² Dias, Jill R., ‘Famine and disease in the history of Angola, c. 1830–1930’, Journal of African History, xxi, iii (1981), 349–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Cf. the analysis of evidence for similarly oscillating good rains and droughts in eastern and south-eastern Africa in the remote past by Webster, J. B., ‘Drought and Migration: the Lake Malawi Littoral as a Region of Refuge’, in Hinchley, Madalon T., ed., Proceedings of the Symposium on Drought in Botswana (Durham, N.H., 1979), 148–57.Google Scholar Also Webster, J. B., ‘Noi! Noi! Famines as an Aid to Interlacustrine Chronology’, 1–37Google Scholar, and Herring, R. S., ‘Hydrology and Chronology: the Rodah Nilometer as an Aid in Dating Interlacustrine History’, 38–86, in Webster, J. B., ed., Chronology, Migration and Drought in Interlacustrine Africa (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

⁴ Pre-eminently Gibson, Gordon D., ‘Himba Epochs’, History in Africa, iv (1977), 67–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also Larson, Thomas J., ‘The Significance of Rain-Making for the Mbukushu,’ African Studies, xxv, i (1966), 23–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hauenstein, A., ‘Rites et coutumes liés au culte de la pluie parmi différentes tribus du Sud-Ouest de l'Angola’, Boletim do Instituto de Angola, xxvii (1967), 5–32; xxix (1967), 5–28Google Scholar; Mittelberger, Carlos, ‘A chuva e a fome entre os Cuanhamas’, Estudos ultramarinos, VI (1956), 131–72.Google Scholar Extensive comments for the seventeenth century appear in João António de Montecuccolo, Cavazzi, Descrição histórica dos três reinos do Congo, Matamba e Angola (tr. and ed. de Luguzzano, Graciano Maria) (Lisbon, 1965)Google Scholar, esp. book i, paragraphs 14–16; book ii, paragraph 2. See also footnotes 46 and 47 below.

⁵ On climatology: Queiróz, Dário Xavier, Variabilidade das chuvas em Angola (Luanda, 1955)Google Scholar, and Distribuição da precipitação na Provincia de Angola (Luanda: 1952).Google Scholar Also Trewartha, Glenn T., The Earth's Problem Climates (Madison, 1961), 111–20, 138–48Google Scholar; Pittock, A. B. et al. (eds.), Climatic Change and Variability: A Southern Perspective (Cambridge, 1978).Google Scholar Sharon Nicholson has extended her work on Sahelian West Africa to cover the southern hemisphere: ‘African Climate and Environmental Changes During the Past Five Centuries’ (unpublished final report to the National Science Foundation, 1980).Google Scholar I am grateful to Dr Nicholson for allowing me to see this report.

⁶ Miller, Joseph C., ed., The African Past Speaks (Folkestone, 1980)Google Scholar, esp. introduction.

⁷ Esp. Thornton, John K., ‘The Kingdom of Kongo in the Era of the Civil Wars, 1641–1718’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angleles, 1979)Google Scholar, chap, i, and ‘Demography and history in the Kingdom of the Kongo’, Journal of African History, xviii, iv (1977), 507–30.Google Scholar

⁸ By Beatrix Heintze, work in preparation.

⁹ Dias, ‘Famine and Disease’; Gervase Clarence-Smith, W., ‘Drought in Southern Angola and Northern Namibia–1837 to 1945’ (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, unpublished seminar paper, 1974).Google Scholar I would like to acknowledge the stimulation I received from the opportunity to participate in the SOAS working group on climate and history led by Dr Humphrey Fisher in 1974–5.

¹⁰ Hitchcock, R. K., ‘The Traditional Response to Drought in Botswana’, in Hinchley, , ed., Proceedings, 91–7Google Scholar; Gervase Clarence-Smith, W., ‘Climatic Variations and Natural Disasters in Barotseland, 1847–1907’ (University of Zambia – School of Education, History Staff Seminars, unpublished paper 1977).Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Nicholson, ‘African Climate’.

¹² Dias, ‘Famine and Disease’ and works cited therein, and also footnote 5 supra.

