bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Collective Memory and the Stakes of Power. A Reading of Popular Zairian Historical Discourses
Authors: Jewsiewicki Bogumil 
Published: May 2006

For me collective memory is neither a narrative nor collective knowledge of the past (a sort of historical consensus). Contrary to past accounts, be they public or private, memory does not have a narrative form and is thus not of the literary kind (oral or written). Collective memory is above all a semantic code of memorization and of rememorization; it is, as well, a hierarchy of values which structures a discourse in the past while rooting it in the present. Collective memory gives meaning to the past and bears in mind certain places, facts, dates, and persons around which the memory or memories which also legitimate power build themselves. The relationship between a particular remembrance and its basic facts finds its prime meaning here. In this sense collective memory supports and rationalizes collective identity and, contrary to social fiction, offers a “definitive” reading as it bears on real, even though elapsed, relationships. Collective memory thus rejoins and often reinforces fiction and supports role and behavioral stereotypes, etc.“En ce temps là le roi regardant dans sa maison à Bruxelles il étudiait les nouvelles venant de l'Afrique et dans ses nouvelles plusieurs tribus ont montré que les vivres et les matériaux de travail (n'arrivaient) pas à temps après l'expédition de l'Europe et le Roi Léopold II jetta un coup d'oeil sur l'Atlas (carte géographique) du pays et il dit: on trouvera la route pour faire passer les matériaux de travail, un racourci pour faire le chemin de fer rapidement pour que je puisse envoyer plus rapidement les matériaux en Afrique ainsi on aura pas besoins de porteurs.
The “Elmina Note:” Myth and Reality in Asante-Dutch Relations
Authors: Yarak Larry W. 
Published: May 2006

One of the more perplexing issues in the history of Asante's relations with the Europeans on the nineteenth-century Gold Coast has been that of the origin and significance of the so-called “Elmina Note,” the pay document which authorized the Asantehene to collect two ounces of gold (or its equivalent in trade goods) per month from the Dutch authorities at Elmina. Not only have modern historians of Ghana evidenced no small amount of confusion on this matter, but during 1870/71 the Asantehene, the British, and the Dutch also disagreed strongly over the political significance of the note, as the Dutch negotiated to cede their “possessions” on the Gold Coast to the British. Failure to resolve these disagreements contributed significantly to the Asante decision to invade the British “protected” territories in 1873. This action in turn led to the British invasion of Asante in 1874, which most historians agree constitutes a critical watershed in Asante history. Clearly, the matter of the “Elmina Note” (or kostbrief as it was known to the Dutch) is one of some historical and historiographical importance. An examination of the relevant Dutch, Danish, and British documentation now makes possible a resolution of the major questions concerning its origin and meaning.The debates between the Asante, the British, and the Dutch show that in the later nineteenth century there was considerable agreement over certain issues: first, no one disputed that the Dutch had for some time past paid to the Asantehene (actually to an envoy dispatched by the king to Elmina) a stipend (or kostgeld, as the Dutch termed it) of two ounces of gold per month, or twentyfour ounces per year.
The Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library
Authors: Macomber William F. 
Published: May 2006

The Ethiopian Manuscript Microfilm Library (EMML) is a joint project of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library (HMML) (formerly Monastic Manuscript Microfilm Library) of St. John's Abbey and University, Collegeville, Minnesota, U.S.A. Professor Walter Harrelson, former Dean of the Divinity School at Vanderbilt University, is Chairman; Dr. Julian G. Plante, Director of HMML and Research Professor of Classics in St. John's University, is Vice-Chairman; and Dr. Sergew Hable Selassie, Professor of History in Addis Ababa University, is Project Director. Grateful acknowledgement for the funding of this project must be made to the National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, D.C.EMML was established at the urging of His Holiness Abuna Tewoflos, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, who was much concerned about the dangers of irreparable damage and loss to the manuscript treasures of his Church. The purpose of the project is twofold: To preserve on microfilm the precious treasures of manuscripts and to make those source materials available for study by scholars both within and outside Ethiopia. Efforts are also being directed toward obtaining copies of Ethiopian manuscripts outside of Ethiopia.Actual photographic operations are being carried out by an Ethiopian team in conjunction with Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A., where the film is processed. Positive and negative copies are sent to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which has founded a center for the purpose at Addis Ababa, and positive copy is sent to HMML in Collegeville, where interested students and scholars may come for consultation and study. HMML is a research center with a focus on medieval and renaissance manuscripts on microfilm.
Traditional Myths and Linguistic Analysis: Singwaya Revisited
Authors: Spear Thomas T. 
Published: May 2006

