remedy this it was already too late for in Africa there are no teachers, nor even libraries, and it was difficult to have enough books sent from Europe.

Lamenting my lost time, I was obliged to content myself with what instruction I could obtain through reading, and this was done at an advanced age in a life which seventeen years in the African climate had ruined.

In saying these things I am speaking on my own behalf and I do so with the sole object of procuring the indulgence of my readers (vol. i, p. 22).

Statements such as this reveal immediately that Gamitto, even if he lacked formal education, had an ingenuous insight into his own limitations, and it may have been this quality that made him a successful ethnographer.
The Temne Family in a Modern Town (Lunsar) in Sierra Leone
Authors: Gamble David P.
Published: April 2006

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Lunsar is a town of some 10,000 people which has grown up since 1930 beside an open-cast iron-ore mine worked by the Sierra Leone Development Corporation (Delco) in the Marampa Chiefdom of the Northern Province, about sixty miles from Freetown. In the early days large numbers of unskilled workers were employed, but now the mine is highly mechanized. The ore is excavated and removed by mechanical scrapers and transported on a conveyor belt to a mill where most of the waste material is separated. It is then taken by conveyor belt to stockpiles and from there is mechanically loaded on to wagons.
Essai de Synthèse du Système Social des Bamiléké
Authors: Hurault Jean
Published: April 2006

Objet de l'étude

Les Bamiléké ont élaboré des institutions profondément originales dans des domaines en apparence nettement distincts, lignage et parenté, chefferie, sociétés coutumières, organisation des quartiers. L'organisation sociale qui en résulte est fort complexe et présente des variations notables d'un groupement à l'autre, surtout dans le domaine du fonctionnement de la chefferie. L'édifice apparaît surchargé d'éléments secondaires, au point que ses grandes lignes finissent par se trouver masquées.
Belief in ‘Witches’ among the Rural Wolof of the Gambia
Authors: Ames David
Published: April 2006

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The material for this paper was collected while making a general ethnographic study of the Wolof people in the Saloum districts of the Gambia and neighbouring Senegalese villages in 1950–1. The extraordinary concern of the Gambian Wolof with ‘witches’ soon became evident when discussing and observing many ‘distinct’ aspects of their way of life. The object of this paper is twofold: to describe not only emotional reactions to ‘witches’, but to give an account of the behaviour ascribed to them, and the techniques for coping with their attacks; some functions and dysfunctions of these beliefs and practices will then be discussed.
Clanship and Contract in Northern Somaliland
Authors: Lewis I. M.
Published: April 2006

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In this article I analyse Somali political institutions in terms of clanship (tol) and contract (heer). By the latter term I mean the explicit contracts, or treaties of government, which are the foundation of all formal political units among the northern pastoral Somali. In conclusion, I examine the significance of Somali political structure in the light of Maine's celebrated dictum that the ‘movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract’.
The Status of African Dance Studies
Authors: Hanna Judith Lynne
Published: April 2006

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With the exception of such pioneering efforts as Evans-Pritchard's structural functional analysis of the Azande beer dance, which appeared in this journal in 1928, African dance has rarely been the focus of research. Thirty-eight years after that article appeared I can write, as Evans-Pritchard did then, that African dance is usually given a place quite unworthy of its social importance. The typical report on African dance is either a limited, vague description without reference to context, or a discussion of the context of a dance without explicit reference to its function, style, and structure.
The Changing Political System of the Temne
Authors: Dorjahn Vernon R.
Published: April 2006

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The purpose of this study is to consider some of the changes that have taken place in the positions of political officials and in the administrative hierarchy of the Temne of Sierra Leone, British West Africa. The time period under concern extends from approximately 1880, towards the end of the ‘tribal wars’, as they are called by the Temne, through the establishment of the Protectorate and the later introduction of the Native Administration system, to the ‘disturbances in the Provinces’, November 1955 to March 1956.
Experiments in Modern African Art: Etchings in French Equatorial Africa
Authors: Italiaander Rolf
Published: April 2006

