Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T20:10:49.419Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Batwa: Who are They?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

M. D. W. Jeffreys
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There are no such people, any more than there were such people as the Philistines.

In ‘L'origine du nom Fulani’, I showed that the words ‘Philistine’ and ‘Fulani’ come from a common root F-L which in the Indo-European languages means ‘foreigner, stranger, alien’ and, by a secondary meaning, ‘inferior’. Consequently there is no single group of people represented by the word ‘Philistine’ any more than there can be any special group represented by the word ‘Foreigner’. Such names are coined on the well-known principles of ethnocentrism, whereby one calls one's own group ‘The Men’ and all others ‘Outsiders’. Thus Meek writes that the Bachama tribe, Northern Nigeria ‘. . . call themselves the Gboare or Men, a term which is doubtless the same as Gbari (the name of a large tribe in the Niger and Zaria provinces), Bari (in Eastern Sudan) and Ka-Bwari (Tanganyika). The root gba = man is also found in the Upper Ituri regions of Central Africa under the form mu-gba or ba-gba.’

Résumé

LES BATWA: QUI SONT-ILS?

Cet article considère la signification du terme Batwa, qui, sous un nombre de formes différentes, se trouve appliqué dans plusieurs régions de l'Afrique (et, dans un cas, dans l'lnde) à un grand nombre de peuples divers. Pendant longtemps on supposait que ce mot était un nom de tribu, dérivé du mot bantou, signifiant ‘petit’, et qu'il servait à dénommer les pygmées. Plusieurs savants, cependant, constatèrent des cas où ce mot était appliqué à d'autres peuples, par exemple, les Boschimans, les Zoulous, les Nguni, ainsi que des cas où le mot semble signifier ‘esclaves’, ‘domestiques’, ‘gens des forêts’, etc. L'auteur émet l'opinion que la véritable signification du mot est ‘étranger’, et qu'il sert à dénommer toute personne qui n'appartient pas au propre groupe de celui qui parle. L'auteur donne des exemples d'autres mots qui ont une signification semblable, et qui sont employés de la même façon. II suggère, également, que le mot peut être dérivé d'une racine sémitiquechamitique, signifiant ‘étranger’, qui n'a pas été découverte jusqu'à présent, et que l'étendue de son usage en Afrique et dans l'lnde témoigne de l'influence arabe.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 23 , Issue 1 , January 1953 , pp. 45 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1953

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ananikan, M. H., and Werner, H.The Mythology of all Races: Armenian and African. Boston, 1925.Google Scholar
Anonymous. Nomads, . Encyclopaedia Britannica. 14th ed.Google Scholar
Anonymous. Nomads, . Africa Pilot. 8th ed., London, 1930.Google Scholar
Bryant, A. T.Olden Times in Zululand and Natal. 1929.Google Scholar
Budge, E. A. Wallis. Hieroglyphic Vocabulary to the Book of the Dead. London, 1911.Google Scholar
Bullock, C.The Mashona. Capetown, 1927.Google Scholar
Bullock, C.The Mashona and the Matabele. Capetown, 1950.Google Scholar
Burrows, G.The Land of the Pygmies. London, 1898.Google Scholar
Cook, A. B.Zeus. Cambridge, 1914.Google Scholar
Crawford, O. G. S.The Fung Kingdom of Sennar. Gloucester, 1951.Google Scholar
Dames, M. L.The Book of Duarte Barbosa. Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., vols. xliv and xlix. London, 1918, 1921.Google Scholar
Doke, C. M.The Lambas of Northern Rhodesia. London, 1931.Google Scholar
Hambly, W. D.Ethnology of Africa. Chicago, 1930.Google Scholar
Hunter, W. W.The Imperial Gazetteer of India. 2nd ed., London, 1886.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, M. D. W. ‘L'origine du nom Fulani’. Bulletin de la Société d'Études Camerounaises, No. 5. Duala, 1944.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, M. D. W. ‘The Wanderers.’ African Affairs, vol. xlv, no. 178, 1946.Google Scholar
Johnston, H. H.George Grenfell and the Congo. London, 1908.Google Scholar
Johnston, H. H.A Comparative Study of the Bantu and Semi-Bantu Languages. 2 vols., Oxford, 1919, 1922.Google Scholar
Lane-Poole, E. H.The Native Tribes of the East Lungua Province of Northern Rhodesia. Livingstone, 1934.Google Scholar
Meek, C. K.Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria. London, 1931.Google Scholar
Meinhof, C.Die Sprache der Herero in Deutsch-Südwestafrika. Berlin, 1909.Google Scholar
Meinhof, C.African Languages. London, 1915.Google Scholar
Meinhof, C., and Van Warmelo, N.Bantu Phonology. Berlin, 1932.Google Scholar
Migeod, F. W. H.Across Equatorial Africa. London, 1923.Google Scholar
Murray, R. W.South Africa from Arab Domination to British Rule. London, 1891.Google Scholar
Posselt, F. W. T.A Survey of the Native Tribes of Southern Rhodesia. Salisbury, 1927.Google Scholar
Reisner, G. A. ‘Outline of the Ancient History of the Sudan.’ Sudan Notes and Records, vol. ii, no. 1, 1919.Google Scholar
Schapera, I.The Khoisan Peoples of South Africa. London, 1930.Google Scholar
Schwartz, E. H. L.The Kalahari and its Native Races. London, 1928.Google Scholar
Sicard, H. Von. ‘The origin of some of the tribes in the Belingwe Reserve.’ NADA, vol. xxv, 1948; vol. xxvii, 1950.Google Scholar
Stanley, H. M.Through the Dark Continent. London, 1878.Google Scholar
Stow, G. W.The Native Races of South Africa. London, 1905.Google Scholar
Torday, E.African Races. London, 1930.Google Scholar
Torrend, J.A Comparative Grammar of the South African Bantu Languages. London, 1891.Google Scholar
Vedder, H. ‘The Berg Damara’ in Hahn C. H. L., The Native Tribes of South West Africa. Capetown, 1928.Google Scholar
Vedder, H.South West Africa in Early Times (Trans, by Hale, C. G.). London, 1938.Google Scholar
Viehe, G.Grammatik des Otjiherero. Berlin, 1897.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Werner, A.The Language Families of Africa. London, 1925.Google Scholar