bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Volcanic Dust in the Atmosphere and the Interpretation of African Eclipse Traditions
Authors: Davis Ronald W. 
Published: May 2006

The purpose of this discussion is to call attention to the presence at various times of large quantities of volcanic dust in the atmosphere. Remarkable visual effects from this dust may imply hitherto unconsidered problems in identifying alleged references to solar eclipses in African chronicles and oral traditions. Climatologist Hubert Lamb has compiled the data on volcanic eruptions and dust veils since 1500 AD and attempted to determine possible meteorological effects.Contemporary notions of volcanic activity are predisposed to spectacular lava flows, which make more interesting journalism and greater popular interest. However, eruptions characterized by free-flowing lava –– conventionally termed Type A –– are relatively unimportant in the volcanic dust question. We are interested in so-called Type B events, usually violent explosions resulting from the inability of lava or steam to find convenient outlets. Such an explosion may inject huge quantities of dust and debris into the atmosphere, causing a wide variety of visual anomalies as they are carried around the world by high-altitude winds. If the dust veil is sufficiently dense it may even cause short-term alterations in weather patterns.
Some Archives in the Bandundu and Equateur Regions of Zaire
Authors: Harms Robert 
Published: May 2006

Archives in the Republic of Zaire contain valuable documents for historical and ethnographic research, but finding these treasures often demands a great deal of perseverance and a certain amount of luck. Since the government archives in Kinshasa deal mainly with national administration, they generally have little to offer researchers interested in more localized topics. Although a small number of documents from the countryside have trickled into the Archives Nationales (housed in a wing of the fire station on Avenue de la Justice in Kinshasa), most of them remain dispersed throughout the network of regional, sub-regional, and zonal offices that form the core of the country's administrative system.Since policies regarding the conservation of archives and the granting of access to them are not uniform, but made on an ad hoc basis by the officials on the spot, conditions vary widely from place to place and from time to time but I should point out that during my research in the Bandundu and Equateur Regions in 1975-76, the officials with whom I worked were unfailingly helpful, though the quality of the collections varied greatly. Some archives had disappeared or fallen into disarray during the troubles of the early 1960s; yet others remained remarkably intact, although even in the best-kept archives, many older documents had been partially eaten by insects.
The Conquest that Never was: Ghana and the Almoravids, 1076. I. The External Arabic Sources
Authors: Conrad David , Fisher Humphrey 
Published: May 2006

We first conceived of this study several years ago, when our respective lines of research seemed to some extent to converge on the period of the decline of ancient Ghana. It has proved a more complex matter than we imagined, or than the deceptively simple title above might suggest--partly because it is often more difficult to prove that something did not happen than that it did. We have had to divide our analysis into two parts. First we examine the external written sources for the Almoravid conquest of Ghana. Our work in this respect has been immensely facilitated by the appearance in 1975 of Cuoq's Recueil des sources arabes, which in some sense provides the infrastructure for our argument. We have also had the invaluable privilege of seeing in proof Hopkins' and Levtzion's Corpus of early Arabic sources. In the second half of our study, it will be the turn of internal sources, mainly oral traditions. We use the terms external and internal advisedly, since the simple distinction between written sources and oral traditions is too artificial: an oral tradition was an oral tradition, whether written down in Arabic in the Middle Ages or in French in this century, and a great deal of the information in both parts of our article must have started as oral tradition.Putting it very bluntly, we have discovered no sources, whether external or internal, which unambiguously point to such a conquest. A handful of sources suggest some link between the rise of the Almoravids and the decline of Ghana, but with a puzzling vagueness--a vagueness which decreases as the number of centuries between the alleged event, and the report of it increases.
The Boundaries of History in Oral Performance
Authors: Tonkin Elizabeth 
Published: May 2006

What do African tellers of history tell it for? What do they mean by history and how differently is the past transmitted in different communities? Professional academic historians use oral data like documentary data, for their own ends. They work in a different medium--written language--and they offer back a new story to the original donors. They do not always pay attention to the ways in which these consumers produced their own versions and perpetuated them embedded in performances. The indigenous occasions of performance are also easily replaced by the record of an outside researcher's chance intervention.Oral performances of history differ--in kind, in the extent to which past events are a focus of attention, in the readiness of individuals to answer an outsider's questions, in the types and structures of recall. The patterns I describe for one Liberian community may be quite different for its ethnic neighbors. As a social anthropologist I assume that recall is not a purely individual phenomenon, and besides trying to understand what connections there may be between types of recall and types of social condition, I want to see how personal reminiscence (as well as tradition) is formulated, sustained, and recapitulated; to whom it is repeated; whether it is hinted or used overtly as a weapon. By taking these issues into account I believe we can also interpret better the historical data from oral performance, just as we need to know about all the genres of performance if we are to recognize the uses of history there may be in apparently non-historical modes.
The Shirazi in Swahili Traditions, Culture, and History
Authors: Spear Thomas 
Published: May 2006

