Excessive alcohol consumption often appears as an issue of great concern for the friends and family members of drinkers in Uganda, where per capita consumption rates among drinkers are among the highest in the world. In many cases, these families seek care for their loved ones in small shops run by herbalists, in the shrines of spirit mediums, in the pews of churches, or in one of several newly established inpatient rehabilitation centres. Yet, acts of intervention come not only from living family members or friends, but also from an array of spiritual beings who may arrive uninvited and outside intentional therapeutic contexts. In this article, we consider a case in which a mother's spirit intervenes in the life of her son, first by possessing his body and then by continuing to dwell there in ways that make it impossible for him to drink. This case highlights the importance of forces experienced as non-self in life-transforming processes, and demands that we give attention to a moment in a person's life when the work of care is achieved through an act of physical force.

The Fulani people extend across Africa, from Senegal to Dafur, but their origin, like the origin of the universe, is unknown. I have drawn attention to the probable origin of the name Fulani. I propose in this article to review some of the suggested origins of the Fulani language and to put forward a suggestion of my own.

Cet article examine les origines et la viabilité durable de l'identité ethnique Kru au Libéria. Alors que les recherches antérieures ont souligné le role joué dans la création et le maintien d'une identité kru par l'expérience de ceux qui ont migré hors du territoire kru, cet article démontre que les individus et évènements à la fois en ville et en campagne furent intégrés dans un système de rapports sociaux par lequel emergea une identité ethnique kru. En outre, l'intégration de la ville avec la campagne reste une particularité propre à l'ethnie kru, comme en témoigne l'étude de deux aspects de la Société Kru Monrovienne: sa structure organisa-tionelle interne et son role de lien pour les rapports politiques entre le gouverne-ment national et le Kru rural.

The Methodist Church in Ghana, in common with all the missionary-implanted Churches in the area, strongly reflects its Western origins: its organization and polity, its worship and discipline, and its ethos are manifestly those of the British Methodism which gave it birth. Methodist institutions have been present in parts of Ghana, particularly in the coastal strip, for over a century and have thereby become part of the social and religious landscape; but whether they are related to it or rooted in the soil has been seriously questioned. It is therefore all the more notable that within this implanted institutional framework typically Ghanaian attitudes seek expression, and that in one direction at least a Fante cultural form has found an honoured place within the Church's life. This is the Fante lyric.

A number of writers have noted that for East Africa, age organization and lineage organization are structural alternatives. More precisely, Southall (1970) has argued that the full and dominant development of age organization is incompatible with that of a segmentary lineage structure. Forde (1971) has similarly concluded that the two may be alternatives, and that selection between them may be partly dependent on ecological factors. However, I would like to contend that to write of the elaboration, or non-elaboration, of age structures and descent groups or of a conflict of allegiances, may well be a sterile exercise if it is unrelated to an analysis of the mode of livelihood of the people concerned. Furthermore, in light of the modern view of social structure as the outcome, at any point in time, of continuous processes of destructuring and restructuring, the ceaseless turnover of the membership of society, which age structures attempt to reduce to order, can be seen as one of the major sources of these processes, as Bottomore has recently argued (1975). Thus a source of structural stress, and hence ultimately of change, more important, I would argue, than the conflict between age and descent, is that between the generations.

Aen croire les documents anciens, l'histoire des Wolof jusqu'à la conquête coloniale aurait surtout consisté en une succession de pillages, de razzias, de révoltes, d'usurpations sur un territoire divisé en plusieurs royaumes et en état de guerre quasi-permanent. Pour échapper aux razzias des mercenaires ceddo, nombre de paysans badolo se sont convertis à l'Islam et regroupés derrière des marabouts par l'acte de ‘Jibulu’, serment d'allégeance. Pourtant à l'heure actuelle, les Wolof offrent l'image d'une société relativement paisible. Ce que l'opinion publique occidentale considère généralement comme des indices d'agressivité sociale—la criminalité, la délinquance—semble peu développé. Les suicides comme les meurtres sont relativement rares. Des combats d'antan, on ne trouve plus que les compétitions sportives et parmi elles, seule la lutte sénégalaise (lamba) semble susciter quelque intérêt. Il faut encore préciser ce qu'est la lutte sénégalaise. Ses séances se déroulent de la manière suivante: après des heures d'attente pendant lesquelles on parle, les lutteurs (mbör) arrivent, équipés d'un arsenal magique spécifique, avec leurs assistants (suhö) sur un rythme de tambour qui leur est propre. Ils exécutent alors une chorégraphie étrange qui consiste en des simulacres de gestes de saisir, d'attraper qui sont à mi-chemin entre la danse et le simulacre d'empoignade. Les assistants du mbör font les mêmes gestes que lui. Au bout d'un certain temps, se produit la lutte proprement dite, très courte, au terme de laquelle, sans que le spectateur européen comprenne pourquoi, l'un des protagonistes est proclamé vainqueur.

