Toute la population Yombe est répartie en neuf groupes généalogiques à l'intérieur desquels la loi de l'exogamie n'est plus guère observée aujourd'hui. Ces groupes dénommés zimvila (sing, mvila) s'appellent du nom de leur ancêtre respectif Ntinu Makaba, Nanga Nakongo, Phudi Nzinga, Makhuku i Ntinu, Manianga Nakongo, Mbenza Nakongo, Numbu Nzinga, Ngimbi i Khota, Madunga Namboma, tous fils d'une mère légendaire Mbangala, la femme auxneuf seins.

Polygamy is a social system, and is intimately bound up with the subject of property, of labour, and of the difference in status between men and women. If this paper appears to trespass into other fields it is because of the complexity of the subject and because polygamy is not something that can be abstracted from the social organization generally and be examined by itself; it is both symptom and cause of widespread difference in Mende society from that of our own.

Miss perham brings to her task of reviewing Native Administration in Nigeria not only the experience gained by similar research in East Africa and in the Pacific, but also the skill in marshalling the salient events from the earliest times up to the present day which we expect from a trained historian. Nor has she anything to fear from the ‘peculiarly savage’ criticisms in which the professional anthropologists are, it is said, wont to indulge.

From Lake Mweru to Tanganyika is an area which was exposed to European influence at a very early date, when the lakes were the chief entrance to Northern Rhodesia. There was then a comparatively large European community, traders and administrators, settled at Chiengi and Kalungwishi. However, with the coming of the railway, and, later, the development of the copper mines, attention was focused farther South; trade in the Chiengi district became less important, and, recently, the District Commissioner, the last remaining European, was removed owing to Government economies.

Statements are frequently made by residents and travellers in Africa about the effects of missions on Native communities, but they are seldom backed by an analysis of concrete facts. The African is subject to the influences of Western European culture in many different ways, and it is extremely difficult to isolate the influence of missions from other contact influences, particularly since African Christians tend, for a variety of reasons, to be more affected by these other influences than their pagan neighbour. By comparing, in one area, the life of pagan and Christian families which are subject to similar non-Christian contact influences it is, however, possible to study specific differences in belief and behaviour. One such observable difference is found in the believed working of religious sanctions. Among the Nyakyusa of South Tanganyika behaviour in the pagan community is directly affected by the belief that certain actions are punished by the ancestors, by witchcraft, or by magic. Christian teachers attack these beliefs. The problem then arises as to how far belief in traditional religious sanctions remains in the Christian community, how far it is replaced or modified, and how far changes in belief affect behaviour.

The Problem of Social Conformity in Action. The functional analysis of social life is concerned with the discovery and elucidation of the inner coherence and living unity of single cultures. The comparative analysis of social life, on the other hand, sets out to explain the similarities and differences which distinguish separate cultures by reference to universal laws which are objectively, that is to say actually, true of all known societies. Separate analysis must necessarily precede detailed comparison, for only so can intelligible units of comparison be discovered. None the less the analysis of a single culture must, right from the beginning, assume a certain general similarity between all cultures if it is to be successful in its own limited field. Intelligibility is nothing else than comparability, and it is only by making explicit the comparability of a Central African culture, for example, with our own and other cultures that we can make its own unity and inner coherence intelligible to ourselves. But, while we are concerned with a single unit only, its comparability with other units can only be made explicit in general terms and not in detail.

In this paper I do not propose to try to discuss those contributions made in the name of psychology to anthropological research and explanation which are already well known. Most of these have been made in the interests of some general theory. They involve assumptions concerning which there is legitimate and sharp division of opinion. My task is the less controversial one of attempting a survey of developments of psychological research which have taken place during the last ten or fifteen years, with a view to indicating the ways in which they may be of service to the anthropologist.

Dans un précédent article publié ici même, je me suis efforcé de décrire les cas de possession, l'initiation de l'exorciste et l'exorcisme chez les VaNdau. Dans une autre publication une courte étude démographique de la tribu, de son totémisme et de son histoire permettra de situer comme il convient les VaNdau parmi les autres tribus bantoues. Je me propose ici d'exposer quelques coutumes particulières de ce peuple si intéréssant, qui contribueront peut-être à préciser encore sa physionomie, au point de vue ethnologique.

