Like many other peoples, the Tswana of Bechuanaland Protectorate often cite proverbs and similar sayings to specify rules of conduct. In this paper I discuss a number of those generally used in the context of litigation; some are statements of general principles, akin to the ‘maxims’ of Roman law, others relate more particularly to judicial procedure. Many were actually quoted at trials witnessed by myself or recorded by clerks of tribal courts, the rest were mentioned incidentally by informants when discussing points of Tswana law. The great majority are classed by the people themselves as ‘proverbs’ (diane, sing. seane), and some of these (though not all) are included in the collections of Tswana proverbs published by Plaatje and Seboni; others were introduced simply by some such phrase as Molao ware, ‘The law says’, or Kamokgwa waSetswana, ‘According to Tswana custom’. Since I am not here concerned with their linguistic aspects, I do not attempt to distinguish recognized proverbs from other kinds of maxim.

For many social anthropologists the problem of divine kingship was solved in 1948 when Professor Evans-Pritchard, in a well-known Frazer Lecture, put a respectably structural interpretation on the facts of the Shilluk case. Divine kingship in Africa was rather an embarrassment because the central tenet of its doctrine—that the king must be killed when he fell sick or grew senile—was usually beyond empirical verification. There was also perhaps some reluctance to accept the explanatory theories of Sir J. G. Frazer when in so many other respects his authority had long since been overthrown. In a single essay Evans-Pritchard appeared to have effectively slain both the problem and its discoverer. Such problems and such intellectual kings, however, have a way of rising from the dead. In this paper I resuscitate in part Frazer's theory of divine kingship and try to show that it illuminates important aspects of the problem which are ignored by the structuralist interpretation. With reference to a single example of divine kingship, that of the Jukun of Northern Nigeria, I utilize two familiar conceptual distinctions—person/office and political/ritual. Complementary to these, and perhaps even more analytically fruitful, is the man-god dichotomy which was one of Frazer's main preoccupations.

The Kru people of Liberia are well known as deck-hands and fishermen all down the west coast of Africa, and they have established ‘colonies’ in most ports from Dakar to Douala—as well as in such distant centres as London, Liverpool, and New York. Little, however, has been published on their history and social structure, and the first part of this article is a contribution towards filling this gap. The second part concerns socio-economic change in one Kru town, Grand Cess, during the present century, and in particular its fission into two geographically and culturally distinct sections: the traditional town and the modern Municipality. The outline of the development of Grand Cess, of present interrelationships between its two main sections, and of the status of each vis-à-vis the central government, serves as an illustration of the Republic's unusual system of local administration. The account is based on three weeks' stay in Grand Cess in 1958, and on discussions with Kru people over a period of a year in Monrovia (1958–9).

Le peuple qui se nomme lui-même ‘Afar occupe entre la mer Rouge et le golfe d'Aden d'une part, et les premières pentes du plateau Abyssin d'autre part, un triangle dont les sommets sont en gros Obok, le pont du Chemin de Fer Franco-Éthiopien sur la rivière Awâch, et la pointe nord de la péninsule du Bôri, au sud-est de Massawa. La superficie en est voisine de 150.000 kilomètres carrés.