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 number of Africa published in January 1929 contains two articles which are of real help to the colonial administrator. The first article, by the Rev. Father Dubois, S.J., compares the supposedly opposite dogmas of assimilation and adaptation, or, in administrative language, of direct and indirect rule. Therein the author conclusively shows that these formulae are not dogmas, the one unorthodox and the other orthodox; that the education of a race cannot be accomplished by means of a formula, but that it is a matter of time, tact and love. In fact the methods of assimilation and adaptation are both required, as also the one in conjunction with the other.

Science is the worst nuisance and the greatest calamity of our days. It has made us into robots, into standardized interchangeable parts of an enormous mechanism; it pushes us with a relentless persistence and a terrible acceleration towards new forms of existence; it changes the world around us; it transforms our inner selves with an uncannily thoroughgoing penetration. An ever-increasing speed in communication; accessibility of superficial knowledge and meretricious art; endless opportunities in cheap and mean forms of enjoyment; leisure to do a thousand irrelevant things—these, from the side of human consumption and enjoyment, are the benefits of our modern civilization. Kept down intellectually by journalism; moving and feeling to the rhythm of jazz; united by the world-wide net of broadcasting—modern man has indefinitely to increase his passive receptivity. He has to start with a standardized level of taste and to develop an indefinitely elastic nervous system, all at the cost of originality and spontaneous life. This may be the extreme pessimistic view of ‘progress’, but many of us feel it strongly and see a menace to all real spiritual and artistic values in the aimless drive of modern mechanization.

Last year I wrote a paper on ‘Education and the Social Adjustment of Primitive Peoples to European Culture’. It was an attempt to analyse the problem of the downfall of native races brought into contact with Europe, and to suggest an educational policy which might obviate some of the evils resulting from such contact. The educational policy suggested was based upon two principles, firstly that the school should be built on native tradition and continuous with any system of training youths which existed prior to the advent of the European, and secondly that these institutions should be developed and enriched to meet the needs of the changing environment and to train the pupils to be leaders in social and economic progress. The principles have thus a dual aspect, that of trying to ensure continuity of development from the past by basing the school on native tradition, and that of developing these traditions to meet the demands of improved standards of living and of improved methods of production.

In dealing with the subject of labour in Africa, I must first ask you to remember that it is no easy task to deal in a comparatively short space with a theme that is not only complicated and elusive in itself, but also one that has many ramifications; I therefore propose to confine myself to an attempt at a résumé of the history of African labour, with some indication of the problem as it confronts us at the present day. Political views, economic interests, religious and racial prejudices, and national obligations, all have an important influence on our subject; the consideration of these, however, would be so controversial and so prolonged, that I must be content with a summary of facts, intended to serve as an indication of the nature of the problem, and the main difficulties which confront us.

The Education Code of 1887 provided for the teaching of art subjects as they were understood in South Kensington at that time—the age of Froebel and Slojd: the aim seems to have been the vague one of ‘hand-and-eye training’. But the purpose for which hand and eye were to be trained does not appear clearly in its instructions, and I am perfectly certain that the bulk of teachers of the older generation do not know of one. One cannot trace in the Code any real policy of artistic development in the country by means of the educational system. ‘Drawing’ was, and is, taught not primarily from the artist's point of view at all, i. e. as a study of form. The study of colour is not taught, nor the elements of design. Now form, colour, and design are the elements of the graphic and plastic art, and one would have thought that they would have been incorporated in a balanced scheme of elementary education. There was, and is, no provision for the training of taste, appreciation, criticism, or for the slightest perception of the horizons of art history.

The Institute has laid down its policy in ethnological matters in the Report of the Executive Council held in Berlin in December, 1928. The Council then came to the conclusion that ‘there was a gap between anthropological science on the one hand and the practical work of education and administration on the other, and that the Institute could render useful service by attempting to bridge this gap’.

The following resolution was passed unanimously:

It was, I presume, due to an accident of omission that religion does not appear in the list of subjects the study of which is to be encouraged. In Africa, above all ethnographic areas, religious dogma and practice lie at the very core of all aspects of culture, and no study of ‘the family, law, economics, ideas of land tenure, systems of education’ could be adequate that did not start off with an account of native belief. In giving an analysis of Ashanti religion I shall show that this is especially true of that culture.

The problem of the production of text-books for African schools is one which is engaging much attention from those who are interested in African education, and indeed there are few problems of African life where the efforts of serious thought are likely to be better rewarded. In an admirable document (5) the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures has discussed some of the fundamental issues involved, and the writers of text-books will probably find it wise to follow the general lines there laid down. That discussion does not, however, claim to have exhausted the subject, but is rather intended to invite fresh suggestions. The purpose of the present study is to set forth some psychological and pedagogical considerations which bear on the problem. Much scientific research has already been devoted to the problems of reading instruction (2), and the results should be at the disposal of the makers of text-books for Africa.

