bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Arts and Crafts of Nigeria: Their Past and Future
Authors: Murray K. C.
Published: April 2006

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The indigenous crafts of West Africa are so primitive in comparison with the mechanized industries of Europe that they may easily be omitted from schemes for future progress. Plans have been suggested for the extensive development of backward areas such as Nigeria as part of the post-war aim of the expansion of world trade. Large measures of social reconstruction, together with the starting of new industries and the improvement of old have been advocated in order that poverty may be lessened and the equipment of public services increased. Of many of these schemes there is no doubt that, if they were possible of achievement, industrial organizations would be set up that would have no relationship to African life as it is now. Experts in materials and industrial processes are not usually interested in sociological questions, nor are they accustomed to take them into account. They are concerned with efficiency, and have only to satisfy themselves that there is a sufficient supply of labour which is capable of manipulating machinery. Experts in the science of economics, for their part, have to decide whether there will be a market for the products of new or improved industries and therefore must necessarily examine some aspects of the life of the people in the area which they are studying. But the predominating factors of advertisement and price enable them to disregard deeper questions of cultural disintegration. Yet thorny questions would eventually arise upon which Africans would have decided opinions: such as the use of land for the exploitation of minerals, and the ownership and control of industries. The supply of labour might at first appear to Africans an innocuous, even a beneficial function, but later it might be discovered that the movement of workers into industrial towns was undermining the whole basis of their society
Some Problems Involved in the Development of Secondary Industries in West Africa
Authors: Stopford R. W.
Published: April 2006

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In recent years increasing attention has been given to the question of developing small-scale industries in the Colonial Dependencies. It is now generally agreed that such a development is essential in the interests of the territories themselves and for the ultimate benefit of Great Britain and, the world. So enthusiastic indeed has been the acceptance of this new policy that there is now a danger that adequate attention may not be given to the needs of the local communities themselves, the service of which is the main justification for the establishment of these industries. However important it may be for world prosperity that the purchasing power of the peoples of Africa should be raised, it is no less important that every scheme of industrialization should be related to the requirements of the peoples of Africa, and the organization of the industries must be in harmony with local traditions. If this is not done the new industries, whether they are built up on local traditional crafts or are completely ‘exotic’, may prove to be socially disruptive. Every development of this kind has social and political consequences which are as important as the economic results, and which may, indeed, override financial and economic considerations. An increase in the material prosperity of Africa would be paid for too highly if the price should prove to be the disintegration of African society.
Some Notions of Witchcraft among the Dinka
Authors: Lienhardt Godfrey
Published: April 2006

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This paper is concerned with an examination of the usage of a Dinka word, apeth which may be translated either as ‘witch’ or as ‘witchcraft’. These English words, however, only roughly set the limits of its meaning, which are here more precisely indicated by a consideration of the contexts in which the Dinka use it.
The Village Headman in British Central Africa
Authors: Gluckman Max
Published: April 2006

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The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute is attempting a comparative study of the tribes of British Central Africa and of the processes of change affecting their lives to-day. Social anthropologists have been sent to tribes selected both for the variety of forms in their indigenous social organization and for the different ways in which they have been absorbed in the modern world-system. Though we, of the Institute's staff, are spread over thousands of square miles, and have had very different trainings, we have tried to collect our data on comparable bases and to study similar problems. This short symposium, which opens what we have come to consider a crucial problem, is the first-fruits of our collaboration.
Le Problème du Mariage Chrétien en Afrique Occidentale Française
Authors: Bertho J.
Published: April 2006

Pour bien comprendre le problème du mariage chrétien en AOF, il est nécessaire de bien situer la place de l'individu et de la femme, d'une part dans la société païenne, et d'autre part dans la société chrétienne.

La société païenne a comme élément fondamental et comme cadre, tout à la fois, la collectivité familiale patriarcale (ou matriarcale). Cette collectivité familiale n'a pas constitué son organisation en vue du bien direct et immédiat de l'individu, c'est au contraire toute l'activité de l'individu qui se trouve ordonnée en vue du bien supérieur de cette collectivité. L'individu adulte ne fonde pas une famille nouvelle qui aura sa vie propre et son indépendance, car la famille patriarcale qui l'englobe, la seule famille qui compte, existait bien avant l'individu. Elle prend son origine dans un passé lointain, plus ou moins mythologique, et son avenir est sans limite. C'est cette collectivité patriarcale qui possède seule une personnalité complète, au point d'absorber largement celle des individus, aussi peut-on dire que les individus ne sont plus que les organes ou les instruments de cette personnalité complexe. Les intérêts de la collectivité dominent les intérêts de l'individu et en cas de conflit, ce sont toujours-les intérêts de ce dernier qui sont écartés.
Christian Marriage in French West Africa
Authors: Parrinder E. G. S.
Published: April 2006

