bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Kalabari World-View: An Outline and Interpretation
Authors: Horton Robin 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionThe Kalabari people live in twenty-two villages and three small towns in the tidal mangrove swamps of the eastern Niger Delta. Linguistically, they are part of the great bloc of Ijo-speaking peoples who fill the Delta; but they form a distinct subgroup both in dialect and in culture. The traditional economy of most of these communities is based on fishing, with surplus fish exported to the hinterland markets and vegetables brought down on the return trip. Over a long period, contact with the hinterland markets seems to have been more frequent than contact between any one village and its Kalabari neighbours; and as a result of this isolation, each village tended to develop certain distinctive variants of fishing technique and of culture generally. Although the general economic pattern was one of fishing, one community with a fortunate geographical position at the mouth of the Rio Real abandoned this occupation about 400 years ago for trade with European merchants, first in slaves and later in palm-oil brought down from the hinterland. Today, however, this trade has collapsed; and the descendants of those who developed it have largely returned to fishing and fish-trading.
Neologisms in Hausa: A Sociological Approach
Authors: Kirk-Greene A. H. M. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphHausa is probably the most widely spoken language in Negro Africa. Besides being generally spoken throughout Northern Nigeria, its motherland, Hausa is, as Westermann and Bryan note, widely understood in other West African countries. They cite colonies of Hausa-speakers in Dahomey, Togo, Ghana, Cameroons, Chad, and ‘many of the greater centres in North Africa’. They could also usefully have mentioned the Sudan, where pilgrims from Northern Nigeria have settled in their tens of thousands. Indeed, it is often said that you will find Hausa-speakers from Dakar to Port Sudan, from Leopoldville to Fez. The explorer Heinrich Barth in the 1840's had his first Hausa lesson in Tunis, and fifty years later it was to Tripoli that Bishop Tugwell of the Church Missionary Society and his pioneer team of five went to study Hausa before undertaking their bold missionary thrust into the emirates. Westermann and Bryan point out that the total number of Hausa-speakers cannot be estimated in view of the enormous distribution of the Hausa and the great number of those who speak Hausa as their second language. Few of us would disagree with Cust's judgement that Hausa ‘has obtained the rank of a lingua franca and is the general vehicle of communication between the peoples speaking different languages’. Counting those who have recourse to Hausa as their second or vehicular language, it would be no exaggeration to claim that some 20 million persons ‘hear’ Hausa, as the West African languages so picturesquely express it.
Labour Emigration among the Moçambique Thonga: Comments on Marvin Harris's Reply
Authors: Rita-Ferreira A. 
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph1. With reference to Mr. Harris's first claim, the differences between the Thonga and Chopi cultures were greater than is commonly believed. These were based not merely on the distinct Karanga origin of the Chopi but also on their ecological environment, since they inhabited a country of forests and lagoons. When the migratory stream began, the Chopi was the only tribe devoted intensively and almost exclusively to agriculture. This environmental and cultural diversity was an undoubted factor in the different reactions on the part of the Thonga and Chopi to migration.
Akwamu and Otublohum: An Eighteenth-Century Akan Marriage Arrangement
Authors: Wilks Ivor 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionThis paper may be taken as an essay in the application of anthropological theory to other fields, in this case history. In it I am concerned to give a detailed account of a marriage arrangement that bound together the royal family of Akwamu and the ruling house of the Otublohum quarter of Accra. Akwamu, now a small state locked in the wooded hills of the Volta Gorge in south-east Ghana, was, in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the strongest of all the Akan powers and centre of an empire that extended for about 250 miles along the Gold and Slave Coasts of Guinea. Accra, now the capital of Ghana, was incorporated within that empire by conquest in 1681, but recovered its independence half a century later. Unquestionably a whole series of historical events involving Akwamu and Accra would be quite incomprehensible without reference to the structural implications of the marriage arrangement linking the two. The arrangement persisted through four generations, spanning the greater part of the eighteenth century. Fortunately the period is a well-documented one. The archives of the Dutch West Indies Company are especially useful. In particular, sufficient genealogical detail is recorded in the various sources for the marriage arrangement to be recognized as involving successive patrilateral cross-cousin unions.