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Many different examples of African art were made available to me while I was collecting material for a book on the subject, but my main interest was to observe systematically the way Africans work as creative artists. In order to do this, I decided to play the role of instigator and teacher while, at the same time, introducing them to a technique and art form unknown to them. I thought it would be interesting to teach them the art of etching and to see them at work as etchers.
Hyena and Rabbit: A Kaguru Representation of Matrilineal Relations
Authors: Beidelman Thomas O.
Published: April 2006

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This paper has two purposes: (1) to present a text in Chikaguru, a Bantu language spoken by the Kaguru of East Africa: this language has not been properly described by linguists and no extensive text in it has yet appeared; (2) to present a tale (the text) which serves as an interesting illustration of certain problems in Kaguru society.

In the first part of this paper, I present this tale in a free English translation with a few notes in explanation of certain details in the story.

In the second part I discuss the significance of this tale as a means by which one may gain insight into certain important problems in one African matrilineal society.

Two appendixes at the end of this paper present the original Kaguru text and an attempt at a literal translation, together with a list and a very brief discussion of the published material dealing with the Kaguru language.
The Clans of Nangodi
Authors: Hunter John M.
Published: April 2006

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In respect of its social organization and settlement pattern, Nangodi State is typical of extensive areas of northern Ghana. Three forms of authority are recognized: politico-military, kinship (or family) and spiritual. Politico-military authority is exercised through ten chiefdoms which are in turn divided into 28 sections. Kinship authority is represented by 64 agnatic lineages 57 of which are hierarchically grouped into seven major clans. Clan and lineage areas are complexly intermingled. Spiritual authority is wielded by 11 Nangodi earth priests and two outsiders over a total of 43 areas. Each of these three forms of authority in Nangodi State operates within separate and distinct geographical areas which are superposed but not co-terminous.
Ritual Man in Africa
Authors: Horton Robin
Published: April 2006

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This paper starts with a critique of two recent essays on African religion—Professor Max Gluckman's essay ‘Les Rites de Passage’, and Dr. V. W. Turner's Chihamba: the White Spirit. Though the first is a generalized interpretation of African rituals, and the second a close study of one rite in a particular culture, the two make an interesting comparison. First of all, they are inspired by strongly contrasted theoretical premisses. Secondly, one represents a well-established approach to the study of ritual, while the other includes a powerful objection to this approach. Thirdly, the two essays exhibit a polarity of attitude which I suspect has a wider currency both in Social Anthropology and in Comparative Religion. In what follows, I shall argue that the polarization of thought suggested by these two essays is basically unhelpful to the study of African religions; and I shall go on and suggest an approach which seems to me a fruitful middle way into the subject.
The Story of Mariya and Yozefu: A Case Study from Bunyoro, Uganda
Authors: Beattie J. H. M.
Published: April 2006

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The following text was the last to be recorded by my Nyoro assistant, Mr. Perezi Mpuru, before his sudden and untimely death in July 1953. I present a full translation of it here because I believe that as well as providing an illuminating picture of some aspects of Nyoro village life, it also vividly illustrates some of the ways in which participation in a new and wider social and economic world can affect the everyday lives of members of an African rural community. The story was told to my assistant over a period of two or three days by a middle-aged man, Yowana, who had been a primary school-teacher. As well as bringing up his own son and daughter, Eriya and Mariya, Yowana had also brought up another boy, Yozefu, who was the son of neighbours who had died, although he still had relatives living some miles away.
The Moon as a Symbol of Life and Fertility in Sandawe Thought
Authors: Raa Eric Ten
Published: April 2006

