Nigeria is widely known as the African state where interethnic conflicts led to civil war. A great deal has been written to explain the ‘crisis’, as Nigerians prefer to call it, but there has been little study of the less newsworthy peace—the fact that large numbers of Nigerians in mixed communities get on fairly well together and have done so over a long period of time. In the Nigerian situation, a case can be made that intercommunal conflicts are really about economic and political power; ethnicity is only used to categorize people met in impersonal situations, or not met at all. Since the real game is power, it can also be shown that conflict is stronger at the top than at the bottom of the social system; the élites have more to gain than the masses by forwarding their ethnic group in relation to others. Of course, the élites have, on occasion, convinced the masses that benefits would be shared by all. Ethnic violence would not have been so well supported if this were not the case. The ordinary people have participated in riots, supported a civil war (on both sides), and most can be shown to harbour some prejudice toward members of other groups. But large numbers of them who migrate to the towns live peacefully with members of other groups, often find friends among them and, sometimes, wives or husbands.

The cultural significance of regular ‘hunger periods’ in tropical Africa, however much it may be disputed by anthropologists, has for a long time been apparent to less objective observers. It is generally accepted by those concerned in the engagement of migrant labour that at certain regular times of the year the supply is greater than at others: and it is believed that the number of men presenting for engagement is related to the quantity of food available in the villages. This view, as will be shown below, is an over-simplification. Ogbu (1973), though he relates seasonal hunger among the Poka to labour migration, sees die latter as a cause rather than a result of the former. He apparently considers that migration reduces the number of agricultural workers to below an unstipulated critical level above which it might still be possible to produce a sufficiency of food at all seasons, provided that animal pests could be controlled and agricultural techniques made more efficient. Seasonal hunger among the Ibo of Onicha he blames on shortage of farmland, low yield, and high storage loss of foodstuffs. At first sight it might appear that the cultural concomitants of the hunger period contrast rather strikingly between the two populations; and yet the recurrent hunger period is recognized by the FAO and other authorities (though Miracle (1961) questions its existence) as being a phenomenon widespread in sub- Saharan Africa, and one which might in consequence be expected to result from similar or related causes in most of the situations in which it occurs.

In a recent article in this journal I sketched the outline of a theory which I suggested might help us to make sense of a large but puzzling accumulation of data relating to the ‘conversion’ of African peoples to Islam and Christianity. The theory evoked a vigorous critical response, also in this journal, from the Islamist Humphrey Fisher. In the present paper I shall reply to Fisher's criticism. In the process, I hope to show that the theory can be used to make sense of a range of data not carefully considered in my previous article.

Comme tout groupe humain, les Komo éprouvent le besoin d'harmoniser leuts expériences ou l'ensemble des phénomènes qu'ils vivent, quel que soit le niveau où ceux-ci se situent ou le domaine dont ils relèvent. Or, ces expériences ont toutes lieu dans un cadre spatial, qui en fait toujours implicitement partie, mais qui, à certains moments, constitue l'objet privilégié de l'expérience. Le besoin d'harmonisation implique done que ce cadre soit structuré en fonction de cet ensemble. Cette harmonisation se fait dans un mouvement dialectique qui comporte autant de pôles qu'il y a de domaines à unifier et respecte la priorité ontologique de chacun de ceux-ci à son propre niveau. Ainsi, le cadre spatial possède sa priorité topologique dont cette recherche d'harmonisation ne pourra pas ne pas tenir compte. Ce sera le décalage entre ces données topologiques premières et leur relecture dans cet effort d'harmonisation qui fera de celle-ci un processus de symbolisation.

Le troisième volume des notes de K. Laman édité par S. Lagercrantz en 1962 étudie la vie religieuse chez les Kongo. Une grande partie des 258 pages traite des nkisi, ces forces non humaines capturées par les hommes qui les incorporent à un support matériel pour les mettre à leur service. Souvent aussi, prenant l'initiative du contact, les nkisi offrent leurs pouvoirs à certaines personnes de leur choix. A partir des 119 nkisi mentionnés ou décrits par K. Laman est-il possible de construire un système explicatif dans lequel ils obéissent à une certaine logique, sont actifs dans un domaine particulier, sont justifiés par des correspondances avec certaines catégories du monde, bref, sont reliés à un système de pensée cohérent et capable de légitimer leur action? Laman lui-même nous y invite puisqu'il déclare ‘minkisi belong to three classes: land, water and sky minkisi, according as their nkisi-fotraing medicines derive from these respective spheres’ (p. 71).