French West Africa is the largest political grouping in tropical Africa, but the population is comparatively thin. In the area of nearly 1,800,000 square miles, stretching from Senegal to the Niger and Dahomey colonies, there are less than 15 million inhabitants; whereas the British colony of Nigeria has an area of roughly 370,000 square miles, but over 19 million inhabitants. Protestant missionary work is weak in French West Africa, compared with its strength in British territories, partly owing to the historic weakness of the French Reformed Churches, together with the difficulties experienced by English-speaking missionaries, which have given Protestant missions a very inferior place to Roman Catholicism.
Lord Lugard: A Preliminary Evaluation
Authors: Perham Margery
Published: April 2006

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To give the first Lugard Memorial Lecture upon Lord Lugard himself is at once a task of great honour and of great difficulty. I need not explain to this audience why it is an honour: we know that we are here to recall the life and work of a great man, who was a creator of our Institute and for nearly nineteen years (1926-45) its Chairman. But the difficulty does need some explanation. I must attempt at least a preliminary evaluation of a life that was immense in the period of time covered and in the range, both in space and in character, of its activities. Yet I cannot assume that you have a full knowledge of that life since its story has yet to be told. Some here knew him in his later years; there are, indeed, some still alive who worked with him in the vigorous days of his prime. There is also his own vivid account of four of his most adventurous early years, and there is the impressive documentation of his governorships. But there are large areas in his youth and even in his manhood which are still quite unknown. And when these have been explored the parts have still to be put together to form a biographical whole. Here is my difficulty: I cannot, in the time we have this evening, attempt both to tell the story, even in outline, and to comment. Yet how can the story and the comment be divorced? I must attempt a compromise. I must offer you something not much more than a chronology of his life, and tell you a little—and how little it must be—of some of his earlier, less known achievements; and then, assuming your knowledge of his later life, offer, in all humility, my first provisional evaluation. I emphasize provisional because my biography is only half drafted and there is much, especially between his leaving Nigeria in 1906 and the latest part of his life when I knew him, that is still, for me, a subject for research.
Some Determinants of Marriage Stability in Busoga: A Reformulation of Gluckman's Hypothesis
Authors: Fallers L. A.
Published: April 2006

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In a recent paper Gluckman puts forward a general hypothesis to account for the wide variation in the frequency of divorce among some African societies. Contrasting the bilateral kinship system of the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia with the strongly agnatic one of the Zulu of Natal, he notes that divorce is common among the former, rare among the latter, and suggests the general hypothesis that stable marriage is associated with patriliny. Gluckman tests this hypothesis against a substantial body of comparative data, drawn mainly from trans-Saharan Africa, and concludes that the available evidence seems generally to support it. He notes, however, that data for many areas are inadequate and he is properly cautious in the face of the methodological difficulties involved in putting such hypotheses to decisive test:

I am aware of the difficulties of establishing the validity of the hypothesis, but even if it is wrong it may be useful. Some of the difficulties are inherent in sociological analysis, since in this there are always complicating variables. Others arise from the vague and embracing use of categories and concepts (of which I too am guilty) such as patrilineal, lineage, marriage, divorce, &c….

I am myself uncertain whether it is the stability of people's attachment to specific areas, or patriliny or father-right itself, or the agnatic lineage, or all of these together, which, whatever the other variables are, tend to be associated with a strong marriage tie.

He concludes by inviting further testing and reformulation of the hypothesis.
Kinship and Lineage among the Yoruba
Authors: Schwab William B.
Published: April 2006

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This paper presents an analytic description of the principles underlying the traditional kinship system of the Yoruba people of Western Nigeria in the community of Oshogbo. Aggregation into large-scale urban-like communities which are characterized by the close interdependence of their political constitution and their economic and religious systems is a striking feature of Yoruba social organization. In these communities we find that the behaviour of individuals to one another, in the past at least, was very largely regulated on the basis of kinship and it would be accurate, I think, to state that among the Yoruba kinship was the usual means of articulation between the various elements of the social organization. Today, under the influence of systematic and far-reaching contact with the West, new patterns of behaviour are beginning to or have already superseded the old. New values and attitudes have intruded and there is an increased fluidity in social norms. In the present generation the bonds of kinship have been greatly weakened as a foundation for social organization and as a mechanism for co-ordinating and regulating social behaviour. Yoruba society is indeed transitional in the sense that the old is in the process of disintegration and new forms are rapidly emerging. However, it is the internal and traditional patterns that determine the particular form and direction of the effects which the external alien forces of change exert. Consequently, in this paper, we shall place primary emphasis on the principles of kinship as they emerged as regulative factors in the traditional life of the Yoruba in the belief that, apart from purely ethnographic value, they will provide us with a better understanding of the manifold changes that have become apparent.
Witchcraft in Bolobo, Belgian Congo
Authors: Viccars John D.
Published: April 2006

