¹ Deng, Francis Mading, Africans of Two Worlds: The Dinka of the Afro-Arab World (New Haven, 1978), 81–2.Google Scholar

² Jones, G. I., ‘Social anthropology in Nigeria during the colonial period’, Africa, XLIV (1974), 287.Google Scholar

³ Henige, David, ‘The problem of feedback in oral tradition: four examples from the Fante coastlands’, Journal of African History, XIV (1973), 223–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴ Goodwin, John, Imputatio Fidei (London, 1642)Google Scholar, quoted in Wolfe, Don M., Milton in the Puritan Revolution (New York, 1941), 66.Google Scholar For a somewhat earlier but very similar view see Roy, Louis Le, Of the Interchangeable Course, or Variety of Things in the Whole World (London, 1594), 127^v.Google ScholarRyan, Michael T., ‘Assimilating new worlds in the 16th and 17th centuries’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXIII (1981), 519–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, discusses Europe's reaction to the wider world from a slightly different, but interesting, angle.

⁵ For example Connell, C. W., ‘Western views on the origins of the “Tartars”: an example of the influence of myth in the second half of the thirteenth century’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, III (1973), 11–37.Google Scholar

⁶ Literature on the lost tribes, both pre-modern and modern, is extensive. For the general background see Godbey, Allen H.. The Lost Tribes a Myth: Suggestions Towards Rewriting Hebrew History (Durham, N.C., 1930).Google Scholar For brief accounts of the issue as it relates to speculation on Amerindian origins see Huddleston, Lee, The Origins of the American Indians (Austin, 1967), 34–40, 84–8, 128–35Google Scholar; Gliozzi, Giovanni, Adamo e il nuovo mondo: la nascità dell'‘antropologia come ideologia coloniale (Florence, 1977)Google Scholar; Wauchope, Robert, Lost Tribes and Sunken Continents (Chicago, 1962), 50–68Google Scholar; Sanders, Ronald, Lost Tribes and Promised Lands (Boston, 1978).Google Scholar For a specific application of the argument see Blanke, Gustav, ‘Early theories about the nature and origin of the Indians and the advent of Mormonism’, Amerikanische Studien/American Studies, XXV (1980), 242–68.Google Scholar

⁷ The most thorough study of the legends of Thomas, and Bartholomew, is Haase, Felix, Apostel und Evangelisten in den orientalischen Überlieferungen (Münster, 1922).Google Scholar For their New World manifestations see Vigneras, L-A., ‘Saint Thomas, apostle of America’, Hispanic American Historical Review, LVII (1977), 82–90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lafaye, Jacques, Quetzalcóatl et Guadalupe: formation de la conscience nationale au Mexique (1531–1813) (Paris, [1974]), 238–75Google Scholar; Duviols, Pierre, La lutte contre les religions autochtones dans le Pérou colonial (Lima, 1976), 50–72Google Scholar; Keen, Benjamin, The Aztec Image in Western Thought (New Brunswick, N.J., 1971), 238–40.Google Scholar

⁸ Popkin, R. H., ‘The Pre-Adamite Theory in the Renaissance’, in Mahoney, Edward P., ed., Philosophy and Humanism. Renaissance Essays in Honor of Paul Oskar Kristeller (New York, 1976), 50–69.Google Scholar

⁹ Among others see Allen, Don C., The Legend of Noah (Urbana, 1963), 84–8Google Scholar; Rappaport, Rhoda, ‘Geology and orthodoxy: the case of Noah's flood in eighteenth-century thought’, British Journal for the History of Science, XI (1978), 3–18Google Scholar; Hodgen, Margaret T., Early Anthropology in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia, 1964), 207–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Learning of well-authenticated chronological systems in China that showed that the recorded history of China antedated Biblical history only heightened the sense of perplexity, as did the willingness of Jesuit missionaries there to adapt Christian doctrine to local habitudes. See Van Kley, E. J., ‘Europe's “Discovery” of China and the writing of world history’, American Historical Review, LXXV (1971), 358–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pinot, Virgile, La Chine et la formation de l'esprit philosophique en France (1640–1740) (Paris, 1932), 189–279Google Scholar; Rowbotham, Arnold H., Missionary and Mandarin: The Jesuits at the Court of China (Berkeley, 1942), 250–71.Google Scholar

¹¹ Padden, R. C., The Hummingbird and the Hawk (Columbus, 1967), 116–32, 166–9Google Scholar; Carrasco, D., ‘Quetzalcóatl's revenge: primordium and application in Aztec religion’, History of Religions, XIX (1980), 296–320CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keen, Aztec Image, passim; Wachtel, Nathan, The Vision of the Vanquished: The Spanish Conquest of Peru Through Indian Eyes, 1530–1570 (New York, 1977), 13–58.Google Scholar