D'après la tradition indigène certaines contrées de la région de Ngaoundéré, de Batouri, de Yokadouma et de Lomié auraient été autrefois décimées par la maladie du sommeil. Ce que nous savons actuellement des conditions dans lesquelles cette affection se propage rend cette hypothèse tout-à-fait improbable et en vérité nous ne savons ni quand, ni comment, la maladie du sommeil a fait son apparition dans le centre et l'est du Cameroun.

The following notes are based mainly on information collected by the writer at Mbilwi (‘Sibasa’) from members of Mphaphuli's tribe, and at Tshakhuma (‘Tshakoma’) from members of Madzivhandila's tribe, and supplemented elsewhere in the Venda area. Obviously, over such a large region, a number of variations from the norm here indicated may be expected to exist; but it is thought that what is here given represents in substance, if not in all details, Venda law and custom in respect of this sphere of this people's life

Die Frage, ob die Kultur in Ägypten oder in Asien älter sei und welchen Weg die erste Verbindung zwischen beiden Kulturen genommen hat, ist fast so alt, wie die Beschäftigung mit den Kulturen dieser beiden Völker. Wenn hier von ‘Kultur’ die Rede ist, so ist an Ackerbaukultur zu denken d.h. an die Kultur mit Ackerbau, Viehzucht und Töpferei, jenen drei Elementen, welche noch heute die : Grundlage unserer Kultur bilden. Jene älteren Kulturen, welche als Paläolithikum und Mesolithikum bezeichnet werden, sollen in den folgenden Ausführungen ausser Acht gelassen werden. Von den obengenannten drei Elementen ist bisher vorwiegend oder fast allein das dritte, das der Töpferei, und daneben noch die übrigen Artefakte zur Beantwortung der genannten Frage herangezogen worden. Am wenigsten Beachtung ist den Haustieren hierbei geschenkt worden. Sie sollen nun der Gegenstand der folgenden Untersuchung sein. Wenn auch nicht behauptet werden kann, dass wir zur Zeit mit ihrer Hilfe die Frage restlos lösen können, so können wir doch durch sie vielleicht der Lösung näher geführt werden. Auf welche Weise das geschehen kann, und was uns die Haustierforschung lehrt, soil im Folgenden gezeigt werden.

Few of the secrets that Africa still holds from us to-day have, I think, such an absorbing interest as the problem of Bantu in its relation to the neighbouring families and types of speech. Taking the continent of Africa as a whole, we find on the one hand the huge, yet marvellously homogeneous and compact body of the Bantu languages, clear-cut in structure, simple and transparent in phonology, and, at the back of much apparent diversity, exceptionally uniform in vocabulary. On the other hand there are in Africa numerous other languages of various type, which differ so much amongst each other that they have not yet been brought under any but the very broadest of classifications. The essential points of these are as follows.

Many visitors to Africa do not realize that native life is undergoing rapid disintegration, and some of those who have lived for many years in the country do not seem to feel that it matters even if this is the case. The difficulty of realizing the extent and the gravity of these rapid changes is increased by two factors. We who bring the twentieth-century ideas and methods of the West into the midst of primitive peoples are by our very presence undermining the hold of age-long custom on the African tribes. The force of novelty and the prestige of the white man's habits are in themselves strong enough to shake the ancient authority. Moreover we are all in Africa for a purpose. We have work to do on a farm, in government or mission, and the very concentration on the achievement of our aims leads us, or most of us, to assume that what we feel necessary and right must be the best for the African. In this context very few Europeans can stop to observe, far less to study, the effects of the changes in the Africans themselves. Education shares the prevailing attitude. It becomes simply the communication of knowledge or the imparting of skill which, so we feel, must bring Africa to its desired haven.

