The Louedu of the NE. Transvaal are patrilineal and marriage, which is patrilocal, involves (as it does among other S. Bantu tribes) the transfer of munywalo. This,institution has been variously interpreted as the legalization of the marriage, as a guarantee of a wife's status or good behaviour, and in terms of compensation, economic or ritual. But these interpretations are rather like parodies in which the emphasis on the features mentioned is not so much wrong as a caricature. We have, often complacently, projected our own values and motivations as universally valid. Much might be said in favour of such a caricature, if it is infused with the life of a character in Dickens, especially when the purpose has been to ennoble an institution which many regard as degrading. The kindly cartoon is better than the derogatory stereotype. It would, however, be better still if we could accommodate ourselves to a system in which the social arrangements are incommensurable with our own. More specifically, and that is the purpose of this article, we might try to discover the real place of munywalo in the social system. The manner in which we phrase the subject, that is, as the relation of the cattle exchanges to the social structure, is not meant to disguise our approach. It is intended to focus attention on the facts that cattle constitute the essence of munywalo, and that the exchanges of cattle involved are both the basis of important social arrangements and by far the most important use to which cattle are put in the society.

The custom of shutting young girls up at puberty is not uncommon among Bantu tribes, the period varying from the duration of the first menstruation to a matter of months and even years. In the first case she is merely removed from normal social contacts during a short period of crisis, when certain rites must be performed for her own safety and fertility, and possibly the well-being of society generally, and certain lessons regarding personal conduct, not necessarily heard then for the first time, must be finally driven home in a manner and in an emotional atmosphere calculated to impress them deeply in her consciousness. In the latter cases the idea is that, in addition to undergoing the safeguarding ritual, the girl should afterwards remain in absolute seclusion until the negotiations regarding her marriage are complete and a substantial part of the bride-wealth has been handed over. I am here concerned with the latter.

Plusieurs auteurs ont signalé l'existence d'une curieuse forme d'alliance, chez les Manding ainsi que chez d'autres peuples du Soudan français. Cette alliance joue entre représentants de groupes déterminés — familles, villages, régions, peuples — porteurs de noms différents. Elle donne lieu à diverses manifestations, dont certaines fort étranges.

Concerning trading in the countryside of North-West Morocco, Michaux-Bellaire and Salmon writing in 1906 about the Ḫloṭ and Tlīq tribes, state:

‘Toute la vie commerciale de la tribu s'écoule cependant sur le marché hebdomadaire. Si on trouve en effet quelques industries, d'ailleurs assez peu développées, dans les douars, le commerce y est totalement inconnu. On n'y rencontre même pas, comme dans quelques dchour djebaliens, de rares baqqâl (épiciers), ou des établissements publics où les paysans, la journée accomplie, viennent boire quelques tasses de thé à la menthe, en fumant le kif’;

and Michaux-Bellaire, writing a few years later about the Jbâla tribes, states that the imported goods, tea, sugar, candles, spices, matches, cotton fabrics, and imported fine-wool fabrics,

‘se trouvent également dans les villages d'une certaine importance’

Die Asu oder Pare, die den dreigliedrigen Gebirgsstock zwischen Usambara und Kilimanjaro im Norden von Tanganyika bewohnen und auf rund 60,000 Seelen angewachsen sind, zählen nicht nur Sonne und Mond sowie eine Reihe von Tieren und Bäumen zu ihren Gottheiten, sondern verehren vor allem einen selbsthergestellten Fetisch von der Grösse und Form eines Gänseeies, den sie auf dem Hausboden auf bewahren und mrungu wa gu, Hausbodengott, nennen. Die Arbeit stellt auf Grund von eingehenden Studien den Versuch dar, die Herstellung und den Kultus dieses Bodengottes zu beschreiben.

Societies And Organizations Not Based On The Gens. The Soldiers of the State. The soldiers are recruited from Grand Cess as a state. The army contains no recognized village or gens units. It is grouped first by age. Then each age group is divided into two divisions—the bobi's men and the tugbewa's men.

The eighteenth meeting of the Executive Council of the Institute was held in London on June 1 and 2, 1939. The meeting took place in the Conference Room at Parliament Square House, which had been placed at the disposal of the Council by the Secretary of State for the Colonies.