¹² The appearance of such motifs in the Popol Vuh is a main prop in Cyrus Gordon's argument for extensive transatlantic diffusion by Phoenicians. See his Before Columbus (New York, 1971), 154–69.Google Scholar See also Daniel, J., Contreras, R., ‘Temas y motivos biblicos en las cronicas indígenas de Guatemala’, Antropologia e Historia de Guatemala, XV (1963), 46–58Google Scholar; Vásquez S., G., ‘El Popol-Vuh y el Genesis’, Mysterium, xxx (1971), 3–25Google Scholar; Acuña, René, ‘Problemas del Popol Vuh’, Mestre, V (1974/1975), 123–34Google Scholar; Bruce, Robert D., ‘The Popol Vuh and the Book of Chan K'in’, Estudios de Cultura Nahuatl, X (1976/1977), 173–209.Google Scholar For similar problems with Inca sources see Klaiber, Jeffrey L., ‘The posthumous Christianization of the Inca empire in colonial Peru’, Journal of the History of Ideas, XXXVII (1976), 509Google Scholarseq.; Duviols, P., ‘Los nombres quechua de Viracocha, supuesto Dios criador de los evangelizadores’, Allpanchis, X (1977), 53–63.Google Scholar

¹³ For example Morris, Nancy J., ‘Hawaiian missionaries in the Marquesas’, Hawaiian Journal of History XIII (1979), 46–59Google Scholar; R. G., and Crocombe, Marjorie, The Works of Ta'unga (Canberra, 1968)Google Scholar; Barrère, Dorothy and Sahlins, Marshall, ‘Tahitians in the early history of Hawaiian Christianity’, Hawaiian Journal of History, XIII (1979), 19–30.Google Scholar For European reactions to the exploration of the Pacific see Frost, Alan, ‘The Pacific Ocean, the eighteenth century's “New World”’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, CLII (1976), 770–822.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Jackson, Michael D., ‘Literacy, Communication, and Social Change: A Study of the Meaning and Effect of Literacy in Early Nineteenth-Century Maori Society’, in Kawharu, I. H., ed., Conflict and Compromise. Essays on the Maori Since Colonization (Wellington, 1977), 33.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Engst, Johann, More Than Fifty Years on Chatham Island, trans. Dennison, K. J. (Dunedin, N.Z., 1975), 27.Google Scholar Similar observations are found in several of the works cited in note 22 below.

¹⁶ For example Barrère, Dorothy B., ‘Cosmogonic genealogies of Hawaii’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, LXX (1961), 419–28Google Scholar; Mayer, Raymond, Les transformations de la tradition narrative à l'île Wallis (Uvea) (Paris, 1976)Google Scholar, passim; Mercer, P. M ‘Oral tradition in the Pacific’, Journal of Pacific History, XIV (1979), 130–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁷ Babadzan, Alain, ‘De l'oral à l'écrit: les “puta tupuna” de Rurutu’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes, XXXV (1979), 223–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Barrère, Dorothy B., The Kumuhonua Legends. A Study of Late igth Century Hawaiian Stories of Creation and Origin (Honolulu, 1969).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Fornander's role in Hawaiian historiography, as well as his views on Polynesian origins, are discussed in Davis, Eleanor H., Abraham Fornander, a Biography (Honolulu, 1979), 239–64Google Scholar, and Howard, Alan, ‘Polynesian Origins and Migrations: A Review of Two Centuries of Speculation and Theory’, in Highland, Genevieve, ed., Polynesian Culture History (Honolulu, 1967), 55–57.Google Scholar

²⁰ Fomander, A., An Account of the Polynesian Race (3 vols. London, 1878–1885), 1, 100.Google Scholar For Kamakau and Kepelino see Thrum, Thomas G., ‘Brief Sketch of the Life and Labors of S. M. Kamakau, Hawaiian Historian’, Annual Report of the Hawaiian Historical Society, XXVI (1917), 40–61Google Scholar; Finney, Ben R. et al. ‘Hawaiian Historians and the First Pacific History Seminar’ in Gunson, Niel, ed., The Changing Pacific. Essays in Honour of H. E. Maude (Melbourne, 1978), 308–16.Google Scholar

²¹ Babadzan, ‘De l'oral a l‘ecrit’.

