Whether public policies concerning family planning involve legislative or educational programs, their impact depends upon an analysis of patterns of family formation. But to merely identify the direction and the magnitude of overall aggregate trends in this regard is insufficient. While programs of family planning aim at satisfying the requirements of a national and hence uniform policy, their success depends upon a problematic lack of variability in the relevant behaviours across the various social and ethnic groups located within a particular nation. Accordingly the thrust of the present paper is not only to identify the determinants of child-bearing activities, but also to assess the variability of these determinants along ethnic lines.

Les Berbères de l'Aurès, pour désigner leurs groupes sociaux, utilisent deux mots: harfiqt et εarch L'un, εarch, correspond à la tribu, c'est-à-dire à un groupe politique; l'autre, harfiqt, au groupe familial ou pseudo-familial. C'est la réunion d'un certain nombre de groupes pseudo-familiaux qui constitue une tribu.

En 1460, à la mort de l'Infant Henri, que l'histoire a surnommé le Navigateur, les découvreurs portugais s'étaient déjà avancés jusqu'au dela de Sierra Leone. Avec la disparition du chef qui en avait été l'âme, les expéditions se ralentirent forcément. Elles ne cessèrent cependant point tout-à-fait, et, durant les années qui suivirent, Pero de Cintra et Soeiro da Costa dépassèrent le Cap des Palmes et parvinrent jusqu'aux alentours du Cap des Trois Pointes.

During a recent survey of the non-Mande languages of Guiné (Portuguese Guinea), the writer took notes on the systems of numeration, and observed some of the ways of counting and indicating totals on the fingers and hands. It was found that a comparison of the numeral stems gives a fair index of the degree of lexical affinity between any of the languages.

This article seeks to examine the dynamic transformation in the system of labour mobilization and the consequent intermingling of peoples of diverse cultural background in northern Sidama, Ethiopia. It investigates the different labour recruitment strategies deployed in the study area at different times, ranging from traditional to hired labour. In the former case, the household plays a major role in the recruitment and supply of agricultural labour, whereas in the latter case, ‘trans-locality’ reinforced by migration becomes central to the labour history of the region. In the 1940s and 1950s, Emperor Haile Selassie I granted large estates of land in the study area to absentee landowners who started schemes of commercial coffee farming. The subsequent expansion of commercialized coffee farming in a locality called Wondo Gänät (northern Sidama) from the 1950s onwards was responsible for the introduction of agricultural wage labour into the wider region. There was no local surplus labour to satisfy the labour needs of the new coffee farms. This void was later filled by Kembata, Hadiya and Wolayita migrant labourers who flocked into the study area from regions widely noted for their scarcity of arable land. This translocal movement of workers paved the way for the beginning of wage employment and eventually the commodification of farm labour in line with capitalist agriculture. Although commercial coffee plantations provided the initial stimulus for labour commodification in the study area, sugar cane-based cash cropping has helped it flourish even further. I argue in this article that the imperial land grants of the late 1940s and 1950s were an important milestone both for the agricultural history of the study area and for the organization of farm labour. Most importantly, I also argue that some of the social tensions and conflicts that often haunt contemporary northern Sidama are legacies inherited from the labour migrations of the 1950s and 1960s and the demographic heterogeneity that ensued.

Since 1991 Salafism has gained renewed strength in Ethiopia, spurred increased tensions within the Muslim community, and created concern among the Christian population. This contribution focuses on the early emergence of Salafism in the area of Bale, currently one of the movement's strongholds. It discusses its initial arrival in south-eastern Ethiopia, and pays particular attention to the developments in Bale during the 1960s. Challenging the notion that treats Islamic reform as seemingly homogeneous and as ‘foreign’ – distinctly separated from ‘local’ Islam – the contribution explores the arrival of the Salafi teaching from Saudi Arabia, and follows the process of reform embodied in an emerging group of local merchants and in graduates returning from studies in Saudi Arabia. The contribution highlights how socio-economic changes and developments of infrastructure facilitated the emergence of new groups of actors, transcending local boundaries and actively generating novel discourses about religious symbols and practices. It also demonstrates how a diversified body of situated actors was crucial for the appropriation and domestication of the Salafi message, and points to the trajectory of reform as a dialectical process of moulding that related such influences to the local context.