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The Sandawe of central Tanzania speak a click language which shows no relationship with the languages of their Bantu-speaking neighbours, nor with any of the other non-Bantu languages in the neighbourhood; rather, it may be remotely related to the Khoisan languages of South Africa, in particular to Nama Hottentot. Physically the Sandawe differ to a degree from their neighbours, and their closest affinities may again be with Hottentot peoples. Sandawe material culture also differs to a degree from the cultures of their neighbours; like them, the Sandawe have an economy which largely depends on cattle-keeping and horticulture, but it is less sophisticated and their reliance on food-gathering and hunting is still considerably greater. Considering this difference in background it would be not at all surprising if their system of beliefs also showed differences. Comparisons cannot yet be profitably made, however, because little has so far been published about Sandawe religion, except a paper by van de Kimmenade and some details which can be found in the writings of Dempwolff and Bagshawe. In his ethnographic survey Huntingford draws our attention to the lack of knowledge of Sandawe religious beliefs, pointing out that these have been imperfectly recorded; yet he recognizes that the moon (láb′so or !áoso) and the sun (//′akásu) occupy a central position in Sandawe religion, which he summarizes as follows:

It appears that the sun and the moon are regarded as supreme beings, and that propitiatory sacrifices are made to the ancestral spirits who can do both good and evil to mankind.
The Blood Covenant and the Concept of Blood in Ukaguru
Authors: Beidelman T. O.
Published: April 2006

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The problem of the nature of the blood covenant (also called blood pact or blood brotherhood) still awaits adequate detailed comparative analysis. This is unfortunate since detailed consideration of such practices would be interesting in itself and might also provide valuable means for understanding some of the notions of physiology, kinship, magic, and alliance in the societies in which this institution exists. A blood covenant establishes a close bond between two persons not linked by kinship but who, nevertheless, desire social relations supported by stronger sanctions (physiological and/or magical) than those afforded by mere communal, tribal, or trading connexions. It is clear that blood covenants do not establish conventional kinship relations and that the term ‘blood brotherhood’ is misleading. However, the physiological basis of these covenants and the terminology sometimes employed by the persons involved in them do suggest that some comparison with kinship may be useful if only to indicate the differences between these two institutions. By examining some of the ways in which a people's blood-covenant relations are similar and dissimilar to certain of their kinship relations, and by considering the significance which the people themselves see in the physiological link of common blood, we may gain a clearer understanding of both these types of relations.
Milho Zaburro and Milho Maçaroca in Guinea and in the Islands of Cabo Verde
Authors: da Mota A. Teixeira , Carreira António
Published: April 2006

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It has been claimed that Zea mays existed in Africa before the discovery of America, but the plant is more generally considered to be a native of America, which could have spread through other continents only in post-Columbian times.

This latter opinion has recently been challenged by several writers. Jeffreys, for instance, has since 1953 consistently maintained that on arrival in Guinea the Portuguese found Zea mays already well established there, as the cereal they called milho zaburro, previously introduced by the Arabs, who would have visited America long before Columbus. On the other hand, V. de Magalhães Godinho, pertinently refuting many of Jeffreys's reasonings and identifications, has put forward the view that, before the Portuguese voyages of discovery, there existed in Africa a variety of Zea mays, which was subsequently replaced by the American variety; the Portuguese would have become familiar with this variety in Morocco, and it would be this plant which they called milho zaburro, or milho maçaroca. To both these authors the designations milho maçaroca and Zea mays are indisputably synonymous.
Prestige, Status, and Power in a Modern Valley Korekore Chiefdom, Rhodesia
Authors: Garbett G. Kingsley
Published: April 2006

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In present-day Valley Korekore society, new opportunities for achieving status have arisen. Alongside traditional institutions, modern political, economic, and religious institutions have developed and, together, these provide a wider and more complex arena than existed in the past in which ambitious individuals compete with one another for prestige, authority, and power.
The Diffusion of Age-Group Organization in East Africa: A Controlled Comparison
Authors: LeVine Robert A. , Sangree Walter H.
Published: April 2006

