Recording the Oral History of the Bakuba—II. Results

1960 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Vansina

A Cluster of some eighteen small tribes, numbering in all some 70,000 people, which lives on the rolling heights between the rivers Kasai, Sankuru and Lulua in the Kasai province of the Congo, are called Kuba by their neighbours. They form a kingdom which is in fact a federation of tribes, dominated by a central group, the Bushoong, whose chief is king of the whole congeries. This federation was imposed by the Bushoong upon the other tribes by conquest or threat of arms during the course of the three last centuries. As with all conquest states of which this one, although a federation, is typical, the different tribes controlled do not all have the same culture. One group, comprising the central tribes, is similar in culture and language. It includes the Bushoong, Ngeende, Pyaang, Byeeng, and Bulaang tribes. Other tribes are culturally akin to this group. Still other tribes belong to the Lulua-Luba Kasai cluster. Among these the patrilineal Coofa and the matrilineal Kete may be mentioned. Finally, other tribes like the Ngoombe or Mbeengi participate in the general type of Mongo cultures. The social structure of all the Kuba tribes with the exception of Coofa and Mbeengi is matrilineal. They are grouped in matrilineal clans, which are divided in small autonomous residential lineages, which can be called clan-sections. Clan-sections of different clans make up a village. The village is ruled by a set of dignitaries and a general council composed of the clan-section heads. The tribes of the central group and the ones who are culturally akin to it group several villages in chiefdoms which are ruled by chiefs assisted by councils. In these tribes, with the exception of the Bushoong, different chiefdoms are united loosely on a tribal scale. The Bushoong, who are the most numerous, are constituted in one chiefdom only. The religion of all the tribes of this cluster is very similar. Ancestor worship is practically absent. There are beliefs in a Supreme Being, in nature spirits, and in spirits or forces which control charms. Furthermore, mention must be made for the whole congeries of tribes of a flourishing art, especially decorative art, which is expressed in weaving, matting, woodcarving, ironworking and even architecture.

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Besin Gaspar

This research deals with the development of  self concept of Hiroko as the main character in Namaku Hiroko by Nh. Dini and tries to identify how Hiroko is portrayed in the story, how she interacts with other characters and whether she is portrayed as a character dominated by ”I” element or  ”Me”  element seen  from sociological and cultural point of view. As a qualitative research in nature, the source of data in this research is the novel Namaku Hiroko (1967) and the data ara analyzed and presented deductively. The result of this analysis shows that in the novel, Hiroko as a fictional character is  portrayed as a girl whose personality  develops and changes drastically from ”Me”  to ”I”. When she was still in the village  l iving with her parents, she was portrayed as a obedient girl who was loyal to the parents, polite and acted in accordance with the social customs. In short, her personality was dominated by ”Me”  self concept. On the other hand, when she moved to the city (Kyoto), she was portrayed as a wild girl  no longer controlled by the social customs. She was  firm and determined totake decisions of  her won  for her future without considering what other people would say about her. She did not want to be treated as object. To put it in another way, her personality is more dominated by the ”I” self concept.


Author(s):  
S.N. Korusenko

This paper aims at reconstructing the genealogy of Siberian Tatars of Knyazevs (Western Siberia), identifying the origins of their surname, which is not characteristic of the Tatars, and at analysis of the influence of socio-political and socio-economical processes in Russia in the 18th through 20th centuries on the social transformation of the family. The sources were represented by the materials of the Inventory Revision Book of Tarsky District of 1701 and census surveys of the end of 18th through 19th centuries, which allowed tracing the Knyazev family through the genealogical succession and identifying social status of its members. In this work, recordkeeping ma-terials of the 18th–20th centuries and contemporary genealogical and historical traditions of the Tatars have been utilized. In the research, the method of genealogical reconstructions by archival materials and their correlation with genealogies of modern population has been used. The history of the Knyazev family is inextricably linked to the history of modern village of Bernyazhka — one of the earliest settlements of the Ayalintsy (a group of the Si-berian Tatars) in the territory of the Tarsky Irtysh land which became the home to the Knyazevs for more than three centuries. The 1701Inventory Revision Book cites Itkuchuk Buchkakov as a local power broker of the Aya-lynsky Tatars in the village. During the 18th century, this position was inherited by his descendants who eventually lost this status in the beginning of the 19th century in the course of the managerial reforms by the Russian gov-ernment. Nevertheless, the social status of the members of the gens remained high. In the mid. 19th century, the village moved — the villagers resettled from the right bank of the River Irtysh onto the left one. As the result, the village was situated nearby the main road connecting the cities of Omsk and Tara. At the same time, the village became the center of the Ayalynskay region. That led to the strengthening of the social status and property en-richment of the descendants of Itkuchuk Buchkakov. The Knyzevs’ surname first appeared in the materials of the First All-Russia Census Survey of 1897. Some of the descendants signed up under this surname later in the Soviet period. During the Soviet years, members of the Knyzev’s gens had different destinies: some worked in the local government, whereas the others were subjected to political repressions and executed. Knyazevs took part in the Great Patriotic War and seven of them perished. Presently there are no descendants of the Knyazevs in Bernyazhka as they spread over the villages of the Omskaya Region, some living in Omsk and other towns of Russia and abroad.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 04001
Author(s):  
Petr Egorov ◽  
Anna Adamenko ◽  
Terenty Ermolaev

The article discusses the history of the study of rural youth in Yakutia in the 70-80s. XX century through a historiographic review of scientific works on the youth problem. During the period under review, the role of rural youth increased, she began to actively participate in the socio-economic processes taking place in the countryside, and represented a significant share and the main resource of labor replenishment for the agricultural sector of the economy. In studies of the 70s - early 80s. emphasis was placed on the social aspects of scientific and technological progress, the impact of industrialization and intensification of agricultural production on the social structure of the rural population, and the improvement of its professional, cultural and technical level. Since the mid-1980s, research has begun to raise many complex problems related to rural lifestyles, and especially on such important changes as rural life, spiritual and material needs and needs of various population groups, in particular rural youth, factors and prospects of youth movement between the village and the city. It was established that scientific research allowed to expand scientific ideas about the rural youth of Yakutia, its social dynamics, determining its place and role in society.