“Strange foreign jewels on a mournful silent shore”Historians have frequently viewed the Swahili-speaking peoples of the East African coast as members of an Arab diaspora that spread around the Indian Ocean with trade over the last two thousand years. The interpretation flowed easily from the apparent “Arab” nature of Swahili culture--a written language using Arabic script, elaborate stone buildings and mosques constructed in urban settings, Islam, and genteel social behavior--especially when contrasted with the culture of mainland Africans, members of preliterate, uncentralized communities. Since the Swahili culture of the islands and coastal fringes bore little apparent resemblance to the cultures of the mainland, historians reasoned, its development could only have been the product of Persian and Arab merchants bringing to the “mournful silent shores” of East Africa the “jewels” of their own Muslim civilizations.The perspective was essentially diffusionist in assuming that cultural innovation and historical development in Africa could only have come from elsewhere, and racist in assuming that race and culture were so inextricably linked that a separate “race” of immigrants had to carry these new ideas. As a result, historians failed to investigate the possible African roots of Swahili culture in their Bantu language, their religious beliefs and values, their economy, or their social structure. But this charge applies not only to European historians; Swahili oral historians have long recounted the development of their societies in essentially the same terms in involved genealogies tracing the development of different Swahili families, communities, and institutions back to Persian or Arabian ancestors. When European historians came to study the oral traditions of the Swahili (usually in written, chronicle form), they thus found ready confirmation of their own assumptions and interpretations.
Mission Archives in Bremen
Authors: Brydon Lynne 
Published: May 2006

The present report is intended to complement the report on the Norddeutsche Missiongesellschaft archive provided by Donna Maier in History in Africa, 8 (1981), 335-37. I worked in Bremen in the summer of 1982 and the following information may be of interest to readers. Firstly, several small organizational details have changed. The Staatsarchiv is now open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays, except Thursdays, when it remains open until 8 p.m. Photocopying is available at AO Pf per exposure and, once a week, on Thursdays, the archive can provide microfilm facilities at 20 Pf per exposure.As a social anthropologist whose principal interest is the central Volta Region of Ghana, I was most concerned to examine material pertaining to the Ho and Amedzofe areas, the sites of two of the Bremen mission stations. However, the files under the index reports for these stations are mostly concerned with internal mission business: finance, station-building, the training of and reports from native catechists (from the 1880s), and the setting up of schools. On the other hand, the sub-section “Land und Leute” (reference 7, 1035: 41/1 and 41/2) contains several attempts by the missionaries at general descriptive ethnography. Included in this section are a relatively early account by Schlegel, “Zur Geschichte der Eweer;” a long account by Spieth of Avatime; accounts by Schosser and Spieth of Akpafu ironworking and smithing among the Ewe, respectively; and an account of Anlo by Hornberger.
Archival Research in the People's Republic of the Congo
Authors: Headrick Rita 
Published: May 2006

Doing historical research in the People's Republic of the Congo is not only now possible for Americans, it is also enjoyable. Relatively little red tape is required to obtain the necessary authorizations. The Archives Nationales du Congo are well organized, run efficiently, and rich in administrative documents for French Equatorial Africa.While I was there (February through August 1979), the procedure for getting research permits was being formalized. It would be best, at this point, to write the Ministre de la Culture, des Arts et des Sports chargé de la Recherche Scientifique in Brazzaville about your proposed work. Send a carbon of that letter to the Congolese Embassy to the United Nations in New York. (As of November, 1979, the Congolese Embassy in Washington, D.C. had not yet opened. Visa requests should also go to New York.) Also write the cultural attaché of the American Embassy, B.P. 1010, Brazzaville with your plans. After arriving in Brazzaville, the cultural attaché will apply for your “autorisation de recherche” through the minister of foreign affairs. This authorization will be sent to you and also to the appropriate ministries (depending on your topic) and will allow you to use the university and the Bibliothèque Nationale. In my case it took about three weeks to get my “autorisation” but I was able to begin work without it.A permit from the tourist office is necessary to take pictures. The Congo has few tourists and many people do not like having their picture taken so that photography must be done with discretion and sensitivity. To travel, you should get a permit, again from the tourist office. It is advisable to inform the authorities of your plans. Note that the roads are terrible, making wheeled travel very difficult.
Traditions of Igbo Origins: A Comment
Authors: Afigbo A.E. 
Published: May 2006