Bolobo is situated on the River Congo, some 200 miles farther from the coast than Léopoldville, the capital. At the time of Stanley's exploratory voyage the inhabitants consisted of two main tribes: the Bobangi, who had migrated from the peninsula formed by the confluence of the Mobangi River with the main stream, and the BaMoie, who are an off-shoot of the BaMongo tribe of Coquilhatville Province. The original owners of hunting rights in this place were not residents, and there is every ground for believing that these hunters, the BaTende tribe, mixed freely with the new-comers before their tribal limits were fixed some five miles inland from the river. At present the Bobangi are very few in number and are fast disappearing. The Moie, Tende, and Sengele elements predominate, with smaller numbers of a dozen other tribes, who have come here since that time for purposes of trade or employment, completing the 7,000 residents.
Bibliographical Note on the Ethnology of the Southern Sudan
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E.
Published: April 2006

The Sudan falls into two distinct cultural parts: the Arabicspeaking Islamic peoples of the north and the heterogeneous pagan peoples of the south. This note is intended as a short guide to those who, while not themselves specialists, desire to know what ethnological research has been done in the Southern Sudan, where the results of this research are to be found, and the point investigations have reached at the time of writing.
Observations on the Shilluk of the Upper Nile. Customary Law: Marriage and the Violation of Rights in Women
Authors: Howell P. P.
Published: April 2006

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In a previous article on the Shilluk I discussed the laws of homicide and the legal and ritual functions of the reth or King. An interpretation of Shilluk law and authority is not easy because, apart from early contacts with the peoples of the northern Sudan, they have been subjected to external influences and some kind of Government since the early years of the last century. These contacts began with cursory and not altogether happy encounters with the Turco-Egyptian Government which were followed by the establishment of a provincial headquarters at Kodok in 1867 under the authority of a mudir; later came the turbulent and dismal years of the Mahdia and finally the occupation by the present Government in 1898. It would be idle to suppose that the political system of the Shilluk has remained unaffected by these influences. The Shilluk are by reputation an exceptionally conservative people and certainly the effects of their relations with outsiders are, to the casual observer, hard to detect. Profound changes have taken place none the less, especially in the sphere of customary law, and these changes are undoubtedly gathering momentum.
Koena Chieftainship Seniority in Basutoland
Authors: Hamnett Ian
Published: April 2006

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Basutoland is administered by a unified and centralized hierarchical chieftainship (borena). At the head of the hierarchy stands the Paramount Chief, whose jurisdiction extends over the whole nation. Under him there are twenty-two Principal and Ward Chiefs, each having jurisdiction over the whole of his ward. In each principality there are a varying number of subordinate chiefs with their own (minor) wards, there being a total of about 460 such chiefs in the territory. The general effect is one of loose-fitting Chinese boxes, the loose fit being due to the fact that a chief (at any level of the hierarchy) does not grant the whole of his ward to subordinate chiefs but retains a part in his own hands, so that the sum of all the subordinate wards in any chiefdom is not as great as the totality of the superior ward of which they are parts.
The Migrant Cocoa Farmers of Southern Ghana
Authors: Hill Polly
Published: April 2006

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The development of commercial cocoa growing in Ghana is always assumed to be something of a miracle. It evokes the stereotype of the plodding subsistence farmer, eking out a living by a system of shifting cultivation in the forest. This peasant is correctly presumed to have been unfamiliar with the cash economy centred on palm produce for export and deriving mainly from areas south-east of the forest zone, but he is somehow supposed to have desired and contrived to fit a new permanent orchard crop into his ‘traditional system of food farming’, thus creating cocoa farms of from 1 to 3 acres from which were exported 80 lb. of cocoa in 1891, 536 tons in 1900, and 40,000 tons in 1911—since when Ghana has always been the world's largest cocoa producer.
A Final Contribution to the Study of Zande Culture
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E.
Published: April 2006

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In an article, ‘A Contribution to the Study of Zande Culture’, which appeared in Africa in 1960 (vol. xxx, no. 4), I discussed the certain or probable borrowing by the original Azande, the Ambomu, in the course of their migrations, of their main cultivated plants, e.g. eleusine, maize, ground-nuts, manioc, sweet potatoes, bananas, and tobacco, from assimilated or neighbouring peoples. In a second article, ‘A Further Contribution to the Study of Zande Culture’ (Africa, vol. xxxiii, no. 3, 1963), the discussion of cultural borrowings was taken into the field of artifacts and technology: building, smithery, pot-making, carving, plaiting, oracles, and medicines. In the present and final essay some examples are given of borrowing in areas of the social life other than those of cultivation of plants and the arts and crafts.
The Medicine Dance of the !Kung Bushmen
Authors: Marshall Lorna
Published: April 2006

