Gutmann's Das Recht der Dschagga is one of the classics of anthropology, for it is based on that sound and valid knowledge of a people which, even when outdated, sets standards for knowledge and its presentation. Here I wish to consider only one of the most stimulating chapters of the book, that containing Gutmann's analysis of Chagga concepts of truth, veracity, lying, and feeling guilty.

Before turning to a critical appreciation of this Chagga material, I should like to outline, as briefly as possible, my own viewpoint. First, I must insist that any concept of truth to which observable behaviour relates and which can thereby be made the object of sociological study, is something very different from a logician's concept of truth. I do not mean by this that the Westerner, holding the logician's concept of truth, finds among the Chagga another and incompatible sort of concept.

The scope of this subject and convenient chronological divisions for it may be suggested by three quotations. The first comprises questions put to the Undersecretary for the Colonies in the British House of Commons, 1 and 8 September 1909, by Keir Hardie:

Cet article n'a pas la prétention d'être une étude sociologique et économique, même sommaire, des marchés mossi. Il a pour but de montrer simplement quelques aspects de la notion mossi du marché. Nous nous limitons également, en établissant le calendrier des marchés, aux deux Subdivisions du Cercle de Ouahigouya: la Subdivision Centrale et celle des Lacs, les seules où l'élément mossi est prédominant du point de vue démographique.

Les populations konkomba qui se partagent équitablement de part et d'autre de l'Oti entre les deux Togo français et britannique, ont déjà fait l'objet d'un certain nombre d'études tant à l'époque allemande que du côté britannique et françcais.

Population belliqueuse, sympathique et fière, les Konkomba ont longtemps tenu en échec les forces allemandes de l'Oberleutnant Thierry, fondateur du poste de Sansane Mango, du docteur Gruner et du Leutnant von Massow (campagne de 1897).

Au point de vue linguistique, le konkomba est très proche du bassari et appartient au groupe gourma.

The Survey of African Marriage and Family Life, organized by the International J- African Institute in collaboration with the International Missionary Council, is a formidable work of over 450 pages of small print. Though somewhat heavy reading for the general, it will be an invaluable book of reference for those concerned with the subject.

Those Bantu languages which show the greatest number of correspondences in their concord systems have three kinds of prefixes:

1. Nominal prefixes, with m- in classes 1, 3, 4 and 6; they are used in nouns, locatives (as pre-prefixes), and adjectives.

2. Pronominal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6 and without forms for 1st and 2nd person (except in the personal pronoun); they appear in all other concording words except principal (i.e. non-relative) verb forms.

3. Verbal prefixes, usually without m- in classes 1, 3, 4, 6, with forms for 1st and 2nd person, and often with a special form in class 1 (e.g. a- as opposed to the pronominal prefix u- or yu-); they obtain as subject-prefixes in the principal verb forms.

A Money prize not exceeding £20 is offered in 1954 for a piece of original JLx. literary work by an African whose home is in any part of Africa south of the Sahara.

1. The length of the manuscript should be not less than 7,500 or more than 15,000 words.

2. The language may be English, French, Portuguese, or Afrikaans.

3. The manuscript submitted must show literary merit and be of general interest; the subject matter may include history, biography, folklore, fiction, or studies of African life and thought.

In the latter half of the eighteenth century, as a result of the British Government's anti-slavery legislation, negroes began to arrive in England in increasing numbers. Although there is no evidence of the operation of an anti-negro colour bar in England in those days it soon appeared desirable to repatriate them. Since it was not possible to return each ex-slave to his own original home, or that of his ancestors, the British Government negotiated with local chiefs the purchase of twenty square miles of coastland in the Sierra Leone peninsula, and in 1787 landed there the first batch of 400 freed slaves accompanied by 9 officials and (according to the records) a number of English prostitutes. Not many of this first group survived, owing to climatic conditions, but a second group of 1,131 Negroes arrived from Nova Scotia in 1792.

Dialogue verse in Swahili (mashairi ya kujibizana) has not hitherto been brought to the notice of Western students of the language. Examples were collected by scholars like Taylor and Werner, but were not prepared for publication. Yet this type of verse is one of the few literary exercises still practised by Swahili writers in the vernacular press. Modern Swahili verse fails to retain the variety of theme and prosodic form of the earlier poetry, chiefly because the art of versification based upon Arabian models has never become part of the main stream of Bantu cultural activity in East Africa. All the more reason, it may be held, for identifying, in the earlier verse, the kind of poetry which is still written.

Parmi les mouvements prophétiques qui donnent depuis plusieurs dizaines d'années un caractère spécifique au tableau religieux de la basse côte éburnéenne, le harrisme occupe une place de toute première importance, comptant décidément plus de fidèles que les Eglises missionnaires locales et les cultes autochtones. Déjà, en 1940, d'après les documents officiels, les Subdivisions de Grand Lahou et de Fresco (régions où ce mouvement accusait une tres grande intensité) présentaient les chiffres suivants: 7.75 5 harristes, 6.426 catholiques, 5.454 protestants, 2.202 animistes et 439 musulmans.

Les Bantous n'ont pas envers leurs Pygmées le même mépris que l'Européen moderne professe envers les peuples de couleur. Pourtant, malgré toute l'estime de fait qu'ils manifestent souvent pour eux, les Bantous considèrent les Pygmées comme trop anciens pour valoir les ‘moderns’ qu'ils se croient. Le respect qu'ils témoignent pour les Batwa ne dérive, quant au fond — et au fond institutional de leur vie — que du fait qu'en mentalité clanique on honore toujours ceux qui sont ‘devant’, c'est à dire dans l'ordre chronologique des vies. Et cela parce que la primogéniture est toujours la voie par laquelle on se rapproche de Dieu, premier père, et par laquelle on se raccorde à Lui.