But if the problem that has so far engaged our attention has been extremely intricate, that which concerns the origin of the Ibo is still more so for it is a very maze within a maze. Here…we are face to face with an evolution which is practically interminable, for certain important complexities have to be taken into consideration.The problem of Igbo origins is indeed “a very maze within a maze.” It boggles the mind. Instead of one pan-Igbo tradition of origin there are almost as many traditions as there are those independent sub-cultural groups referred to as “clans” in the Intelligence Reports of the 1930s. In fact in some clans there are two rival traditions of origin. However, for clarity and ease of understanding, we shall here distinguish among three categories of traditions of origin found among the Ibgo people. Going from what I consider the least to the most relevant, these are:[a] traditions of oriental origin[b] traditions of origin from neighboring “great” states[c] traditions claiming autochthony.
A Bio-Bibliography of E.S. Grogan
Authors: Ofcansky Thomas P. 
Published: May 2006

For more than fifty years Ewart Scott Grogan (1874–1967) was one of Kenya's most influential and controversial European settlers. Among other things, he helped to develop the port of Mombasa, to finance the country's forestry industry, and to experiment with new agricultural and water conservation techniques. Grogan also repeatedly fought against the British colonial government in defense of Kenya's European community; indeed, many settlers considered him to be a greater leader than Lord Delamere.Apart from his economic, scientific, and political talents, Grogan was a gifted and prolific writer. His first literary achievement, From the Cape to Cairo, published in 1900, not only chronicled the events of a harrowing two year walking tour of Africa, but also discussed many of the problems that confronted the continent at the dawn of the twentieth century. In the book's final chapter, for example, Grogan listed a series of recommendations for the construction of a Cape-to-Cairo telegraph and railway system. He then examined the “native question,” the need for a compulsory labor program for Africans, and the benefits of an indirect form of colonial rule.In 1909 Grogan wrote an analytical treatise called The Economic Calculus and Its Application to Tariff. In general terms the book sought to demonstrate that “there is a growing feeling that the classical system of economics has failed to justify its claim for recognition in the domain of science.” More specifically, it outlined England's policy toward free trade, umemployment, and protection of workers' rights. According to Leda Farrant, Grogan's latest biographer, the book “was recognized by the experts of the period as a valuable addition to the study of economics and is still used today as a reference book in the British Library of Political and Economic Science at the London University and many other universities and libraries throughout England.”
Ancient Malagasy Dynastic Succession; The Merina Example
Authors: Ottino Paul 
Published: May 2006

My paper dealing with the Andriambahoaka universal sovereigns and the Indonesian heritage that they embodied brought out the eminently religious character of the Malagasy marvelous tales, disarticulated fragments from a Malay myth of origin. As Françoise Raison has noted, the religious value of Ibonia was still perfectly felt in Imerina during the first half of the nineteenth century. I do not hark back to the possibilities offered by the notion of Hikayat--or in Malagasy the Tantara--at once narration and imitation--“semblance,” as it was called in the Arthurian Romance of the Grail. These notions refer to these Shiʿite syntheses, sometimes with gnostic and dualist ideas borrowed from neo-platonism and the ancient Babylonian philosophies of Lights which, introduced into Madagascar by an Indonesian relay, conceived the descendants of Andriambahoaka in the image of that of the imāms descended from Muḥammad through his daughter Fāṭima and her husband ʿAlī--prototype of Ramini, ancestor of the ZafiRaminia and fourth Caliph, but more importantly the first imām, initiator, after the cycle of revelation that Muḥammad closed, of the cycle of explanation, of initiation, of the “return,”, that is, of walayāt.We are far from this “pedagogical model” that I evoked previously with regard to the other celestial line of the knights seeking the Grail. Far, too, from the unsatisfactory notions of ideology or the “imaginary” such as Georges Duby uses in his recent work, even though his chapter on “L'exemplarité celeste” returns to an infinitely richer universe, very near that which Henry Corbin describes. Can one truly explain from an agnostic point of view facts that are essentially perceived and experienced as religious? In any event going from Ibonia and the marvelous tales of the Andriambahoaka to the historical legends and genealogies in the first chapter of the Tantara ny Andriana of Callet, translated as Histoire des rois, we pass on to something entirely different.
European Models and West African History. Further Comments on the Recent Historiography of Dahomey
Authors: Ross David 
Published: May 2006