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The !Kung Bushmen whose medicine dance is described in this paper live in the interior of the Nyae Nyae region in South West Africa. The observations were made in the years 1951–61, in the course of five expeditions. The bands with which expedition members had the closest and most prolonged contact were those that the author numbered 1-7, 9, 10, and 12 on the map (Fig. 1). The present study is concerned principally with the people in those bands, who numbered, in all, 225 persons. The information gathered from informants was obtained for the most part in 1952–3, when twelve consecutive months were spent in the Nyae Nyae region.
Labour Emigration among the Moçambique Thonga: Cultural and Political Factors
Authors: Harris Marvin
Published: April 2006

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Thonga migrant labour has played a strategic role in the development of the Union of South Africa's economy, especially its mining industry. In 1954 there was a known total of 173,433 Moçambique labourers at work in the Union. Of these, 110,716 were employed in the mines, while 62,717 were employed in other industries and services (Anuário Estatistica, 1955, p. 131). This army of workers is drawn almost entirely from the region of Moçambique south of parallel 22° S., from among the Tonga-Shangaan peoples and the ethno-linguistically related Chope, Lenge, and Tonga of Inhambane. Although many of the motives and consequences of the Thonga emigration are shared by the migratory streams which emanate from other areas of Southern Africa and flow to the industrial heart of the Union, there are a number of circumstances connected with the movement of the Thonga which are not duplicated elsewhere.
A Note on the Abomey Protectorate
Authors: Newbury C. W.
Published: April 2006

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In 1894 the military power of one of West Africa's most highly centralized kingdoms was broken. Six years later the last representative of the Fon dynasty which had ruled from Abomey since the early seventeenth century was deposed and exiled. Immediately after the conquest of Abomey by the French, the kingdom, somewhat reduced in area, was administered as a colonial protectorate. Attempts to rule through an indigenous paramountcy were not new in French West Africa: similar experiments were made in Senegal and in the Futa Jallon. But, compared with these better-known examples, Dahomey lacks a detailed account of administrative practice in its protectorates and a treatment of the nature of Abomey kingship at a time when the local authority structure was being reappraised by Europeans. The quick demise of an institution that had flourished for about 300 years and excited the wonder of traders and travellers calls for some explanation. How much of the Fon dynasty's fiscal and religious functions survived its loss of police powers, and by what methods did French administrators take its place?

Part of the answer to these questions lies in the decline of Abomey control of coastal trade in the years immediately preceding the conquest—a factor, indeed, which aroused the dynasty to desperate measures and occasioned French military intervention. The rest of the explanation is to be found in the contradiction between ‘protectorate’, as administrative policy, and the administrative practice of French officials at Abomey.
A Contribution to the Study of Zande Culture
Authors: Evans-Pritchard E. E.
Published: April 2006

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The Azande are a Central African ethnic complex to which some fifty different peoples, speaking Sudanic, Bantu, Nilotic, and Nilo-Hamitic languages, have contributed. This was brought about by the migrations and conquests of the Ambomu people, under their Vongara ruling family, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the course of them the Mbomu clans, including the Avongara, were scattered far and wide, and everywhere they imposed on the subjugated peoples their language and political institutions, so that these peoples, some more quickly, and some more completely, than others, became, or are in the process of becoming, absorbed in the Zande amalgam. Little by little their languages are forgotten and their distinctive customs fall into desuetude. But, as might be supposed, in the process of assimilation to the dominant Ambomu, the foreign peoples, both the subjugated and those bordering Zandeland, contributed much to Zande culture. This paper is designed to give some indication of the extent to which the Ambomu have taken over foreign usages and of the complexity of the cultural amalgam which these borrowings have brought about.
Modern Political Movements in Somaliland. II
Authors: Lewis I. M.
Published: April 2006

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In a preceding article I discussed the organization and aims of modern Somali political movements in the light of the traditional political structure. Three types of political organization were distinguished: clan, regional (or tribal), and nationalist. These three types reflect traditional variations in the social structure and culture of different regions of Somaliland and also varying degrees of political evolution. I drew attention to the extent to which all parties—especially those with nationalist aims—have adopted a religious ideology and pointed out that Islam, through the traditional organization and aims of the Sufi Dervish Orders (ṭariiqas), has provided a precedent for pan-Somali solidarity. I now attempt to assess the extent of nationalist feeling in the different Somali territories, and examine the degree to which recent constitutional changes in government and administration have recognized the growth of nationalist aspirations and promoted their extension. I discuss first the present position in the five Somali territories: French and British Somaliland; Harar Province of Ethiopia; Somalia; and the Northern Province of Kenya. Finally, I consider the importance of Islam in furthering nationalism and in helping to overcome the cleavages of clan and Dia-paying group affiliation which oppose the formation of a unified Somali nation.
The Political Function of the Poro. Part I
Authors: Little Kenneth
Published: April 2006

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One of the most interesting problems of pre-colonial history is the relation of so-called secret societies to indigenous government. In West Africa they are concerned mainly with the ownership and use of supposedly supernatural medicines and the propagation of certain cults.

