bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A Further Note on Research in Burundi
Authors: Stewart Kearsley 
Published: May 2006

This short note updates Nancy Hunt's recent report on research in Burundi. While Hunt presented a thorough description of the situation in Burundi as of 1984, my recent month-long visit in August of 1988 shows that a few of the names, as well as some aspects of the protocol, have changed.Although Hunt adequately presented the informal process of obtaining research clearance to work in Bujumbura (attestations from the Centre de Civilisation Burundaise or CCB, mayor's office, university, etc.), the process for any area outside the city limits is more complicated, decidedly more formal, and not always guaranteed of success. Requests for research clearance in all communes except Bujumbura should be directed to Mr. le Ministre Aloys Kadoyi, Ministère de l'Intérieur, B.P. 1910, Bujumbura. The initial request should contain an introductory cover letter, a support letter from your university, and a copy of the research proposal, all in French if possible. Attestations from other sources strengthen a researcher's status in the field outside Bujumbura, but they do not replace the necessary official permission granted from the Ministry of the Interior.
Out of Silence: Writing Interactive Women's Life Histories in Africa
Authors: Townsend Leslie H. 
Published: May 2006

It is not surprising that no distinct line demarks Mrs. Zenani's creative stories and the events of her own life. The plotting of fictional imagery sometimes gives way to the detailed depiction of, for example, a rite of passage distilled from her history. If the oral tale provides insights into history, such real life descriptions as are found in this autobiography are frequently framed by the imaginative tradition.During the summer of 1982 I lived in the predominantly Muslim city of Kano, in northern Nigeria, to study the Hausa language and to learn about women's lives—their activities, interests, and identities. Residence in Kano challenged the questions and theoretical assumptions of my research. The ‘silences’ I encountered in the field now inform questions for a methodology for the study of women's lives that acknowledges the connections between researcher, subject/s of life history research, and the eventual written analysis of their narrative histories. An underlying theme—and persistent question—is the extent to which such writing tells us more about the researcher or the narratives' subject/s.Feminist theory and methodology inform this consideration of women's life histories. Feminist scholars have focused on the inscription of meaning in women's interests in writing about women. They have assigned a central role to “women's conscious perceptions” of their lived social experience in theory construction. The specific inclusion of women's, and other groups' perceptions contributes to historians' formulation of research models and methodology. I will discuss several methodological issues before returning to the ‘silences’ of my own fieldwork.
Trick Cyclists? Recontextualizing Rwandan Dynastic Chronology
Authors: Newbury David 
Published: May 2006

Chronology used to be an object of great interest among African historians because it was seen as essential to history, it provided exactitude where so much else was analytic, and it was such a difficult feature to handle in oral accounts. More recently, historical analysis has been concerned more with processes and periods than with defined events and dates. Although deemed to be useful when available, precise chronology is now seen as less essential to historical reconstruction; it is accepted that chronologies are subject to interpretation and debate, and that these debates themselves illuminate the way in which local communities reconstruct—and historians understand—history.This paper addresses such issues of debate, contestation, and negotiation—that is, it explores the nature of intellectual hegemony—but it does so across cultural boundaries. It thus illustrates a fundamental contradiction in the manner by which historians have treated cultural units defined as distinct: while as independent polities they have been assumed to be culturally autonomous, source material from one is often drawn on to fill in the gaps of others. This procedure was especially common where there were powerful kingdoms whose political boundaries were assumed to be rigid and inviolate. The states of the western Interlacustrine area, each believed to be ruled by an established dynastic line whose origins reached far back into antiquity, provide an exemplary illustration of this process.By the early twentieth century, at the time of European conquest, Rwanda was one of the most powerful of these states, having either conquered and absorbed, or at least dominated, many of the distinct kingdoms with which it formerly competed.
Gerhard Rohlfs in Yorubaland
Authors: de Veer Elisabeth , O'Hear Ann 
Published: May 2006