The relationship between the living and the dead looms large in Africa, but the study of such interactions is notoriously fraught with pitfalls and perhaps only now are we equipped with a valid conceptual framework to enable us to deal adequately with the problems posed by ancestor worship and by the various spirits of the dead in Africa. Fortes (1965: 16—20; 122—142) first gave us a comparative framework of ancestor worship in Africa but part of his conceptualization has been recently questioned by Kopytoff (1971) who argues that the distinction between elders and ancestors is not as clear cut as our own implicit dichotomy would seem to imply. However, his argument, stressing a continuity between the living and the dead, leaves out the fact that elders, when they die, very often become ancestor spirits and, even if they do not become such, take on new qualities and new powers that are different in nature from those they held when alive (Brain 1973; Sangree 1974).

Le rituel du partage de nourriture par les anciens est présenté ici comme servant de métaphore pour le code culturel des Sadāma d'Éthiopie. Ceci est une façon de démontrer que le rituel autour de la consommation de nourriture change tout aussi bien que les événements socio-politiques, et que ce rituel doit être continuellement l'object de discussion et de débat afin d'arriver à un consensus sur la question d'exatitude “commensale”. Ce processus de rituels élaborés constitue une comparaison entre la manière consensuelle par laquelle les anciens doivent faire la politique et celle par laquelle ils doivent apaiser les disputes. Cet article montre qu'il y a des limites bien déterminées à ce système et aux valeurs du code culturel au-delà des frontières de “Sidāmoland”. Ceci sert à mettre au point le dilemme actuel entre le gouvernement et les relations ethniques en Afrique.

Hausa is primarily a linguistic term but it has definite cultural connotations and refers to the Hausa-speaking Muslim populations of Northern Nigeria and adjoining French territories, who are typically organized in large centralized states. Such a definition excludes the pagan Maguzawa, whose native speech is also Hausa, and it ignores ethnic differences between the indigenous Habe, who were conquered by Fulani in the ‘Holy War’ of 1804-10, the settled Fulani, who now form the ruling group in most of the states, and the large assimilated populations of slave origin in Hausa communities.

Our Institute should, from the very beginning of its activities, both in connexion with languages and with the cultures of the African native, bear in mind its ultimate aim, and not be satisfied with the mere introduction of more or less casual individual measures. This should not be interpreted as the pedantry of the German professor, nor should the contention be put forward that British experience goes to prove that such matters must be dealt with as they arise without considering future possibilities too seriously. In my opinion it is, on contrary, typically British to take distant ultimate aims into consideration at an early stage of the proceedings, and to bear them in mind while maintaining flexibility in the intermediate stages and adapting them on a wide scale to present contingencies.

The village of Ulu lies at about latitude 10° N. between the White Nile and the Blue Nile in the southern part of the Fung area of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The surrounding country is mostly thin savannah on black cotton soil but there are occasional outcrops of laterite as at Ulu itself. Water-holes are found and may be made in the larger watercourses after these have dried up at the termination of the rainy season. The dry season is roughly December to May. The inhabitants of Ulu call themselves Fung and are black Moslems of a possibly aboriginal stock. Wandering Araboid nomads of the Mesallamia and other tribes with camels, cattle, sheep, and goats may be encountered visiting traditional grazing areas. The Fung of Ulu cultivate millet, cow-peas and sesame seed as subsistence crops and in normal times surplus is bartered with the nomads for animals and no doubt clarified butter also. A small amount of cash is obtained by the gathering of acacia gum which is disposed of through the local Arab merchant.

The tribes living round Lake Tumba, a lake some thirty-five miles long by twelve wide lying north of Lake Leopold II (approximately o° 30′ south latitude, and 18° east longitude) and draining into the Congo River at the confluence of the Ubangi, lack cohesion and show a considerable variety of custom and language. But they are known collectively as Tumba, the Government adaptation of the Native term Ntomba. Most of them are found to the east of the lake, the whole group numbering perhaps little more than forty to fifty thousand at the present time, though there is evidence that the last twenty years have seen a great decrease in population. European occupation of this area goes back barely fifty years, Protestant missions having been established for about the same length of time. The first mission post was established at Ikoko on the north-east shore of the lake, one of the villages of a group known as Bonginda. In pursuing this investigation particular attention has been given to the practices of this group, but mention is occasionally made where considerable differences have been found elsewhere.

Since 1985, when the International African Institute took the initiative of organising a one-day seminar entitled ‘The Book Famine in Africa’, awareness has grown of the difficulties African scholars face through lack of access to recently published books and journals. Scarcity of locally published material in specialised educational fields means that imported books are—and will remain for some time—the only way in which library collections can be sustained and developed. In countries experiencing economic decline and a shortage of foreign exchange, the role of international donors in tertiary-level library development becomes critical. It has not always been possible, however, for institutions to know whom to approach for assistance.