These are the functions also of other associations, but what principally distinguishes secret societies from the ordinary medicine society or cult is the esoteric basis of their activities. Not only do the secret societies employ particular rituals, signs, symbols, and forms of knowledge which are withheld from non-initiates, but these things are regarded as a special source of power through being kept private. Associations of this kind are prevalent in southern Nigeria, and are particularly numerous in the coastal area of rain-forest in general, including the Ivory Coast, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and parts of Ghana and Portuguese Guinea. They are not secret in any other respect. On the contrary, not only is the existence and general purpose of these societies known to every grown-up person, but in many places the wide range of their activities makes them the dominant social force. They are frequently responsible for tribal education, regulate sexual conduct, supervise political and economic affairs, and operate various social services, including entertainment and recreation as well as medical treatment.
Kinship, Emigration, and Trade Partnership among the Lebanese of West Africa
Authors: Khuri Fuad I.
Published: April 2006

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This article describes the kinship structure of some Lebanese communities in West Africa, and the resemblances they bear to the communities from which they originated in Lebanon. It also shows the extent to which kinship ties promote emigration, and the kind of trade partnership normally practised by kinsmen. Two communities are considered: the Greek Orthodox community in Ouagadougou (Upper Volta), and the Shi'ite Muslim community in Magburaka (Sierra Leone).
Labour Emigration among the Moçambique Thonga: Comments on a Study by Marvin Harris
Authors: Rita-Ferreira A.
Published: April 2006

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Studies on the Bantu of south-east Africa by American anthropologists are rare. For this reason visits such as that of Dr. Marvin Harris of Columbia University to Moçambique should be welcomed.

However, on reading his paper on the political and cultural factors of the migratory labour of the Thonga his data seem incomplete and the inferences therefrom not altogether correct. He chose a social process of extreme complexity, and for it to be completely understood it is necessary to undertake more research on its correlations and implications, and to observe it in a broader perspective, taking into account geographical, historical, ecological, cultural, political, and economic peculiarities of this whole region of Africa. In the following comments I shall try not to become involved in moral or political issues but to observe the migratory process as objectively as possible.
A Present Day Zulu Philosopher
Authors: Bodenstein W. , Raum O. F.
Published: April 2006

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In February 1957 we visited the homestead of Laduma Madela, member of a small Zulu clan. He belongs to the PondolweNdhlovu regiment, i.e. he was born about 1906. He had been described to us as a somewhat mysterious but particularly knowledgeable person. One of us had established preliminary contacts and gained his confidence. When we visited him for the first time, neither of us anticipated that we should meet in him a unique Zulu personality, a man who, although ‘uneducated’ in the Western sense, possesses a remarkable breadth of vision and grasp of detail concerning his own culture.
On Translating the Homeric Epithet and Simile into Twi
Authors: Ofosu-Appiah L. H.
Published: April 2006

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I do not know if anyone has ever tried to see if classical Greek poetry can be translated into any African language, but I had always felt that such an experiment would be worth trying. Some years ago, therefore, I made my first attempt by translating the Antigone of Sophocles into Twi, one of the principal languages in Ghana. It was then that I discovered the possibilities of the Twi language as a medium for translating a classical Greek poet. I accordingly decided to embark on a more ambitious enterprise by translating the whole of the Odyssey into Twi prose, with a view to publishing either the whole or part of the translation. I chose for this purpose the story of the wanderings of Odysseus from Book VIII, line 461, to the end of the twelfth book. This was published in 1957, and the rest of the work was completed in 1958.
Politics of the Kola Trade: Some Processes of Tribal Community Formation among Migrants in West African Towns
Authors: Cohen Abner
Published: April 2006

Introduction

In his important pioneering study of migrations into Ghana, Rouch makes the observation that different tribal groups of migrants organize themselves differently in the foreign towns to which they migrate. The forms of their organization fall into a continuum between two extremes. At the one end are migrants who form only segmental, temporary, tribal groupings. At the other end are migrants who form autonomous, multi-purposive, tribal communities. Banton makes a similar observation in his study of migrants in Freetown. Neither Rouch nor Banton analyses this difference in detail, though both tend to explain it in terms of differences in tribal traditional culture.
Religious Change in Yorubaland
Authors: Peel J. D. Y.
Published: April 2006

