bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Pyrrhonism in Anthropological and Historical Research
Authors: Park Thomas K. 
Published: May 2006

Scepticism has fairly consistently had a bad press from those in a position of authority. The usual reasons for its disrepute are not themselves particularly reputable. They generally include at least the following claims: scepticism is a negative philosophy and hence incapable of making positive contributions to humanity, science, or religion; sceptics are nihilists who wreak havoc on social structure, science, and religion; and, though scepticism can on occasion be beneficial, the idea that we do not know anything is preposterous. These attitudes are widespread in the general populace but less common in the scientific community, where various ideas such as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle or Einstein's theory of relativity have made scepticism more acceptable. Although the usual reasons listed above might be remotely accurate representations of dogmatic scepticism, they completely misrepresent Pyrrhonic scepticism, that form of scepticism which has had most influence on Western civilization.The position taken here is that Pyrrhonic scepticism need not be considered primarily a philosophical position. Historically, it was set forth as a philosophical position but only because philosophy once encompassed all of humanity's attempts to arrive at knowledge. Today, when science has primary claim to including under its roof most of our attempts to wrest knowledge from the world, Pyrrhonic scepticism is more approp-priately viewed as a scientific position having general implications for scientific research.It is ironic that negative attitudes towards scepticism continue, since the dramatic historical failures of social structure, ethical beliefs, and human progress have been due to dogmatic pretensions of one sort or another, not to scepticism. This is not by chance. Scepticism is, after all, difficult to use as the justification for authority, obedience, or power.
Physical Anthropology and the Reconstruction of Recent Precolonial History in Africa
Authors: Rosa Peter 
Published: May 2006

In the 1960s, when the use of non-documentary sources of evidence to reconstruct history in Africa first achieved prominence, physical anthropology was thought to offer some potential. Of particular interest to African historians was the new genetic approach, with its emphasis on comparative studies of blood group distributions. This resulted in several papers in books and journals of African history, where the promise of these new physical anthropological techniques was pointed out to historians. The influence of these early articles has waned, however, and recent books on historical method in Africa give physical anthropology little prominence.References to physical anthropology in the book by Thomas Spear, for instance, a book that introduces “historical method” in Africa, are relegated to the chapter on “the archaeological record” and are perfunctory. In particular there is a failure to appreciate the implications of the fundamental difference between the analysis of excavated human biological remains--a branch of physical anthropology which has much in common with archeology--and the deduction of more recent evolutionary and non-evolutionary history from the comparative analysis of the biological characteristics of living peoples--a branch of physical anthropology that is much more similar to linguistics than to archeology.
Field Days: Melville J. Herskovits in Dahomey
Authors: Blier Suzanne Preston 
Published: May 2006

In recent years anthropologists and literary critics, most importantly George Stocking Jr. (1983), James Clifford and George E. Marcus (1986), and Clifford Geertz (1987), have led the way to a closer reading of the writings of early anthropologists and a fuller exploration of the intellectual climates in which they were working. As the founder of African studies in this country, Melville J. Herskovits is of considerable importance in terms of related scholarship in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Although an anthropologist by training, Herskovits had a major impact on the development of African scholarship in many other disciplines—from the history of art to folklore to political and economic history. Herskovits' field research methodologies and orientations thus potentially are of considerable significance. Despite Herskovits' critical role in African studies, there has been relatively little scholarly interest to date in his African research methodologies.Herskovits' unpublished field notes of his Dahomey research provide us with an inside look at the principal field strategies and orientations of this important African scholar. These field materials today are housed in the archives of three different research institutions: The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City; the library of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and the Archives of Traditional Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. The largest grouping of Herskovits' Dahomey field materials (journals, financial records, artifact collection, photographs, correspondence) are at the Schomburg Center. At Northwestern University are found various diary extracts, song transcriptions, and the bulk of Herskovits' early and later correspondence. Recordings that Herskovits made in the course of the Dahomey research are located at Indiana University.
The Epic of Kelefa Saane as a Guide to the Nature of Precolonial Senegambian Society--and Vice Versa
Authors: Wright Donald R. 
Published: May 2006