The claim of psychology to a share in the study of culture and society is by no means firmly established. Indeed, a certain school of modern sociology and anthropology would cleanse the study of society from all psychological assumptions and interpretations and would deal with cultural and social phenomena as phenomena entirely in their own right. As this article is to describe an attempt to include psychology in anthropological field work a few words must be said first in justification of this attempt to examine, over and above the concrete realities of culture, the psychological factors ‘behind’ culture.

Activities. War. The one service which the military organization is no longer allowed to perform is the key to its former importance and present impotence. Inter-tribal warfare has been suppressed, and for purposes of war against the European, the weapons of the libutvo are out of date.

Die historische Wirklichkeit der Völker erlaubt uns, im Hintergrund ihres sozialen Prozesses als letztlich bestimmende Richtlinien zwei Strukturprinzipien zu erkennen. Dies sind die in den beiden Begriffen Gemeinschaft und Herrschaft festgelegten Moglichkeiten sozialer Ordnung, die als Sozialsysteme aufgefasst werden müssen. Mit ihrer Hilfe können wir zu einem vertieften Verständnis der sozialhistorischen Entwicklung und zu einer Erkenntnis der einzelnen Phasen ihres Verlaufes in einem Volk oder Stamm gelangen.

The region with which this study is concerned comprises the political units of Uganda, Kenya, Zanzibar, Tanganyika Territory, and the Belgian mandate of Ruanda and Urundi. (See Map I.) Its total area is some 727,000 square miles, i.e. more than eight times as large as that of Great Britain, though of this total area about 40,000 square miles consists of water surface. In 1931 the native African population totalled about 14,600,000, whilst the figure for the European population stood at 28,223. The European element is thus outnumbered in the proportion of more than 500 to 1, and even the total non-native population, including Europeans, Indians, Goans, and Arabs, is outnumbered in the ratio of 80 to 1. The native population constitutes a vastly preponderant element in the whole, and it is on the salient features of its distribution that the attention of this paper is wholly focused.

The Kikuyu people maintain a close relationship with spiritual entities. Their daily lives, both as individuals and in groups, are influenced at all points by beliefs in the supernatural. We constantly commune with the spirits of our ancestors. Further we worship a High God and other supernatural beings.

The purpose of this article is to contribute some facts from Mendi life to the problem of differentiation and uniformity in primitive societies. As this problem is closely connected with the wider and controversial issue of the place the individual occupies in primitive group life, a few remarks will precede our facts.

The Ibo of Owerri Province form a compact mass living in what are perhaps best termed village-areas, straggling ‘garden cities’ covering a large area of ground, and where huts either stand in little unprotected bunches or in walled compounds with farmlands and forest between. The few towns, in the European sense of the word, that exist are semi-artificial and date from after the British occupation. Schools and churches are multiplying quickly, but the bulk of the dense population is still pagan and illiterate. It is composed almost exclusively of farmers who, in certain districts, are also oil-nut gatherers. These Ibo are intensely democratic, recognizing no central tribal authority and though coming apparently from the same stock and speaking the same language (although with strong dialectical differences) are curiously individualistic. Their compatriots, living in another village-area only a few miles away but unrelated by ties of kinship, are considered as ‘foreigners’', all bearers of the worst possible characters and capable of the darkest crimes. Daily habits, methods of farming, methods of building, taboos, religious conceptions, vary bewilderingly so that the investigator finds, after months of work, that he has still nothing but bits and pieces that form no coherent whole. All he can do is to pick out a few of the pieces which seem to him significant and describe them to the best of his admittedly limited knowledge in the hope that others may find the links between them.

When Europeans came into contact with the Swazi, it was inevitable that, since the two cultures had not the same institutions, beliefs and practices, one and the same situation was criticized from different social viewpoints and judged from different standards of value. Even when certain actions were similarly classified, each milieu gave them its own distinct emphasis or pattern, while similar values were embodied in and maintained by very different institutions. Immediate practical considerations and the political theory varying with place and time determined to what extent the dominant culture controlled the development of the traditional African life. I have chosen to analyse the way in which the military organization of the, Swazi, one of the basic factors in the traditional culture, has reacted under that small arc of Western civilization which has impinged on the lives of the natives in the Protectorate.