¹³ Silberbauer, G. B., ‘Social Hibernation: the response of the G/wi Band to Seasonal Drought’, in Hinchley, , ed., Proceedings, 112.Google Scholar One may also consult with profit the works of Dirks, Robert, especially ‘Social Responses during Severe Food Shortages and Famine’, Current Anthropology, xxi, i (1980), 21–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁴ For this region: Gibson, ‘Himba Epochs’; Hauenstein, ‘Rites et coutumes’; Mittelberger, ‘A chuva e a fome’.

¹⁵ Gibson, , ‘Himba Epochs’, 98.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Pittock et al., Climatic Change and Variability. See also Tyson, P. D., Dyer, G. J. and Mametse, M. N., ‘Secular Changes in South African Rainfall’, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, ci (1975), 817–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tyson, P. D., ‘Southern African Rainfall: Past, Present, and Future’, in Hinchley, , ed., Proceedings, 45–52Google Scholar; Cooke, H. J., ‘Botswana's Present Climate and the Evidence for Past Change’, in Hinchley, , Proceedings, 53–8.Google Scholar

¹⁷ E.g. Nicholson, Sharon, ‘The Methodology of Historical Climate Reconstruction and its Application to Africa’, Journal of African History, xx, i (1979), 31–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ Thornton, ‘Demography and History’, 529, makes this observation for the area south of the mouth of the Zaire river.

¹⁹ Webster, , ‘Drought and Migration’, 152.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cited in Historia angolana (Luanda, 1979?), 56.Google Scholar

²¹ A fuller statement of these ideas appears in Miller, Joseph C., ‘Lineages, Ideology, and the History of Slavery in Western Central Africa’, in Lovejoy, Paul E., ed., Ideology of Slavery in Africa (Beverly Hills, 1981), 41–72.Google Scholar

²² One cannot know the precise level of such losses, but scattered estimates of mortality in recent droughts, ranging upwards from one-third to one-half of the population, imply that they fell in a range of significance.

²³ Cf. Curtin, Philip D., ‘Epidemiology and the Slave Trade’, Political Science Quarterly, lxxxiii (1968), 190–216CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dawson, Marc H., ‘Smallpox in Kenya, 1880–1920’, in Janzen, John M. and Feierman, Steven, eds., The Social History of Disease and Medicine in Africa (special issue of Social Science and Medicine: Part B – Medical Anthropology, xiii B, iv, 1979), 245–50.Google Scholar

²⁴ Cf. Miller, Joseph C., ‘Legal Portuguese Slaving from Angola: Some Preliminary Indications of Volume and Direction, 1760–1830’, Revue française d'histoire d'outremer, lii, i–ii (nos. 226–27) (1975). 135–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²⁵ Dawson, ‘Smallpox in Kenya’.

²⁶ Gibson, , ‘Himba Epochs’, 52.Google Scholar

²⁷ The notion that African diseases infected Brazil via the slave trade is nearly a cliché in the literature on Brazilian medical history; e.g. de Freitas, Octàvio, Doenças africanas no Brasil (São Paulo, 1935).Google Scholar

²⁸ See Appendix.

²⁹ dos Santos, João Marinho, ‘Angola na governação dos Felipes: Uma perspectiva de história económica e social’, Revista de história económica e social, iii (1979), 53–76.Google Scholar For a contemporary observation: Sousa Coutinho letter of 26 November 1772 (Arquivo Histórico Ultramarino (AHU), Angola, cx. 36).

³⁰ de Cadornega, António de Oliveira, História geral das guerras angolanas (1680) (Lisbon, 1940–1942), 1, 70.Google Scholar

³¹ ‘Quando chove ha muito mantimento, mas não ha quern o coma’: de Azeredo, José Pinto, Ensaios sôbre algumas enfermidades d'Angola (Lisbon, 1799), 49.Google Scholar

³² Joseph C. Miller, Way of Death: the Angolan Slave Trade, 1730–1830 (in preparation), and related studies.

³³ Ibid.