Gerhard Rohlfs was born in Vegesack near Bremen in 1831. He was a frequent traveler in Africa, and in 1865-67 he became the first European to travel from north Africa across the Sahara to the west African coast, from Tripoli to Borno, then through Bauchi and Keffi to Loko, thence down the Benue to its confluence with the Niger at Lokoja, which he reached on 28 March 1867. From there, he proceeded upstream along the Niger to Raba, delivering presents to Masaba of Nupe. From Raba, he traveled overland through Yorubaland to Lagos. In 1868 he published an account of the first half of this journey, from north Africa to Borno, in Petermann's Mitteilungen. In 1872 his account of the second half, “Gerhard Rohlfs' Reise durch Nord-Afrika vom Mittelländischen Meere bis zum Busen von Guinea, 1865 bis 1867, 2. Hälfte: von Kuka nach Lagos (Bornu, Bautschi, Saria, Nupe, Yoruba),” also appeared in Petermann's. A later publication, Quer durch Afrika, which appeared in 1874-75, covered the entire journey.Rohlfs' accounts of his travels in west Africa south of the Sahara have up to now been greatly neglected. The works mentioned above have never been published in English translation, which no doubt goes some way to explain this neglect. Rohlfs' information on his stay in Kuka (the capital of Borno) and his visits to Bauchi and Nupe have been cited by some scholars, at least. Very few, however, appear to have consulted his description of the last leg of his 1866-67 journey, in which he proceeded from the Niger south through Yorubaland to Lagos, visiting Share, Ilorin, Iwo, Ibadan, and parts of Ijebuland on the way.
Archives and Manuscripts Collections Relating to Africa Held at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Authors: Anderson David M. , Seton Rosemary 
Published: May 2006

Readers of this journal will surely be familiar with the excellent research collection of published materials on Africa held in London by the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). This remains the foremost collection of its kind in Europe, and has long been widely used by visiting scholars from all around the world. But it is less well known that the library also houses a substantial and rapidly expanding collection of primary source materials, many of which relate to the history of Africa. This brief report on the archives and manuscripts relating to Africa housed in the SOAS library offers an introduction to this collection, along with an annotated listing of current holdings. With the exception of one or two of the larger items, the majority of the archive materials on Africa have been relatively little used by scholars to date, and it is to be hoped that the publication of this report will encourage greater use of this increasingly important collection.The library has collected manuscripts in various African and Asian languages since its inception in 1916, but it is only since 1973, when a new purpose-built library was opened, that the School has begun to take in deposits of modern archives and to build up its collections of manuscripts relating to Africa and Asia. Since then the collection has developed considerably, the principal focus being upon the records of missionaries and missionary organizations, of humanitarian groups and non-governmental organizations and those who worked with them, and business records and the papers of those involved in business.
Writing Ideology: Ranavalona, The Ancestral Bureaucrat
Authors: Berg Gerald M. 
Published: May 2006

In the late eighteenth century, Imerina was checkered with a myriad of tiny principalities, each ruled from hilltop fortresses. In just fifty years from 1780 to 1830, it was unified under a single ruler, drawing Merina into increasingly wider systems of obedience and creating a vastimperiumthat held sway over most of the Island of Madagascar, a landmass the size of France, Belgium, and Holland combined.And yet, the half century of tumultuous change that characterized the empire's rise brought no revolution in the Merina's own understanding of the world of power, a view which I have termedhasinaideology. Merina saw historical reality not as the product of human agency, but of ancestral beneficence,hasina, which flowed downwards on obedient Merina from long-dead ancestors in a sacred stream that connected all living Merina. For obedient Merina, politics consisted in nothing more nor less than a lifelong quest to position one's self favorably in that sacred stream as close as possible to ancestors and then to reap the benefits of that cherished association. With the passage of time, thehasinastream flowed into new generations and so generated new social relations expressed in terms of kinship. The vast transformation of the Merina political landscape only enhanced Imerina's devotion to ancestralhasina.The origins ofhasinaideology are not known, though by the time Andrianampoinimerina began to unify Imerina in the closing decades of the eighteenth century, its character is clearly perceptible. Andrianampoinimerina's son Radama built on his father's legacy. In the 1820s he transformed Imerina from a small and isolated kingdom into an empire capable of projecting its power over the length and breadth of Madagascar.
Guide to African Archives in Belgium
Authors: Legros Hugues , Keim Curtis A. 
Published: May 2006

In 1982 Carol Dickerman and David Northrup published a useful article on Africa-related archives in Belgium. Their work was limited, however, to two public institutions in Brussels which, in the past 12 years, have moved and grown. What is needed now is a more up-to-date and comprehensive list of Belgian public and private collections with historical or ethnological archives concerning Africa.In Belgium such archives are unfortunately not grouped in one place, but are spread over a dozen public and private institutions according to their nature—diplomatic, military, religious, ethnological—or origin. Thus the foreign researcher who attempts to find these archives must often undertake trying adventures, and once they have succeeded, they still must obtain numerous authorizations to use reading rooms and to consult and photocopy documents. Thus this paper aims to list the different Belgian institutions with major archives, to indicate what is available in their collections, and to describe how to gain access, in the hope that foreign researchers will be able to benefit fully from the archival riches of Belgium.The Africa-related documents in Belgian archives and libraries mostly concern Central Africa in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In addition, some collections are relevant to Belgian African politics in general and to Leopold II's expansionist aims in other parts of the continent.
Note on the Shantz Collection, Tuscon, Arizona
Authors: Wagner Michele 
Published: May 2006