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The process by which African peoples come to forsake their traditional religions for Islam or Christianity is among the most significant and the least-studied features of social change in Africa. It is, furthermore, a field to which scholars of different backgrounds, historians and social scientists, may contribute. In spite of a recent drawing together of these disciplines, historians and sociologists may still consider themselves as offering rival explanations of the same phenomena, especially if these are complex. The factors involved in religious change in Africa are very elaborate, but may be reduced to two broad sets—the policies of the missionary societies, the prime agents of change, and the character of the African societies, the arena of change. Above all we need to explain the varied reception of missionary teachings by African peoples.
Time and Village Structure in Northern Unyamwezi: An Examination of Social and Ecological Factors affecting the Development and Decline of Local Communities
Authors: Abrahams R. G.
Published: April 2006

Introduction

In October 1974 I returned to the Kahama District of Tanzania for a further period of research in northern Unyamwezi where I had previously worked between late 1957 and early 1960. The present paper arises from a consideration of the implications of two facts which impressed me strongly on this second visit. The first of these was that a substantial number of the homestead heads who had been my neighbours in the village of Butumwa for the larger part of my first fieldwork were still alive though some of them had moved to other parts of the District and beyond. The second was that those who had remained, along with many others from surrounding villages, had been moved as part of the Tanzanian Government's national resettlement programme into a new large nucleated village shortly before my return there. These two facts have led me to pay further attention to the nature and functions of pre-1974 settlement patterns and to examine the relation between these and the form of the new scheme. One of the main points which will emerge from my discussion is the need, in trying to understand these settlement patterns, to take careful account of how villages change and develop over time as part of a complex combination of social and ecological processes. This processual aspect of village organization in the area has, I may add, not previously received sufficient attention in my own and other accounts of the situation there.
The Fante Asafo: a Re-examination
Authors: Datta Ansu
Published: April 2006

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Sociological interest, like economic growth, is subject to uneven development. While Asante society has been studied in detail by Rattray (1923, 1927, and 1929), Busia (1949), and Lystad (1958), there has been relatively little research on the Fante of southern Ghana, and even less on the Fante asafo (the traditional military companies to which one belongs through the father's line). Looking back at De Graft Johnson's article on the Fante asafo, published in Africa in 1932, one realizes that even after three decades it remains, with the possible exception of Chapter VI of Christensen's monograph (1954), the only significant study devoted to the asafo. Yet, although valuable, these accounts are unfortunately open to criticism, in terms of both factual description and interpretation. De Graft Johnson's article is not adequate because it omitted some important features of the asafo, not likely to have been incorporated into the system after the author had collected his material. It also lacked balance through over-reliance on information collected from Cape Coast which, according to the author, provided a good model of the asafo (De Graft Johnson, op. cit., p. 307). While it failed to take note of several notable features of the asafo in inland states, it also neglected to underline some important details of the asafo which are observable even in Cape Coast. Christensen, on the other hand, collected his material from three Fante states, Abura, Anomabu, and Esiam, and his treatment of the asafo is, therefore, much more thorough. But he, as will be made clear presently, did not touch upon some salient aspects of the Fante asafo.
Anthropological Models in Yoruba History
Authors: Law R. C. C.
Published: April 2006

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The recent appearance of a monograph by a social anthropologist, Peter Lloyd, on The Political Development of Yoruba Kingdoms in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries is likely to arouse considerable interest among historians of Africa, whose appetites have been whetted by adumbrations of his interpretation in some of his earlier publications. Lloyd traces the political development of the kingdom of Oyo through its period of imperial expansion in the eighteenth century until its collapse in the 1830s, and of five Yoruba states in the nineteenth century—Ibadan, Ado Ekiti, Abeokuta, Iwo, and Ilorin. He seeks to apply to the history of these states a model of the process whereby ‘tribal kingdoms’ develop into ‘highly centralised monarchies’. A ‘tribal kingdom’ is defined as one in which ‘political power…rests with a council of chiefs, each of which is selected by and from among members of a descent group—[and] the king is seen more as an arbiter between the chiefs than as an autocrat’. In a centralized monarchy, on the other hand, power rests with the king, the senior chiefs are appointed by the king, and a concept of ‘citizenship’ develops to replace descent-group loyalties. The Yoruba states discussed in this monograph did not, in fact, develop in this way, and Lloyd's theme is their failure to achieve centralization. The analysis is applied principally to Oyo. Of the nineteenth-century states discussed, relatively little is said of Iwo and Ado Ekiti, while Ibadan, Abeokuta, and Ilorin did not start out as ‘tribal kingdoms’ but as war-camps without kings. Moreover, it is suggested that the failure of Oyo to achieve centralization provided precedents for decentralization which influenced the development of its successors in the nineteenth century.
Conversion Reconsidered: Some Historical Aspects of Religious Conversion in Black Africa
Authors: Fisher Humphrey J.
Published: April 2006