In Südwest-Afrika wohnt zerstreut unter Herero, Hottentitten und Bastards ein rätselhaftes, nur etwa 25,000 Seelen zählendes Völkchen, das in der einschlägigen Literatur unter dem Namen Bergdamara bekannt ist. Diese Bezeichnung ist die wörtliche Uebersetzung von ‖Hom-dama, dem Namen, mit dem die Hottentotten diese ihre früheren Knechte zu bezeichnen pflegen. Gebräuchlicher unter ihnen ist aber die Bezeichnung Xou-dama, Schmutzdama, zum Unterschied von den Herero, die von ihnen Gomaxa-dama d.h. rinderreiche Dama genannt werden. Hieraus ist schon ersichtlich, dass man in der Literatur nicht von Damara, sondern von Dama reden sollte. Die Endsilbe ra ist der Volksbezeichnung zu einer Zeit beigefügt worden, in der man den Bau der Hottentottensprache noch nicht kannte. Ra ist 3. Person Dual, et Com. des Personalpronomens, und ergibt in der Zusammensetzung mit der Bezeichnung für das Volksganze keinen oder nur einen irreführenden Sinn. Es sollte daher in wissenschaftlichen Veröffentlichungen nur der reine Stamm des Volksnamens in der Form Bergdama gebraucht werden. Die Bergdama selbst haben keinen eigenen Volksnamen gebildet oder angenommen. Sie bezeichnen sich einfach als Nu-khoi, schwarze Menschen. In der Tat haben sie von alien Eingeborenen des afrikanischen Südens die schwärzeste Hautfarbe, die allerdings in den Handflächen und unter den Fusssohlen einem hellen grauschwarz weicht, und in der Kreuzbeingegend in einen tiefschwarzen, mehr oder weniger breiten Gürtel übergeht.

This article is an attempt to give some account of the magicoreligious ideas of the Bachama tribe. It is based on notes made during a ten-days' visit to the tribe in the spring of 1927. During this visit I had the good fortune to witness the annual festival at Fare, the description of which occupies the major part of the following remarks. I am indebted to Dr. Bronnum of the Danish Mission at Numan for a number of suggestions.

In spite of the great and manifold differences in the development of the various countries of Africa there is a tendency to consider them all as one whether from an economic, medical, educational, or religious point of view. In all these fields the white man in Africa is an explorer and an adventurer. The establishment of the Institute is witness to this. That it should include in its purview the health habits of the African peoples is a very welcome sign. Whether cleanliness is next to Godliness or not, the demand for a comprehensive curriculum of health education for Africa is second only to the search for the principles of religious education.

So far, hygiene hardly seems to have received the place and attention it deserves in the syllabus of teaching in the native primary schools. Even without sharing the opinion of the Phelps Stokes Commission that health should be given precedence over all other subjects of instruction in African primary schools, it must be admitted that the importance of this subject can hardly be over-estimated. Hygiene covers such a wide field and is related to so many walks of life that its teaching cannot but deeply affect the development of native children.

In considering the linguistic situation of East Africa the first outstanding impression is that of a vast multiplicity of languages which is not met with in any other part of the continent. For instance travelling inland from Tanga for about a hundred miles, the areas of the following languages are entered or crossed: Swahili, Digo, Bondei, Ruvu, Zigula, Shambala, Mbugu, Pare (also called Chasu), and also various linguistic enclaves, viz. Taita, Kamba, Kwafi, Ndorobo, and Masai. For such a small district this is a somewhat bewildering richness, even when allowance is made for the fact that most of these languages are Bantu, and some of them, as for example Ruvu and Zigula, or Shambala and Bondei, are closely related. In addition several languages, such as Jagga on the Kilimanjaro, are split up into a number of widely divergent dialects. Although the linguistic divisions are not in all parts of East Africa as marked as they are in the district between the coast and Kilimanjaro, yet there are other districts, where for the periods when on ‘safari’, almost every day a new language is encountered, as for example on the way to Lake Nyassa. In a survey like this it cannot therefore be our object to enumerate all the languages of East Africa, even in the case of those which possess the beginnings of a literature.

The origin and development of cultures have long been matters of dispute. From the days of the classical school of anthropology, with its insistence on the universal inventiveness of humanity, to the kulturhistorische Schule of the present day and its doctrine of the poverty of man's ability to devise new means of meeting his environment, the pendulum has swung more and more towards a realization of the importance of cultural borrowing. There is little doubt now but that man is an imitative creature, and that human culture is essentially contagious. But how contagious it is is a problem yet to be solved. Between the extremes which have been mentioned there lies much room for difference, and differences of opinion have not been lacking.

Toutes les populations qui occupent le territoire s'étendant du Stanley-Pool à l'embouchure du fleuve Congo possèdent des du figurines sculptées que l'on appelle généralement ‘fétiches’. Si toutes ces figurines ont une signification spéciale, elles se rattachent cependant les unes aux autres tant par leurs caractères généraux et leurs attributs que par l'idée et les fonctions qu'elles incarnent. Sous ce rapport nous croyons pouvoir les subdiviser en deux grands groupes, (1°) les figurines fétiches, (2°) les figurines commémoratives.