A Note on a Demographic Sample Survey for the Study of Factors Affecting Fertility in Ghana
Authors: Pool D. I. 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionToday, Ghana's rate of natural increase must be approaching the very high level of 3 per cent, per annum. Such a rapid rate of growth results from the maintenance of a high birth-rate in a period when the crude death-rate has been declining radically. Everyone wishes to see further improvements in life-expectation, but the continuation of such high rates of population growth will almost certainly prejudice or inhibit the implementation of satisfactory levels of economic growth. One immediate result could be an increase in unemployment, particularly among school-leavers, while the long-term consequences might include widespread declines in the standards of living and nutrition.
Lateral symbolism and Atuot cosmology
Authors: Burton John W. 
Published: April 2006

Opening Paragraph... explanation is no more than exact description which bears its own interpretation (Evans-Pritchard 1973b: 764).Social anthropologists increasingly question whether or not the translation of culture is possible, at least in the most profound sense (see e.g. Beidelman 1980: 39). If we are as yet uncertain of the essential characteristics of human perception and cognition (cf. Needham 1980: 19) the task of comparison is problematic. Are we to note how ethnographic data reveal indigenous instances of a polythetic mode of classification, or construct rigid dichotomies to sort them out? A related question is whether or not an ethnographic report is valuable because it serves to verify specific theories or because it invites alternative interpretations.
Nyoro Symbolism and Nyoro Ethnography: A Rejoinder
Authors: Beattie J. H. M. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThis paper attempts to clarify a little further certain of the symbolic categories of the Banyoro of western Uganda, and at the same time to refocus attention on some of the methodological difficulties involved in the analysis of ethnographic material through the framework of the binary mode of symbolic classification. This entails some consideration of a recent contribution to this journal by Professor Rodney Needham, in which he attempts to rebut my detailed criticisms of his version of some aspects of Nyoro symbolism (Needham 1976; Beattie 1968; see also Needham 1967; 1973; and Beattie 1976: 232 n. 4). In doing so he repeats certain of his earlier misrepresentations, as well as introducing some new ones. He also asserts, of a number of my own—and some other—publications on Nyoro ritual and symbolism, to which I had drawn attention, that ‘they were either not relevant to [his] train of argument or, in general, were redundant to [his] primary sources’ (Needham 1976: 237). These assertions must be very briefly considered before I go on to deal with the further arguments he now advances.
The Story of Rukidi
Authors: Wrigley C. C. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThe fascinating discussions of Nyoro symbolism which were contributed to Africa a few years ago by Rodney Needham (1967) and John Beattie (1968) included contrasting explanations of the myth which deals with the origin of the recently reigning Bito dynasty. I return now to this tale, believing it to be so fecund that even when two such scholars have done with it there still remain some footnotes to be added.
An Analytical Note on the Land and Spirits of the Sewa Mende
Authors: Jedrej M. C. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThe aim of this article is to interpret and understand certain Sewa Mende socio-spatial categories and at the same time to attempt to reveal an order in the otherwise confusing complex of supernatural spirits. This limited aim may be justified in so far as the Mende are among the most documented of West African societies, and yet an examination of the principal works (Little, 1951; Harris and Sawyerr, 1968) would suggest that Mende society consists of a constellation of unconnected elements. Thus their secret societies have received considerable attention, but what has a secret society (hale) to do with, for example, medicine (hale), an object for swearing by (hale), or a magical thief-catching device (hale)? Little has described them as ‘“broadly speaking” patrilineal’ (1951: 98) though his data hardly support even this vague contention. And to what are the diverse modes of supernatural spirit related? Mende culture as a whole may indeed show a remarkable lack of coherence and Harris and Sawyerr (1968: xii) have commented on the cultural variations among the different groups that constitute the Mende nation; consequently it is pertinent to add that this article is based wholly on ethnographic observations made among one of these groups.
Arabic Literacy Among the Yalunka of Sierra Leone
Authors: Donald Leland 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThe Yalunka of north-eastern Sierra Leone are predominantly Muslim. Their religion seems to be a straightforward variant of contemporary West African Islam. They have been exposed to Islam for several centuries and although they had powerful Muslim neighbours during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for most of this period they resisted conversion and remained pagan (Laing, 1825; Donald, 1968) until 1882, when they were conquered by one of the armies of Samory and forcibly converted. After the establishment of British and French control over their area in the 1890s many Yalunka reverted to paganism, but Islam remained viable and the number of adherents increased steadily. By the 1950s nearly all Yalunka in Sierra Leone were at least nominal Muslims.
Akan Theory of Conception–Are the Fante Really Aberrant?
Authors: Chukwukere I. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphAmong the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana the fundamental notion about the nature and composition of man—a notion which has a significant bearing on their view of the relation between man and his social, natural and spiritual worlds combined—is that each person at his or her conception receives specific physical and spiritual elements from the genitor, genetrix and Nyame, the Supreme Being. These gifts are conceptualised as bogya (or mogya in the Asante dialect), sunsum and kra, equivalent English translations in literary and popular usage being ‘blood’, ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ respectively.
Medicines and Fetishes in Igala
Authors: Boston John 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThe Igala-speaking peoples of Nigeria live in the middle belt zone of that country, close to the confluence of the river Niger and the river Benue. Ancestor cults of various kinds are central to their religious system, but there is also an important cult of the earth as well as cults of diverse spirits known collectively as ẹbọ. The latter includes the spirit of smallpox, Iye, spirits associated with water, called Alijenu, and other spirits inhabiting the fringes of cultivated land. Culturally the Igala have many close affinities with the Yoruba from whom they are separated geographically by the intervening Niger and the settlements of other peoples. But the main emphases of Igala religion are slightly different from those of Yoruba religion. Thus the cult of ẹbọ which in a rudimentary way resembles the cult of orisha among the Yoruba occupies a more marginal place in Igala religion than the orisha cults do in the Yoruba system of belief. Ancestors and the earth cults play a more direct and central role in Igala than in Yoruba. One belief which appears to be basic to both systems of thought, however, is the belief in medicine, called ogwu in Igala. Yoruba beliefs about medicine have not been published in enough detail to make systematic comparison possible. But it is hoped that the account given here of the Igala side of the picture may stimulate further work on this potentially interesting comparison.
Political sovereignty, village reproduction and legends of origin: a comparative hypothesis
Authors: Verdon Michel 
Published: April 2006

The Nature of Ewe Polities: The General ProblemThe Ewe-speaking people live in the southern part of the Volta Region (Ghana) and Togo. They dwell in nucleated settlements (villages) of substantial sizes (varying from a few hundred to 16,000 inhabitants in Keta, their largest town). A group of such villages (from as few as one—hardly a group!—to as many as 116 in Anlo) form a larger entity dubbed ‘traditional area’ or ‘Division’ by the British colonial administrators. These Divisions were defined as ‘the groups of villages acknowledging a commonfiagaor otherwise-titled Paramount Chief', and there are over one hundred of them in the whole of Eweland. The prevailing ethnographic and administrative opinion has been to equate these Divisions or ‘traditional areas’ with the precolonial Ewe sovereign political groups.
Resource management in Sukumaland, Tanzania
Authors: Birley Martin H. 
Published: April 2006

INTRODUCTIONThe attention that has been devoted to Sukumaland, Tanzania, by development specialists has been attributed by De Wilde (1967) to the rapid expansion of livestock and cotton production in ways which have been the despair of professional agriculturalists and veterinarians. Cycles of drought, famine and disease have recurred at intervals of five to seven years while soil erosion has been an ever present phenomenon. Administrative responses to these problems have followed a cycle of education, persuasion, resettlement and coercion, to little avail. A number of studies, spanning many scientific disciplines, have sought to understand, change, or merely criticize, the existing state of affairs.
