A young man named Nyagumbe starts off to seek a bride. He finds the girl he wants; but while he is staying at her parents' home, she shows no signs of returning his love. He therefore refuses to take the food she prepares for him. The girl's mother advises her to love the young man, and then all will be well. Nyagumbe is secretly amused at his own plans for winning the girl's affection.

Sofala, Portuguese East Africa, is not very easy of access. The journey has to be made from Beira, in a small hired motor-boat, and takes about six hours in favourable weather, but the Indian Ocean in the vicinity of Beira is often notoriously rough. In the dry season, part of the journey may be made overland, in a machila or travellinghammock. On our forward voyage in January 1930, the engine of the motor-boat was put out of action by the amount of water shipped. This caused a delay of about half an hour while bailing was done by the natives who managed the boat, and we were glad to enter the calm waters of Sofala Bay about 1.30 p.m., having left Beira at 7.30 a.m.

It is natural that the urgent need for systematic study of culture contact should first and most forcibly be felt with regard to areas where the process of ‘civilization’ or modernization is already comparatively far advanced, whether it be in the form of detribalization in urban and industrial districts or of the adaptation of the tribal system among an important and powerful people like the Baganda. In the first place, those areas present the most pressing practical problems and exhibit the most acute symptoms of social, economic, and political strain. In the second place, as a corollary of their accessibility to exotic influences, they are the areas most easily accessible to observers trained and untrained, and their troubles often force themselves on the attention of the civilized world. They have, however, certain disadvantages from the point of view of the student of culture contact, in that, as Miss Mair has shown, the opportunity to study the stages in their development has gone for ever. By careful investigation a useful and reliable, if incomplete, picture can be drawn of the working of the social order just before the torrent of modern civilization broke in upon it, and the comparison between past and present which such a reconstruction makes possible provides us with knowledge which is both necessary for the explanation of existing phenomena and also of the greatest practical value. But just as one cannot tell by looking at the finished product whether a pot has been fashioned from the lump or by the coil method, so, in the absence of proper observation at the time, we cannot reconstruct a picture of the intermediate stages in the creation of the present situation, or ever know the details of the processes whereby native society adjusted itself to some innovations and was dislocated by others.

By the middle of the nineteenth century Niumi, a small Mandingo kingdom at the mouth of the Gambia river in West Africa, was on the verge of profound social changes. Until almost the end of the century it was swept by secular and religious warfare, important segments of its population were displaced, many members of its ruling clans were killed or driven into exile, and the state itself was divided to be later reconstituted under European colonial rule. It is the purpose of this paper to describe the social-political organization of Niumi in the 1850s before the traditional political system which had existed for over two centuries was destroyed. Niumi was one of fourteen small river kingdoms, ruled by Mandingo, some more clearly defined and centralized than others, together comprising one of the major areas of Mandingo settlement in West Africa. Although Niumi enjoyed a favoured economic position among these Mandingo states of the Senegambia its institutions were typical of Mandingo organization in the area and its history has proceeded along lines similar to the rest.

Sometimes I have an uneasy feeling after attending meetings or conferences connected with well-meaning, but not always wisely directed, efforts to better the lot of the African child. We good-intentioned folk would be well advised to find out something more about the system and ideas which African parents themselves practise or hold regarding this subject before we rush in to criticize, interfere with, or offer advice to those who in the long run are mainly responsible—namely, the childrens’ own parents. Too often, I fear, our attitude is to treat these parents as being themselves but poor, benighted, heathen children.