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This paper had its genesis in the recent thoughtful and stimulating article by Robin Horton, on African conversion; the core of his argument is summarized below. Horton's evidence is chiefly drawn from Christian African experience, though he seeks to generalize from it for both Islam and Christianity. My specific purpose here is to look more closely at the phenomenon of Muslim conversion, and to see what light this may throw on Horton's argument. In particular, he has, I think, over-estimated the survival, admittedly in considerably developed forms, of original African elements of religion; and more important, has under-estimated the willingness and ability of Africans to make even rigorous Islam and Christianity their own. My other, general, purpose is to suggest that such Muslim/Christian comparisons may considerably enlarge our perspectives upon black Africa. The comparative approach is extended further, I hope not rashly, with brief considerations of conversion in the ancient world, and of the effects of literacy.
Ethnicity in southern Ethiopia: The General and the Particular
Authors: Blackhurst Hector
Published: April 2006

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The most significant movement of population in Ethiopia within the last 100 years has been the southward advance of northern Christians into areas inhabited predominantly by Muslim or pagan peoples. The initial impetus to this movement was given by the expansion of the Amhara Kingdom of Shoa in the 19th century when officers and men of the conquering armies were given land in the annexed territories. They were followed by a variety of adventurers, merchants and administrators all of whom benefited from their association with the Amhara rulers to carve a niche for themselves in the south. In these circumstances, it is understandable that analyses of inter-ethnic contact in Ethiopia have been dominated by the discussion of the relations between the Amhara and one or the other of the subordinate groups of the Empire.
An Historical Perspective of the Giriama and Witchcraft Control
Authors: Brantley Cynthia
Published: April 2006

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Wherever belief in witchcraft permeated an African society, fear prevailed and people demanded protection and control. Even though the degree of African concern about witchcraft was not always appreciated by outsiders, it was possible, at least in centralized societies, for such outsiders to discern the processes that were involved in its control. A king or a priest who failed to control the spread of witchcraft and to alleviate the fear was unlikely to maintain his authority for long. In non-centralized societies, the problem of witchcraft and the means of control were less clear-cut. Solutions were rarely obvious and easy.
Matriliny in the Throes of Change: Kinship, Descent and Marriage in Luapula, Zambia
Authors: Poewe Karla O.
Published: April 2006

Economic Activities and Kinship

In the past there was a tendency to seek economic cooperation among one's local matrilateral and bilateral kindred. Like the Lozi situation described by Gluckman (1941), the economic activities of Luapulans are so varied that a wide deployment of manpower is required. In any one situation there are always some local kinsmen from whom one may choose helpers, and widely dispersed clansmen amongst whom one can travel and live in order to harvest or collect different resources to offset seasonal shortages at home. Permanent residence in one locality is based upon the mobility of kin who can be sent to garner varied resources in different areas. For example, young men may be sent to live in fish camps on islands in the swamps or river during the months of May, June, and July, or November through March. Commercial fishing of the prized pale (Tilapia macrochir) takes place from August through November and, at this time, young men devote their energy to fishing in the main river. Older men, on the other hand, even today usually fish in nearby waters for immediate consumption only (see Figure 3).
The changing context of land use decisions: three family farms in the Yam Cultivation Zone of eastern Nigeria, 1964-1977
Authors: Uzozie L.C.
Published: April 2006

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The area occupied by the Igbo-speaking people of eastern Nigeria ranks high among West Africa's yam producing zones. Whereas the yam is the Igbo food crop par excellence there is nevertheless considerable local variation in local farming practice and land-use systems. This paper describes three farm units in different parts of Igbo country, indicating the role of yam in the cropping system. The material is derived from surveys undertaken in 1977, but in two of the three cases it has been possible to compare the information with similar surveys undertaken by the author in 1964, prior to the Nigerian civil war. Three case-study farms cannot constitute a sample in any statistical sense and no generalization is possible. The material is presented because the profound changes experienced in the last fifteen years ensure that any time series data, however patchy, are of great intrinsic interest, and because it serves to indicate the extent to which land use systems at the micro-level may differ, even though the basic set of crops may be broadly similar. The three farms studied are representative of their ecological zone: the first reflecting conditions in the zone of highest population density and greatest land shortage; the second, in the more open land on the Nsukka plateau, conditions in an area where land shortage is not yet so great as to have obliterated the distinction between intensively farmed compound land and more extensively ‘bush-fallowed’ land; and the third, conditions of relative land-plenty in southern Igboland, where farming systems show marked continuity with conditions before the civil war. The paper stresses the role of yam in the fanning systems concerned, and the subtle interplay of social, economic and ecological factors involved in its continued cultivation.
Ancestors as Elders in Africa—Further Thoughts
Authors: Brain James L.
Published: April 2006