²² Among the more useful local studies are Parr, C. J., ‘A missionary library: printed attempts to instruct the Maori, 1815–1845’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, LXX (1961), 429–50Google Scholar; idem, ‘Maori literacy, 1843–1867’, Journal ofthe Polynesian Society, LXXII (1963), 211–34Google Scholar; Binney, Judith, ‘The heritage of Isaiah: Thomas Kendall and Maori religion’, New Zealand Journal of History, I (1967), 124–47Google Scholar; Owens, J. M. R., ‘Christianity and the Maoris to 1840’, New Zealand Journal of History, II (1968), 18–140Google Scholar; Binney, , ‘Christianity and the Maoris to 1840: a comment’, New Zealand Journal of History, III (1969), 143–65Google Scholar; Peschel, Enid R., ‘Structural parallels in two Flood myths: Noah and the Maori’, Folklore, LXXXII (1971), 116–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Howe, K. R., ‘The Maori response to Christianity in the Thames– Waikato area, 1833–1840’, New Zealand Journal of History, VII (1973), 280–46Google Scholar; Jackson, ‘Literacy’. Editions of works by, and other studies of, individual missionaries also frequently address this point. A more general discussion is Koskinen, Aarne A., Missionary Influence as a Political Factor in the Pacific Islands (Helsinki, 1958), esp. 19–38.Google Scholar A provocative recent study of acculturation, this time in the Marquesas Islands, is Dening, Greg, Islands and Beaches: Discourse on a Silent Land (Melbourne, 1980).Google Scholar

²³ Some of the papers in Literacy in Traditional Societies, ed. Goody, Jack (Cambridge, 1968)Google Scholar, discuss the matter. Somewhat more marginally, there is Goody, , ‘Writing and Formal Operations: A Case Study Among the Vai’, Africa, XLVII (1977), 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁴ E.g. Goody, , ‘The impact of Islamic writing on the oral cultures of West Africa’, Cahiers d'études africaines, XI (1971), 455–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Douglas, Norman, ‘The sons of Lehi and the seed of Cain in Mormon scripture and their relevance to the Pacific Islands’, Journal of Religious History, VIII (1974/1975), 90–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar More generally, see Ian Watt and Jack Goody, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’ in J. Goody, ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies.

²⁵ E.g. Loupias, P., ‘Traditions et légendes des Batutsi sur la création du monde et leur établissement au Ruanda’, Anthropos, III (1909), 1–13Google Scholar; Torrend, J., ‘“Likenesses of Moses” story in central African folklore’, Anthropos, V (1910), 54–70.Google Scholar

²⁶ Studies dealing with acculturation and conversion in Africa include Levtzion, Nehemia, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Levtzion, Nehemia, ed., Conversion to Islam (New York, 1979), 177–246, 260–5Google Scholar; Fisher, H.J., ‘Conversion reconsidered: some historical aspects of religious conversion in Black Africa’, Africa, XLIII (1973), 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Froehlich, J. C., ‘Essai sur les causes et méthodes de l'Islamisation de l'Afrique de l'Ouest du 11e au 20e siècle’, in Lewis, I. M., ed., Islam in Tropical Africa (London, 1966), 160–71Google Scholar; Horton, Robin, ‘African conversion’, Africa, XLI (1971), 85–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁷ Stevens, Phillips, ‘The Kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition’, Journal of African History, XVI (1975), 185–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stewart, Marjorie H., ‘The Kisra legend as oral history’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, XIII (1980), 51–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hallam, W. R. K., ‘The Bayajida legend in Hausa folklore’, Journal of African History, VII (1966), 47–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In some of their activities and associations both Kisra and Bayajida seem to be distant and distorted echoes of St George (himself a composite of several motifs) and the legendary Qur'anic hero al-Khidr. For these see Haddad, H. S., ‘Georgic cults and saints in the Levant’, Numen, XVI (1969), 21–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wensinck, A. J., ‘Al-Khadir (al-Khidr)’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., iv, 902–5Google Scholar; Norris, H. T., Saharan Myth and Saga (Oxford, 1974), 14–20Google Scholar; McCall, D. F., ‘Kisra, Chosroes, Christ, etc’., African Historical Studies, I (1967), 255–77Google Scholar; Morony, M., ‘Kisra’, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd ed., v, 184–5.Google Scholar If nothing else, these studies underscore the complexity of cultural interchanges of this nature. For instance, there seem to be Hellenistic, Persian, Christian, and Islamic sources and motifs in both stories as they are now told.

²⁸ Henige, David, ‘“The Disease of Writing”: Ganda and Nyoro kinglists in a newly-literate world’, in Miller, Joseph C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone, 1980), 240–61Google Scholar, and the sources cited there.

