Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T21:42:43.689Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Marriage rules on the Plateau: an exchange

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

J. C. Muller  and
Barrie Sharp
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In his recent review article (Sharpe, 1983) Barrie Sharpe submits two of my books (Muller, 1976, 1981) to dissection but he does so in such a carefree manner, with so many mistakes and gratuituous assumptions, that I am prompted to reply in order to set the record straight.

I am first accused of not having dealt with ’religious conversion, social change and economy in [my] two books’. This is partly true for Du bon usage, and I have explained the reasons for not analysing the matrimonial changes brought about by British colonization (p. 28). It would have made too cumbersome a book and would have been beside the point. As for Parenté et manage, I have dealt with ‘economy, social change and conversion’ (pp. 46–67 for economy; 99–100 on the changes in bridewealth payments for literate people; 138–40 about the introduction of reimbursement of bridewealth, for instance, but there are many more changes examined together with the influence of Christianity on marriage throughout the book). These aspects are also covered in three articles published separately: one on inter-tribal trade, another on conversion, and a third on economic change and tin mining, a topic also dealt with in the review article in question (Muller, 1972, 1974, 1980a).

Type
Marriage and society in central Nigeria
Information
Africa , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , October 1984 , pp. 22 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1984

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Sharpe, B. 1983. ‘Headpanners and dredgers: theory in Plateau studies’. Africa 53(4), 84–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1972. ‘Quelques reflexions sur l'autorestriction technologique et la dépendance économique dans les sociétés d'auto-subsistance’. Cahiers d'Études Africaines 13(4), 659–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1974. ‘Old wine in new wineskins. Traditionalists and Christians among the Rukuba (Benu-Plateau State)’. Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 38, 49–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1976. Parenté et mariage chez les Rukuba (État Benue-Plateau, Nigeria),Paris: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1980a. ‘Comment s'appauvrir en se développant: impôts et changement social chez les Rukuba’ (Nigeria Central) Canadian Journal of African Studies 14(1), 83–96.Google Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1980b. Le Roi bouc emissaire. Pouvoir et rituel chez les Rukuba du Nigeria Central, Quebec and Paris: Fleury and L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Muller, J. C. 1981. Du bon usage du sexe et du mariage. Structures matrimoniales du haul plateau nigerian, Quebec and Paris: Fleury and L'Harmattan.Google Scholar
Aliyu, A. Y. 1974. ‘The establishment and development of emirate government in Bauchi, 1805–1903.’ Ph.D. thesis, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De Castelnau, F. 1851. Renseignements sur l'Afrique centrale et sur une nation d'hommes à queue qui s'y trouverait d'après le rapport des nègres du Soudan esclaves à Bahia. Paris.Google Scholar
Clapperton, H. 1829. Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Conant, F. P. 1960. ‘Dodo of Dass: a study of a pagan religion of northern Nigeria.’ Ph.D. thesis, Columbia University.Google Scholar
Dumont, L. 1980. Homo Hierarchicus: the Caste System and its Implications. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gunn, H. D. 1953. Peoples of the Plateau Area of Northern Nigeria. (Ethnographic Survey of Africa; Western Africa, Part 12.) London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Izard, M., and P., Smith 1982. Belief and Transgression; Structuralism in Religion, Myth and Ritual. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Lander, R. 1831. Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa, with the Subsequent Adventures of the Author, 2 vols. London: Henry Colborn and Richard Bentley.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1963. Structural Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1965. ‘The future of Kinship Studies.’ Proceedings of the Royal Anthropological Institute.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meek, C. K. 1931. Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria. Vol. II. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Trubner.Google Scholar
Morrison, J. 1976. ‘J°s Plateau societies: internal change and external influences 1800–1935.’ Ph.D. thesis, University of Ibadan.Google Scholar
Morrison, J. 1982. ‘Plateau Societies' resistance to Jihadist penetration.’ In E., Isichei (ed.), Studies in the History of Plateau State, Nigeria. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Patton, A. 1975. ‘The Ningi chiefdom and the African frontier: mountaineers and resistance to the Sokoto Caliphate, c. 1800–1905.’ Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Sharpe, B. 1983. ‘Group formation and economic interrelations in Kauru District: Hausa, Kaivi, Rishuwa, Ruruma.’ Ph.D. thesis, University of London.Google Scholar
Smith, M. G. 1960. Government in Zazzau. London: Oxford University Press for International African Institute.Google Scholar