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On Method: An Apologia and A Plea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

David Henige
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Extract

Why yet another Africanist journal? the reader may ask. And, given the astonishin, increase in the number (now over 200) of journals devoted to Africa, the question is a fair one. Every new journal should seek to justify itself to the audience it addresses.

Despite the large number of African journals now available, not all aspects of the study of the African past are covered adequately. Because this study is so recent the emphasis, both in research itself and in the format of the journals, has been on the collection, use, and presentation of data. It cannot be denied that these procedures have been and will remain the chief concerns of historical enquiry, but they are not the only ones. The value of data obviously depends, first, on its validity, and, second, on its use. The assessment of these aspects in turn depends on the close and continued scrutiny of sources as well as on the quality of historical thought. We cannot agree with Livy, who wrote of his sources for early Roman history that “it is not worth the trouble either to affirm or to dispose of these matters [improbabilities] … we must abide by the tradition.”

Type
Research Article
Information
History in Africa , Volume 1 , 1974 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1974

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References

Notes

1. Livy, , History of Rome, Preface and VIII, 6.Google Scholar

2. M. de Montaigne, “Essay on the Art of Conversation.”

3. Bloch, M., The Historian's Craft, Eng. trans. (New York, 1953), p. 100.Google Scholar

4. In this regard an encouraging sign is the recent publication in the Basler Afrika Bibliographien series of several volumes devoted to the National Archives of Ghana.

5. Great Britain Historical Manuscripts Commission, A Survey of the Archives of Selected Missionary Societies (London, 1968).Google Scholar

6. Hopkins, A.G., An Economic History of West Africa (London, 1973), p. 297.Google Scholar

7. Hess, R.L. and Coger, D.M., Semper ex Africa: A Bibliography of Primary Sources for Nineteenth-Century Tropical Africa… (Palo Alto, 1972).Google Scholar Though very strong on the German periodical publications, this work covers only very intermittently the useful material contained in the publications of the several French provincial geographical societies.

8. Bloch, , Historian's Craft, p. 110.Google Scholar Cf. Dumézil, G., Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus: Essai sur la conception indo-europpéenne de la souverainété (Paris, 1941), p. 42.Google Scholar

9. Authors of works devoted to Biblical and patristic exegesis seem particularly remiss in this respect. They seem almost inevitably to assume that only their own colleagues will ever consult their works.

10. Conversely, though, even if the scholarly study of the African past is relatively new, some of its results are interesting and impressive enough to share; yet few Africanists seem to have attempted to discuss their problems and results in general historical journals. Almost none of the more important historical journals has ever published an article dealing with tropical Africa as other than a facet of imperialism in one of its manifestations. It would appear, from editorial comments in these journals, that this omission results primarily from the fact that no submissions are received from African historians.

11. The literature is as extensive as the putative distribution of the remains. For two examples see Kendrick, T.D., St. James in Spain (London, 1960), especially pp. 13-24, 188–91Google Scholar, and Meinardus, O.F.A., “An Examination of the Traditions Pertaining to the Relics of St. Mark,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica, 36 (1970), pp. 366–74.Google Scholar

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18. Koester, H., “The Theological Aspects of Primitive Christian Heresy,” in Robinson, J.M., ed., The Future of Our Religious Past (London, 1971), p. 68.Google Scholar

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21. The roles of the Spanish priests as stimuli/collectors/interpreters/synthesizers of Indian traditions was similar in many ways to the role of local government officials and anthropologists under colonial rule, and of trained African historians as well. It almost certainly would well repay attention.

22. Barrère, D.B., “Revisions and Adulterations in Polynesian Creation Myths,” in Highland, G.A.et al., eds., Polynesian Culture History (Honolulu, 1967), pp. 105–17Google Scholar; Peschel, E.R., “Structural Parallelisms in Two Flood Myths: Noah and the Maori,” Folk-Lore, 82 (1971), pp. 116–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar