The aim of this article is to interpret and understand certain Sewa Mende socio-spatial categories and at the same time to attempt to reveal an order in the otherwise confusing complex of supernatural spirits. This limited aim may be justified in so far as the Mende are among the most documented of West African societies, and yet an examination of the principal works (Little, 1951; Harris and Sawyerr, 1968) would suggest that Mende society consists of a constellation of unconnected elements. Thus their secret societies have received considerable attention, but what has a secret society (hale) to do with, for example, medicine (hale), an object for swearing by (hale), or a magical thief-catching device (hale)? Little has described them as ‘“broadly speaking” patrilineal’ (1951: 98) though his data hardly support even this vague contention. And to what are the diverse modes of supernatural spirit related? Mende culture as a whole may indeed show a remarkable lack of coherence and Harris and Sawyerr (1968: xii) have commented on the cultural variations among the different groups that constitute the Mende nation; consequently it is pertinent to add that this article is based wholly on ethnographic observations made among one of these groups.

In what sense are current African politics explicable as efforts to ‘domesticate’ modernity? In Tanzania the post-socialist liberalisation has opened space for new forms and objects of competition. A scramble for control and for resources in the Kilimanjaro—Mem area in 1993 is described here. The variety of competitive activities involved is encapsulated in events in four radically different organisational arenas: in Chadema, a new national political party; in the Lutheran Church; in a sub-village on Kilimanjaro; and in a local patrilineage. These organisational frameworks are approached as partially autonomous, locally specific, sites of political activity. Each is visibly marked by a historical past while also being rapidly propelled to respond to immediate changes of circumstance in a large environment. The details suggest that classical theoretical definitions of ‘modernity’ do not always stand up as useful analytic devices.

Les études sur les risques pour la santé reproductive en temps de guerre s'intéressent beaucoup aux statistiques en matière de violence sexuelle infligée par une des parties belligérantes aux femmes de l'autre partie. Bien que justifié, cet intérêt obscurcit les risques présents dans les families et les communautés locales. Cet article examine les conséquences de la militarisation des jeunes dans le sud du Soudan sur la santé reproductive des femmes. La guerre a amené les families à désirer plus d'enfants pour compenser le taux élevé de mortalité infantile en temps de guerre. La rupture sociale entraînée par la guerre a incité les hommes à enfreindre les règies de la sexualité et les tabous sexuels à un point tel que les femmes ont perdu une grande part du pouvoir décisionnel qu'elles avaient sur leur sexualité et leur reproductivité. Ainsi, dans la région occidentale de Dinka, les femmes acceptent de concevoir contre leur gré. Elles considèrent également la grossesse comme une épreuve difficile. Nombreuses sont celles cependant qui tentent d'interrompre leur grossesse par des techniques dangereuses pouvant entraîner une infertilité, des infections ou la mort.

Muslim Hausa-speaking women in the city of Kano in northern Nigeria form a heterogeneous population, differentiated by many social, economic and individual characteristics. New concepts of community and identity beyond the level of kinship, descent and marriage have developed among women in specific urban neighbourhoods, as on a modern housing estate (bariki) for civil servants in the old city of Kano. Although the term matan bariki, ‘women of the barracks’, is synonymous with ‘prostitutes’ for most Hausa-speakers, the secluded wives of policemen living on this housing estate use it as a self-designation that signifies membership of an urban middle class. The article explores the ambivalent meanings of the term bariki as a symbol of modernity and ‘Westernisation’ as well as the relation between seclusion as a religiously defined institution and its significance as a mark of socio-economic status. By redefining the term matan bariki the women of the barracks use a strategy of distinction in order to differentiate themselves from other groups and milieux of women in Kano.

Fourteen years have passed since J. A. Barnes published his short article on ‘African models in the New Guinea Highlands’ (1962). In it Barnes raised the question of whether the concepts used to analyse systems of descent in African societies were applicable to descent systems in New Guinea that appeared at first glance to be similar. This article signalled the beginning of a debate over the nature of descent and kinship in New Guinea and the advisability of using concepts and results derived from field research in another continent and in a different context. The very status of social anthropology as a comparative and generalizing science is called into question by the debate initiated by Barnes, for if African research has no relevance for New Guinea research, then neither cross-cultural typologies nor generalizations about social behavior are possible. Hence, the New Guinea literature has more than just an area specialist's significance.

The Education Code of 1887 provided for the teaching of art subjects as they were understood in South Kensington at that time—the age of Froebel and Slojd: the aim seems to have been the vague one of ‘hand-and-eye training’. But the purpose for which hand and eye were to be trained does not appear clearly in its instructions, and I am perfectly certain that the bulk of teachers of the older generation do not know of one. One cannot trace in the Code any real policy of artistic development in the country by means of the educational system. ‘Drawing’ was, and is, taught not primarily from the artist's point of view at all, i. e. as a study of form. The study of colour is not taught, nor the elements of design. Now form, colour, and design are the elements of the graphic and plastic art, and one would have thought that they would have been incorporated in a balanced scheme of elementary education. There was, and is, no provision for the training of taste, appreciation, criticism, or for the slightest perception of the horizons of art history.

Like other African peoples, Banyoro have a rich and complex symbolism, and there are numerous references to aspects of this in both older and more recent writings about Nyoro traditional culture. But until the publication in a recent issue of this journal of a paper on the significance of right and left in Nyoro symbolic classification by my colleague Dr. Rodney Needham (Needham, 1967), no systematic analysis of Nyoro symbolic categories, or even of the more important of them, had yet been attempted. I hope myself to take up this theme in a forthcoming monograph on Nyoro ritual, though I believe that to do it justice will require some further detailed inquiry through the Runyoro language in Bunyoro itself. In the meantime Needham's interesting essay, based on most of the available written sources, is a significant contribution to the subject. There is certainly much research to be done on the symbolism of right and left and of other complementary oppositions in African cultures, and it is to be hoped that his pioneering efforts will stimulate further researches in these fields.

In a paper written at the end of 1946 (but not published until 1950), I discussed incidentally the types and frequency of marriages with kin among the Tswana tribes of the Bechuanaland Protectorate. I showed there that such marriages are more usual among nobles (descendants of chiefs) than commoners, and also that the two classes differ in the kinds of relative they mostly marry. Since then I have recorded several other genealogies of both nobles and commoners. This new material provides the opportunity for a more detailed analysis than was previously given of rates and types of kin marriage among the Tswana, and in particular for a discussion of the changes that have taken place during the past few generations.

Contrairement aux suppositions néo-malthusiennes, l'augmentation de la population ne veut pas nécessairement dire quʼil y a moins de bio-diversité. Davantage de gens pourrait signifier une plus grande attention prêtée à l'environnement. Cela dépend beaucoup des circonstances dans lesquelles les populations locales développent une prise de conscience de la gestion de la bio-diversité et un engagement pratique dans celle-ci. Cet article considère deux cas.

Dans le premier cas, une forêt tropicale apparemment primitive s'avère être, lorsquʼon l'inspecte de plus près, chargée de traces d'une occupation humaine antérieure. Il se peut que ceci ait été une bonne chose pour certaines classes de bio-diversité comme les oiseaux par exemple. Dans un deuxième cas, on prête attention aux ressources des cultures agricoles génétiques dans un paysage agricole avec une forte densité de population. Ici, il se peut que la bio-diversité génétique ait été conservée par les agriculteurs qui ont sélectionné des semences adaptées à des conditions physiques difficiles. Ce genre de données obtenues durant l'étude de cas fournit une base sur laquelle les partisans de la défense de l'environnement et les groupes socio-éducatifs peuvent développer une compréhension mutuelle.

Les Asante (Ashanti) sont un peuple d'habitants de la forêt d'Afrique de l'Ouest, vivant maintenant au sein de la République de Ghana. Cet article étudie comment les Asante perçoivent les animaux de la forêt dans un large contexte culturel et historique. Ces animaux étaient omnipresents dans la vie et les pensées des Asante, et cet article offre une analyse des explications—phénoménologiques et ontologiques—qui leur ont été attribuées. Il est aussi examiné comment les interprétations sur le cas des animaux étaient liées à la compréhension des Asante de l'individualité et de la personne, et aux explications du mythe et de l'histoire.

The widespread failure of the post-colonial state in Africa is often attributed to a lack of social and cultural unity, and hence of national identity, in the territories in question. In Europe the state has historically been conceptualized as coterminous with the nation, an apparently ‘natural’ cultural unit that allowed for subsequent political cohesion and the avoidance of ethnic conflict. In Africa the concept (and the reality) of the nation is often absent and this is sometimes considered to be a stumbling block on the path to political stability. However, the suggestion that a state whose population exhibits the requisite cultural homogeneity would construct and maintain a nation and, subsequently, successful and stable statehood is challenged by evidence from the Comoro Islands. Here, despite apparent socio-cultural unity, there has been little movement towards the development of a nation; indeed, there is evidence that an explicit denial of socio-cultural unity underpins the failure of the state.

The stability of marriage is one of the most striking features of a rural Luo community, yet discussions of marital problems are endemic. Women frequently voice complaints about their husbands' behavior or make more general comments on the difficulty of marriage for women. By contrast, men voice few complaints about their own marriages, although they are well aware of women's attitudes. I was frequently cautioned by male friends not to pay too much attention to anything a woman might tell me since ‘women liked to complain.’

On n'est pas toujours certain, en anthropologie, lorsqu'on étudie un secteur de la vie ou de l'activité sociale, d'avoir défini pour autant un objet de recherche. Le phénomène isolé, privilégié, peut n'être qu'un aspect fluctuant ou même éphémère d'une réalité plus vaste. Seule la compréhension de cette réalité permettrait de situer à sa juste place le phénomène privilégié; le trajet inverse est impossible. Cette remarque me paraît rejoindre celles que formule E. Leach dans Rethinking Anthropology lorsqu'il invite ses collègues à ne pas ‘collectionner les papillons’, à ne pas multiplier les typologies—et par exemple (mais ceci est une autre histoire) à ne pas distinguer entre différents types de filiation aux dépens de la seule distinction pertinente, selon lui, qui oppose la filiation a l'alliance.

The study of social, economic and political networks provides a new perspective on the history of northwestern Sierra Leone and neighbouring parts of Guinea during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This article concerns the men and women of wealth, rank and power who built and maintained local and extensive networks focused on towns in northwestern Sierra Leone, Port Loko and Kambia, at two time periods, c. 1800 and c. 1865. These activities involved the production and exchange of resources; the migration, settlement and intermarriage of families; and the creation, expansion and fission of households, alliances and other groups. Network analysis illuminates major historical changes, such as the development of towns, kingdoms and interregional trade systems. Furthermore, it reveals the shifting nature of ethnic identities, particularly among the Mande. And finally, it helps to show how society in the northwest became more class differentiated as internal and external commerce expanded.

In their initial interaction with the Colonial powers, several East African peoples such as the Maasai, the Turkana, the Sebei, the Karamojong, and the Nandi—all organized through some type of age-based institution—united around prophetic leaders, diviners, or ritual experts who mobilized men from several territorial sections to confront the intruders. This ad hoc military unity was necessarily short-lived, usually ending with the defeat of the people by the colonial power and see the imprisonment or death of the prophetic leader involved. (See Fosbrooke 1948: 12-19; Merker 1910: 67-105; Jacobs 1965: 20-108; Dyson-Hudson 1966: 15-16; Gulliver 1950: 229, 240; Meinertzhagen 1956: 222 ff; Weatherby 1962: 200-12; 1967: 133-44; Lamphear 1976: 225-43.) While ethnological studies of various age-organizations often mention that diviners or prophets provided professional services for the members of an age-group at their ceremonies, no one has examined the process by which a prophetic leader or diviner established his legitimacy during periods of peace so that he might lead the people during times of crisis. An examination of the prophetic institution among the Maasai and the relationship between the prophets and the members of the age-sets may provide some insight into the process, especially the manner in which prophets emerged as leaders of the people during two major crises in the history of the Purko-Kisongo Maasai: the Ilaikipiak war and the rinderpest pan-zootic.

The fascinating discussions of Nyoro symbolism which were contributed to Africa a few years ago by Rodney Needham (1967) and John Beattie (1968) included contrasting explanations of the myth which deals with the origin of the recently reigning Bito dynasty. I return now to this tale, believing it to be so fecund that even when two such scholars have done with it there still remain some footnotes to be added.

In Africa to-day the need for adequate investigation of nutritional problems is evident. As European civilization advances, the task of maintaining or providing for large sections of the native population diets which shall be adequate in quality as well as in quantity becomes more and more definite. In the practical sphere the problem is of a different complexion according to whether the community considered is an artificially induced concentration of people, as in schools, hospitals, prisons, and labour compounds, or is a comparatively spontaneous and free-moving aggregation in its own territory. A tribe which has been shifted back into a native reserve is in a kind of intermediate category. The index is, of course, the respective amount of initiative and control exercised by the European authority and by the native. What follows is a discussion of the dietetic situation in tribal conditions only. The maintenance of a balanced diet in a hospital or a labour compound is a comparatively simple matter if due scientific care is exercised; it is much more difficult to regulate the food-situation of a free-living native tribe. The two sets of problems are, however, not entirely unconnected, since with an increasing knowledge of the constitution of native foodstuffs, and experiment by the trial and error method, it has been found that quite a number of these are suitable for incorporation into a standard diet and can replace European foodstuffs. On the other hand, the advent of a money economy into the life of many tribes has made possible the purchase of imported foodstuffs to correct a deficiency in their diet if they so desire—though too often it has the opposite effect of inducing the abandonment of useful native elements. Here then the problem takes on an economic complexion, and relative costs of importation, local purchase, or home production have to be considered, with inevitable complications for the final decision.

‘I am in the Batawana's country,’ wrote the Herero chief Samuel Maharero to the British Magistrate in Tsau in Ngamiland on 28 September 1904. ‘I am writing to tell you that I have been fighting with the Germans in my country; the Germans were my friends; they made me suffer so much by the manner in which they troubled me, that I fought with them…’ (PRO CO 879/80). On the same date he wrote to the Tawana chief Sekgoma: ‘I tell you that I have fought with the German, they trouble me and killed my people, then I was angry about that. I have fought with them for 8 (eight) months, and I have no ammunition to-day, this is the reason why I came here…’ (PRO CO 879/86).

The Muslim-dominated ‘Swahili coast’ has always served as a conceptual as well as physical periphery for post-colonial Kenya. This article takes Kenyan youth music under the influence of global hip-hop as an ethnographic entry into the dynamics of identity and citizenship in this region. Kenyan youth music borrows from global hip-hop culture the idea that an artist must ‘represent the real’. The ways in which these regional artists construct their public personae thus provide rich data on ‘cultural citizenship’, in Aihwa Ong's (1996) sense of citizenship as subjectification. I focus here on youth music production in the Kenyan coastal city of Mombasa between 2004 and 2007. During this time, some local artists adopted a representational strategy that subtly reinscribed the symbolic violence to which members of the coast's Muslim-Swahili society have long been subjected. I examine the representational strategies that were adopted during this period by Mombasan artists who happened to be members of the Muslim-Swahili society (‘subjects of the Swahili coast’, as I name them), with an ethnographic eye and ear trained on what they say about the ways in which young subjects of the Swahili coast are objectified and subjectified as ‘Kenyan youth’ in the twenty-first century.