What oral tradition tells us is in its way ethnography; ethnography allows an understanding of the implications of traditions…Probably the most popular and most frequently-recited oral tradition in all of Senegambia and somewhat beyond is the epic of Kelefa Saane. From southwestern Guiné-Bissau to Bondu on the middle Senegal, griots regularly play the tune of “Kelefa” on their harp-lutes as they sing the familiar refrains:The war was a disaster.There was no one who could takeKelefa Saane's place.…Wounded menCrawled backTo Niumi. …Ah, the nobles are finishedWar has finished the nobles…Such epics have captured the attention of African historians since early in the years of professional interest in the continent. Over the last decade historians have made fresh examination of oral data and their use in reconstructing the African past. One volume of essays, The African Past Speaks, edited by Joseph C. Miller, assesses problems associated with analysis of these traditions. In his introductory essay Miller makes a point that most of the authors of subsequent chapters reinforce. It is that many forms of oral traditions are sociological models of the societies they come from. The structure and content of a narrative, Miller asserts, often provides insight into the nature of a particular society at some point in the precolonial past. Conversely, knowledge of the structure of the society in which traditionists tell the narrative helps one evaluate the narrative as a historical source.
The Historical Evidence in Old Maps and Charts of Africa with Special Reference to West Africa
Authors: Baesjou René 
Published: May 2006

Early maps and charts of Africa--here defined as those produced before colonial penetration--have seldom been used as a source for historical studies. Generally they are valued more for their decorative qualities than for their geographical content. Jonathan Swift gave form to this viewpoint in his famous --or notorious--lines:
So geographers in Afric-mapsWith savage-pictures fill the gapsAnd o'er unhabitable downsPlace elephants for want of townslines which stereotyped the African cartography until today.But it is not only eighteenth century maps that have been exposed to ridicule; those made in colonial times have also been subjected to stinging criticism. For instance, the linguist Pierre Alexandre noticed that on the official map of Cameroun made before independence a certain “Ambababoum” is shown as an important village on the road from Yaoundé to Bafia. However, it does not exist and has never existed within living memory. And, examining another map, he observed that certain peoples who do not exist are mentioned, while others who do exist are omitted.
The Early Sources on Guinea
Authors: Hair P.E.H. 
Published: May 2006

The Guinea coast and near interior was a region of almost wholly preliterate societies before the coming of the Europeans. Islamic culture, with its literate strands, which had been spreading through the northern parts of West Africa over many centuries had barely begun to touch the Guinea region—although a handful of literate itinerant merchants and missionaries was to be encountered by the Portuguese, and Islamic religious practice had penetrated at least one royal court in Senegal. Hence the “medieval” sources in Arabic which are informative on the history of the Sudanic states of West Africa tell us little or nothing about the Guinea region. As for the oral traditions of the region, mostly collected only since 1850, these have an inbuilt “horizon” of recollection which falls far short of the arrival of the Europeans five centuries ago. Ethnographic, cultural, and linguistic evidence, systematized in recent times, can be extrapolated backwards to earlier times, but this can only be done, with any security, when trends over time have been identified from earlier hard evidence.Such trends can of course be obtained from archeology, as well as from written sources. But the limited investigations of archeologists in Guinea to date, while they certainly inform on general issues such as agriculture and technology, are as yet decidedly weak, for a variety of good reasons, on the regional details of human settlement and population, and on the varieties of political structure. Moreover it is doubtful whether archeologyper secan inform to any significant extent on ethnicity, language, and social characteristics. It is therefore only marginally debatable to refer to the earliest European written sources on Guinea as “the early sources.”
T. O. Avoseh on the History of Epe and Its Environs
Authors: Falola Toyin 
Published: May 2006

The first edition of this little book a short History of Epe-is to be freely used…No acknowledgement is necessary nor royalty required.With the above words, Chief Theophilus Olabode Avoseh opens his second and most successful book, A Short History of Epe. His generosity was unusual, with his time to researchers, and with publications that he distributed freely and allowed others to use without seeking his permission. His unstated motto would be that knowledge should be acquired and distributed at no charge. His books on Epe and Badagri are his best known works, although he wrote several other obscure pamphlets which I have previously drawn attention to. As this is a continuation of my study on Avoseh, this essay does not intend to repeat previously published information on the author. The primary aim of the present paper is to present the text on Epe, and so to make it more accessible to a larger audience. A few additional points, made possible by the examination of the text under consideration, form the bulk of this introduction intended to shed more light on Avoseh.Epe is an Ijebu-Yoruba town, located on the banks of the lagoon. This location has always facilitated the development of a fishing industry, commerce, and agriculture. Epe was drawn into nineteenth—century Yoruba power politics and then into international diplomacy with the British when it was occupied in the mid-nineteenth century by Kosoko, the indomitable exiled ruler of Lagos. When Kosoko returned to Lagos, not all his adherents followed, and their presence produced far-reaching changes in Epe politics and society to this very day.
The Anthropology and Historiography of Central-South Nigeria Before and Since Igbo-Ukwu
Authors: Afigbo A. E. 
Published: May 2006