I do not know what events led up to the sorcery hunt in Savelugu, but in Nanton the sorcerer-finders came on the invitation of the Nantonlana. His invitation was given because, it is said, much sorcery was about. The only certain sign of it that I know is that sorcerer's fire was seen at night. Though I have seen this phenomenon three times I do not know what it is. It travels at thirty to forty feet above the ground at considerable speed, flashing on and off, sometimes as bright as a bicycle lamp. It may be a large firefly, though it does not resemble any firefly I have seen close to. In Konkomba country I thought (though I never saw it there) that it might be an effect of marsh gas. Here in Nanton I do not know what it may be.

Les sociétés gbaya et mkako de l'Est-Cameroun constituent une frontière entre deux mondes. Les Mkako sont à la limite bantoue du nord-ouest du bassin congolais tandis que les Gbaya représentent le monde oubanguien dans les savanes à galeries forestières. Qualifiées autrefois d'anarchiques, ces sociétés partagent des caractéristiques communes: acéphales, dénuées de pouvoir politique centralisé, de règies de succession relatives au rôle de leader, sans hiérarchie lignagère ni organisation segmentaire, sans toujours de référence au territoire, elles reposent sur une organisation patriclanique caractérisée par la fluidité des unités sociales dans une disposition où le clan ne constitue pas toujours à proprement parler un groupe «corporate». Enfin, l'un de leurs traits marquant réside dans l'antagonisme entre l'idéologie égalitaire sans cesse affirmée et la compétition des homines importants, ou bien l'émergence de leaders, qui se fondent sur des rapports d'inégalité, aussi ténus qu'ils puissent être.

In the last fifty years certain instances of a special privileged relation between grandparents and grandchildren have been quoted so frequently as to have become almost classic cases. The three most important are those reported for the Dieri tribe of SE. Australia (Howitt 1904), the Pentecost Islanders of Melanesia (Rivers 1914), and the Oraons of Chota Nagpur (Sarat Chandra Roy 1915). In all three cases the system of kinship terms treats grandchildren as if they were in the same generation as their grandparents, but in each report slightly different aspects of the relation between grandparents and grandchildren are emphasized. Among the Oraons it is the bantering mode of conversation between a man and his granddaughter or greatniece ‘in which the two parties habitually act the part of man and wife’ to which attention is drawn, leading to the conjecture that there was formerly a system of marriage between grandparents and grandchildren. In Pentecost Island the classing of alternate generations together in kinship terminology is ‘connected with an ancient social condition in which it was the normal occurrence for a man to marry the granddaughter of his brother’. Among the Dieri tribe the custom of marriage with a daughter's daughter of the man's own brother was reported as actually in practice.

In present-day Valley Korekore society, new opportunities for achieving status have arisen. Alongside traditional institutions, modern political, economic, and religious institutions have developed and, together, these provide a wider and more complex arena than existed in the past in which ambitious individuals compete with one another for prestige, authority, and power.

The introduction of Christian missionary activity and the British colonial administration of Nigeria in the middle of the nineteenth century led to some of the most significant musical changes in the country. Perhaps the most far reaching was the emergence of modern Nigerian art music, a genre which is conceptually similar to European classical music. This study focuses on Ayo Bankole, one of the pioneer composers of Nigerian art music.

As an introductory study of Ayo Bankole, the article briefly discusses the musico-historical factors responsible for the growth of Nigerian art music as well as the nature of Bankole's musical training and experience. This provides an appropriate context for understanding and appreciating the stylistic features of Bankole's works. Drawing on examples from his works, the article establishes the eclectic nature of Bankole's style, in which European and African musical elements interact.

This paper offers an interpretation of some details of the myth and custom of two Nilotic tribes, the Shilluk and the Anuak of the Southern Sudan. Each of these tribes has a noble or royal clan in a centrally important position in its political system, and the royal myths of both tell of the founding of kingship. In both also we find represented in myth a conflict between the first kings and their maternal uncles and grandfathers. It is this representation of conflict which we attempt to explain, by reference to the political structures of the tribes.

