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⁴ Macgaffey, Wyatt, Custom and Government in the Lower Congo (Los Angeles, 1970), 259.Google Scholar

⁵ Richards, , ‘Some types’, 244–5.Google Scholar

⁶ Van Wing, J., Études Bakongo (Brussels, 2nd edn. 1959), 83–8Google Scholar; Mitchell, J. C., in The Yao Village (Manchester, 1956), 73Google Scholar, describes the corresponding functions of Yao clans.

⁷ MacGaffey, , Custom and Government, 56.Google Scholar

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⁹ Terray, E., L'Organisation sociale des Dida de Côte d'Ivoire (Abidjan, 1969).Google Scholar According to Mukenge, L., ‘Croyances religieuses et structures sociofamiliales en société Luba’, Cahiers Économiques et Sociaux (Kinshasa), v, i, 1967, 3–94,Google Scholar the patrilineal descent groups of the Luba Kasai are the diku dia dilolo (minor lineage, inheritance group); diku (owns land); tshifuku (exogamous); and tshisamba (clan, owns a chiefship).

¹⁰ Between 1913 and 1918 the Swedish missionary K. E. Laman commissioned some 428 notebooks (cahiers) on ethnographic subjects from Kongo mission adherents, some of whom conducted field research for him. A heavily edited English version of some of this material was published as the four volumes of Laman, The KongoGoogle Scholar; see Janzen, John M., ‘Laman's Kongo ethnography’, Africa, XL, 1972, 316–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The cahier cited here, in my translation from the original KiKongo, is no. 123, by Kunzi Yelemia of Vungu. Vungu, in eastern Mayombe, is the area described by Van Reeth and Doutreloux.

¹¹ Cahiers no. 91, 94, by Kinkela Ngoma of Vungu.

¹² Wing, Van, Etudes Bakongo, 87, adapted.Google Scholar

¹³ Cahier no. 137, by Kunzi Yelemia.

¹⁴ Richards, , ‘Some types’, 249.Google ScholarKandawire, J. A. K., in ‘Village segmentation and class formation in southern Malawi’, Africa, L, 1980, 316–28Google Scholar, emphasizes the structural importance of Yao slavery, and says, ‘It should be possible to perceive the segmentary process as embracing both the lineage and class structures’, but the relationship he establishes among these factors is different from mine. He attributes the origin of slavery to conquering immigrants from Kongo, but the events in question are mythical rather than historical and the connexion is forced.

¹⁵ Kopytoff, I., ‘Matrilineality, residence and residential zones’, American Ethnologist, IX, 1977, 539–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murdock, G. P., Africa (New York, 1959).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Kopytoff, I., ‘The Suku of southwestern Congo’, in Gibbs, J. (ed.), Peoples of Africa (New York, 1965).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Kopytoff, , ‘Matrilineality…’, 555.Google Scholar According to Phiri, Kings, in ‘Matriliny among the Cewa of Malawi: continuity and change, 1850–1950’ (see p. 262 below), most Cewa in modern times marry within 5 km of their own villages.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Van Reeth emphasizes the fact that the nkazi is in charge of the labour of the members of his vumu rather than their actual property. Richards, , ‘Some types’, 219.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Richards, , ‘Some types’, 211Google Scholar; Mertens, J., Les Chefs couronnés chez les Bakongo orientaux (Brussels, 1942)Google Scholar; Laman, K. E., The Kongo, II (Uppsala, 1957).Google Scholar

²⁰ Mertens, , Les Chefs couronnés, 195.Google Scholar

²¹ Laman, , The Kongo II., ch. 2Google Scholar; Richards, , ‘Some types’, 212.Google Scholar

²² Richards, , ‘Some types’, 216Google Scholar; Van Reeth, E. P., De Rol van den Moderlijken Oom in de lulandsche Familie (Brussels, 1935), 25Google Scholar: ‘n soort slavernij’,

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²⁴ Cahier no. 76, by Kilola Esaya.

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³⁷ Kopytoff's definition of slave, ‘acquired person’, barely fits the ambiguities of Pende or Kongo practice, in which political losers may be assumed, retrospectively, to have been acquired.

³⁸ MacGaffey, , Custom and Government, 77.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ The term ‘lineage mode of production’ is unfortunate, since many societies with lineages are not based on this mode as Rey describes it. Too many other writers use ‘lineage mode of production’ as though it were co-extensive with ‘segmentary society’.

⁴¹ Launay, R., ‘Transactional spheres and inter-societal exchange in Ivory Coast’, Cahiers d'Études africaines, XVIII (1978) 561–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Terray, E., ‘Commerce précoloniale et organisation sociale chez les Dida de Côte d'Ivoire’, in Meillassoux, C. (ed.), The Development of Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971).Google Scholar

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⁴⁵ Murdock (Africa, 289) offers by way of explanation this bourgeois fantasy: ‘A prosperous father, wishing to keep his sons with him, would, after providing wives for his nephews, do the same for his sons...’

⁴⁶ De Sousberghe, L., ‘L'immutabilité des relations de parenté par alliance dans les sociétés matrilinéaires du Congo ex-belge’, L'Homme, VI, i, (1966), 82–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘L'immutabilité de l'alliance dans les sociétés patrilinéaires du Congo’, Anthropos, LXII (1967), 433–52.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Cahier no. 371, by Ngoma Petolo, of northern Mayombe. A tradition recorded in Cahier no. 84, by Kinkela Ngoma of Vungu, describes the regional organization of slaving: ‘The people of Kongo dia Lemba [to the east, across the Congo] were our good friends, for they and our elders made a trading agreement (luwawanu luankitila). They brought many people here to sell, were well received, and returned home joyfully. They crossed at the ford of Makanga. The BaSolongo [on the coast] were also our friends. They brought their artefacts (bisalu) to us, that sold well. They brought their dance drums, and showed us their dances which, like their language, were very different from ours. Our elders told us that the Ba Yombe and BaSundi [Kongo groups to the north and east] were our enemies, not to make war on, but to kidnap. They could only obtain European goods imported at Boma by passing through our country, so our elders caught them to be our slaves. For example, if a Sundi caravan were coming, they would put out food in the road, or in the village put zinsindu, and surround it; any NYombe or NSundi who bumped into it would be accused of profaning a charm. So the offender would have to be ransomed, or left as a slave. Many were captured in this way, until guns were introduced and the BaSundi armed their caravans.’ The excerpt from this notebook in Laman 1953, 27, is incorrectly translated.

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⁴⁹ Thornton, J., ‘The slave-trade in eighteenth century Angola: effects on demographic structures’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, XIV (1980), 117–271Google Scholar on comparable changes in the Niger Delta, see Williamson, K., ‘Changes in the marriage system of the Okrika Ijo’, Africa, XXXII (1962), 53–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Commenting on Dida patterns of marital alliance, related to trade, which have the effect of moving women from north to south, Brain, R. remarks, in a review of Terray's L'Organisation sociale des Dida (Africa, XLI, (1971), 165)Google Scholar ‘We are left with a strange impression of women piling up around the lagoons and beaches of the Ivory Coast.’

⁵⁰ Miller, J. C., ‘Imbangala lineage slavery’, in Miers, S. and Kopytoff, I. (eds.), Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1977), 221–2.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ Kuper, A. and Van Leynseele, P., in ‘Social anthropology and the “Bantu expansion”’, Africa XLVIII, 1978, 335–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, raise the possibility of a common supra-tribal structure in southern Africa, a structure which is not clearly different from that of the Central Bantu.

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