According to a partial census taken in 1960, Bamako city has about 130,000 inhabitants. Small by Western standards, it is still by far the largest city in Mali. At the time of the French conquest Bamako had only between 800 and 1,000 inhabitants; it was the capital of a Bambara chiefdom, grouping about thirty villages on the north bank of the Niger river, with a total of about 5,000 people. The ruling dynasty was that of the Niaré, who, according to their traditions, came from the Kingi eleven generations ago (between 1640 and 1700). For defence against the neighbours and armed slave-raiders fortifications were built around the town and a permanent army of so-fa (horsemen) was raised. Soon after its foundation Bamako attracted Moslem Moors from Twat who settled as marabouts and merchants under the protection of the Niaré's warriors. Among them, the Twati (later to be called Touré) and the Dravé became, alongside and sometimes in competition with the Niaré, the leading families.

The Sandawe of central Tanzania speak a click language which shows no relationship with the languages of their Bantu-speaking neighbours, nor with any of the other non-Bantu languages in the neighbourhood; rather, it may be remotely related to the Khoisan languages of South Africa, in particular to Nama Hottentot. Physically the Sandawe differ to a degree from their neighbours, and their closest affinities may again be with Hottentot peoples. Sandawe material culture also differs to a degree from the cultures of their neighbours; like them, the Sandawe have an economy which largely depends on cattle-keeping and horticulture, but it is less sophisticated and their reliance on food-gathering and hunting is still considerably greater. Considering this difference in background it would be not at all surprising if their system of beliefs also showed differences. Comparisons cannot yet be profitably made, however, because little has so far been published about Sandawe religion, except a paper by van de Kimmenade and some details which can be found in the writings of Dempwolff and Bagshawe. In his ethnographic survey Huntingford draws our attention to the lack of knowledge of Sandawe religious beliefs, pointing out that these have been imperfectly recorded; yet he recognizes that the moon (láb′so or !áoso) and the sun (//′akásu) occupy a central position in Sandawe religion, which he summarizes as follows:

It appears that the sun and the moon are regarded as supreme beings, and that propitiatory sacrifices are made to the ancestral spirits who can do both good and evil to mankind.

This paper discusses the intertwining of the obligations among close friends and kin and the firms of market sellers in Monrovia, Liberia. The literature on entrepreneurship in Africa in many respects has been a debate on the relation between kinship obligations and the relative success of entrepreneurs. Based on data gathered during the early 1950s (e.g. Bauer, 1963: 7–8; Dorjahn, 1962), a consensus of sorts was reached by the early 1960s (e.g. Hunter, 1962: 140) holding that kinship obligations were either drains on the capital of entrepreneurs or hindered capital accumulation. At worst, such obligations were regarded as the primary cause of business failure among African entrepreneurs. At best, they were considered to be the main reason for the lack of growth in firms run by African entrepreneurs. Data gathered since the mid 1960s, however, have run counter to these earlier assessments. Rather than suggesting that kinship obligations were threats to entrepreneurs, these studies (e.g. Isaac, 1969,1971; Jones, 1969; Nafziger, 1969) made the points that such obligations had little to do with business failure, and, especially in the early stages of growth (cf. Benedict, 1968), were often critical to the success achieved by an entrepreneur. In making these points, however, relatively little attention has been paid to explaining why kinship and equivalent obligations are, on balance, beneficial for the entrepreneurs investigated. In over-all agreement with these recent studies, the data from Monrovia illustrate procedures through which entrepreneurs achieve the balance between demands and assistance determining the role—beneficial or detrimental—kinship and equivalent obligations play in their businesses.

What happens when women are denied access, over a long period of time, to formal education of the type men are given? This paper is a preliminary examination of the effects on Central Accra Ga society of this process, which began in a significant form in the nineteenth century. It posits a detrimental effect, not only on the women but also on the whole society, and on the relation between the sexes, of the systematic channelling of men into Western style education, while women were encouraged to stay in trading and home production, or given the equivalent of ‘home economics’ courses if they were sent to school.

This article introduces three models by which it is possible to interpret women's relations to property: the structuralist model, the interactionist model and the entitlement model. By reference to fleldwork carried out in the Kagera region of Tanzania, it discusses the potential of each model to deepen our understanding of women's relations to land and argues that none of the models taken alone is adequate fully to explain the range of ways in which women interact with property in Kagera nor their experiences of struggling over land. The article therefore attempts to construct a theoretical framework for rethinking women and property.