La verticalité ne se prête qu'à une seule opposition fondamentale, celle entre le Haut et le Bas. Pour saisir pleinement la portée de sa symbolisation, il importe de savoir d'abord comment les Komo se represéntent le Haut et les phénomènes qu'ils y voient.

The imposition of British colonial rule brought rural societies in Zambia to the crossroads of traditional and bureaucratic administration. Indigenous forms of government mediated central government institutions and regulated administrative changes. The majority of rural Africans were governed by composite structures. They were under a bureaucratic system but not part of it. The colonial form of local government, the Native Administration, was not a bureaucracy, though it may be considered a formal organization, in that ‘collective efforts were explicitly organized for specific ends’ (Blau and Scott, 1962: 223). Under colonial rule the principal ends were to maintain law and order and to collect taxes from the African majority. The indigenous political systems were left largely intact, and thus, politics was an intimate part of local government. This paper looks at one of these local systems of government and deals with its development and transformation through a number of phases, focusing primarily on the transitional period at the end of colonial rule (the late 1950s and the early 1960s) and the beginning of Zambian independence and on the persistence of traditional chieftainship as the basis of local government through the process of political change.

Observation of the way in which local groups develop in a given society must ideally take place over a longer period than most researchers remain active in the field, particularly if changes over time are to be charted adequately. But longer-term studies remain relatively scarce and there are obvious difficulties in the way of them: younger anthropologists are often reluctant to look again at a society that has already been carefully studied, especially if the scholar who carried out the earlier field-work still survives; and changing theoretical perspectives and field-work techniques make it hard to match data from different periods. Bearing in mind the need to overcome these difficulties, we combine in this paper field data collected in the course of expeditions spanning more than forty years in an effort to trace the development of an important Kgatla grouping, the ward.

Western scientific culture finds itself in a singular position with respect to the magico-religious system embodied in medieval culture from which, after strenuous resistence from the contemporary ecclesiastical authorities, it originally broke free. That is to say, it has still not succeeded in forming a theory concerning that very class of phenomena with which it was sometimes obliged violently to struggle in order to constitute itself as an autonomous discipline. And we, despite the proliferation of ethnographic and historical studies of extremely high quality, are hardly more advanced than in 1902, when Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert (1950: 138) wrote: ‘Until now the history of religions has relied on a rag-bag of vague ideas … the science of religions does not yet possess a scientific nomenclature’.

In the first part of this paper I discussed the Tswana, Southern Sotho, and Kgalagadi, and showed that among all these peoples a set of intertwined variables produces a consistent pattern of marriage choices and residential alignments. These peoples are organized in tribes, under chiefs who are linked in competition and through marriage with other close agnates. The chiefdom is divided into wards, ruled often by brothers, brothers' sons, or sons of the chief, and within each ward the dominance of the central core of competing and intermarrying agnates is duplicated. Men with patrilateral ties to those in power at each level are brought into alliance or competition with them, and their relationships may be transformed or reinforced by intermarriage. Outsiders are attached to these ruling agnatic cores at each level, and develop or reinforce matrilateral ties to them by contracting suitable marriages.

In this study I shall utilize data from one Temne chiefdom, Kolifa Mayoso, to illustrate patterns of migration in central Sierra Leone. Of primary concern are the extent of migration in terms of in-migrants and out-migrants and for the latter the relative importance of various destinations both rural and urban, the reasons for migration with special emphasis on patterns of out-marriage and finally, the importance of migration in terms of the adjustments made by in-migrants and by residents who encounter new objects, attitudes, and ideas while incorporating strangers into village life. The emphasis is on rural-rural migration but this is not the exclusive concern.

Une des caractéristiques fondamentales de la vaste remise en cause que connaissent les valeurs de la culture occidentale est sans contredit le fait qu'elle a dépassé une réflexion sur elle-même et qu'elle va puiser ses éléments de renouvellement dans les autres cultures. C'est dans ce cadre que la médecine occidentale, confrontée à d'autres traditions médicales, s'interroge sur ses postulats fondamentaux et sur leur valeur universelle. Cette interrogation est particulièrement aigüe dans le domaine de la psychiatrie: contestée violemment par ceux-là même qui la pratiquent, elle est à la recherche de nouvelles coordonnées et de nouveaux modes de thérapie qui lui donnent prise sur un objet qu'elle a de plus en plus de peine à définir. Au sein de ces tâtonnements naissent une série de tentatives nouvelles de traitement dont certains pensent trouver un correspondant dans d'autres formes de psychiatrie, déjà enracinées dans toute une tradition. Ainsi, différents cliniciens sentent actuellement la nécessité de se laisser interpeler par la façon dont les sociétés africaines appréhendent et organisent le domaine des maladies mentales et de leur traitement.