²⁹ Henige, , ‘Akan stool succession under colonial rule: continuity or change?’ Journal of African History, XVI (1975), 283–301.Google Scholar For the same process in the northern Gold Coast see Ladouceur, Paul A., Chiefs and Politicians. The Politics of Regionalism in Northern Ghana (London, 1979).Google Scholar

³⁰ Henige, ‘Problem of feedback’.

³¹ Wrigley, C. C., ‘The kinglists of Buganda’, History in Africa, I (1974), 118–28Google Scholar; Rowe, John, ‘Myth, memoir, and moral admonition: Luganda historical writing, 1893–1969’, Uganda Journal, XXXII (1969), 17–40, 217–19Google Scholar; Twaddle, Michael, ‘On Ganda historiography’, History in Africa, I (1974), 85–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³² On Nyoro historians’ difficulties see Henige, David, The Chronology of Oral Tradition (Oxford, 1974), 105–14Google Scholar; idem, ‘Disease of Writing’, 243–6.

³³ [Winyi iv], K. W., ‘The kings of Bunyoro-Kitara’, Uganda Journal, III (1935), 155–60Google Scholar; iv (1936), 75–83; v (1937), 53–69; Nyakatura, John W., Abakama ba Bunyoro-Kitara (Quebec, 1947)Google Scholar, passim.

³⁴ Law, Robin, ‘Early Yoruba historiography’, History in Africa, III (1976), 78–81.Google Scholar

³⁶ Johnson, Samuel, A History of the Yorubas (London, 1921), 3–8.Google Scholar See also Biobaku, S. O., The Origins of the Yorubas (London, 1955), 11–13.Google Scholar

³⁶ Bello, Muhammad in Infaku'l Maisuri, ed. Whitting, C. E. J. (London, 1951), 21.Google Scholar Parts of this appeared in Denham, Dixon and Clapperton, Hugh, Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa in the Years 1822, 1823, and 1824 (London, 1826), pt. ii, 165Google Scholar, where it was stated that the Yoruba ‘originated from the remnants of the children of Canaan [Ham's scapegrace son], who were of the tribe of Nimrod’. This was quoted by Johnson, , History, 5.Google Scholar

³⁷ Bello's attribution of Biblical ancestors by way of the Qur'an exemplified that Islamic variation on Christian genealogizing mentioned earlier with regard to Buganda. The role of Nimrod in Muslim tradition is discussed in Schützinger, Heinrich, Ursprung und Entwicklung der arabischen Abraham-Nimrod-Legende (Bonn, 1961)Google Scholar, and Sidersky, D., Les origines des légendes musulmanes dans le Coran et dans les vies des Prophètes (Paris, 1933), 31–6, 39–42.Google Scholar

³⁸ Bowen, Thomas J., Adventures and Missionary Labors in Several Countries in the Interior of Africa from 1849 to 1856 (Charleston, S.C., 1857), 267–9.Google Scholar In his account later published as Travels and Explorations in Yorubaland, 1854–1858 (Ibadan, 1972)Google Scholar, William H. Clarke, a younger colleague of Bowen, discussed the stories he heard about Yoruba origins (ibid. 190–2, 288–9) but made no mention of Lamurudu. Clarke, unlike Bowen, actually visited Oyo, from where Johnson drew most of his own material and, also unlike Bowen, he did not go so far as to state that the Yoruba actually denied any knowledge of Lamurudu. Withal, Lamurudu's absence from Clarke's account must be held to support Bowen's information and to suggest that Nimrod/Lamurudu had not yet entered the mainstream of Yoruba tradition by the mid-1850s. In opposition to this argument from partial silence, Robin Law points out that Johnson's characterization of Lamurudu as opposing Islam could suggest an origin in the 1820s, when most of Yorubaland was bent on resisting the Islamizing jihad of Usuman dan Fodio and his successors (personal information dated 23 November 1981). But whether we attribute Lamurudu's introduction into Yoruba tradition to the 1850s, the 1820s, or even earlier, he serves as an example of purposeful assimilation.