In a previous article in this journal I warned about the dangers of facile generalization and misinterpretation of traditional origin myths leading to the elaboration of historians' myths which bear little resemblance to the traditional, linguistic, cultural, or documentary data. I then proceeded to analyze the Singwaya (Shungwaya) myth pertaining to the origins of the peoples of the Kenya coast to show how earlier interpretations cannot be sustained by the evidence, before demonstrating that the myth is nevertheless valid for the Mijikenda, Pokomo, Swahili, Taita, and Segeju, where such evidence supports its basic veracity.As chance would have it, while the above article was in press I delivered a related paper on the same panel as Thomas Hinnebusch who, on the basis of extensive linguistic fieldwork and analysis of the same area, had found a number of fallacies in the published linguistic data on which I had relied. While confirming the exclusion of the highlanders (Thagicũ-speakers) from the same language group as the coastal peoples and hence presumably from common origins with the others at Singwaya, Hinnebusch also excludes both the Taita and Segeju from that group while adding the Swahili to it, thus calling into doubt the integrity of the Singwaya group as I had reconstructed it. Hinnebusch's data and his analysis of it, then, obviously require a reexamination of the role of the Taita, Segeju, and Swahili peoples in the migration from Singwaya while, at the same time, casting doubt anew on the validity of origin myths or legends. But the linguistic data also extends our view enormously.
The tompon-tany and the tompon-drano in the History of Central and Western Madagascar
Authors: Fuglestad Finn 
Published: May 2006

At some undefined time in the fairly recent past central and western Madagascar witnessed a conceptual 'revolution' which had far-reaching political consequences. The religious beliefs and symbols which constituted the main ingredients of this 'revolution'--and probably also the people who propagated them--were in some way connected with the Zafindraminia-Antanosy and the Anteimoro of the southeastern and eastern coast. It is quite clear that these and similar groups had been strongly influenced by Islam and that they practiced what could perhaps be described as a corrupt or diluted Islam or a syncretic 'pagan' Muslim religion. (It is significant that as their name indicates the Zafindraminia claim descent from Raminia who they hold to have been the mother of Muhammad.) One of the main ingredients of this religion was the cult of the ody or guardian amulets, objects usually made of wood which are strikingly reminiscent of the so-called “charms” or “gris-gris” sold by Muslim clerics over much of Africa. Another ingredient is represented by the institution of ombiasy. The ombiasy (the main manufacturers of ody) whom the Frenchman Etienne de Flacourt at Fort-Dauphin in the seventeenth century took to be Muslim clerics were originally the “priests” (or the “devins guérisseurs,” according to Hubert Deschamps) of the Anteimoro and the Zafindraminia-Antanosy. Subsequently this institution was disseminated throughout nearly the whole of Madagascar. Yet another ingredient was the system of divination known as sikidy, which also spread to other parts of Madagascar, including Imerina and the Sakalava country.These beliefs, symbols, and institutions deeply influenced the people of the west coast (the present-day Sakalava country) and of central Madagascar (Imerina and Betsileo country).
How Truly Traditional Is Our Traditional History? The Case of Samuel Johnson and the Recording of Yoruba Oral Tradition
Authors: Law Robin 
Published: May 2006

The precolonial history of Yorubaland, and especially of the most powerful Yoruba kingdom of Oyo, is still dominated by the influence of the Revd. Samuel Johnson, the Yoruba clergyman whose History of the Yorubas was published in 1921. Especially for the period before continuous written documentation of Yoruba affairs begins with the arrival of the first Christian missionaries in the area in the 1840s, Johnson's History remains a source of overwhelming importance, and the framework within which we study Yoruba history is still very much that established by Johnson. But despite its great importance and persisting influence, Johnson's work has still not been subjected to much critical evaluation. In particular it has commonly been assumed, implicitly rather than explicitly, that Johnson's History can be mined as a source of ‘oral tradition’ in the belief that what he wrote down is unproblematically identical with what he heard, and what he heard with what had been retained and transmitted orally down to the time that he made his enquiries.Johnson's History is a somewhat complicated work to characterize, since it makes use of rather different sorts of sources for different periods of Yoruba history. The history of its publication was also complex. It was originally completed in 1897, the date of Samuel Johnson's “Preface,” but the manuscript was lost. Samuel Johnson having died in 1901, it was left to his brother Obadiah to reconstitute the work from Samuel's notes and drafts, a task which he apparently completed only in 1916.
Black African Slaves at Valencia, 1482-1516: An Onomastic Inquiry
Authors: Hair P.E.H. 
Published: May 2006