This paper is a study of the methods and concerns of anthropology and history in central-south Nigeria in the period since about 1900, and of the changes which they have had to undergo in response to changing times and demands. To highlight the response of either discipline to the differing needs of different times, we shall take 1970, the date of publication of Thurstan Shaw'sIgbo–Ukwu: An Account of Archaeological Discoveries in Eastern Nigeria, as our critical dividing line. Beyond doing that, however, we shall treat the years 1900 to 1970 as failing into sub-periods, withca. 1900 to 1951 representing the high-noon, and 1951 to 1970 the twilight, of colonialism for the practice of either of these disciplines under consideration.It is perhaps necessary to emphasize that for our first sub-period, 1900-1951, we shall be dealing mainly with the methods and concerns of anthropology, rather than also with history strictly speaking. It was a period marked by the unchallenged dominance of anthropology and anthropologists as far as the study of society was concerned. What passed for history, and therefore what, for the period, will be treated as historiography, concerns the speculations of anthropologists about the past of the peoples of central-south Nigeria, and with the work of one or two inspired indigenous amateurs such as Jacob Egharevba. By and large I agree with the view of Bill Freund, supported by Toyin Falola, to the effect that “the colonial period produced very little by way of overtly historical publication. The dominant colonial science was anthropology.” Thus this paper is on the idiosyncratic waywardness of colonial anthropology, the impact of this waywardness on the emergent historiography of central-south Nigeria from 1951 to 1970, the efforts of post-1970 anthropologists and historians to shake off this waywardness, and the part played by Shaw'sIgbo-Ukwuin this struggle to end the baneful influence of that “dominant colonial science.”
La Perception Du Mande et De L'Identite Mandingue Dans Les Textes Europeens, 1453–1508
Authors: Horta Jose da Silva 
Published: May 2006

Aujourd'hui il n'est plus polémique reconnaître l'importance des textes européens pour l'étude des societes africaines qui ont établi des contacts avec les marchants, les missionaires, les prêtres, les aventuriers venus d'Europe en passant, ou même pour s'établir en Afrique. Aussi, ont-ils reçu des échos d'autres gens plus lointains, échos qui, parfois se révèlent des informations précieuses. Mais, en même temps, on a actuellement une vive conscience des problèmes d'interprétation et des doutes de crédibilité qui subissent les chercheurs à qui les textes européens puissent être utiles. Il serait presque inutile de rappeler que ces problèmes-là ne sont pas un exclusif de la manipulation des sources européennes mais se posent aussi, en ce qui concerne l'histoire de l'Afrique Occidentale, pour les sources arabes d'origine extérieure aux sociétés étudiées.Les textes véhiculent des représentations: leurs données sur les sociétés africaines sont une construction mentale d'une réalité extérieure perçue, (re)construction qui implique la mobilisation des schémas mentaux intériorisés et d'existence préalable et autonome envers cette réalité extérieure. Des représentations qui se bornent aux limites d'un observateur ou rédacteur dont la pensée est ordonnée par des catégories européennes, exogènes à l'object de connaissance et qui, de façon plus élargie, sont relatives aux conditions de production du texte en cause.Ce sont précisement les représentations qui font l'object de recherche auquel cet étude se situe: un object de charnière entre l'histoire européenne et l'histoire de l'Afrique. Il demande un double positionement et approche soit des sociétés européennes (qui produisent un discours anthropologique sur l'Africain), soit des sociétés africaines (object dinamique de ces représentations).
On Editing Barbot
Authors: Hair P. E. H. 
Published: May 2006

In 1974 the very first issue of HA included an analysis of a small section of John Barbot's Description of the coasts of North and South Guinea. Since this represented the first fruits of a project to edit Barbot's writings on Guinea, it is appropriate that, now the completed edition is published, a review of the history of the editing, the methods and problems of the editors, and the problems that the consumer will face in using the edition, should also appear in HA.Why Barbot? When, twenty years ago, I decided that Barbot's account of Guinea should be edited, I already knew that it was partly unoriginal, and that in an ideal world priority would be given to editing the other, earlier, recognized compendium on Guinea, the relevant section of Dapper's account of all Africa. For although Dapper is also partly unoriginal, it has probably a wider range of new material than Barbot, not least the very detailed Kquoja account. Why then Barbot rather than Dapper? The answer is simple. I recognized the lack of critical editing of Guinea sources and felt I had to take the plunge somewhere. But whereas Dapper wrote in Dutch, a language of which I have only dictionary command, the earlier manuscript version of Barbot was in French, a language I could cope with. Dapper will have his turn. Adam Jones, one of the co-editors of “Barbot on Guinea,” having Dutch, has already published studies of Dapper's sources. Moreover, in the edition of Barbot we have taken the unusual step of including in the annotation fairly frequent references to the lines of transmission of information, for instance, not only noting the material Barbot borrowed from Dapper but also, where the material was not original to Dapper, the sources of his borrowing—thus doing part of the work of a critical edition of Dapper. In fact we have generally tried to make the edition of Barbot a starting point for the critical study of many other pre-1700 Guinea sources.
Problems in Kalahari Historical Ethnography and the Tolerance of Error
Authors: Lee Richard B. , Guenther Mathias 
Published: May 2006

