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Poverty and Transvaluation in Nineteenth–Century Yorubaland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

John Iliffe
John Iliffe
Affiliation:
St John's College, Cambridge
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Abstract

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Type
Discussion: Yoruba Poverty
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , November 1991 , pp. 495 - 500
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

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References

1 Peel, J. D. Y., ‘Poverty and sacrifice in nineteenth-century Yorubaland: a critique of Iliffe's thesis’, J. Afr. Hist., XXXI (1990), 484.Google Scholar

2 Peel, J. D. Y., Ijeshas and Nigerians: the Incorporation of a Yoruba Kingdom, 1890s–1970s (Cambridge, 1983).Google Scholar

3 John, Iliffe, The African Poor: a History (Cambridge, 1987), 2.Google Scholar

4 See John, Iliffe, ‘Poverty in nineteenth-century Yorubaland’, J. Afr. Hist., XXV (1984), 43–57Google Scholar; Iliffe, , African Poor, 82–8.Google Scholar

5 Peel, , ‘Poverty’, 466.Google Scholar

6 Peel, J. D. Y., ‘The pastor and the babalawo: the interaction of religions in nineteenth-century Yorubaland’, Africa, LX (1990), 357–9.Google Scholar

7 Peel, , ‘Poverty’, 477.Google Scholar

8 Ibid, 482.

9 Iliffe, , ‘Poverty’, 57.Google Scholar

10 Peel's article contains another misrepresentation which, although not germane to the present argument, must be refuted here in order to avoid later confusion. In ‘Poverty’, 466, he describes Goody's ‘contrast of extensive and intensive agriculture’ as ‘loosely correlating with Iliffe's two types of structural poverty’, i.e. labour-scarce and resourcescarce poverty. This is to miss a central point in my argument. I argued (African Poor, 14), for example, that Ethiopia (and perhaps Hausaland) in the nineteenth century had intensive agriculture (in Goody's terms) but labour-scarce poverty (in my terms).

11 Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (new edition, Edinburgh, 1964), 59Google Scholar, gives as its primary definition of the adjective ‘ascetic’: ‘rigorous in mortifying the flesh’. Weber's definition is in Max Weber, Economy and Society (2 vols.) (ed. Roth, G. and Wittich, C., Berkeley, 1978), 1, 541–5.Google ScholarPeel, , ‘Poverty’, 479Google Scholar, appears to misunderstand Weber's distinction between asceticism and mysticism.

12 Peel, , ‘Poverty’, 466.Google Scholar

13 See Döhne, J. L., A Zulu-Kafir Dictionary (Cape Town, 1857), 253–4Google Scholar; Callaway, [Henry], The Religious System of the Amazulu: Part III: Izinyanga Zokubula; or, Divination (Springvale, 1870).Google Scholar

14 Peel, , ‘Poverty’, 472–3.Google Scholar

15 Iliffe, , ‘Poverty’, 54.Google Scholar See also Iliffe, , African Poor, 86.Google Scholar

16 Peel, , ‘Poverty’, 484.Google Scholar

17 Ibid. 469.

18 Ibid. 472.

19 Ibid. 470.

20 See Weber, , Economy, 1, 581–3.Google Scholar

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30 Cowell, E. B. (ed.), The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births (7 vols) (Cambridge, 1895–1913), IV, 34.Google Scholar See also Lamotte, Etienne, Histoire du bouddhisme indien (Louvain-la-neuve, 1976), 79.Google Scholar

31 Johnston, E. H. (ed.), ‘The Buddha's mission and last journey: Buddhacarita, XV to XXVIII’, Acta Orientalia, XV (1937), 61.Google Scholar

32 See, e.g., Williams, R., Jaina Yoga: a Survey of the Mediaeval Sravakacaras, London Oriental Series 14 (London, 1963), 17, 25, 161Google Scholar, citing an author of c. A.D. 1100. (I owe this reference to Professor J. R. Goody.)