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The ethnography of Kenya and Tanganyika presents a problem of great significance to the study of culture history and social organization: why have some Bantu-speaking peoples adopted age-group organization and associated rituals from their non-Bantu neighbours, while other Bantu peoples in the same region have not? That this borrowing has occurred in some cases is suggested by the extant ethnographic literature. Wagner states that the age-group organization of the Vugusu of Nyanza ‘corresponds closely to the age-group organization of the Nilo-Hamitic tribes with which it is obviously historically connected’. In discussing the pairing of Vugusu circumcision groups, he says: ‘We have here a case of a formal feature borrowed from a group of neighbouring but structurally quite different tribes which has not been functionally integrated into the structure of the recipient society.’ The Kikuyu, whose age groups are of great importance in their social structure and may antedate their contact with the Nilo-Hamitic Masai, recognize a division among themselves between members of the ‘Kikuyu guild’, who practise one set of age-grade ceremonies, and members of the ‘Masai guild’, most of whom live in south-west Kikuyuland near Masailand and conduct different ceremonies. Lambert states that the Kikuyu age-regiments alternate between those of the right hand (tatane) and those of the left hand (gitienye).
The Divine Kingship of the Jukun: a Re-evaluation of some Theories
Authors: Young Michael W.
Published: April 2006

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For many social anthropologists the problem of divine kingship was solved in 1948 when Professor Evans-Pritchard, in a well-known Frazer Lecture, put a respectably structural interpretation on the facts of the Shilluk case. Divine kingship in Africa was rather an embarrassment because the central tenet of its doctrine—that the king must be killed when he fell sick or grew senile—was usually beyond empirical verification. There was also perhaps some reluctance to accept the explanatory theories of Sir J. G. Frazer when in so many other respects his authority had long since been overthrown. In a single essay Evans-Pritchard appeared to have effectively slain both the problem and its discoverer. Such problems and such intellectual kings, however, have a way of rising from the dead. In this paper I resuscitate in part Frazer's theory of divine kingship and try to show that it illuminates important aspects of the problem which are ignored by the structuralist interpretation. With reference to a single example of divine kingship, that of the Jukun of Northern Nigeria, I utilize two familiar conceptual distinctions—person/office and political/ritual. Complementary to these, and perhaps even more analytically fruitful, is the man-god dichotomy which was one of Frazer's main preoccupations.
Letter from Mbugwe, Tanganyika
Authors: Mbee Gicha
Published: April 2006

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Gicha Mbee, the author of the following report, is a member of the Mbugwe tribe of northern Tanganyika. I first met him, then a youth of about fifteen, in 1951 while doing an anthropological field study of the Mbugwe. I soon discovered that he was proficient at writing, although he had had only four years' schooling at the local mission school, and engaged him as an informant to write ethnographic texts. Since then he has corresponded with me and has continued to send me ethnographic material written in Swahili—about 700 pages altogether, including a detailed sketch of his childhood which I am at present translating for publication. In 1963 I suggested to him that he compose a narrative of recent events in Mbugwe, giving special attention to the local effects of Tanganyika's independence. He sent the report in several instalments, and this, translated from his Swahili, constitutes the article which follows.
Tsimihety Kinship and Descent
Authors: Wilson Peter J.
Published: April 2006

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Though the Tsimihety tribe is the subject of three monographs by Molet (1953, 1956, 1959) and a number of papers by various authors (e.g. Mattei, 1938; Magnes, 1953), its social structure has not yet been adequately described. Indeed, there is no adequate account of the social structure of any Malagasy group, although Ottino's (1963) analysis of aspects of Vezo social structure is very illuminating. The primary aim of this paper therefore is to describe two of the major features of Tsimihety social structure—kinship and descent. As there are facets of Tsimihety kinship and descent that have some bearing on recent discussion of these topics, a secondary aim is to contribute, in a minor way, to that discussion.
The People of the Spirit: An Independent Church in Rhodesia
Authors: Aquina Sr. Mary
Published: April 2006