³⁴ Birmingham, David B., Trade and Conflict in Angola (Oxford, 1966), 78–103.Google Scholar

³⁵ Thornton, , ‘Kingdom of Kongo’, 182–7.Google Scholar

³⁶ Joseph C. Miller, ‘Central and Southern Angola to ca. 1840’, and Gervase Clarence-Smith, W., ‘Class Formation in the Central Highlands of Angola, 1840s to 1910s’, in Heimer, Franz-Wilhelm, ed., The Formation of Angolan Society (forthcoming).Google Scholar

³⁷ Miller, Joseph C., ’Requiem for the “Jaga”’, Cahiers d'études africaines, xiii, i (no. 49) (1973). 121–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; but cf. Thornton, John K., ‘A Resurrection for the Jaga’, Cahiers d'ėtudes africaines, xviii, i–ii (nos. 69–70) (1978), 22–37Google Scholar; Miller, ‘Thanatopsis’, ibid., 229–31; and Hilton, Anne, ‘The Jaga reconsidered’, Journal of African History, xxiii, ii (1981), 191–202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³⁸ Cadornega, , História geral, 1, 52–3Google Scholar; Bràsio, António, ed., Monumenta missionária africana – Africa ocidental (Lisbon 1952–1971), iii, 333–6.Google Scholar

³⁹ Miller, Joseph C., Kings and Kinsmen: Early Mbundu States in Angola (Oxford, 1976), 194–210.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ In such situations, typically ‘Deprived at home, starving children and adolescents form foraging and bandit gangs…’: Dirks, , ‘Social Responses’, 30.Google Scholar Webster, ‘Drought and Migration’, 152, has noticed the correlation of drought with raiders on a wider scale.

⁴¹ Miller, Kings and Kinsmen.

⁴² Dirks, ‘Social Responses’; in general, Laughlin, Charles D. Jr., and Brady, Ivan A., eds, Extinction and Survival in Human Populations (New York, 1978).Google Scholar Cf. Webster, , ‘Noi! Noi!’, 12Google Scholar, for other parts of Africa.

⁴³ Dias, Gastão Sousa, Relações de Angola (Primórdios da ocupação portuguesa) (Coimbra, 1934). 154, 179.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Estermann, Carlos, Etnografia do sudoeste de Angola (Lisbon, 1960–1961), 1, 43Google Scholar; Urquhart, Alvin W., Patterns of Settlement and Subsistence in Southwestern Angola (Washington, D.C., 1963), 123Google Scholar; Heintze, Beatrix, ‘Die Vassallentribute in Angola im 17. Jahrhundert’ (manuscript in preparation), n. 29Google Scholar; Vail, Leroy and White, Landeg, Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique (London, 1980), 120Google Scholar; also recently in Angola during drought, according to reports.

⁴⁵ Ravenstein, E. G., ed., The Strange Adventure of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Angola and Adjoining Regions (London, 1901), 19 ff.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Miller, , Kings and Kinsmen, 144–5Google Scholar, paraphrasing van den Byvang, M., ‘Notice historique sur les Balunda’, Congo, i, iv (1935), 433–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Miller, , Kings and Kinsmen, 200–1.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Cf. Appendix and Miller, Kings and Kinsmen.

⁴⁹ Miller, , Kings and Kinsmen, 163–6, 232–4.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Miller, , Kings and Kinsmen, 164–5Google Scholar; Larson, , ‘Significance’, 24, 28, 32, 35Google Scholar; Hitchcock, , ‘Traditional Response’, 91–96.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Birmingham, , Trade and Conflict, 78–103Google Scholar; Miller, Joseph C., ‘Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective’, Journal of African History, xvi, ii (1975), 201–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵² Miller, ‘Southern and Central Angola’.

⁵³ For a modern instance, Clarence-Smith, ‘Drought’; parallel movements of herders from drier to moister regions in time of drought are cited in Herring, R. S., ‘The View from Mount Otuke: Migrations of the Lango Omiro’, in Webster, , ed., Chronology, Migration and Drought, 51, 58Google Scholar; R. A. Sargent, ‘The Generations of Turmoil and Stress: A Proliferation of States in the Northern Interlacustrine Region, c. 1544–1625’, in Ibid. 232–3.

⁵⁴ Miller, ‘Central and Southern Angola’.

⁵⁵ Dias, ‘Famine and Disease’, richly documents this phenomenon for the Luanda region after 1830.

