Les radicaux du type CV, tels qu'ils ont été donnés par Meinhof pour le bantou commun, se répartissent en cinq groupes vocaliques, la voyelle étant le plus souvent représentée par y ou w devant -a dans chacune des langues:

i̧pi̧ (cracher), ni̧ (aller à selle);

i pi (brûler), ni (pleuvoir), di (manger), gi (aller), ki (poindre), ti (mettre);

a p(a) (donner), b(a) (demeurer);

u pu (sécher), gu (tomber), cu (se coucher — soleil), mu (raser), du (se battre), ku (crier);

u̧ mu̧ (boire), du̧ (sortir de), ku̧ (mourir).

L'importance de l'initiation chez les peuples africains a été soulignée par tous les auteurs qui ont étudié leur vie sociale et religieuse. Dr. Harley, pour le Libéria, en a fait une description qui reste un de nos meilleurs documents sur la question. Nous nous proposons, dans cet article, d'exposer quelques observations que nous avons pu faire, sur le même sujet, chez les habitants de la région forestière de la Guinée Française, et notamment du cercle de N'Zérékoré, au cours d''un séjour de plusieurs années.

In countries where conditions favour the preservation of manuscripts and books, the survival value of much of the literature may not be directly related to its popularity. Unpopular works may remain neglected for long periods and then regain favour; but in the conditions which have prevailed in East Africa, only those literary works receiving the continued favour of the people have had any chance of survival at all. There have been no library stacks, no dry cupboards or shelves for storing manuscripts, but only the white ant and the damp. The love of the Swahili people for a good poem has been the means of retaining much valuable work that would otherwise have been lost. Even so, much more has been lost to posterity than has been preserved.

In Mr. Lyndon Harries's ‘Popular Verse of the Swahili Tradition’, published in Africa, April 1952, there appears a poem ‘The Song of the Poor Man’, taken from Muhammad Kijuma's collection of manuscripts made early in the present century. It might be of interest to students of Swahili to compare it with a version from Siu, which was recently dictated to me by a native of Siu and checked with another native of the same place. These two depended solely on memory and had no written record-to assist them.

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.

Social legislation of far-reaching importance for Africans in the French territories of West and Equatorial Africa is contained in a recently published decree (No. 51-1100 of 14 September 1951, relatif à certaines modalités du mariage entre personnes de statut personnel en A.O.F., en A.E.F., au Togo et au Cameroun).

This legislation involves the overriding of native customary law at certain vital points, particularly in relation to the institution of bride-price. In so far as bride-price is a factor contributing to the dependent status of the adult African woman and tending (under modern conditions) towards the commercialization of the marriage transaction, the decree is designed to neutralize its effects.

The account of the Nsɔ given by Dr. P. Kaberry in her article in Africa, October 1950, ‘Land Tenure among the Nsaw of the British Cameroons’, is incorrect in a number of points, especially in so far as Nsɔ history is concerned. As a former Senior District officer, Bamenda Division, British Cameroons, I visited every hamlet in the Nsɔ area, took down the history of each and mapped the area. I marked the tribal boundaries of the tribes contiguous to Nsɔ and took down their tribal histories. I have an English translation of Njoya's history of the Bamum. The Nsɔ, with the Bamum and Wiya (wrongly called by Dr. Kaberry Nsungli), left their common focus Rifum together. This is confirmed by the three narratives.

In her review of Seven Tribes of British Centra Africa in Africa, xxii. 1 Mrs. Douglas praises the individual essays but criticizes their appearance in a single volume. We do not consider it appropriate for writers to reply to criticism which is levied on the basis of general knowledge and of the internal evidence of a book—indeed, we would ourselves accept the criticism which Mrs. Douglas, with others, has made that the editors should not have shirked the task of providing a general introduction to add to the significance of joint publication of the seven essays. But we consider it legitimate to protest when Mrs. Douglas's criticism is based on inadequate and inaccurate statements about the internal affairs of the Rhodes-Livingstone Institute, especially as she puts this incorrect information in the form of questions.

In Western society children grow up with certain elementary ideas of the costs and values of economic goods. As they mature, their personal contacts and their reading still further impress them with the importance of effort, saving, and sacrifice in relation to reward. Their concepts of reward are enlarged and these concepts become clothed in a great variety of specific forms, which become their standards of living, and serve as incentives to further effort. That is to say, children learn, consciously or unconsciously, from the beginning, to value a large number of economic goods which they recognize as costly and needing to be cared for. They learn also that economic rewards come only with striving. And because they have experience that the opportunities which make rewards possible are precious and somewhat limited they come to prize them, conserve them, and make use of them when they are offered.

Parmi les vœux adoptés à l'unanimité et sans discussion par le Deuxième Congres de toponymie et d'anthroponymie, tenu à Paris du 15 au 17 juillet 1947, il en est un auquel il faut donner la plus large diffusion: ‘Le Congrés . . 'met le vceu que les noms propres de lieux retenus pour les cartes d'Afrique Occidentale Française et d'Afrique Équatoriale soient ceux qu'emploient les Indigènes habitant les lieux, dans leur propre langue, et non les vocables utilisés par les populations voisines, qu'elles emploient ou non une langue vehiculaire . . .’ Ce vœu doit être complété par cet autre qui ne concerne plus les toponymes mais les noms ethniques: que pour désigner une ethnie on n'emploie que le vocable utilisé dans la langue de ce peuple pour se désigner lui-même, à l'exclusion des vocables utilisés par les populations voisines, qu'elles emploient ou non une langue véhiculaire. Salomon Reinach disait que les noms ethniques étaient la peste de l'anthropologie, cette affirmation reste vraie pour l'ethnologie.