The Peabody Harvard Kalahari Expedition, under the leadership of Laurence K. Marshall, has made four field trips between 1950 and 1955 into the Kalahari Desert in South West Africa and the Bechuanaland Protectorate to find and study Bushmen who were living in their own way, and not working for white farmers or for Negroes. The last of the four expeditions, that of 1955, was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution as well as by the Peabody Museum of Harvard.

Our principal study was made with the !Kung Bushmen of the Nyae Nyae region of South West Africa. The Nyae Nyae region extends about 150 miles north and south, about 100 miles east and west, and is centred approximately at Gautscha Pan, which is located at c. 19° 48′ 30″ S. and 20° 34′ 36″ E. on the map of a survey of the area by the Administration of South West Africa dated 7.11.1935. The Nyae Nyae region is separated from the farmed areas of South West Africa by a stretch of waterless, uninhabited country over 100 miles wide.

In this paper I illustrate an objective method for the determination of the meaning and values of social institutions, using data on the custom of praise-singing (roko) among the Hausa of Northern Nigeria. To direct attention to the method of analysis clearly, I shall present the field-data and their examination separately. I concluding, I shall indicate certain problems which seem to arise from this paper.

Lele religious life is organized by a number of cult groups. For a long time they seemed to me to be a collection of quite heterogeneous cults, uncoordinated except for a certain overlap in membership. In one of them, the Diviners' group, entry is by initiation only, though the candidate is supposed to give evidence of a dream summons. In another, the Twin Parents, there is no initiation. Parents of twins have no choice but to pay the fees and become Twin Diviners. In another, the Begetters, candidates must have begotten a child, pay fees and undergo initiation. Members of this group, who have begotten children of both sexes, are qualified for entrance into another group, which makes a cult of the pangolin (manis tricuspis) (see fig. 1). Lastly there are Diviners of God (Bangang banjambi) who are supposed to acquire their power not by initiation, but by direct communication with supernatural beings, the spirits. The primary objects of all these cults are fertility and good hunting.

The Luvale in Northern Rhodesia came under British administration in the early years of the present century, the first Government headquarters in Balovale district having been established in 1907. Some time previously, about 1892, they had already come under pressure from the Lozi to the south as a result of Lozi intervention in the war between the Luvale and the Lunda. When, therefore, the Barotseland protectorate was established at the beginning of the century, the Balovale district was included within it. Relations with the Lozi authorities were slight in the early years of British administration; later, about 1930, when the Lozi sought to introduce a greater degree of political control in Balovale district, their relations with the Luvale (and Lunda) became strained. The Luvale chiefs acquired a special role as the focal point of Luvale opposition to Lozi interference, and thereby enhanced their status and prestige in the eyes of their people. The Balovale district was finally excised from Barotseland in 1941 after a Royal Commission had inquired into the dispute. Thereafter certain of the Luvale chiefs were gazetted with de jure recognition under the Native Authorities Ordinance.