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‘Normative’, ‘Recollected’ and ‘Actual’ Marriage Payments among the Lowiili of Northern Ghana, 1951–1966

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Extract

Given that one is attempting to collect information as an academic observer among a people other than one's own, the data on many aspects of that society presented in standard ethnographic analyses must inevitably be thin and inadequate by the current standards of the social sciences. This situation tends to make for a one-sided approach. With a paucity of material at one's disposal, there is an overwhelming tendency to stress the analysis of ‘norms’ (and the more abstract ‘structures’ based upon them) since verbal statements of ‘expected behaviour’ are often more easily gathered than observations of ‘actual’ transactions. On this level, too, the limited number of one's respondents can be bolstered up by resort to linguistic parallels (‘from one informant you can analyse a language’) or by the comforting assumption, nourished by much sociological theory, that simpler societies are more ‘homogeneous’.

Résumé

PAIEMENTS DE MARIAGE ‘NORMAUX ’, ‘ANCIENS ’ ET ‘ACTUELS ’, CHEZ LES LOWIILI (GHANA DU NORD), 1951–1966

Dans cet article, l'auteur présente des données sur les paiements du mariage Lo Wiili, en appendice aux normes donnés dans sa plus récente publication (1956) sur cette population. Il expose l'évolution de l'organisation sociale et considère les effets, sur les paiements de mariage, des changements de structure importants que cette région a subis. Bien que son information sur les paiements de mariage soit maintenant plus adéquate, elle est encore loin d'être satisfaisante, et il examine par conséquent, tour à tour, les différents moyens de recueillir de telles données. Par l'exposé des faits, et au moyen de tableaux, il montre que:

(a) les paiements ‘normaux ’ et ‘anciens ’ sont très semblables;

(b) les cousins-croisés ne reçoivent pas une part privilégiée, mais bénéficient d'une influence importante;

(c) les hommes âgés perdent une part de leurs droits sur les femmes libres en faveur des hommes plus jeunes.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1969

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References

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