Professor Diedrich Westermann, whose international reputation in the field of African studies needs no emphasis here, was intimately associated with the foundation and early development of our Institute. As a former missionary in Togoland and as Director of the Seminar für Orientalische Sprachen in the University of Berlin, he attended the Conference at High Leigh in 1924 when the proposal to found an International Institute for the study of African languages and cultures was first formulated. He served on the provisional committee which gave effect to this proposal and, at the first general meeting of the Institute in 1926, he and Professor Delafosse1 were appointed Directors of the Institute to serve with Harms Vischer as Secretary General and Lord Lugard as Chairman.

Since the household contains members drawn from the larger minor lineage group, we may expect to find that it functions within the framework of the latter. This is indeed the way in which Konkomba think of the household—as part of something larger, as something that is now isolated from and now merged in the larger group. The phrase ‘Ti je mfum mba’ (we are one) may refer to a household, a minor lineage group, a major lineage group, a clan, a tribe or the whole Konkomba people. When speaking of co-operation they speak in terms of the minor lineage group rather than in terms of the household. We shall try to differentiate the role of the household as a unit of reciprocal help, of social control, and of instruction, &c.

The initial spread of Swahili from the coastal areas of Kenya and Tanganyika during the last century must, in large measure, be attributed to the Swahili traders, who, with their often unsavoury reputations and their caravans, took the language as far as the Congo. Where these traders settled in any numbers, as at Tabora, Mwanza, Ujiji, Usumbura, Lake Nyasa, and, to a smaller extent, at Mumias, small Islamic islands of coastal-Swahili-speakers have persisted: some flourishing like Usumbura, others, like Mumias, declining. In general, however, the language became more emasculated the farther it extended from the coast, so that in North Uganda and parts of the Eastern Congo it is essentially a highly simplified means of communication for individuals of widely differing groups; pruned of all refinements, its link with the coast is a tenuous one.

This paper presents a study of what is sometimes called detribalization—the process by which tribal people, especially those who have left their homeland and obtained paid employment in towns, are separated from the social and cultural heritage of their tribe. But this is too superficial a statement of the matter. It is necessary to define the problem in sociological terms before attempting a systematic analysis of the process. Accordingly I shall start by describing the system of social relations prevailing among Temne in Freetown, and shall examine the forces which, over the past fifty years, have influenced its character. At the beginning of this period relationships among the Temne immigrants appear to have been relatively close and stable, but, from the 1920's, disintegrative tendencies became progressively more marked until, at the end of the 1930's, the young men carried out a series of swift changes which resulted in a more successful adaptation of the system and its closer integration.

The area under consideration consists of 1,100 square miles of the Madagali, Cubunawa, and Mubi districts of the northern touring division of Adamawa emirate, whose sub-headquarters at Mubi is responsible to the administrative capital at Yola on the River Benue. It is occupied by a heterogeneous population of fairly primitive pagans, and some 400 square miles of the area are still declared closed territory under the Unsettled Districts Ordinance. Though there is a steady, if unspectacular, movement down to the plains, a large proportion of the people remain in their mountain fastnesses whither they fled in the nineteenth century to seek safety from the marauding Fulani cavalry during the slave-raids that characterized the period between the jihad and the British occupation.

Die Nachkommen des sagenhaften Ngoε wohnen etwa 90 km. nördlich des Kamerunberges an den Abhängen des Kupé und Manεnguba, im zerrissenen Bergland Mbidεhin und im Tale des Kyidε. Ngoε ist der Sage nach aus dem kleineren (edib e njom ‘Mannsee’) der beiden Seen im Ebuɔgε-Krater (<ebuɔg ‘Schüssel, Trog’) entstiegen und traf am Rande des edib e mwad ‘Frauensee’ Asum' Ejaŋ, die seine Frau wurde und ihm viele Kinder schenkte. Durch diese wurde Ngoε der Vater verschiedener Stämme. Sein Sohn Asumε gründete in seinen Nachkommen die fünf Unterstämme der West-Kɔsi: Mwa-Nyɔ, Mw' Etuk, Mw' Asumε Ndεm, Mw' Εtan und Mbogmud. Andere Nachkommen des Ngoε gründeten die Unterstämme der Ost-Kɔsi: Ninɔŋ, Nlilɔg und Eloŋ, auch die Kundu und Londo jenseits des Mongo zählt man unter Ngoε's Nachkommen.

A Stable word may be defined as a form which is capable of standing by itself as a complete sentence, other than a free verbal tense. In Manyika the categories of words found stabilized are independent and dependent nominals, proper names and, but rarely, relative verbal tenses.