In the first part of this paper I began by dealing with those of Fisher's objections to the Intellectualist Theory which seemed to me to require short, sharp, and destructive answers. I then went on to consider an objection which seemed to require a longer and more constructive answer. This was the objection that the Theory did not account adequately for variation in the concept and cult of the supreme being in settings uninfluenced by Islam and Christianity. I suggested that, although the evidence was probably insufficient for a decisive verdict, the Theory appeared to give a rather good account of religious dynamics in such settings. A demonstration of its plausibility in this context was, as I pointed out, an important preliminary to my main argument. For it was crucial to the credibility of the thesis that Islam and Christianity were more than anything else catalysts for changes that were ‘in the air’ anyway.

The point of departure for this paper is Rodney Needham's article, ‘The left Hand of the Mugwe: an analytical Note on the Structure of Meru-symbolism’ (Needham, 1960: 20–33). I will not try here to give further evidence for the system of dual classification which he presents in that article in order to prove or disprove it, but will dwell on his suggestion that it might be possible to draw conclusions about the origin of the Meru of Kenya by examining their symbolic structure (ibid: 27). My argument will lead not so much to conclusions about the origin of the Meru, but to conclusions concerning the ‘making’ of a society, particularly that of Tigania, a subtribe of the Meru people. My conclusions are based on a discussion of the theoretical and historical implications of the allocation of distinctive rights and duties to different divisions within Tigania.

The Apostolic Church of John Maranke (Vapostori or Bapostolo), an indigenous Christian church founded in Umtali, Rhodesia, now has congregations across Central Africa. For the Church's central ritual event, the Sabbath kerek, and other occasions of worship, singing constitutes the core of ritual practice and is used to invoke the presence of the Holy Spirit. These songs combine traditional Bantu rhythmic patterns with a unique Apostolic form. Often drawn from biblical themes, the songs are composed by members as spiritually inspired pieces.

In June 1931, Daniel Odindo, chief of Asembo, resigned after seventeen years in office. Asembo was one of over twenty locations or chiefdoms through which the Luo were ruled by the colonial administration of Kenya; its population was no more than 20,000; it was over thirty miles from the Central Nyanza district headquarters at Kisumu; there was no mission station in the location. It possessed several bush schools, some small trading centres, a few acres of cotton, and a fishing harbour on Lake Victoria. Asembo was a backwater. But there were many parties to the dispute over the succession to Odindo. One of these was Archdeacon Owen, the local head of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) who lived at Maseno, thirty-five miles away in the Maragoli Hills which overlook Kisumu. Owen was a churchman who saw his vocation in bringing political and social as much as spiritual welfare, and was deeply conscious of the missionary's dependence upon the confidence of his African flock. His white supporters in his many political campaigns were more often to be found in England than in Kenya. One of these was Norman Leys, now retired from the Colonial medical service, the first well-informed critic of the Kenya situation and with access to the Labour Party. Leys thought that the Asembo case—then being pursued through the Colony's courts—might ‘prove to be the turning point in Kenya history and [might] become one of the famous trials of the world’. It was ‘perfectly terrific’. He believed he ‘could make a damned good book out of it’ but was thankful that Owen did not want him to take up the issue in England. ‘As well might an unknown medical practitioner in some French village have tried to get his country to undo the wrong done Dreyfus.’ But there was perhaps some hope that the Home Committee of the CMS might come to Owen's aid, for ‘the wizard-chief [Odindo's appointed successor] is obviously out to persecute the church’.

An elaborate and exceedingly beautiful pattern of scarification is found on the stomachs of Tiv women (see Figs. 1–8). These scars are applied around the time of puberty, and the same basic pattern is placed on the stomach of each girl. Occasionally these scars are referred to as ‘the circumcision of women’, but for the most part they are said to be meaningless, having only an aesthetic significance. Such statements need not necessarily be accepted at face value, though, as deeper meanings may be forgotten, deliberately concealed, or so commonly known as to be thought unworthy of mention. It is the purpose of this paper, written by a historian of religions, rather than an anthropologist or Africanist, to explore the possibility that these patterns carry some greater importance than is commonly recognized.