In light of the bitterness engendered over the past 150 years between the North and South Sudan—especially during the past two decades—the Addis Ababa Agreement signed in February 1972 is indeed a singular event. (For a text of the agreement, see “Agreement Issue” 1972, pp. 18 and 22; full text on pp. 17-26.) Not only did this mark the end of the seventeen-year-old insurgency in the South, but it may well mark the beginning of a new phase in the relationships between the two regions. This is particularly important when it is noted that apparently neither side achieved their declared objectives. There is a need for caution, however. The basis for future relationships, as well as the effectiveness of the post-insurgency reconstruction, rest on the outcome of the eighteen-month interim arrangement, which is a basic part of the Addis Ababa Agreement.

The interim arrangement (February 1972-June 1973) privides interalia for an Interim High Executive Council, whose President and members are appointed by the President of the Democratic Republic of the Sudan. In effect, the Council is the “Executive and Cabinet” for the Southern Sudan during this interim period. Additionally, a number of other provisions provide for the establishment of institutions and initiate steps for integrating them into a wider national system. Implicitly, the arrangement assumes an effective relationship between the North and South from which a permanent settlement can evolve.

Sierra Leone is one of the more important rice-producing and consuming countries in West Africa. Sierra Leone was an exporter of rice in the early 1950's. Since 1955 the agricultural sector has not been able to meet domestic needs; Imports from 1960 to 1970 averaged $2.7 million annually (USDA 1968, p. 18). The need to import rice has continued in spite of governmental efforts to increase domestic production through a price-support program, fertilizer subsidization, land clearing, a heavily subsidized mechanical-plowing scheme, and the development of the Rice Corporation, which is legally responsible for controlling imports, providing for adequate distribution of rice throughout the country, establishing centers for collection, purchase, storage, and sale of rice, and setting the price for imported rice.

Self-sufficiency in rice production has become the central focus of the national agricultural policy as established by the Government of Sierra Leone. With this as a policy framework, this paper first summarizes recent research related to the economics of rice production in Sierra Leone. Second, it outlines four possible strategies to increase rice output, in the context of both micro and macro costs. The four strategies examined include (1) improved extensive cultivation with existing levels of capital inputs, especially tools and equipment; (2) extensive cultivation based upon the broader development of rice lands suitable for partial mechanical cultivation; (3) intensive cultivation of inland-valley swamps developed primarily with family labor; and (4) intensive cultivation of mangrove and associated swamps requiring external expenditures for land development.

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the problem of diffusion of Ikenga art form in geographically contiguous cultures. Although the concept of diffusion of cultural traits among contiguous cultures is well established among certain kinds of anthropologists, fresh theories of interpretation may be observed. First, I will try to develop the framework which would help to identify the strategic factors in the process of diffusion and facilitate the ordering of what is currently known about them. Second, since the establishment of a framework seldom includes anything but a model, Igbo Ikenga is focused upon to illustrate how deduction from art may lead to new factual conclusions.

Current anthropological concern about the diffusion of elements of culture in the Niger/Benue basin has attracted attention to the Ikenga art form because of the apparent widespread occurrence of the Ikenga cults among the Igbo, Benin, and Igala. Jeffreys (1954 pp. 25-40) traces the origin of the word “Ikenga,” and thus its cult, to the Kengawa (Hausa) people of Sokoto Province. Later, William Fagg (1960, “The Ibo Tribes”) explains the “universal cults of Ikenga” partly in terms of adaptability among contiguous ethnic groups, particularly as certain Igbo culture traits show similarity to those of their neighbours at the periphery. More recently, this notion of an “intra-diffusion” has been extended by Bradbury. Comparing diffusion processes between the Igbo and Benin Ikenga cults, Bradbury (1961, p. 138) attributes a greater possibility to one single Ikenga cult which later separated into the Igbo and Benin and mutually coexisted.

The Ovambo form the biggest population group in South West Africa: at the 1960 census they numbered 239, 363, or 45 per cent of the total population of all races, and in 1966, 270, 900, or 44 per cent of the total (South Africa 1967, p. 18). By 1971 their numbers had increased to 342,000, or 45 per cent of the population (South Africa 1971, introduction). The Ovambo people have been settled within the area now known as Ovamboland, or Owambo, for about four centuries. The territory is bordered by the Kunene River and Angola in the North, the Kaokoveld in the West, and Kavango in the East (see Map 1). It is isolated from the southern and western parts of South West Africa by vast tracts of uninhabited land. This comparative isolation has protected the Ovambo people from interference and attack by other tribes; on the other hand, it has made communication and trade with the most developed part of South West Africa difficult and expensive and has, therefore, tended to inhibit the economic development of the territory.

There are seven Ovambo tribes: the Ndonga, the Kuanyama (“the meat eaters”), the Ngandjena, the Kuambi (“those who work with clay”), the Kualuthi, the Mbalantu, and the Nkolonkati-Eunda. These tribes are linked by broad ties of kinship and by the fact that their languages are, for the most part, interintelligible. These factors, and the territorial isolation of the Ovambo people, have combined to create in them a strong sense of solidarity.

It is ironic that the United States, a nation purportedly born, out of revolution, should he so naive in its understanding and reticent in its recognition of other indigenous uprisings and nationalist aspirations. In the post-World War II era, no area has experienced more political upheaval than the continent of Africa. The rejection of colonialism within a wave of nationalist insurgency has produced no less than forty independent states. North Africa, in particular, provides a faithful reflection of the road to independence for the whole of Africa. The four Muslim states have attained sovereignty through United Nations supervision, French concessionary reluctance, and bloody civil war. Yet, in all cases, the United States belatedly withheld sympathetic diplomatic action.

American political insensitivity toward the Maghrib is evidenced by the scarcity of published materials on United States-North African relations. Perhaps if American interests in the area were only the product of the post-1945 period, this historiographical inadequacy could be excused within the argument of unfamiliarity and other foreign priorities. Yet the argument would be a shallow one. The United States has enjoyed deep-rooted, though irregular, historical connections with North Africa both before and during the colonial period. Although material on United States relations with North Africa, 1776-1945, centers on only a handful of topics, those sources of contact alone would partially invalidate the specious excuse of unfamiliarity and irrelevance which ethnocentric scholars raise.

Stepping ashore upon the ruined site of Kilwa island in 1824, British official W. F. W. Owen sadly reflected upon the history of the East African coast:

Owen's astute observations characterize the East African coast as it appeared in the nineteenth century; as he noted, the situation was far different prior to the European arrival.

Long before Portuguese caravels rounded the Cape, the East African coast played an important part in the Indian Ocean trading complex. The littoral was certainly known by the people of Arabia in the eighth century before Christ. In fact, the ancient Southern Arabian state of Ausan traded extensively there and may have actually held a portion of the coast (Gray 1962, p. 11; Wainwright 1947). In later centuries, adventurers and merchants from far more distant centers began to traverse the Indian Ocean in order to reach the land of Zanj.