Recent anthropological studies of divination have been marked by renewed and appreciative concern for the epistemological and performative dimensions of divination. Pursuing these recent investigations, and especially their interest in the nature of the knowledge and modes of knowing underlying divinatory ritual, the first part of the article attempts an understanding of the interpretative operations and modalities of knowledge involved in different forms of divination practised in Senegal and Gambia today. At the same time, and somewhat antithetically, it will be argued that the focus on the question of the cognitive nature of divinatory knowledge and the person of the diviner may also be problematic: it may lead to undervaluing the main quality of divination, which lies perhaps not in its cognitive but its consultational properties. Further decentring its initial cognitive outlook, the second part of the article addresses the question of how to understand the fact that within the divinatory discourse itself it is not the diviner but the divinatory apparatus that is being addressed as the source of enunciation. Where, if not in the person of the diviner, is the source of the knowledge underlying and resulting from divinatory procedure to be located? And in how far is it possible, as the title of this article suggests, to conceive of the divinatory process as being autonomous of the expertise and specialist agency of the individual diviner?

People's participation in hometown associations reveals a deep sense of belonging to their home place. It has been argued that promotion of this ‘primary patriotism’ by associations is potentially divisive as it may engender parochialism, increase the focus on autochthony, and enhance ethnicization of the political landscape. Contrasting views, however, do not see hometown associations as necessarily inimical to wider social and political cohesion, but as potential sites for civic engagement and citizenship formation at different levels, reflecting the shifting identity that individuals hold. The article explores these issues among the two main tiers of association in Manyu Division, South-West Province, Cameroon. It briefly describes their history and activities, then considers how the identities mobilizing them are constructed in three interlinked ways: geohistorical and genealogical; neotraditional; and national political. It concludes that while these associations occasionally engage in divisive politics in different spheres, analysis needs to balance this against their other activities and relationships. Most hometown associations continue in their original, social role of mutual support among rural–urban migrants, although their expansion into development at home has had more mixed results. Furthermore, concerns about parochialism are often hard to reconcile with the multiple levels of associational life observed.

In recent years there has been an outpouring of Kenyan scholarship on the ways popular musicians engage with politics in the public sphere. With respect to the rise in the 1990s and 2000s of gospel music – whose politics are more pietistic than activist – this article challenges how to ‘understand’ the politics of gospel music taken from a small speech community, in this case the Meru. In observing street performances of a new style of preaching, ‘lip-synch’ gospel, I offer ethnographic readings of song lyrics to show that Meru's gospel singers can address moral debates not readily aired in mainline and Pentecostal-Charismatic churches. Critical of hypocrisy in the church and engaging with a wider politics of belonging and identity, Meru gospel singers weave localized ethnopoetics into their Christian music, with the effect that their politics effectively remain concealed within Meru and invisible to the national public sphere. While contesting the perceived corruption, sin and hypocrisy in everyday sociality, such Meru gospel singer groups cannot rightly be considered a local ‘counter-public’ because they still work their politics in the shadows of the churches.

Previous contributors to this symposium have described in some detail the problem of culture contact as it appeared to them in their own fields, and the methods they employed in studying it there. I do not propose here to cover similar ground, particularly as I have already published a short statement of the lines along which I have been attempting during the last five years to inquire into the presentday culture of the Kxatla in Bechuanaland Protectorate. My purpose is rather to set down briefly what appear to me as the essential elements to be considered in any field study of modern culture contacts, as reflected, shall we say, in the relations between the European and Native inhabitants of South Africa.

Qu'est-ce-qui suscite des rites religieux de contrôle dans l'état de ‘femme'? Ou plus spécifiquement, qu'est qui suscite un langage d'impureté rituelle dans le sang menstruel? Quelle est la relation entre l'exclusion du sacré et l'exclusion du pou-voir? Cet article, base sur des études sur le terrain parmi les Eglises ‘priantes’ Aladura du Nigeria (1982 à 1986) examine ces questions dans trois dénominations Aladura. Tandis que ces trois Eglises ‘spirituelles’ ont des caracteristiques simi-laires, étant indigènes, guérissantes et prophétisantes, le statut et le rôle des femmes dans leurs structures organiques respectives varient considérablement. Les façons dont une idéologic d'impureté influence ou n'influence pas les relations entre les sexes et les relations du pouvoir sont examinees, et un cadre explicatif est suggéré pour évaluer de telles variations.