Social Theory and the Study of Christian Missions in Africa: A South African Case Study
Authors: Etherington Norman 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphChristian missions in Africa have produced mountains of publications which, despite their collective mass often escape notice in the wider landscape of African studies. Some of the reasons for scholarly neglect are readily apparent. A secular age is inclined to under-rate the impact of religious forces born in another era; an anti-imperialist generation of scholars is repulsed by the generally unabashed cultural imperialism of nineteenth-century evangelists; the devolution of political power from white to black hands has produced an understandable preference for the study of purely African agents of change in the recent past. Myopia, embarrassment, and the looming presence of contemporary African nationalism all encourage a tendency to leave the study of missions to antiquarians and the professionally pious.
The Role of Traditional Marriage Habits in Population Growth: the Case of Rural Eastern Nigeria
Authors: Ukaegbu Alfred O. 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionThe demographic transition which occurred in the West before 1900 has been attributed to the practice of delayed marriage and a significant degree of celibacy (Hajnal, 1953; 1965). In Eastern Europe where this transition occurred much later, the nuptiality patterns have been associated with historical differences in control over the nuclear family by the extended family unit (Sklar, 1974). Sklar has noted that in the late marrying Czech, Baltic, and Polish provinces, nuclear families had long been residentially and economically separate from the wider kingroup, while in the early marrying Balkans, nuclear families were intertwined with ramified kin networks.
Medicine, fetish and secret society in a West African culture
Authors: Jedrej M. C. 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphCertain aspects of van Gennep's (1908) analysis of the structure of ritual symbolism have in recent years been elaborated by E. R. Leach in a series of articles dealing with such topics as magic, the symbolism of time as well as initiation rites. This development has followed two related courses. Firstly, Leach has tended to emphasize the critical significance of rites of separation rather than van Gennep's overall schema involving rites of separation, rites of transition and rites of incorporation in effecting changes in the ritual status of persons (Leach 1970). Secondly, attention has been directed instead to the symbolic importance of the residues of such rites of separation (hair, foreskin, etc.) (Leach 1958) and, to a lesser extent, the agent effecting the separation (Leach 1961). The primary purpose of this article, however, is ethnographic rather than theoretical but in so far as the results of this empirical work tend to confirm the emerging analytical schema it is not without general interest and especially as the manner of this confirmation is not quite straightforward. It will be useful first of all to consider further and in general terms the issues indicated in these opening remarks.
Ancestors as Elders in Africa
Authors: Kopytoff Igor 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphAncestor cults and ancestor worship loom large in the anthropological image of sub-Saharan Africa and few would disagree with Fortes that ‘comparatively viewed, African ancestor worship has a remarkably uniform structural framework’ (Fortes, 1965: 122). The general pattern may be quickly summarized. Ancestors are vested with mystical powers and authority. They retain a functional role in the world of the living, specifically in the life of their living kinsmen; indeed, African kin-groups are often described as communities of both the living and the dead. The relation of the ancestors to their living kinsmen has been described as ambivalent, as both punitive and benevolent and sometimes even as capricious, In general, ancestral benevolence is assured through propitiation and sacrifice; neglect is believed to bring about punishment. Ancestors are intimately involved with the welfare of their kin-group but they are not linked in the same way to every member of that group. The linkage is structured through the elders of the kin-group, and the elders' authority is related to their close link to the ancestors. In some sense the elders are the representatives of the ancestors and the mediators between them and the kin-group.