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In the essay which follows an attempt will be made to answer and elaborate on some of the points raised by Kopytoff in his article ‘Ancestors as Elders in Africa’ (Africa, xli, 2 April 1971, pp. 129–42), an article which will, no doubt, stimulate much argument and discussion. To do this I shall utilize both published sources and material collected in Uluguru in Eastern Tanzania.
Animal Marauders and Family Morality in Africa
Authors: Shorter Aylward
Published: April 2006

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Surprisingly few Africanists are interpreting the oral literature of Africa using the conceptual tools fashioned by Lévi-Strauss. This article attempts to use some of his ideas in analysing eight etiological stories told by the Kimbu of Tanzania. The aim is not to emulate the master in his search for the innate structuring capacity of the human mind, but rather to set the sights lower, and to decide what is the real value of these stories to the Kimbu themselves. This can be done by distinguishing the various codes which the stories represent, following out their transformations, and discovering what message or messages they communicate. In all of this it has to be understood that we are dealing with what Lévi-Strauss calls ‘objectified thought’ and with empirical categories, and that we are not concerned with how men think in myths but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact.
Social and Moral Concepts in Swahili Islamic Literature
Authors: Knappert Jan
Published: April 2006

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In this paper I shall attempt to set out the ideas of morality and of the structure of society in so far as they can be found reflected in Swahili Islamic literature. This literature is of two kinds. Firstly the didactic literature, mainly in prose, in which rules of conduct are given by Islamic teachers; secondly the narrative, legendary literature, mainly in verse, in which many social and moral concepts may be found, either expressed in a straightforward didactic form, as versified proverbs, or as it were by implication, in which case the underlying ideas can be made explicit by extrapolation.
The Apprenticeship System in Accra
Authors: Peil Margaret
Published: April 2006

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Most developing countries are said to have far too few skilled workers. They are certainly limited in the number and size of technical schools they can afford to support. However, technical trainees may be too ‘high-powered’ to be useful in small-scale, indigenous businesses and most holders of technical certificates drift into work quite different from that for which they were trained (Foster, 1965, pp. 294-5; Pfefferman, 1968, p. 113). Alternative and much cheaper sources of skilled workmen are provided by training within industry and apprenticeship to an individual craftsman.
Beer, sorghum and women: production for the market in rural Upper Volta
Authors: Saul Mahir
Published: April 2006

Introduction

The purpose of this study is to draw attention to the large volume of monetary transactions and profits within the traditional sector of a farming community in West Africa. More specifically it deals with the production, distribution and pricing of local brews, points to the effect of beer making on farming, and relates this trade to contemporary developments in other spheres of social and economic life.
The religious significance of women's scarification among the Tiv
Authors: Lincoln Bruce
Published: April 2006

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An elaborate and exceedingly beautiful pattern of scarification is found on the stomachs of Tiv women (see Figs. 1–8). These scars are applied around the time of puberty, and the same basic pattern is placed on the stomach of each girl. Occasionally these scars are referred to as ‘the circumcision of women’, but for the most part they are said to be meaningless, having only an aesthetic significance. Such statements need not necessarily be accepted at face value, though, as deeper meanings may be forgotten, deliberately concealed, or so commonly known as to be thought unworthy of mention. It is the purpose of this paper, written by a historian of religions, rather than an anthropologist or Africanist, to explore the possibility that these patterns carry some greater importance than is commonly recognized.
Culture, technology and policy in the informal sector: attention to endogenous development
Authors: Fyle C. Magbaily
Published: April 2006

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In the development debate relating to Third World countries the concept of ‘accelerated growth’ dominated the initial arguments. Thus it was stated in one report that ‘the acceleration of the rate of economic growth of the developing countries and the rapid improvement in their social structures through the eradication of mass poverty and of inequality of income require inter alia a large-scale transfer from the vast pool of technology accumulated mainly in the developed countries’ (UNCTAD, 1972: 1).
‘Fishers of Men’: religion and political economy among colonized Tabwa
Authors: Roberts Allen F.
Published: April 2006

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In the late nineteenth century, Catholic missionaries among Tabwa southwest of Lake Tanganyika (now Zaire) sought to create a cohesive community of African Christians. The priests prohibited communal practice of Tabwa religion in the vicinity of their churches (established at points of densest population) and appropriated important means of food production like river-fishing grounds, for their own exploitation or to reward those loyal to them. As they enhanced their own economic and political influence, they contributed to Tabwa anomie, rather than community.