One of the more interesting historiographical debates that emerged in the course of the great burst of research into Akan (actually primarily Asante) history during the 1950s and 1960s concerned the ‘structure’ of the Asante empire, or ‘Greater Asante’ as one of the contributors to the debate, Kwame Arhin, has termed it (Arhin, 1967). The debates have largely been informed by a synchronic, ‘centrist’ approach; that is, by an approach that views the imperial structure at a given point in time, and primarily from the perspective of the political centre, the capital town of Kumase. The 1970s have seen a proliferation of regional studies of the Akan and their neighbours, and so it is perhaps time to reopen the debate on the nature of the Asante imperial order from a broader perspective, one that is both more sensitive to change over time and includes the emerging views from the periphery (see, for example, Berberich, 1974; Case, 1979; Ferguson, 1972; Greene, 1981; Haight, 1981; Handloff, 1982; Sanders, 1980; Weaver, 1975; Yarak, 1976). The present paper first briefly sketches the social and political setting in nineteenth-century Elmina (εdena), then critically reviews the historiographical debate over the structure of Greater Asante, and lastly offers an alternative approach to the study of Greater Asante based on a case study of the history of Asante relations with Elmina.

Spatial mobility is one of the most striking characteristics of Hausa history and society. The Hausa provide us with an opportunity for exploring a number of emic categories of spatial mobility, including migration, and the cultural content and values which they attach to these categories. As Spradley has recently suggested, in order to achieve an integration of the anthropological study of migration, we need ‘systematic ethnography which seeks to describe the emics of spatial mobility and … discussion of native categories for spatial movement (as well as) a systematic attempt to discover their definitions of migration’ (Spradley 1973 : 546). To achieve a cultural analysis of a category of migration in this spirit, this paper will concentrate on what the Hausa call yawon Dandi, ‘the walk of Dandi’ ,yawon duniya, ‘the walk of the world’, or yawon bariki, ‘the walk to the barracks’, terms used interchangeably by my informants. This category most typically comes into play when a migrant seeks liberation from social constraints, and it has played a significant part in the formation of the Hausa diaspora.

The Tuareg are Berber-speaking ‘semi-nomadic pastoralists’. The Northern Tuareg, comprising the Kel Ahaggar and Kel Ajjer, inhabit the Central Saharan massifs of Ahaggar and Ajjer in Southern Algeria. The Southern Tuareg, namely the Kel Adrar, Kel Ayr, Kel Gress, Kel Tadamakat, Iwllemmeden, etc., are found throughout much of Mali and Niger. Each of these groups constitutes a separate, independent federation. This paper is concerned with the Kel Ahaggar who number about 5000–6000.

In writing the history of the Gbaya-speaking peoples, a group of some half-million population inhabiting east-central Cameroon and the western third of the Central African Republic, we are seldom able to recount the careers of famous individuals, and genealogical charters which link present leaders with long-dead heroes are uncommon. For the most part, in the pre-colonial and early colonial periods, the Gbaya were not organized politically at a level greater than very localised, clan-based groupings, and political leadership was more a matter of competition for short-lived political powers among locally influential men than of formally institutionalised chieftaincy (see Burnham, 1980a: 19 et seq.). However, in some cases during the late pre-colonial period, particularly in the westernmost parts of the Gbaya region, certain leaders began to consolidate their positions as a result of political and economic relations with the neighbouring Fulbe states of Adamawa and their associated Hausa and Kanuri traders (Burnham, 1980b). The names of men like Dogo Lokoti, Bafio and Mbartua (Bertoua) then occasionally figure in the oral histories and colonial documents, and we obtain glimpses of their personalities and careers. It is all the more striking, therefore, when we encounter a Gbaya figure who stands out clearly in the historical record. Without a doubt, Karnu, the inspiration behind the movement that has been called the Karnu Rebellion or the ‘War of the Hoe Handle’ in the Gbaya language, is the most widely known name in Gbaya history.

Drawing on fieldwork in a rural area of KwaZulu-Natal, this article shows how people experience government and other institutions in a patchwork of encounters spread out over time, disjointedly, and via various intermediaries. Aspirations change over time and in response to these encounters. Specifically, the article focuses on the setting up of a government-regulated microfinance institution. I consider the divergence between state-led models of ‘entrepreneurship’ and the practice of individuals' engagement with the organization and their own expectations about it. One government stipulation was that the bank demonstrated its effective operation through regular inflows and outflows of cash, prior to paying out any loans. As such, members were encouraged to invest money in order to qualify for a loan at a later stage. I describe the factors that enhanced or inhibited the willingness of members to invest in the bank, arguing that these strategies were influenced not only by existing levels of economic vulnerability experienced by individuals, but also by particular expectations of the bank, including its perceived reliability, stability and degree of formality vis-à-vis existing conceptions about banking. The example demonstrates that processes of formalization are often partial and incomplete. Rather than examining them in the narrow terms of success or failure, the article focuses on the intersection of moral and economic actions that emerge in the prolonged states of limbo that they create.

