Social and Cultural Change in a Rural Zairian Village

Extract

It is no more than a truism to point out once again that much of social science and other research in African studies is devoted to problems of change—and quite rightly so. The greatest share of this research, however, is today focused on urban studies. Rural areas are seldom brought into the equation since the flow of international power comes primarily from the cities. Yet it is the country which ultimately provides the people for the cities; it is the country upon which the cities must count for foodstuffs and other supplies; and it is country people, as well as city people, who influence national governments via the ballot. Thus in one sense, at least, the countryside is a microcosm of the city, and what is happening there should give us different but equally valuable perspectives on change.

It was thus with special anticipation that I returned, in May and June of 1973, to the village of Lupupa Ngye, located in what is now the Eastern Kasai Region of the Republic of Zaire. In 1959-60, my wife, two small children and I spent almost a year there engaged in ethnographic, ethnological, and ethnomusicological research. My purposes were traditional ones in anthropology: to renew old ties, to attempt to fill in gaps in my understanding of village life and thought and to see how my friends had fared and how much, and in what ways, they and their way of life had changed in the intervening thirteen years.