In 1964 the Spanish archivist and scholar, D. Vicenta Cortés, published summaries of a large number of entries in the Crown records of Valencia relating to the arrival of slaves between 1479 and 1516. Although about two thirds of the entries relate to lighter-skinned slaves - Guanche from the Canary Islands, Muslims and Jews from North Africa and other parts of Iberia, “blancos” apparently from the eastern Mediterranean - about one-third relate to black slaves or “negros.” Cortés described the legal and administrative context of the records but did not attempt a systematic analysis of the entries. However, she later usefully examined those relating to “negros” and offered a preliminary identification of stated provenances. In the present paper I consider the data on some 3,000 negros of stated Black African provenance, paying special attention to some 260 individuals whose provenance was given in terms of an ethnonym or narrowly located toponym and some 150 whose personal name in an African language was recorded. I note many instances where the Valencian data provide the earliest recorded documentation of an African ethnonym, while the anthroponyms are tabulated for study by field linguists.As summarized and published by Cortés, the entries refer to some 5,400 Black Africans - the total of negros, apart from a handful stated to be from India or Brazil. This figure gives only a rough indication of the extent of the trade in Black Africans at Valencia during the period to which these entries apply, 1482-1516. About one hundred of the Africans were obtained, not more or less directly from Black Africa and normally via Lisbon, but from localities in North Africa or Iberia where it is likely that they had spent the greater part, if not all, of their lives.
The Missing Link in Theal's Career: The Historian as Labour Agent in the Western Cape
Authors: Saunders Christopher 
Published: May 2006

George McCall Theal, most prolific of South African historians, deserves a modern biography. In the few, very inadequate, accounts of his life that are available there is no mention of his work as a labour agent in the western Cape. Bosman mentioned that he visited Stellenbosch and Tulbagh in 1878, but did not say what he was doing there. Babrow admits that she did not know what his first formal civil service post was. Immelman misleadingly suggests that it was a post in the Colonial Treasurer's Department, when in fact he did not join that department until March 1879.This ignorance is not altogether surprising for, while Theal himself in his later published work and in the evidence he gave to parliamentary select committees in 1895 and 1906 provided a fair amount of information about his career before May 1878 and after March 1879, he did not say what he had done between those dates, almost as if he did not wish to remember it. In his History of the Boers in South Africa, indeed, he wrote that “when the war was over [referring to the Cape-Xhosa war, which ended in May 1878] I asked for and obtained the charge of the Colonial Archives preserved in Cape Town,” which is totally inaccurate. In the relevant volume in his History of South Africa, he mentioned that he was asked to superintend Oba's Xhosa in the Victoria East district in December 1877, and later that he had served as special magistrate at Tamacha in the King William's Town district in 1881, but there are no other references to his own career.
Bantu in the Crystal Ball, II
Authors: Vansina Jan 
Published: May 2006

Interest in the question of Bantu expansion rose dramatically in the 1950s as historians, archeologists, and anthropologists all joined in the fray. This reflected both the rise of Africa in world affairs and the expansion of research in general. The scholars involved were typically a new breed of professionals, and as such more dependent than their predecessors on universities or research institutions. The School of Oriental and African Studies in London achieved overwhelming dominance from about 1950 until the late 1960s, so that opinions held by its staff found the widest audience. The new scholars also were, for the most part, anti-racist, sympathetic to African nationalisms, and of liberal or socialist persuasion. They tended to reject the notion of “conquest,” believing in gradual change rather than abrupt cataclysmic mutation, perhaps because they were repelled by their recent experiences during the war. As had happened earlier, these extraneous circumstances left a deep imprint on the speculations that were now proposed. Early in this period a new paradigm almost achieved consensus, but after 1968 this fell apart and during the last decade two new trends have appeared: the single-minded quest for a new paradigm and the search for better understanding through the study of analogous processes, coupled with a more radical skepticism.Murdock
The Paden Collection of Arabic Materials from Kano
Authors: Saad E.N. 
Published: May 2006

The following is a brief description of a collection of Arabic materials deposited by John Paden at the Herskovits Africana Library, Northwestern University. The collection includes 424 numbered volumes of which about half enclose manuscript materials while the other half enclose published books and pamphlets, most of them privately printed in Kano, Zaria, or Cairo. The collection altogether (and especially so among the pamphlets) includes a substantial proportion of works of West African authorship. However, the classical Muslim/Arabic literature, and especially the basic jurisprudential treatises and the better known diwans of pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, are well represented in the collection.This summary is made up of three parts, beginning with a few words on the classical Muslim/Arabic works in the collection. The second part is concerned with the unusual manuscript materials and includes a listing and description of these materials. Finally, the third part will be concerned with individual West African authors whose works are well represented in the collection. In most cases, these authors are represented by privately printed materials or by manuscripts of which copies generally tend to be found elsewhere.In the references to specific manuscripts below, no attempt will be made to describe the calligraphy, the size of pages, etc. The purpose is to call attention to the availability of the sources under consideration, especially since they are scheduled to be microfilmed by the Cooperative Africana Microform Project soon.Though mostly represented by manuscript copies, the diwans of Arabic poetry present little interest since they tend to be recent copies of works long ago published in numerous printings and editions elsewhere.
Kings, Titles, and Quarters: A Conjectural History of Ilesha I: The Traditions Reviewed
Authors: Peel J.D.Y. 
Published: May 2006

