The Peabody Harvard Kalahari Expedition, under the leadership of Laurence K. Marshall, has made four field trips between 1950 and 1955 into the Kalahari Desert in South West Africa and the Bechuanaland Protectorate to find and study Bushmen who were living in their own way, and not working for white farmers or for Negroes. The last of the four expeditions, that of 1955, was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution as well as by the Peabody Museum of Harvard.

Our principal study was made with the !Kung Bushmen of the Nyae Nyae region of South West Africa. The Nyae Nyae region extends about 150 miles north and south, about 100 miles east and west, and is centred approximately at Gautscha Pan, which is located at c. 19° 48′ 30″ S. and 20° 34′ 36″ E. on the map of a survey of the area by the Administration of South West Africa dated 7.11.1935. The Nyae Nyae region is separated from the farmed areas of South West Africa by a stretch of waterless, uninhabited country over 100 miles wide.

The Azande are one of the best-known peoples of Africa. Much was written about them by European travellers in the second half of the last century, and there are books on them by de Calonne-Beaufaict, Hutereau, Mgr Lagae, the present writer, and Mr. de Schlippe, as well as a considerable number of articles by various hands, notably by Major Larken. A summary of what is known about them and a full bibliography are contained in The Azande and Related Peoples, by P. T. W. Baxter and Audrey Butt, International African Institute, 195 3. It is therefore unnecessary for me to speak about them in a more general way before discussing the particular topic or this paper. I have only to observe that very little information is to be found in the literature on the subject of border raids and to state that my own research in Zandeland, carried out between 1927 and 1930, was mainly restricted to that part of it which comprised the kingdom of Gbudwe.

In this article and in a succeeding one I give a preliminary account of Nyoro kinship and affinal terms, together with some description of the expected and actual behaviour associated with the categories they denote. I hope at a later date to publish a very much fuller account, but it may in the meantime be useful to put on record a broad outline of the Nyoro system, so far undescribed except for the few pages devoted to it in Roscoe's work. In the present article I discuss Nyoro categories of kin; in the one which follows I shall consider affinal relationships and Nyoro notions about them.

In this paper I illustrate an objective method for the determination of the meaning and values of social institutions, using data on the custom of praise-singing (roko) among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria. To direct attention to the method of analysis clearly, I shall present the field-data and their examination separately. I concluding, I shall indicate certain problems which seem to arise from this paper.

In a recent paper Gluckman puts forward a general hypothesis to account for the wide variation in the frequency of divorce among some African societies. Contrasting the bilateral kinship system of the Lozi of Northern Rhodesia with the strongly agnatic one of the Zulu of Natal, he notes that divorce is common among the former, rare among the latter, and suggests the general hypothesis that stable marriage is associated with patriliny. Gluckman tests this hypothesis against a substantial body of comparative data, drawn mainly from trans-Saharan Africa, and concludes that the available evidence seems generally to support it. He notes, however, that data for many areas are inadequate and he is properly cautious in the face of the methodological difficulties involved in putting such hypotheses to decisive test:

I am aware of the difficulties of establishing the validity of the hypothesis, but even if it is wrong it may be useful. Some of the difficulties are inherent in sociological analysis, since in this there are always complicating variables. Others arise from the vague and embracing use of categories and concepts (of which I too am guilty) such as patrilineal, lineage, marriage, divorce, &c….

I am myself uncertain whether it is the stability of people's attachment to specific areas, or patriliny or father-right itself, or the agnatic lineage, or all of these together, which, whatever the other variables are, tend to be associated with a strong marriage tie.

He concludes by inviting further testing and reformulation of the hypothesis.

N!ow is a belief concerning rain and cold which is held by the !Kung Bushmen in the region around Nyae Nyae in South West Africa.

About ten inches of rain falls in an average year in this part of the Kalahari Desert and sinks into the deep sands. There is no run-off in streams and there are few water holes. The rain is sufficient to support a covering vegetation of grass, shrubs, and scrubby trees. The vegetation includes numerous edible roots, tubers, leaves, fruits, and nuts, for which the Afrikaans language provides the convenient word veldkos.