The type of village polyandry described in this paper is found among the Lele, and possibly among other peoples, living between the Kwilu and the Kasai in the western Belgian Congo. The Pende, the Bunda, and the Dinga are reported to have a similar custom. There is a government ordinance prohibiting polyandry among these tribes, and I have followed this legal precedent in calling the practice polyandry, for lack of a better title. The Lele call it hohombe, or ngalababola, which means ‘wife of the village’. As the hohombe institution is closely connected with village life and politics, I shall begin by giving an outline of village conditions.

The Fipa of south-western Tanganyika are a Bantu-speaking people numbering 78,000 at the last tribal census in 1948. Most of them live on a high and largely deforested plateau bounded on the west by the southern extremity of Lake Tanganyika and on the east by Lake Rukwa. On the plateau, a corridor of land roughly 140 miles long and varying from 30 to 50 miles in width, the Fipa are agriculturalists and raisers of livestock, particularly cattle, goats, and poultry; their principal crops are millet, maize, and beans. Along the shores of the two lakes the Fipa are also fishermen.

The present paper is an attempt to interpret the structural principles of the Nilo-Hamitic age-system and to establish its significance in the wider structure of the Nilo-Hamitic societies. The discussion is based on an analysis of the available anthropological literature. But this literature is extremely uneven and not seldom confusing, so that some aspects of my argument necessarily have but a preliminary value. It will not be possible to produce here all the details of the analysis, which I hope to deal with more extensively in some other place.

Au regard des Kasena, la vie trouve dans la mort sa mesure et sa source de revitalisation. En effet, le défunt survit dans ses descendants et dans l'univers ancestral. Les pratiques funéraires sont trés élaborées. Elles ne sont pas uniquement un reflet des valeurs et des préoccupations d'ordre social, culturel, religieux et psychologique partagées par le groupe, mais bien davantage une modalité d'élaboration revigorante de celles-ci: la vie sociale et culturelle se regénère au travers la mort et les funérailles d'un membre qui, lui-même, accède à un état de vie fondatrice de celle de ses descendants. A base d'une recherche dans le milieu d'origine de l'auteur, on se concentre en particulier sur les funérailles premières pour adultes. La description détaillée est suivie d'une analyse des congruences surprenantes entre rites de naissance et rites funéraires. L'examen porte ensuite sur «la maison» ou «la chambre» créée dans le sol—soit dans la chambre maternelle même, soit dans un champ voisin vers l'est—pour accueillir le mort comme dans une extension fondatrice, voire dans «les entrailles» de la demeure des survivants.

The idea of founding the Institute crystallized at a meeting of missionaries, and others, which was held at High Leigh in September 1924. Dissatisfaction with the prevailing order of things occupied the minds of all who were faced with the burning problems in Africa at that time. They were not content to allow a negative policy of drift to continue. They realized that they were confronted with one of the major problems of our age. They saw the need for an application of scientific method to a solution of the questions arising generally from the contact of Western civilization with African culture and particularly from the attempt to educate Africans on modern lines. The rapid opening of Africa to all the influences of Europeanism, they were convinced, called for an advance in the education of the peoples of Africa through the medium of their own forms of thought. The linguistic question was seen to lie at the root of the problem. The more systematic study of African languages, of their relative importance and uses, of their orthography, was deemed to be urgently necessary if the progress of education was not to be retarded, or rendered impossible, through the prevailing confusion and lack of co-operation between governments, missionary societies, and scientific experts. Such were the ideas in the minds of those who took part in that meeting nine years ago and embodied in a memorandum which they drew up. These problems had already been raised in New York after the return of Dr. Jesse Jones and Dr. Aggrey from West Africa before the departure of the Phelps Stokes Education Commission to East Africa. It seemed to us at High Leigh that the time was ripe for the setting up of an organization to carry out these ideas. We thought then modestly of ‘A Bureau of African Languages and Literature’. Probably not one of us had a prevision of whereunto the thing would grow.