⁵⁶ Inter alia: Beach, David, ‘The Shona Economy: Branches of Production’, in Palmer, Robin and Parsons, Neil, eds, The Roots of Rural Poverty in Central and Southern Africa (London, 1977), 43–4, 56Google Scholar; Clarence-Smith, W. Gervase, Slaves, Peasants and Capitalists in Southern Angola, 1840–1926 (Cambridge, 1979), 84Google Scholar; Fage, John D., ‘Slaves and Society in Western Africa, c. 1445–c. 1700’, Journal of African History, xxi, iii (1980), 289–310CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hartwig, Gerald W., ‘Social Consequences of Epidemic Diseases’, in Hartwig, Gerald W. and Patterson, K. David, eds, Disease in African History: An Introductory Survey and Case Studies (Durham, N.C., 1978), 38Google Scholar, and passim; Northrup, David, Trade Without Rulers (Oxford, 1976). 74–5Google Scholar; Sargent, , ‘Generations of Turmoil and Stress’, 235Google Scholar; Spear, Thomas T., The Kaya Complex: A History of the Mijikenda Peoples of the Kenya Coast to 1900 (Nairobi, 1978), 100Google Scholar; Tosh, John, Clan Leaders and Colonial Chiefs in Lango (Oxford, 1978), 57, 269Google Scholar; and many others. For the general point, Dirks, , ’Social Responses’, 30.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ de Lacerda, M. Pinheiro, ‘Notícia da cidade de Benguella, e dos costumes dos gentios habitantes daquella sertão’, Annaes marítimos e coloniaes, v (1845), 489.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ On the nutritional trade-off see Vail, and White, , Capitalism and Colonialism, 219.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Miller, ‘Lineages, Ideology, and the History of Slavery’.

⁶⁰ E.g. Kasanje: Miller, Joseph C., ‘Slaves, Slavers, and Social Change in Nineteenth Century Kasanje’, in Heimer, Franz-Wilhelm, ed., Social Change in Angola (Munich, 1973). 9–29.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Klein, Herbert S., ‘The Portuguese Slave Trade from Angola in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of Economic History, xxxii, iv (1974), 894–918Google Scholar; Miller, ‘Legal Portuguese Slaving’.

⁶² Miller, , ‘Legal Portuguese Slaving’, 156–60.Google Scholar

⁶³ E.g. da Cunha letter, 6 March 1755 (AHU, Angola, ex. 27).

⁶⁴ Cadornega, , História geral, 1, 138–9.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Sousa Coutinho letter, 28 May 1766 (AHU, Angola, cx. 31).

⁶⁶ Miller, Way of Death.

⁶⁷ Cf. Fage, John D., ‘The Effect of the Export Slave Trade on African Populations’, in Rathbone, R. J. A. R. and Moss, R. P., eds, The Population Factor in African Studies (London, 1975), 15–23Google Scholar; Anstey, Roger T., The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition (London, 1975), 81–2Google Scholar; Birmingham, David, ‘Central Africa from Cameroun to the Zambezi’, in Oliver, Roland, ed., The Cambridge History of Africa – Vol. 3, from c. 1050 to c. 1600 (Cambridge, 1977), 519–20, 522.Google Scholar But cf. growing recognition in other circles of ecological constraints on population: Thornton, , ‘Kingdom of Kongo’, 6Google Scholar; Guy, Jeff, The Destruction of the Zulu Kingdom (London, 1979), 4 ff.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Thornton, ‘Demography and History’, for the only historical calculation of population densities.

⁶⁹ Cf. Spear, , Kaya Complex, 112–13Google Scholar; Bryson, Reid, Climatesof Hunger (Madison, 1977).Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Thornton, John K., ‘The Slave Trade in Eighteenth Century Angola: Effects on Demographic Structures’, Canadian Journal of African Studies, xiv, iii (1980), 417–27.Google Scholar

⁷¹ Bryson, , Climates of Hunger, 3 ff.Google Scholar

⁷² E.g. van Leynseele, Pierre, ‘Ecological Stability and Intensive Fish Production: The Case of the Libinza People of the Middle Ngiri (Zaire)’, in Burnham, P. C. and Ellen, R. F., eds., Social and Ecological Systems (A.S.A. Monograph 18) (London, 1979), 167–84.Google Scholar