One of the most intriguing features of most African languages is that of tone, by which variations in speech tone generate different meanings (Pike, 1948, offers a valuable introduction to this subject and includes an extensive bibliography; Fromkin, 1972, is a comprehensive evaluation of specialised studies). In the Ewe language, for example, the word to [H] pronounced with a high tone means ‘ear’, as in To le venye (HLMM), ‘I have an earache.’ To can also mean ‘through’, Meto akonta me [MHLHML], ‘I have gone through the accounts.’ But as soon as the high tone is replaced by a low one the meaning of the word changes drastically: to [L] means ‘thick’ as in Dzogbo la to [LHHL], ‘The porridge is thick’. Similarly, mi [H] is a pronoun for the first person plural (Mieto adegbe, ‘We are on the way to the hunt’). The same word refers to ‘faeces’ as in [HL], ‘goat's faeces’. A shift of tone from high to low results in a change of meaning. Mi [L] is a pronoun for the second person plural (Mile tsi [LLM], ‘You (should) take a bath’); it also means ‘swallow’ (mi amatsi, ‘swallow [or take] the medicine’). The phenomenon is not restricted to monosyllables. Kuku [HH] refers to a ‘hat’ (Meɖe kuku na wo, ‘I remove your hat,’ which is a figurative way of saying ‘I beg you’). Kuku [LH] on the other hand refers to ‘death’. Asi [LH] is the word for ‘hand’, while asi [LM] denotes ‘market’. Tone is operative on a number of levels within the syntagmatic chain: on the level of syllable, word, phrase and sentence. Furthermore, a number of constraints—syntactic, international or natural factors—influence the disposition of speech tones (consult Ansre, 1961, for information about Ewe tone and Dakubu, 1988, for the most recent study of this and other aspects of Ghanaian languages).

It is widely recognised that seasonal labour bottlenecks present major obstacles to peasant farmers seeking to expand agricultural output in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence from Nigeria and Sierra Leone, for example, reveals that labour shortages and limited income to hire off-farm labour have historically constrained rural producers from intensifying and enlarging their agricultural operations (Norman et al., 1979: 42–7; Watts, 1983: 202–3; Richards, 1985: 96). Many attempts by colonial and contemporary African States to promote food crop and export crop production failed, in part, because of peasant resistance to the threat of subsistence insecurity associated with labour conflicts in the agricultural calendar. Richards's (1986) study of the failure of a series of labour-intensive wet rice cultivation projects in central Sierra Leone illustrates the degree to which peasant agricultural practices represent adjustments to labour-supply problems. Given the pervasiveness and importance of seasonal labour constraints in African agricultural systems, it is surprising that ‘few studies have provided insights into the adjustment in labor use resulting from the introduction of cash crops and new technologies’ (Eicher and Baker, 1982: 99).

The emergence of the charismatic movements in Nigeria in the 1970s is a remarkable religious phenomenon. Their rapid growth and success could be attributed to many factors, but the central factor which clearly emerges is that the movements have been presented in a manner acceptable and relevant to Nigerians, and they have been adapted to the situation in Nigeria. The continuous growth of the movements into the 1980s suggests that they are acting as responses to certain areas of need in Christian commitment in Nigeria. The concept of contextualisation is therefore the major key to an understanding of their rapid growth. Were it not for their contextualisation, the movements might have crystallised without any growth or might even have condemned themselves to decline and dissolution.

Religious conversion, a concept central to missionary activity and to the influence that Christianity has exerted in a variety of fields, embodies a wide range of meanings (Lonergan, 1971: 105–7). In the African context it has generally meant a change from a traditional to a universal religion, entailing a psychological transformation through which the convert's underlying assumptions about the world are reconstructed, accompanied by a socially recognised display of change (Jules-Rosette, 1976: 132–3). Robin Horton, among others, has devoted scholarly attention to the conversion process from the viewpoint of the Africans undergoing conversion but the missionaries, the advocates of conversion, have received no comparable attention (Beidelman, 1974: 235; cf. Beidelman, 1982).

Over a period of some fifteen years I carried out ethnographic studies in north-eastern Uganda, firstly of the Kalenjin peoples on and around Mount Elgon, and subsequently of the Sor, a small mountain community of Karamoja.

The earlier study formed the basis of a thesis on the Sebei of Mount Elgon and lasted for ten years, during which time I was based near Kampala and made intermittent journeys to spend two to three weeks at a time in different parts of the Mount Elgon and western Kenya region.