Housed in vaults and basements in various locations at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona, is a remarkable collection of photographs, plant specimens, cultural artifacts, postcards, letters, and field notes of Dr. Homer Leroy Shantz (1876-1958). Shantz was a noted plant physiologist and former President of the University of Arizona (1928-1936), and one of the earliest professional botanists to survey and photograph the flora in select regions of southern, central, and eastern Africa. In 1919/20 he traversed the African continentfrom Cape to Cairo with a Smithsonian-sponsored research team to evaluate Africa's plant resources and agricultural potential. As the team's agricultural expert, Shantz gathered numerous specimens, made sketches and watercolors, and took several thousand photographs of the cultivated and wild flora in the regions he traversed.His collected materials, conserved at the University of Arizona, constitute a major contribution to African agricultural and ecological history for the early colonial period. His photographs give rare glimpses of the agricultural components of daily life of that era. They also include among them a rare set of approximately 600 photographs of southern Urundi (now Burundi) taken during a one-month stopover at Nyanza on the Lake Tanganyika coast. For the cultural and political historian of Burundi these photographs represent the first opportunity to view the ordinary people and chiefs of southern inland Urundi (the region of Buragane), where European presence was not firmly established until the 1930s.
The Doom of Early African History?
Authors: Vansina Jan 
Published: May 2006

In the initial paragraph of a set of book reviews dealing with a sixteenth-century relation and a map by Ptolemy, Michel Doortmont informs us casually that:The ancient and early modern [sic] history of Africa is no longer a very popular topic with mainstream [sic] African historians. Sources are scarce, often difficult to interpret and in many cases the results of research are disappointing [sic]: no wonder that most serious scholars [sic] leave the earlier periods alone. This is unfortunate, however, as the lack of serious and methodical scholarship [sic] on these periods gives fuel to the view of Africa as a mysterious and highly exotic continent still held by many outside the academic community.Quite a statement! How arrogant and how gratuitously insulting to all those who do study “ancient and early modern history.” If Doortmont were alone in his views, one might just as well ignore this as an example of regretable idiosyncrasy. But the cavalier way in which he delivers his opinion suggests that he merely voices a truism, i.e., an opinion that he thinks is shared by most of his colleagues. Moreover, such a statement will surely frighten budding scholars away, which in itself is a good reason not to let such a sweeping condemnation of the study of earlier African history pass without comment.Four main claims are made here: (a) a dichotomy and a contrast exists between those who who study the more remote past and those who study the recent past; (b) the first group is small and out of the mainstream; (c) its research yields disappointing results; (d) its scholarship lacks seriousness and method—with (b) and (c) of course in implicit contrast to the second group.
Prosopographical Approaches to Fante History
Authors: Casely-Hayford Augustus 
Published: May 2006

Some of the earliest books written by Gold Coast writers were about then-own family histories and stool institutions. These writers took advantage of the established oral tradition and the authorized stool histories. Such works represent a form of written history that was designed to transcribe and incorporate systematically as much oral tradition as possible. It is only when the oral sources are deficient or are ambiguous that the early European traveler's accounts are used to check or verify the oral sources. There are many reasons why much of the first generation of indigenous literature is by and about a small group of Fante. One undoubted reason is that these early books combine an academic pursuit with a family responsibility to the position of Linguist or Okyiame.The word Kyiame is commonly translated “linguist,” but this is unfortunate because it conveys the impression that the Kyiame is no more than an interpreter. In reality the Kyiame is the spokesman or mouthpiece of the Chief, who, being held sacred, must neither be addressed by, nor address another person directly. According to J. B. Danquah, the word means “He who makes it perfect for me”: the Kyiame repeats and perfects what the Chief, who cannot always be an eloquent speaker, may have to say in public. He is a confidential officer whose place is at the Chiefs right hand; in the Council and Court of Judicature it is he who sums up and declares the Chiefs will. He preserves in his memory and passes on the tradition of the Stool. Deeply versed in the etiquette of the court, he instructs a newly appointed Chief. He can often turn the scales of war and peace since the issue of dispute between contending tribes may depend on whether he presents his Chiefs case in a bellicose manner. When he rises to speak in public he leans upon the gold cane or staff of his office, or a subordinate holds it in front of him. He may be sent by the Chief as a plenipotentiary or legate. What he says binds his Chief. There are two of the office. The superior grade is hereditary and is termed Omankyiame, i.e. the Kyiame of the whole Oman or Council.
Eduard Vogel and Eduard Robert Flegel: The Experiences of Two Nineteenth-Century German Explorers in Africa
Authors: Adelberger Jörg 
Published: May 2006