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This article deals with the system of beliefs of an Independent African Church, the Apostles, founded in 1932 in the eastern province of Rhodesia by John Maranke. It seeks to define the Apostles' concept of ‘the Holy Spirit’, around which their whole religion centres. An analysis of this concept will make it clear that it has arisen out of a synthesis of elements from two older religions, namely traditional Karanga religion and Christianity as it has been presented to Rhodesian Africans by Catholic and Protestant missionaries.
Paintings of Ghanaian Children
Authors: Lystad Mary Hanemann
Published: April 2006

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Children's paintings are interesting for what they tell us about children's perceptions of and feelings about their universe, and the choice and presentation of subject-matter within the paintings can be indicative of early socialization and of attitudes and values of the children. Such projective material is thus useful in providing hypotheses regarding the social backgrounds of those who produced them, and in relating personality traits exhibited to already established culture patternings in the lives of the authors. Paintings of children who are living in a period of social change can also be suggestive of changes in culture patterns and of the presence or absence of culture conflict in the change situation.
Caste in Africa?
Authors: Todd D. M.
Published: April 2006

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Eminent Indologists have stated that it is inappropriate to use the word ‘caste’ in non-Hindu contexts. Despite such warnings numerous Africanists have used the term, with varying degrees of imprecision. In this paper I first outline different emphases which have appeared in the literature concerning caste in India; then discuss several examples of hierarchical systems in Africa which have been described as ‘caste’. Finally, I focus upon my own fieldwork data concerning the Dime of South-West Ethiopia, amongst whom there operates a system which can, I believe, be unequivocally labelled caste.
Rwenzururu protest songs
Authors: Cooke Peter , Doornbos Martin
Published: April 2006

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In this article we shall examine songs of the Rwenzururu movement of the Bakonzo and Baamba people in Western Uganda. We will be concerned with their different uses, as repositories of history and vehicles of exhortation, and also with their origins in time and space. The main interest in this paper, however, is to find explanations for the simultaneous expression of often strongly contrasted moods, viewpoints and styles in Rwenzururu songs.
Social Anthropology in Nigeria During the Colonial Period
Authors: Jones G. I.
Published: April 2006

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This essay examines anthropology and the work of anthropologists in Nigeria during the colonial period, which, for the sake of convenience, can be taken from 1884 and the establishment of the Colony of Lagos and of the Oil Rivers Protectorate to the end of the Second World War and the introduction of Regional self-government in the 1950s. During the latter part of this period I was a colonial administrator in this colony, and therefore absorbed the administrative bias in regard to anthropology and anthropologists. After the colonial period I became a professional anthropologist and acquired some of the bias of the professional anthropologist towards the colonial bureaucracy and its Nigerian successor. In what follows I am attempting to recapture my original attitudes.
Food-Farming and Migration from Fante Villages
Authors: Hill Polly
Published: April 2006

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In January to March 1975 I visited certain Fante food-growing villages near Cape Coast, in southern Ghana, with the intention of investigating the organisation of food-farming, with special reference to the position of women farmers. In the event, as I shall relate, much of my time was spent studying the outward migration which involved nearly all young men and women. In this short article I shall deal with the main sociological factors which account for what I can only assume to be the extreme inefficiency of most food-farmers in these villages in terms of crop yields per cultivator.
Symbolic Rebirth: TheMwaliRite among the Luguru of Eastern Tanzani
Authors: Brain James L.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

In this paper I shall describe the rites performed for Luguru girls at puberty, and attempt an interpretation of their symbolic significance and sociological functions. In a recent article (Brain 1977) I have re-examined the whole question of initiation rites, and I propose to treat the Luguru case in the light of the ideas developed therein.