Author(s):  
Walter E.A. van Beek

There is not one African indigenous religion (AIR); rather, there are many, and they diverge widely. As a group, AIRs are quite different from the scriptural religions the world is more familiar with, since what is central to AIRs is neither belief nor faith, but ritual. Exemplifying an “imagistic” form of religiosity, these religions have no sacred books or writings and are learned by doing, by participation and experience, rather than by instruction and teaching. Belonging to specific local ethnic groups, they are deeply embedded in and informed by the various ecologies of foragers, pastoralists, and horticulturalists—as they are also by the social structures of these societies: they “dwell” in their cultures. These are religions of the living, not so much preparing for afterlife as geared toward meeting the challenges of everyday life, illness and misfortune, mourning and comforting—but also toward feasting, life, fertility, and togetherness, even in death. Quiet rituals of the family contrast with exuberant public celebrations when new adults re-enter the village after an arduous initiation; intricate ritual attention to the all-important crops may include tense rites to procure much needed rains. The range of rituals is wide and all-encompassing. In AIRs, the dead and the living are close, either as ancestors or as other representatives of the other world. Accompanied by spirits of all kinds, both good and bad, harmful and nurturing, existence is full of ambivalence. Various channels are open for communication with the invisible world, from prayer to trance, and from dreams to revelations, but throughout it is divination in its manifold forms that offers a window on the deeper layers of reality. Stories about the other world abound, and many myths and legends are never far removed from basic folktales. These stories do not so much explain the world as they entertainingly teach about the deep humanity that AIRs share and cherish.


Antiquity ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 5 (19) ◽  
pp. 277-290
Author(s):  
Flinders Petrie

When we look at the great diversity of man’s activities and interests, it is evident how much space they afford for reviewing his history in many different ways. To most of our historians the view of the political power and course of legislation has seemed all that need be noticed; others have dealt with history in religion, or the growth of mind in changes of moral standards, as in Lecky’s fine work. In recent years the history of knowledge in medicine, in the applied sciences, and in abstract mathematics, has been profitably studied, as affording the basis of civilization. The purely mental view is shown in the social life and customs of each age, and expressed in the growth of Art. This last expression of man’s spirit has great advantages in its presentation; the material from different ages is of a comparable nature, and it is easily placed together to contrast its differences. Moreover it covers a wider range of time than we can et observe in man’s scope, but it is as essential to his nature as any of the other aspects that we have named.


2012 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 63-65
Author(s):  
Virginia Trimble

Chandrasekhar's own books, papers, and oral history interviews make clear that he was generally more interested in the present and future of astrophysics than in its past. Nevertheless, late in his life and after his death, historians of science have somewhat entangled him in two supposedly controversial issues, one concerning precursors of his mass limit for degenerate stars and the other his relationship with Eddington. Neither story is an entirely happy one.


1909 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 310-322
Author(s):  
Edward S. Drown

There have been times in the history of architecture when style was inevitable. In the classic period of Greece or in the Gothic period of northern Europe no architect raised the question as to the style in which he should construct a building. That was decreed for him. And we shall perhaps not go astray if we suggest that the inevitableness of that decree was determined by two factors. One was the purpose to be served by the building, the other was the control over the materials. The one factor determined the contents, the other the form in which those contents were to be expressed. The contents depended on the social and spiritual ideals of the time. The form depended on the nature of the building material and on the mechanical ability to use it.


1974 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Nicholls

One of the striking facts about the social and political history of Haiti from independence in 1804 to the present is the deep gulf separating the largely mulatto elite groups from the predominantly black masses. The war of the South in 1799 between Toussaint and Rigaud, and the conflicts between Christophe and Pétion, while not primarily caused by color factors, were reinforced by suspicions and hostilities between black and mulatto, with each group accusing the other of prejudice and discrimination. Politics in the rest of the nineteenth century can generally be seen as a tussle between a mulatto elite centered in the capital and in the cities of the South, on the one hand, and a small black elite often in alliance with army leaders and peasant irregulars, on the other. In the years following 1867 these groups formalized themselves into a largely mulatto Liberal Party, and a preponderantly black National Party.


2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. Turner

ObjectivityandThere is No Such Thingas a Social Science make an odd pair: one is a substantive historical discussion of a philosophical concept central to philosophy and to scientific practice and debate which provides an explanation of the history of the development and changes in the concept; the other is a defense of a philosophical position which in effect denies that any such explanation is possible, and attacks “the craving for explanation” as a philosophical disease whose major symptom is social science itself. Galison and Daston, the authors of Objectivity, are historians of science whose approach is connected to the “social study of science” without explicitly adopting any of its methodological theses. But in taking on the concept of objectivity they go to the philosophical heart of the scientific enterprise itself.


2015 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Vojin Nedeljković

The author examines the scope and interrelation of two traditional notions concerning non-literary Latin: sermo uulgaris, or plebeius, and sermo familiaris, or cotidianus. While these are really disparate terms, the one designating a sociolect and the other a language register, the author maintains that the old confusion between Colloquial and Vulgar Latin is not merely due to flawed reasoning within an insufficient model of linguistic variation, but rather reflects a fundamental development that took place in the social history of Latin.


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