From time to time there have appeared in this journal notes on the lingua franca spoken along the central section of the River Congo. On the usual principle of discarding the prefix in referring to the names of Bantu languages, this lingua franca has been called Ngala. In this case, however, we are obliged to retain the prefix to avoid confusion, as there exists in this area more than one language whose name is derived from this stem.

Cet article cherche à expliquer pourquoi les antropologues sociaux qui travaillaient au sud de l'Afrique dans les années 1930 avaient tant de mal à distinguer entre les varies traditions et les traditions inventées, ou les vieilles traditions et les coutumes renouvellées. La partie principale de cet article consiste en un compte rendu contemporaire de l'histoire d'un aspect coutumier. La coutume en question est liée au contrôle de “l'âge-grade”, cʼest à dire le système régimental de l'âge quand les hommes se marient dans la société Swazi. L'article examine quelles étaient les intentions des autorités Swazi, sous le contrôle du chef souverain, Sobhuza II, quand elles ont essayé de renouveller, à la fin des années 1920 et au début des années 1930, la coutume de faire payer une amende aux hommes qui se mariaient avant que leur régiment, ou “l'âge-grade”, ne leur en ait eu donné la permission.

Il considère aussi l'attitude des membres de l'administration coloniale envers le renouveau de cette coutume et la part jouée par les membres de l'administration, en particulier A. G. Marwick, dans la formulation d'un agenda “traditionaliste”. Il examine aussi la manière dont laquelle les antropologues sociaux tel que Winifred Hoernlé, Isaac Schapera, Bronislaw Malinowski et Hilda Kuper, avaient été recrutés pour supporter le programme “traditionaliste” de Sobhuza II. Il note l'échec de ces antropologues quant à commenter sur le fait que cette coutume était en train d'être renouvellée et cherche à expliquer leur insistance sur la continuité.

Il cherche, par essence, à montrer ce quʼil y avait dans l'environnement du Swaziland dans les années 1930 qui avait amené tous ces observateurs intelligents soit à décrire ce quʼils nʼavaient pas vu ou bien à ne pas décrire ce quʼils avaient vu. Il suggère quʼil y avait des liens entre les idées des administrateurs, antropologues, et “traditionalistes”.

Les Azza appartiennent au vaste groupe culturel formé par les Teda et les Daza, qu'on appelle communément Toubou, population islamisée dispersée au Nord du Tchad sur un territoire d'environ deux millions de km2 et que se partagent les deux Républiques, celle du Niger et celle du Tchad.

Artisans castés, les Azza dépendaient autrefois des Daza: émancipés depuis quelques années, ils adoptent petit à petit le mode de vie de leurs anciens maîtres, éleveurs de bovidés dans cette zone sahélo-soudanaise où ils côtoient d'autres populations pastorales: Arabes Choa, Arabes Ouled Sliman, Peuls.

According to the last census (1952) the population of Bida, capital of the Emirate of the same name in Niger Province, Nigeria, is about 26,000, of which some 2,000 are listed as craftsmen. But many Bida men described in the census as having other occupations, most women, and many children are to some extent craft-workers, either part-time or spasmodic, often skilled in several crafts.

Following a localized Hutu uprising in 1972, the Tutsi-dominated state in Burundi embarked on a vast series of reprisals across the country, leaving between 100,000 and 300,000 dead. Prominent political leaders were liquidated, Hutu who were able or learning to read were arrested, and many who had achieved any marginal level of exceptionality in economic success or other social achievement were accused of treason and murdered. Described as a ‘selective genocide’, the means of this violence proved deeply informative of its nature and of the experience of those caught up in the bloodshed. In the northern province of Ngozi, selection was managed through roadblocks and lists of names, creating the inescapable image of a totalitarian and bureaucratic state order. These methods fuelled a strong reaction of obedience, both among the youth and other agents of the state who took part in the arrests, and among the victims, who are commonly described as reacting with ‘docility’ to the violence. A matter of ‘law-making violence’, the selective means of the genocide shaped the political and social order that emerged from it, the ‘implements’ of genocide substantially contributing to the recognition of discrete ethnic communities among the population at large.

We have no plausible evidence to suggest that the Yorùbá and the Bààtonu are not autochthonous populations of the territories identified as homelands for them south and west of the confluence of the rivers Niger and Benue. This article uses tangible linguistic and cultural data to question hypotheses of migration from the Middle East, with echoes of Semitic heritage. On the one hand, cognate elements that are clearly identifiable argue for an enduring historical relationship between these two peoples; on the other, probative elements that are shared with other peoples and cultures in the sub-region rule out any suggestion of a conspiracy among all of them to migrate from the Middle East to West Africa in some discoverable historical past.