Along the Line of Road: Expanding Rural Centres in Kenya's Coast Province
Authors: Parkin David J. 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionIn a large area stretching north and west from Mombasa and inland from Kenya's coast, into Kilifi District, a number of small tradin centres have come to express recent changes in the relationship of Muslims to non-Muslims. The area is generally divisible into three ecological zones, identified as fishing, farming, and cattle-herding. Until Kenya's independence in 1963 the coastal strip up to about ten miles inland fell under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Zanzibar and so was dominated by Muslims. In this coastal zone fishing was, and to a large extent still is, carried out by Muslims, and farmland was held in freehold tenure by Muslims, many of whom employed non-Muslims from the hinterland to work for them, often in exchange for the use ofsome fertile coastal land. Behind the ten-mile coastal strip, non-Muslims farmed and herded cattle on land held in customary tenure. The coastal zone was thus a Muslim stronghold, yet with many non-Muslims later identified as ‘squatters’, while the hinterland wasa non-Muslim area. Since 1963 many non-Muslim ‘squatters’have been given legal rights to the land they occupy in the coastal zone, in the form of settlement scheme plots. Non-Muslims have also, since the coastal strip ceased to fall under Muslim political control, moved into trade or house-letting in the small urban centres which have expanded or sprung up in the zone.
The social structure of the Sotho-speaking peoples of Southern Africa
Authors: Kuper Adam 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionIn the first part of this paper I discussed the Tswana, Southern Sotho, and Kgalagadi, and showed that among all these peoples a set of intertwined variables produces a consistent pattern of marriage choices and residential alignments. These peoples are organized in tribes, under chiefs who are linked in competition and through marriage with other close agnates. The chiefdom is divided into wards, ruled often by brothers, brothers' sons, or sons of the chief, and within each ward the dominance of the central core of competing and intermarrying agnates is duplicated. Men with patrilateral ties to those in power at each level are brought into alliance or competition with them, and their relationships may be transformed or reinforced by intermarriage. Outsiders are attached to these ruling agnatic cores at each level, and develop or reinforce matrilateral ties to them by contracting suitable marriages.
Interethnic clan identities among Cushitic-speaking pastoralists
Authors: Schlee Günther 
Published: April 2006

IntroductionThe linguistic and religious affiliation of the peoples of the arid lowlands of northern Kenya and adjacent areas of the Horn is very heterogeneous. Although most of the populations east of Lake Turkana speak languages which belong to the Lowland branch of the Eastern Cushitic sub-family, within this branch Oromo speech (Boran, Gabbra, Sakuye, Orma) is not mutually intelligible with Somaloid languages like Rendille and Somali. Even within the Somaloid group, successful communication between monolingual Rendille and Somali is normally difficult, but a high degree of bilingualism is found.
Pottery making in Ilorin: a study of the decorated water cooler
Authors: O'Hear Ann 
Published: April 2006

Opening ParagraphThis is an examination of the history, characteristics and decline of the making of water coolers, formerly a speciality of Ilorin. In order to place this in context, a brief overview of Ilorin pottery making in general is first essayed, including its derivation, continuing importance and future prospects. The association of water cooler making with particular Ilorin compounds is noted, together with the mode of transmission of this skill. Five types of cooler are described, with a sketch of what can be reconstructed of their history and origins. The decline of Ilorin cooler making and sale is demonstrated, and the factors responsible are examined. In conclusion, an attempt is made to suggest the wider significance of the study.
Marriage payments, debt and fatherhood among the Bangoua: a Lacanian analysis of a kinship system
Authors: de Latour Charles-Henry Pradelles 
Published: April 2006

AbstractThis article is concerned with kinship relations among the Bangoua of a Bamileke chiefdom in Cameroon. It tries first to explain, with some Lacanian concepts, how a wife-taker enters into a symbolic debt after having made the required marriage payments. These are received by two wife-givers, the bride's father and her mother's father. It is then shown that this symbolic debt, linked with the marriage contract, is a guarantee against incest. This debt, owed to the mother's father, and the debt of reciprocity due to a man's own father, sheds new light on complementary filiation and on ancestor worship in Bangoua society. It appears that, for this patrilineal society, the main social law is linked to a symbolic order in language, and, paradoxically, is focused on the mother's lineage: her father (the mother's father for her children) aid ancestors.