This is an essay in conjectural history. Its subject is Ilesha, the capital of Ijesha, one of the larger Yoruba kingdoms, founded probably in the early sixteenth century roughly midway between the larger regional centers of Oyo and Benin. Except for some cursory references to Ijesha rescued from slavery in Sierra Leone in the early nineteenth century, there is absolutely no positive contemporary evidence, whether documentary or archeological, until Europeans first visited the town in 1858. Thereafter, since Ilesha was the leading member of the Ekitiparapo alliance which fought Ibadan to a standstill in the 1880s, contemporary documentation becomes fairly abundant. But my concern here is with the evolution of Ilesha's socio-political structure, with what has since come to be considered its “traditional” constitution, over roughly three centuries up to the third quarter of the nineteenth century. For that, virtually all our evidence lies in what people have said and done since the 1880s.African historians have perforce relied greatly on such evidence and since Vansina's Oral Tradition they have been able to use it both more confidently and more critically, especially in the area of Bantu Africa. My fellow sociologists, however, remain more radically sceptical. Despite their admission of the need for history, they have learned too well how dynastic tradition and legends of origin tend to serve as “characters” for contemporary arrangements and need primary interpretation in the light of this -- and have often concretely illustrated the point with devastating and, for those desirous of using oral traditions for historical ends, depressing effect.
An Outline History of Photography in Africa to ca. 1940
Authors: Killingray David , Roberts Andrew 
Published: May 2006

Photographs are attracting growing interest among Africanists. A bibliographical essay in theCambridge History of Africa, vol. 7, drew attention to the value and availability of photographs of colonial Africa. The critical use of such documents has been discussed in this journal by Christraud Geary, and historical photographs have been a prominent feature of several recent publications. In May 1988 an international workshop at SOAS considered the problems and possibilities of using photographs as sources for African history. It is hoped that a larger conference on photographs and Africa will be convened in the near future. Meanwhile, the papers for the SOAS meeting have been distributed to interested scholars, librarians, and archivists. A version of the present paper forms part of this collection; since there is as yet no recommendable history of photography in Africa, it seemed worthwhile to republish this modest sketch of the more important developments in the practice and uses of photography in Africa. We conclude with the Second World War, since to have pursued the subject further would have asked too much of the authors' knowledge and readers' patience.It may be helpful to begin with a reminder of the major technical developments in photography during the nineteenth century. The daguerreotype, introduced in 1839, yielded only a single image, on a sensitized metal plate. The calotype, introduced two years later, yielded multiple paper positives from a paper negative, but like the daguerreotype required exposures of one to three minutes.
The Original Manuscript Version of William Snelgrave's New Account of Some Parts of Guinea
Authors: Law Robin 
Published: May 2006

Captain William Snelgrave's A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea, and the Slave Trade, first published in 1734, is a work well known to historians of West Africa. The largest and most valuable section of it comprises a detailed account of voyages by the author in 1727 and 1730 to the ports of Whydah and Jakin on the Slave Coast, then recently conquered by Dahomey, and offers the earliest extended account of the latter kingdom to be published. The information in Snelgrave's book can also be supplemented by records of testimony which he provided on two occasions, in 1726 and 1731, before the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in London.Snelgrave was a slave-trading captain with, at the time of his book's publication, some thirty years' experience of the West African trade. The details of his career are documented principally from his book, which in addition to the voyages of 1727 and 1730 (which form its principal subject), also alludes to several earlier slave-trading voyages undertaken by him. Snelgrave's first voyage to Africa, in which he served as purser on a ship commanded by his father, was to Old Calabar in 1704; a second voyage to Old Calabar was undertaken in 1713, a voyage to Sierra Leone (on which Snelgrave was captured by pirates) in 1719, and a voyage to the Gold Coast in 1721-22. This is not, however, a comprehensive catalog of Snelgrave's voyages, since he also alludes to having visited Whydah on “several voyages” before 1727. Other evidence documents two such earlier voyages by Snelgrave to Whydah, in 1717 and 1725. He was apparently still alive in 1735, the year after the publication of his book, when he is mentioned among a group of people involved in legal proceedings to press claims on the estate of Patrick West, a recently deceased merchant of Antigua.