The Anuak are a Nilotic people of the south-east of the Sudan and adjacent Ethiopia. They may number between 30,000 and 40,000 people, of whom at least two thirds live in Ethiopia, where a number of difficulties prevented me from visiting them. As described in Professor Evans-Pritchard's writings, two somewhat different political systems and forms of rule and leadership are found in the villages of Anuakland. In the south-east, several ecological and other circumstances have favoured the spread of the influence of a noble clan, members of which reign in villages which, according to tradition, were at one time politically isolated from each other and autonomous under local headmen. These villages of the noble clan are drawn, through the nobles associated with them, into competition for the acquisition of a single set of royal emblems, of which the most important are several ancient bead-necklaces. It seems that the influence of this noble clan has spread and is even now spreading farther among the villages of Anuakland, though in the land as a whole most villages are still under the sway of headmen chosen from lineages which traditionally provided them. It is with the organization of these villages, and the way in which their members change their headmen, that this paper deals.

In the course of the investigations carried out by the Missions Griaule in French West Africa during several decades, our attention has been drawn to the fact that numerous populations in the French Sudan and Upper Volta claimed to be descended from a common stock located in Mande. Mande is the traditional centre of the ancient Keita empire (called by the Arabs the Mali empire), which was founded in the thirteenth century by Soundiata Keita. The cultural centre of this area today is Kangaba, which the inhabitants call Kaba. A list of the peoples in West Africa who claim to have come from Mande has been drawn up and published.

In a paper written at the end of 1946 (but not published until 1950), I discussed incidentally the types and frequency of marriages with kin among the Tswana tribes of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. I showed there that such marriages are more usual among nobles (descendants of chiefs) than commoners, and also that the two classes differ in the kinds of relative they mostly marry. Since then I have recorded several other genealogies of both nobles and commoners. This new material provides the opportunity for a more detailed analysis than was previously given of rates and types of kin marriage among the Tswana, and in particular for a discussion of the changes that have taken place during the past few generations.

Miss Ward, in her paper on Some Observations on Religious Cults in Ashanti, maintains that the spread of ‘new witch-finding cults’ in Ashanti results from an emotional malaise deriving from structural changes in the society. The hypothesis is one which has been put forward on other occasions to account for the reported increase in such activities. The basic propositions appear to be four: firstly, that major changes in the social system increase the overall malaise in a society: secondly, that such increased malaise will be reflected in an increase in witchcraft: thirdly, that an increase in witchcraft will be reflected in an increase in witch-finding cults: fourthly, that there has been such an increase in Ashanti.

Lele religious life is organized by a number of cult groups. For a long time they seemed to me to be a collection of quite heterogeneous cults, uncoordinated except for a certain overlap in membership. In one of them, the Diviners' group, entry is by initiation only, though the candidate is supposed to give evidence of a dream summons. In another, the Twin Parents, there is no initiation. Parents of twins have no choice but to pay the fees and become Twin Diviners. In another, the Begetters, candidates must have begotten a child, pay fees and undergo initiation. Members of this group, who have begotten children of both sexes, are qualified for entrance into another group, which makes a cult of the pangolin (manis tricuspis) (see fig. 1). Lastly there are Diviners of God (Bangang banjambi) who are supposed to acquire their power not by initiation, but by direct communication with supernatural beings, the spirits. The primary objects of all these cults are fertility and good hunting.

Situation générale du Problème

L'exemple des Oubi que nous avons choisi pour la présente étude n'est que l'illustration d'un problème plus général qui décidera du proche avenir des économies traditionnelles dans les forêts de l'ouest éburnéen.

En accueillant la culture des plantes industrielles: caféier et cacaoyer, comme une forme nouvelle de leurs activités, les petites unités ethniques de cette zone—jusqu'ici matériellement autonomes—doivent faire appel à toutes leurs ressources morales, afin que leur intégration dans un système économique plus vaste, se réalise sans trop de dommages. Les marchés mondiaux du café et du cacao n'étant pas pour l'instant en cause, le problème immédiat reste en général circonscrit dans le cadre de l'Union Française, plus précisément dans des relations Côte d'Ivoire-métropole.