The last decade has seen a considerable revival of interest in the physical anthropology of the Bushman-Hottentot peoples. In the period 1952-5 no fewer than 34 papers with a bearing on this topic have been published, of a total of 46 in the decade 1946-55. This contrasts with 7 works in this category in the four years 1948-51. The subject-matter has been shared fairly evenly between studies on the living and those on skeletal remains. In the former category are studies on Nama Hottentots (Wells), Strandlopers (Dart), Koranas (Grobbelaar, Tobias), Sandawe (Trevor), Lake Chrissie Bushmen (Toerien), Northern Bushmen (Wells, Gusinde, Erikson, Williams, Tobias), River Bushmen (Hurwitz and Harington), Central Bushmen (Tobias), hybrids (Trevor, Wells, Tobias), and on blood groups (Zoutendyck, Kopec and Mourant, Grobbelaar). In the second category are craniological studies by Cosnett, Dart, Drennan, Dreyer and Meiring, Grobbelaar, Hope, Keen, Sauter, Tobias, Toerien, Wells, on a variety of recent, proto-historic, and prehistoric remains. Two thirds of all these studies have been focused primarily upon Bushmen. Furthermore, plans for additional anthropometrical and anthroposcopic surveys of surviving Bushmen are at present being elaborated in the Department of Anatomy of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg—from which Department, under the general direction and inspiration of Professor Raymond A. Dart, more than half the studies referred to have emanated. It is hoped that, in the coming years, a series of expeditions will visit Bushman tribes, more particularly in those areas which have not hitherto been studied from a physical anthropological point of view.

This year we celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of our foundation, and it may be appropriate to offer a brief survey of the development of the Institute, and of the manner in which, during these years, the aims of its founders have been pursued. Those aims were set out by Lord Lugard, our first Chairman, in an article printed in the first number of Africa (January 1928).

Where peasant production predominates in the national economy, the state is faced with a difficult dilemma. It must derive its revenues from cash crops, but if it appropriates too much, it will drive peasants out of the cash market and into subsistence (Hyden, 1980; Bunker, 1983b). Many African states have attempted to resolve this dilemma through direct contrôl of crop markets (Bates, 1981). Market control in peasant economies, however, usually offers the major means of wealth and upward mobility at the local level, so different power groups there may challenge the state's hegemony (Saul, 1969; Hyden, 1970). I have already shown how such groups achieved significant control of markets in Bugisu, Uganda (Bunker, 1983a), and how the state responded with periodic interventions to limit their power and autonomy (Bunker, 1983b). In this article, I examine how the Ugandan state has justified its continued intervention in the local economy and how power groups among the Bagisu have legitimated their claims against the state.

Women in the Sierra Leone Protectorate fulfil a role which, as in the case of the men, varies in accordance with their social age. In the early stages there is little distinction between the sexes either in training or in their relation to the rest of the community.

Among the Mende, the arrival of a female child is greeted by the women with even greater delight than is that of a boy. They say that girls do not forget their mothers in time of need as boys sometimes do. A girl, like a male child, is named according to whether she is the first or a subsequent surviving child of her mother; if she is the first she will be known as Boi. The children who follow her may be named after various ancestors, or after important living members of the family. The naming is done four days after birth, and the individual woman, whose name the child is to bear, carries her out in the early morning, faces the sun, spits three times on to the child's face, and says: ‘Resemble me in all my ways and deeds, because you are named after me.’ As an infant, the child is referred to as nyalui, and though she may enjoy the considerable affection of both parents, her social significance is very small. Should she die, there is no crying for her. The corpse is simply wrapped up in leaves and buried under a banana tree, or at some other place where it is customary to deposit rubbish.

One of the Lecturers at the University College of Ibadan recently declared that a vital and often neglected source of information for the would-be anthropologist was the tribal court records. Here, written down with the ingenuous casualness of banality, is a treasure-trove of tribal lore and law, superstitions and suppositions, which can provide the anthropologically minded student with hours of absorbing, and sometimes original, research work. How often do we pause to consider what is entailed in the typical verdict entered in the tribal court book ?

Like many other African peoples the Nuer marry by the family and kin of the bridegroom handing over cattle to the family and kin of the bride. The marriage is brought about by this payment and by the performance of a series of ceremonial acts. Though these ceremonies and payments of cattle proceed pari passu as inter-connected movements towards the completion of the union they can be treated separately. It should be remembered, however, that Nuer do not consider the union to be complete till a child has been born of it, even though spouses may continue to cohabit where the union proves to be unfruitful.