Briefly, I see the rites as having both psychological and sociological importance. Psychologically, they compensate for male envy of female precreativity (Bettelheim 1954); affirm the culturally prescribed sex roles (Freud 1962 [1905] and Rank 1929); and provide a means of dealing with the threateningly anomalous nature of the transition from an asexual to a sexual world (Douglas 1966). Sociologically, they effect a transition from one status to another; clarify male and female roles and the nature of legitimate authority; and provide instruction in traditional lore and sexual conduct. It is plain that the psychological and sociological aspects overlap considerably. This is most evident in what I regard as the prime function of the rites: to correct any tendency on the part of women to assume a dominant role in a society where political and economic factors might permit them to do so.
Role Segregation for Fun and Profit: The Daily Behavior of the West African Lorry Driver
Authors: Jordan James William
Published: April 2006

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The purpose of this paper is to present evidence of the changes which occur in the behavior of truck and lorry drivers when they are operating their vehicles as opposed to their behavior at other times. Specifically, it is hypothesized that drivers of trucks and lorries in certain West African societies behave in a very time and profit oriented, efficiency conscious manner when they are actually driving, but that this mode of behavior is not carried over into other spheres of their daily interaction. The impression, to use Ferdinand Tonnies' terms (1887), is one of an island of gesellschaft behavior (driving the vehicle) surrounded by an ocean of gemeinschaft behavior (the remainder of daily life).
Circulation monétaire et évolution des structures socio-économiques chez les haoussas du Niger
Authors: Raynaut Claude
Published: April 2006

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Notre propos, dans cet article, n'est pas de tenter une analyse détaillée de la manière dont la monnaie moderne est actuellement maniée par les agriculteurs haoussas. Nous allons, plus modestement, nous contenter de souligner les mécanismes généraux auxquels obéit la circulation du numéraire au sein de la communauté rurale et, surtout, d'en faire ressortir les effets socio-économiques. Nous espérons pouvoir montrer ainsi comment l'argent constitue un des instruments privilégiés par lesquels se transmettent jusqu'au coeur du monde rural africain des influences déterminantes, issues de sphères économiques beaucoup plus vastes.
Who are the Waswahili?
Authors: Eastman Carol M.
Published: April 2006

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The question as to who are the Swahili has long been controversial. Captain C. H. Stigand is responsible for the most widely accepted definition,

A Swahili … in the more confined sense of the word, is a descendant of one of the original Arab or Persian-Arab settlers on the East African Coast. In the broader sense of the word it includes all who speak a common language, Swahili.
Co-operators and Bureaucrats: Class Formation in a Senegalese Peasant Society
Authors: O'Brien Donal B. Cruise
Published: April 2006

Introduction

Recent rural unrest in Senegal, the malaise paysan and the spreading rejection of commercial agriculture, have focused official and journalistic attention on the predicament of that country's peasantry. This is a predicament in large part defined by nature, which has endowed most of Senegal with soils so poor as to leave little practical alternative to the groundnut as a source of export revenue. Declining world market prices for this staple export have inevitably exacerbated the situation, especially following the final withdrawal of French price subsidies in 1967. Consequent economic difficulties are in turn made no easier by a rapid rise in population (officially estimated at 2·1 per cent per annum): this causes overcrowding on the land, with over-cultivation and soil exhaustion, and thus stimulates migration to towns and cities which can provide few employment outlets.
Kinship and Credit among the Nuer
Authors: Glickman M.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

More than a generation has passed since the appearance of Professor Evans-Pritchard's The Nuer. The sub-title of this classic work, ‘A Description of the Modes of Livelihood and Political Institutions of a Nilotic People’ is, I believe, inaccurate. The Nuer is more an interpretation than a description, and it is difficult to isolate the descriptive material, which Evans-Pritchard as a matter of policy (1940a, p. 261) subordinated to theory. Although the theory of the book is an abiding part of anthropological discussion and controversy, having become a model for the study of other societies, we should still return to the facts, asking to what extent the Nuer ‘model’ fits the way of life of the Nuer of the southern Sudan.
Sex Roles among the Nharo Bushmen of Botswana
Authors: Barnard Alan
Published: April 2006