Readers of Africa will be well aware of population migration as a characteristic feature of a continent where movement between one part and another is largely unrestricted as compared with the more settled parts of the world. There is much evidence of large-scale tribal migrations in the past, of the age-old seasonal wanderings of herders, and of recent labour migration to centres of mineral and industrial production, the last particularly in Central and South Africa. Information is more limited concerning the features of labour migration in West Africa at the present day. In general it is thought that migrants leave their home areas, after the harvest at the commencement of the dry season, to seek work elsewhere for a period of from three to six months and then return to take up farming with the commencement of the next rains. The major source area for these migrants is to the north of the tenth parallel where the wet season is concentrated into a period of about four months, thus severely restricting agricultural activity. Cultivation during the dry season is possible only on a very limited scale. There is thus a considerable period of the year when the primary economic activity of the people is not possible. It is logical that they should seek work elsewhere.

The Luvale in Northern Rhodesia came under British administration in the early years of the present century, the first Government headquarters in Balovale district having been established in 1907. Some time previously, about 1892, they had already come under pressure from the Lozi to the south as a result of Lozi intervention in the war between the Luvale and the Lunda. When, therefore, the Barotseland protectorate was established at the beginning of the century, the Balovale district was included within it. Relations with the Lozi authorities were slight in the early years of British administration; later, about 1930, when the Lozi sought to introduce a greater degree of political control in Balovale district, their relations with the Luvale (and Lunda) became strained. The Luvale chiefs acquired a special role as the focal point of Luvale opposition to Lozi interference, and thereby enhanced their status and prestige in the eyes of their people. The Balovale district was finally excised from Barotseland in 1941 after a Royal Commission had inquired into the dispute. Thereafter certain of the Luvale chiefs were gazetted with de jure recognition under the Native Authorities Ordinance.

The missionary in South Africa found himself, from the earliest years of the 19th century, in an equivocal position, and the role he actually played was the result of the varied and sometimes conflicting hopes and expectations entertained by the Bantu people, by the white settlers and, not least, by the missionary himself. Though he was at this period usually racially tolerant, the missionary was nevertheless out of sympathy with many aspects of traditional Bantu life. There were in consequence certain social changes which he regarded as a necessary preliminary to the establishment of Christianity on a permanent basis. Many of the modifications in Bantu living which the missionary favoured encouraged the gradual transformation of the Bantu population into a reservoir of labour for the growing European economy; while rudimentary education, European crafts, and Christian (or Protestant) individualism, which the missionary taught, contributed to the same end. For this reason, and because of their pacifying influence upon tribes antagonistic to the Europeans, the missionaries enjoyed the support of colonists urgently in need of an amenable labour force. It was widely believed in the early years of the 19th century that only among those Africans who were under missionary influence was there to be found a strong desire to adopt western habits; and colonists who, for other reasons, were not friendly to the missions, freely admitted that personal safety during an armed raid by Bantu tribesmen could be obtained only in refuge at a mission station.

In my general classification of African languages, the so-called ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ languages of East Africa were placed in the same subdivision as the Nilotic languages within a much larger linguistic stock called Macro-Sudanic. In a recent review of this work Welmers has suggested the geographic designation Chari-Nile as more appropriate, an emendation in terminology which is herewith accepted. In the same work, the traditional Hamito-Semitic family was accepted with some modifications, not relevant to the present discussion, as another major African linguistic stock, distinct from the Chari-Nile family although perhaps distantly related to it. On this view, the term ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ is inappropriate for this group of languages and the name ‘Great Lakes’ was suggested in its place. In his recent work on the Nilotic languages, Oswin Köhler takes a position very similar to my own in regard to the ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ languages. Moreover he suggests that the Bari-Masai group of languages forming the bulk of ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ is as distant from Nandi-Suk, hitherto always included under the same designation, as it is from the Nilotic languages proper. He therefore proposes a threefold division into Western Nilotic (Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer, &c), Eastern Nilotic (Bari, Masai, Lotuko, &c), and Southern Nilotic (Nandi-Suk). I am inclined to agree with him and this view is borne out by the material assembled in the later part of this article.