The Muri Mountain range is located in the area formed by the boundaries between the federal states of Bauchi, Taraba, and Adamawa in Northern Nigeria. Various small, linguistically, and partly culturally distinct ethnic groups inhabit this mountain region. The Muri Mountains may be counted among those regions of Africa about which academic knowledge was rather scarce until recent times. Here I shall recount the experiences of two nineteenth-century German explorers of Africa, Eduard Vogel and Eduard Robert Flegel, who played an important part in the history of research on the Muri Mountains. Approaching the region from different directions, Vogel and Flegel were the first Europeans to gain detailed knowledge of vthe area and its inhabitants. The Muri Mountains, in themselves, were not a focus of attention for the two travelers, but just an incidental issue on which they touched during their voyages.Most European travelers of that time bypassed the Muri Mountains. This becomes obvious when looking at contemporary maps, on which one can hardly find any geographical information on the area between present-day Gombe and the river Benue until the 1870s (compare the two maps in Rohlfs 1872). Previously, in 1851 Heinrich Barth had arrived at Yola, coming via the Mandara Mountains. After a short stay, however, he had to return to Borno. In the itineraries he collected at Yola, the names of Tangale and Chongom are mentioned as stations on the way from Yola to Dukku (cf. Barth 1857, 2: 701, 708-09, 601-02).
A New Paradigm: The African Early Iron Age without Bantu Migrations
Authors: Robertson John H. , Bradley Rebecca 
Published: May 2006

Between 1000 BC and AD 1000, or so the story goes, sub-Saharan Africa was the setting for one of the all-time great population movements of antiquity—the Bantu migrations. Sweeping to and fro across the continent in a kind of grand migrationary gavotte, absorbing or brushing aside the autochthonous hunter-gatherers, the ancestral Bantu speakers carried with them on their march the seeds of a settled life fueled by food production and iron technology. Their movements are represented by large arrows scything across big blank maps of the African interior. How good is the evidence that any of it ever happened?In this paper we shall examine some of the serious methodological and practical problems that bedevil the migrationary model. We shall also present an alternative model for the prehistory of sub-Saharan Africa: in brief, that the development of the Early Iron Age in Africa was a process rather than an event; that autochthonous populations gradually adopted the suite of traits that define the Early Iron Age, without any large-scale movement of peoples; and that increasing sedentarization actually led to a population decline which was only overcome after AD 500.The model constitutes a new paradigm that emphasizes continuity and takes into account a few observations that are awkward for the migrationary paradigm: that sub-Saharan Africa has a difficult topography that may put certain constraints on population movements, and that the continent was slowly filling up on its own when events starting in the sixteenth century turned the autochthonous peoples' lives upside down.
Mambila Demography from Archival Sources
Authors: Zeitlyn David , Bagg Janet 
Published: May 2006

This paper provides a first report of a study of the population of Somié, a Mambila village in Cameroun, which seeks to explore ways of linking microdemographic analysis and the results of anthropological research. We have sought ways in which we can analyze in a common frame genealogical data, residence patterns, and other data from anthropological fieldwork, together with census returns and archival materials.By combining the details of kinship and residence (gathered during anthropological fieldwork over a period of ten years) with the statistics of births and deaths from census results and archival materials from 1950 onwards, we can begin to assess the effects of genealogical and residence factors on fertility and mortality. Conversely, it becomes possible to examine the effects of demographic factors on the genealogical basis of village life.In an area where sister exchange marriage was practiced, repeated marriages give rise to complex genealogies whose connection to demographic factors has not been analyzed. Demographic changes influence the numbers of kin available for marriage, and the relationships between fertility, fecundity, mortality, morbidity, rates of sister exchange, and numbers of kin (in different categories) are significant and their change over time is hard to investigate without this type of research. In addition it provides ways in which demographic changes can be analyzed, and points to ways of assessing the impact of the introduction of health care provision and primary education on both demographic indicators and on beliefs and attitudes to health and fertility. Such research has clear relevance for policy-makers.