Since the work of Durkheim and Mauss on systems of classification, it has generally been recognized that there is some structural relationship or ‘concordance’ between the social and symbolic orders of any society. The present analysis establishes a system of dual symbolic classification for an East Africa people and further indicates the widespread incidence of this type of classification in Africa (cf. Needham, 1960a; Beidelman, 1961; Wieschhoff, 1938; Werner, 1904; Evans-Pritchard, 1953, 1956; and others). It also provides a closer ethnographic comparison with the neighbouring matrilineal Kaguru, with whom Gogo share some linguistic and cultural features, and whose system of symbolic classification has been described by Beidelman (1961).

In his important pioneering study of migrations into Ghana, Rouch makes the observation that different tribal groups of migrants organize themselves differently in the foreign towns to which they migrate. The forms of their organization fall into a continuum between two extremes. At the one end are migrants who form only segmental, temporary, tribal groupings. At the other end are migrants who form autonomous, multi-purposive, tribal communities. Banton makes a similar observation in his study of migrants in Freetown. Neither Rouch nor Banton analyses this difference in detail, though both tend to explain it in terms of differences in tribal traditional culture.

Ce conte a été enregistré, transcrit, traduit et présenté sous les auspices du Centre Fédéral Linguistique et Culturel de Yaoundé (Cameroun) et grâce à une subvention de l'Institut International Africain. Après un rapide commentaire, nous le donnons sous la version française d'abord et ensuite sous sa version Eton avec une traduction linéaire.

In the concluding paragraphs of Part I of this article it was pointed out that in addition to its judicial functions the Poro society possessed some important powers of administration. On the other hand, there was also evidence to suggest that the society carried on this wide range of activities, amounting almost to government of the country, as an instrument of the chiefs.

It has been claimed that Zea mays existed in Africa before the discovery of America, but the plant is more generally considered to be a native of America, which could have spread through other continents only in post-Columbian times.

This latter opinion has recently been challenged by several writers. Jeffreys, for instance, has since 1953 consistently maintained that on arrival in Guinea the Portuguese found Zea mays already well established there, as the cereal they called milho zaburro, previously introduced by the Arabs, who would have visited America long before Columbus. On the other hand, V. de Magalhães Godinho, pertinently refuting many of Jeffreys's reasonings and identifications, has put forward the view that, before the Portuguese voyages of discovery, there existed in Africa a variety of Zea mays, which was subsequently replaced by the American variety; the Portuguese would have become familiar with this variety in Morocco, and it would be this plant which they called milho zaburro, or milho maçaroca. To both these authors the designations milho maçaroca and Zea mays are indisputably synonymous.