³⁹ Ajayi, J. F. Ade, ‘Samuel Johnson, historian of the Yoruba’, Nigeria Magazine, LXXXI (06 1964), 141–6Google Scholar; Gbadamosi, T. G. O., The growth of Islam among the Yoruba, 1841–1908 (London, 1978)Google Scholar; Echeruo, Michael, Victorian Lagos (London, 1977), 80–7.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Law, , ‘Early Yoruba historiography’, 77, 86.Google Scholar It should be noted too that Lamurudu appeared at a time when it had become fairly popular to identify various west African peoples with our old friends the lost tribes of Israel, or at least to give them Jewish antecedents. In the eighteenth century Olaudah Equiano thought that he discerned similarities between his own people, the Igbo, and the ancient Jews: Jones, G. I., ‘Olaudah Equiano of the Niger Ibo’ in Curtin, Philip D., ed., Africa Remembered (Madison, 1968), 79–83.Google Scholar In his West African Countries and Peoples, published in 1868, J. A. B. Horton went even farther by bringing the lost tribes into his discussion of west African origins (Horton, , West African Countries and Peoples [reprint ed., Edinburgh, 1969], 167–72).Google Scholar Jewish–west African connexions had also been bruited in the west African press of the time.

⁴¹ Simmons, David R., The great New Zealand myth (Wellington, 1976)Google Scholar; France, Peter, ‘The Kaunitoni myth: notes on the genesis of a Fijian tradition’, Journal of Pacific History, I (1966), 107–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴² Minute of Palmer dated 3 May 1928, National Archives, Kaduna: SNP K 4049. I am grateful to David Dorward for this and other citations from the Nigerian archives relating to Palmer.

⁴³ NAK: SNP 15911, vol. 1, minute dated 19 June 1928.

⁴⁴ Palmer to Resident, Benue, 21 June 1928. NAK: AR/INT/W./3; minute dated 9 September 1921, NAK: SNP 3847/1921.

⁴⁵ Meek, C. K., A Sudanese Kingdom. An Ethnographical Study of the Jukun-Speaking Peoples of Nigeria (London, 1931), 178–316Google Scholarpassim. At ‘the instance’ of Palmer, Meek spent five months among the Jukun. Although he admitted that the Jukun were ‘peculiarly averse to giving information’, he managed to produce a work of more than 500 pages, with a preface by Palmer in which he repeated most of his by then familiar arguments about Near Eastern origins.

⁴⁶ Ibid. xvi. Cf. minute dated 9 September 1921 cited in note 44, and Palmer's memorandum dated 28 August 1921. NAK: SNP19: K 2003. Surprisingly little has been done on Palmer's influence on informants and on administrative officers under his authority. For one such example see Cohen, Ronald, ‘The Bornu King Lists’ in Boston University Papers on Africa, ii, African History (Boston, 1966), 47–8.Google ScholarJones, , ‘Social Anthropology’, 285Google Scholar, mentions him in passing and, in a slightly different context, Dorward, David, ‘Ethnography and administration: a study of Anglo-Tiv “Working Misunderstanding”‘, Journal of African History, XV (1974), 457–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows the value of researching the official mind when dealing with colonial source materials.

⁴⁷ For Moeller see Newbury, David S., ‘Bushi and the historians: historiographical themes in Eastern Kivu’, History in Africa, V (1978), 131–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but also see Sigwalt, Richard D. and Sosne, Elinor, ‘A note on the Luzi of Bushi’, Etudes d'histoire africaine, VI (1975), 137–43.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Nicholas, John L., Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand (2 vols. London, 1817), I, 55–62Google Scholar; Owens, , ‘Christianity and the Maoris to 1840’, 26–8Google Scholar; Binney, Judith, The Legacy of Guilt: A Life of Thomas Kendall (Auckland, 1968), 129–33.Google Scholar The first Indian the Pilgrims met in Massachusetts spoke to them in English, much to their surprise. It appears that he and others had learned English from earlier English visitors and fishermen. Even these, though, had already met Indians who spoke English, dressed in English-style clothing, and paddled canoes of Basque design, all presumably adopted from yet earlier, but otherwise unrecorded visitations. Bradford, William, History of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–1647 (2 vols. Boston, 1912), 1, 199Google Scholar; Archer, Gabriel, ‘The relation of Captain Gosnold's voyage to the north part of Virginia…’, Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd ser. VIII (1843), 72–81Google Scholar; Brereton, John, A briefe and true relation of the discouerie of the north part of Virginia (London, 1602).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, ed. Rogers, Lawrence M. (Christchurch, 1961), 464.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Deng, , Africans of Two Worlds, 82–4.Google Scholar In his Dinka Cosmology (London, 1980), 5–7, 341Google Scholar, Deng again rules out the influence of recent Muslim or Christian teachings but does accept the likelihood that some of the motifs may have come from very early contacts of the Dinka with ‘the northern Sudan and Middle East’.

⁵¹ It happened, of course, that sometimes local people resented the introduction of printed texts and shunned their use, but it would be injudicious to conclude from this that they were entirely unaffected by their content; after all, word of mouth is nearly as important in literate (not to mention quasi-literate) societies as in non-literate ones.