Pre-colonial Dahomey's two most recent historians, Isaac A. Akinjogbin and John C. Yoder, have argued that Dahomey was a progressive nation that had much in common with the states of the modern West. Akinjogbin and Yoder have laid particularly heavy emphasis on this point when describing the kingdom's system of government. Their account of that system appears to be generally accepted. It has, at any rate, been repeated in the more important textbooks and works of synthesis.Akinjogbin argues that, when it was founded in ca. 1620, Dahomey was organized on principles which “ran very close indeed to the modern European idea of a national state.” The kingdom was, it seems, from the very first governed by a line of monarchs who exercised absolute control over the lives and activities of their subjects. Early Dahomey's monarchy “was a strongly centralised institution, controlled all the appointments and dismissals of the chiefs and had a standing army.” In Dahomey every citizen had to “serve and be subservient to the king.”Dahomey's various eighteenth-century absolute rulers were, Akinjogbin notes, men whose aims and ambitions were at least as admirable as the aims and ambitions of any of Europe's contemporary enlightened despots. Agaja, (ca, 1708-1740), the conqueror of the Aja coast, was for example a monarch who attempted “to stop the slave trade” and who “could be unpredictably generous, magnanimous in victory and endowed with that sense of humor which men of great heart possess.” Tegbesu (1740-1774), Dahomey's best known eighteenth-century monarch, we are told, was a ruler who “greatly enriched both the monarchy and the general populace” and who created “an orderly contented community.”
A Note on the Archives of the Propaganda Fide and Capuchin Archives
Authors: Thornton John K. 
Published: May 2006

The formation of the Holy Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith in 1622 as a part of the Papacy's attempt to centralize control over overseas missions in Roman hands led to the formation of one of the most important archival deposits in Europe for documentation pertaining to Africa in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Archivio “De Propaganda Fide” in Rome. This Roman-directed missionary organization sent its priests to every corner of the globe, relying especially for its African enterprises on Italian clergy of the Capuchin order. In connection with research on the history of the kingdom of Kongo in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, I have worked extensively with materials frcm both the archives of the “Propaganda Fide” and various deposits of the Capuchin order, including a personal visit to the “Propaganda Fide” in January 1978.The Archivio “De Propaganda Fide” is located in Rome at Piazza di Spagna, 48, and when I visited it, it was open only four hours a day from 9:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. every day except Sunday and holidays. Aside from the short hours, however, the archive is a pleasant place to work. The staff is friendly and helpful and the reading room well-lighted and well-appointed. In addition, the material is extremely well indexed and easy to use, so that the researcher who knows the system will have no difficulty in locating relevant material with a minimum of leafing and surveying. Fr. Lowrie J. Daly, has described the organization of the collection.
Hunters or Hunted? Towards a History of the Okiek of Kenya
Authors: Distefano John A. 
Published: May 2006

In the historiography of east Africa, hunter-gatherers have been given occasional mention almost since the beginning of European contacts with the interior. Early European travelers, hunters, and colonial administrators all took note of the ubiquitous “Dorobo,” as these hunters have come to be known in the literature. Furthermore, oral tradition collections from among east Africa's food-producing populations generally recall an earlier hunter-gatherer community who are said to have “disappeared,” “gone underground,” or were “driven away.”Recent scholarship has attempted to look at these hunter groups in economic terms: (1) as a stage of economic development before achieving a “higher” level of production; (2) as a retrograde step from a food-producing economy; or (3) simply as a mode of production. But east Africa's hunter-gatherers remain inadequately dealt with in historical literature, primarily because they have usually been ignored by researchers but also because of their neighbors' and the academic community's prejudicial or misconceived notions about them.To begin, some of the literature concerning these people will be selectively surveyed to see how ideas about them have developed. Next an attempt will be made to identify and delineate properly the various groups of hunter-gatherers living in East Africa today and in the recent past. Finally, the largest remaining community of hunter-gatherers, those living in the western highlands of Kenya who usually call themselves “Okiek,” will be looked at more closely in an attempt to advance the discussion of hunter-gatherers in general by presenting some observations concerning their socio-economic history.
Value-Orientation in Historical Research and Writing: The Colonial Period in African History
Authors: Simensen Jarle 
Published: May 2006

The aim of this paper is to use African historiography as an example of how value-orientations influence historical research and writing. This can be seen as a contribution to the never-ending discussion about the problem of objectivity in history. African historiography is particularly well suited for such an analysis. Its birth as a separate area of academic study after World War II was partly the result of internal, professional developments, such as the establishment of African universities, the postwar development of the social sciences, interdisciplinary research, and a more global orientation in the Western academic world. But it was also closely related to external political and ideological developments, like African nationalism, decolonization, the cold war, development aid, and the rise of new left movements in the Western world. The subject matter of modern African history is of obvious significance not only for Africans, but also for the self-image of Europe and for the relationship between Africa and the West: the nature of European expansion, the role of capitalism in the development of the modern world, the concept of imperialism, and the global relevance of democracy and socialism. The interconnections between ideology and history are therefore particulary clear in this field.The plan of the paper is to discuss how value-orientations within the different schools of history in this field reveal themselves in the choice of themes, in causal explanation, in basic concepts and in counterfactual argument. The term “value-orientation” I will define so as to cover interests, ideals, and personal identification. I will distinguish between three main “schools,” the term being used in the broadest sense of the word: the colonial school, also covering later historians writing in the same tradition; the Africanist school, dominant since the late 1950s; and the radical (“neo-Marxist,” “dependency,” “under-development”) school, influential since its emergence in the 1970s.