The !Kung San or Bushmen of Namibia and Botswana are one of the most thoroughly documented hunting and gathering societies in the annals of African anthropology. In recent years two radically different views of the !Kung San have emerged in the anthropological literature. One sees the !Kung as hunters and gatherers living under changed circumstances and maintaining an old but adaptable way of life: the characteristic features associated with the hunter-gatherer subsistence or foraging mode of production.The other sees these same !Kung as products of a very different history, a history of long association with Bantu-speaking overlords, followed by intense involvement with merchant capital. In this view it was the !Kungs' experience of domination and incorporation, not the dynamics of autonomous foraging that shaped their economy and social life. Their well-documented egalitarian politics and gender relations are thus a product not of their own history, but of their history of shared poverty. The San are classless today precisely because they are the underclass in a more inclusive class structure (Wilmsen 1983:17).Which view more accurately reflects the historical realities and experience of the !Kung? A body of opinion within contemporary anthropology holds that this “revisionist” view provides a much-needed corrective to the anthropological tendency to treat African societies ahistorically. Others have denied this charge and have countered that the history of Kalahari peoples showed great variation; while some may have formed an underclass at an early date, others persisted as relatively independent (but not isolated) hunter-gatherers into the modem period.
Archival Research in Guinea-Conakry
Authors: Conrad David C. 
Published: May 2006

There has been an effective movement afoot in the Republic of Guinea to improve the climate of study and research for local and foreign scholars alike. The most obvious physical evidence of this is the dramatically improved archival facility in Conakry. In April 1991 Les Archives Nationales du Guinée began moving into an entirely new, specially constructed building next to the Ministère de la Jeunesse, des Arts, de la Culture et des Sports. By the summer of 1992, the lengthy process of settling into the building's 1600 square meters appeared to be complete.This is a modern, well-equipped facility, organized and administered by trained Guinean archivists who are appropriately concerned with preservation of resources. A tour of some of the main archival storage areas revealed a large collection of bound, well-preserved documents. According to the Associate Director, Seydouba Cissé, there are five such climate-controlled rooms, containing a total of 5,000 meters of metal shelving. According to the personnel list there are two conservators on the staff. At their disposal is a studio for restoration and a room for cleaning books and documents. There is also a microfilm room (I did not have time to examine this collection), and a microfilm reading machine. In the summer of 1992 photocopying was readily available at a reasonable price per page. The card catalog in the air-conditioned reading room was in fairly good order, though some student mémoires (see below) were filed under categories inconsistent with their titles.
Archival Documents on Upper Volta: Here, There, and Everywhere
Authors: Gervais Raymond R. 
Published: May 2006

Fluctuations of colonial policies toward territorial integrity were not without effects, first on the people of these colonies and then on the organization of their own administration. A case in point is the tortuous history of colonial administration in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso). Created in 1919 out of the oversized Haut-Sénégal-Niger—which extended from the Sénégal river to lake Chad—in order to rationalize the administration Upper Volta survived as an autonomous colony until January 1933, when it was officially dismembered. The northwestern part (i.e., Ouahigouya) was ceded to the French Sudan, the central and southwestern regions (Mosi and Bobo) to Côte d'Ivoire, and a small portion of the eastern portion (Fada N'Gourma) to Niger. After harsh negotiations the colony of Upper Volta was recreated in 1947. Researchers who have worked on this part of the French empire know that every adjustment brought to the administrative arrangement also caused personnel and documents to be displaced to the new centers—Abidjan, Niamey, or Bamako.This institutional constraint on the organization of complete sets of archival documents for the study of the region's past has been strengthened by a well-known post-independence symptom: bureaucratic plethora. Indeed Burkina Faso is probably the only country in the world to possess more archivists than organized archives. The Direction des archives, with its dozen archivists in the 1980s, had not produced a single inventory of what could be found in the capital (Ouagadougou) or in the regions, although important work had been done by individual archivists appointed to specific Ministries or by expatriate researchers.