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The Nharo are a Khoe- (‘Hottentot-’) speaking hunting and gathering people of the central-western Kalahari. Linguistically they are closely related to the G/wikhwe and G//anakhwe of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and to several other, lesser-known, central Kalahari and Okavango Bushman peoples of Botswana. They are more distantly related to the extinct Khoekhoe (‘Hottentot’) herding peoples of the Cape Province of South Africa, and more distantly still, to the Nama Khoekhoe of Namibia. Lexicostatistical, cultural and genetic evidence suggests that the Khoe hunter-gatherers in general have lived independently from their herding relatives for some 2000 years, and that the Nharo in particular have lived in close contact with the !Kung and possibly also the !Kõ (both non-Khoe-speaking Bushman peoples) for a considerable part of that time. The primary purpose of this article is to present a description of selected Nharo institutions and customs, with reference to sex differentiation; but first a brief look at the Nharo settlement pattern is necessary.
Ifa Divination in Igala
Authors: Boston J. S.
Published: April 2006

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At the level of belief Igala religion is rather unsystematic and comprises belief in a number of different spirits whose mutual interrelationship is not very clear. A Western observer would tend to rank the various spirits in terms of their order of magnitude or degrees of power. At the top of the hierarchy would come Ojọ, the supreme being and creator. Another spirit with wide powers in Igala belief is Anẹ, the spirit of the earth. Then there are various oracle spirits known generically as ẹbọ, with the function of giving protection against witchcraft. Their congregation may be large or small according to the success of the spirit in unmasking witches by striking them with illness and making them confess to their wrongdoing. Operating within a more restricted range are the ancestor spirits who are the guardians of well-being in particular clans, lineages, or lineage segments. Within the complex of ancestor worship falls the dyadic relationship between an individual and his personal ọjọ or guardian spirit. The guardian has responsibility for the destiny of its ward. Finally there are fetishes, ode, which are made and worshipped by individuals, and which are believed to ensure success in daily life by affording protection against the misfortunes that witchcraft and sorcery can bring.
A reconsideration of the function of Àkó, Second Burial Effigy in Owo
Authors: Abiọdun Rowland
Published: April 2006

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So far only two scholars have done significant work on the institution of àkó, a burial ceremony in Owo. Àkó, particularly the effigy used in it, is of unquestionable importance in the stylistic interpretation of some bron2e and terracotta sculptures from Ile-Ifẹ. In fact, it is essentially for this reason that Justine Cordwell and Frank Willett have studied the àkó ceremony and effigy in Owo.
Yawon Dandi: a Hausa category of migration
Authors: Olofson Harold
Published: April 2006

Introduction

Spatial mobility is one of the most striking characteristics of Hausa history and society. The Hausa provide us with an opportunity for exploring a number of emic categories of spatial mobility, including migration, and the cultural content and values which they attach to these categories. As Spradley has recently suggested, in order to achieve an integration of the anthropological study of migration, we need ‘systematic ethnography which seeks to describe theemicsof spatial mobility and … discussion of native categories for spatial movement (as well as) a systematic attempt to discover their definitions of migration’ (Spradley 1973 : 546). To achieve a cultural analysis of a category of migration in this spirit, this paper will concentrate on what the Hausa callyawon Dandi, ‘the walk of Dandi’ ,yawon duniya, ‘the walk of the world’, oryawon bariki, ‘the walk to the barracks’, terms used interchangeably by my informants. This category most typically comes into play when a migrant seeks liberation from social constraints, and it has played a significant part in the formation of the Hausa diaspora.
Slavery, Islam and the Jakhanke people of West Africa
Authors: Sanneh L. O.
Published: April 2006

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Islam did not originate the idea or the practice of slavery, but it does admit, and in certain specific instances it enacts, the institution of slavery and establishes it upon firm legal and social foundations. The Sharī'ah, i.e. Islamic Law, takes a panoramic view of slavery in human societies and arrives at a cogent statement of slavery as a state endorsed by Divine Law. According to the legal authorities, the original condition of the race of Adam is freedom, but for their security one of two things is necessary: the religion of Islam, or the protection of the Muslim territory. This protection can be obtained by non-Muslims only on the condition of submission and since it is the duty of all men to embrace Islam this submission is incumbent on all non-Muslims. It is implied by this that non-Muslims (but not necessarily the ‘people of the book’, ahl al-kitāb) may have a state of war declared upon them by Muslims, and in the ensuing conflict captives may be taken. In the eyes of the Law unsubmitting non-Muslims are regarded as enemies (ḥurūb) living in dār al-ḥarb, i.e. the abode of warfare. They are judged to have refused the necessary conditions of freedom, i.e. submission to Islam or protection of the Muslim territory (dār al-Islām), and consequently they have forfeited the protection which would have secured for them the original freedom of the race of Adam.
Understanding Ethnic Realities among the Grebo and Kru Peoples of West Africa
Authors: McEvoy Frederick D.
Published: April 2006

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This paper deals with certain implications of our ‘conventional understandings’ of the Kru and Grebo peoples of the Cape Palmas region of coastal West Africa. These ‘traditional’ scholarly understandings of ‘traditional’ political organization, when combined with misfocused questions about the nature of ethnicity, effectively preclude accurate knowledge not only of traditional polities but also of how a people's ethnic identity may be redefined with changing circumstances. Subjecting traditional perspectives as well as ethnographic data to re-examination may clarify the complex role of ethnicity among the Kru and Grebo.
On Misunderstandings Arising from the Use of the Term ‘Creole’ in the Literature on Sierra Leone: A Rejoinder
Authors: Wyse Akintola J. G.
Published: April 2006

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In the middle of writing a paper on the ‘roots’ of the Krio of Sierra Leone my attention was drawn by a colleague to an article in a recent issue of Africa, written by David Skinner and Barbara E. Harrell-Bond, two scholars who have been doing some work on Sierra Leone (Skinner and Harrell-Bond 1977). Aware of my interest in this area my colleagues suggested that I might want to react to the article. My own views on the Krio (Wyse forthcoming) can be read when published, but I considered that a reply to this article was needed for two reasons. Firstly, the article queried the validity of the term ‘Creole’ as used in the literature to refer to a cohesive group. And since Sierra Leonean scholars have begun to favour the use of the term Krio as the more acceptable one, it is eminently desirable to bring this development to the knowledge of non-Sierra Leoneans concerned with the study of the Krio. Second and more importantly, the authors have raised certain controversial questions as to the chronological evolution of Krio society. It is suggested that there was no Krio society even before the 1940s and 1950s, and that the popular notion of a Krio society was a figment of the imagination of articulate ‘Creoles’ who felt compelled to erect an ideological framework as justification for retaining their privileged status in Freetown during the pre-Independence period. The evolution of a group of people as an identifiable social entity is inevitably open to interpretation; and we in Sierra Leone are always grateful to outsiders who point out aspects of our history that need looking into. In this particular case I do not entirely agree with the submission made by the authors, and I shall be replying to them in the course of this article.
Small-Scale Farming Systems in Ghana
Authors: Benneh George
Published: April 2006

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Although classification of farming systems has been an important theme in the fields of agricultural geography and agricultural economics, there appear to have been no agreed criteria upon which a typology should be made (Grigg, 1969). The problem seems quite intractable as far as most of the developing countries of the tropics are concerned, because lack of statistical data on agriculture has made it impossible for the quantifiable criteria used by agricultural geographers in the advanced countries to be applied. It is therefore not surprising that ‘the notion that shifting cultivation is simple and varies little from area to area and continent to continent’ runs through much of the literature on tropical agriculture. This oversimplified picture of traditional agriculture in the tropics was drawn by earlier writers (Gourou, 1965) who established the framework for a regional differentiation of agriculture. It disregards the changes which have been taking place as a result of increased population pressure on available land, the introduction of cash crops, and the impact of agricultural innovations.