Some New Shrines of the Gold Coast and their Significance

Africa ◽  
1940 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. J. Field

Opening ParagraphThere is reason to believe that at one time the greater part of the Gold Coast had one simple type of social organization. Where destruction of this took place the disturbing influences spread from the North southwards. On the coastal plains are some areas which, for various reasons, were barely touched. In these areas the aboriginal type of social organization is preserved, more or less intact, to-day.

Africa ◽  
1965 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Meillassoux

Opening ParagraphAccording to a partial census taken in 1960, Bamako city has about 130,000 inhabitants. Small by Western standards, it is still by far the largest city in Mali. At the time of the French conquest Bamako had only between 800 and 1,000 inhabitants; it was the capital of a Bambara chiefdom, grouping about thirty villages on the north bank of the Niger river, with a total of about 5,000 people. The ruling dynasty was that of the Niaré, who, according to their traditions, came from the Kingi eleven generations ago (between 1640 and 1700). For defence against the neighbours and armed slave-raiders fortifications were built around the town and a permanent army of so-fa (horsemen) was raised. Soon after its foundation Bamako attracted Moslem Moors from Twat who settled as marabouts and merchants under the protection of the Niaré's warriors. Among them, the Twati (later to be called Touré) and the Dravé became, alongside and sometimes in competition with the Niaré, the leading families.


2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-476
Author(s):  
Sarah Kunkel

AbstractThis article analyses the implications of the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 on colonial labour policies for road labour carried out under chiefs in the Gold Coast. The British colonial administration implemented a legal application of the convention that allowed the continuation of the existing system of public works. In the Gold Coast, the issue of road labour was most prominent in the North, where chiefs maintained the majority of roads. Indirect rule became crucial in retaining forced labour in compliance with the convention. This article focuses on “hidden strategies” of British colonialism after 1930, contrasting studies of blatant cases of forced labour. The analysis is based on a close scrutiny of the internal discourse among colonial officials on the question of road labour and the Forced Labour Convention.


1933 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 443-457 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. E. Atwood

This paper describes the results of studies on the wild bees of Nova Scotia, which were carried out in connection with apple pollination investigations in the Annapolis-Cornwallis Valley, Nova Scotia.The biology of the Apoidea in general is reviewed from the literature, and a list of bees taken on apple bloom is given. As the members of the genera Halictus and Andrena were found to be the most important native pollinators, the greater part of the paper is devoted to accounts of the habits and life histories of representative species.The members of the genus Andrena were found to have a simple type, such as is generally found among solitary bees. The females provision the nest and then die; the larvae develop to the pupal stage in their underground cells, then emerge as adults the following season. All Nova Scotian species studied were one-generation forms.The bees of the genus Halictus show a primitive social organization, more complex in some species than in others. The first brood consists of females only, which are apparently sterile and work at nest construction, the gathering of pollen, etc. They are followed later in the season by a brood of males and females; these females, after being fertilized, hibernate for the winter, while the males die in the fall. The hibernating habits of different species are described, and notes are given on some parasites and inquilines of the two genera.


Africa ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Caplan

Opening ParagraphIn the north of Mafia Island, the rites surrounding the circumcision of boys and the first menstruation of girls are no longer, if indeed they ever were, universally performed. This article attempts to explain this situation, and in so doing, draws on some of Turner's work on symbolism. In particular, his distinction between different levels of meaning expressed by symbols—the exegetical, the operational and the positional (1962)—is followed in a discussion of the political implications of performance or rejection of the rites.


Africa ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Mansell Prothero

Opening ParagraphReaders of Africa will be well aware of population migration as a characteristic feature of a continent where movement between one part and another is largely unrestricted as compared with the more settled parts of the world. There is much evidence of large-scale tribal migrations in the past, of the age-old seasonal wanderings of herders, and of recent labour migration to centres of mineral and industrial production, the last particularly in Central and South Africa. Information is more limited concerning the features of labour migration in West Africa at the present day. In general it is thought that migrants leave their home areas, after the harvest at the commencement of the dry season, to seek work elsewhere for a period of from three to six months and then return to take up farming with the commencement of the next rains. The major source area for these migrants is to the north of the tenth parallel where the wet season is concentrated into a period of about four months, thus severely restricting agricultural activity. Cultivation during the dry season is possible only on a very limited scale. There is thus a considerable period of the year when the primary economic activity of the people is not possible. It is logical that they should seek work elsewhere.


Author(s):  
Christina M. Friberg

This chapter synthesizes the patterns presented in the book to reconstruct what life was like for Audrey Mississippians. It discusses the implications of these findings for the limits of Cahokia’s economic control and political influence and the nature of culture contact dynamics north of the American Bottom. The Lower Illinois River Valley’s proximity to Cahokia did in fact result in more changes to social organization at Audrey than observed in the northern hinterland. Audrey inhabitants nevertheless maintained certain Woodland-era conventions and hybridized others, generating new Mississippian traditions in the process. Finally, a discussion of exotic materials north of Cahokia characterizes a spirit of exchange and interaction between and among these diverse regions that likely fueled the Mississippianization of the north.


Africa ◽  
1947 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 235-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. H. Ashton

Opening ParagraphWhen discussing the political development of the African it is important to ask whether in his social organization there is a sufficiently strong element of popular participation in government to form a basis for modern democratic institutions. Another question is, to what extent the present system of colonial government (which for the sake of convenience, I shall call Indirect Rule, without analysing the various meanings and application of the term) gives free play to such democratic institutions as may already exist. In this article, an attempt is made to answer these two questions, so far as they apply to Basutoland and the Bechuanaland Protectorate. The position in the latter territory has recently been referred to by two writers when dealing with the second question and, as their findings were almost diametrically opposed, a detailed analysis of the position will not be out of place.


Africa ◽  
1931 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. W. Hoernlé

Opening ParagraphIt may seem a very ambitious task to attempt even an outline of the native conception of education in so large an area as Africa, with its varying races and languages, its great variety in types of social organization. Nevertheless, there are certain fundamental aspects of these African cultures which are identical in them all, and which differ profoundly from those which form the foundation of our own educational needs. If we wish to understand and to help these African peoples, it is essential that we should learn to look at their culture and their world with their eyes, in order that we may know the basis of the faith by which they live, otherwise we run a grave risk of inadvertently destroying the foundations of social organization and belief which make life, not only tolerable, but possible at all.


Africa ◽  
1956 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara E. Ward

Opening ParagraphRecent happenings in the Gold Coast, and particularly in Ashanti, have tended to focus interest upon the structure of the constitution and the struggle for political power. Ten years ago two other movements were attracting at least as much attention. In a preliminary report on the work of the Ashanti Social Survey, published in 1948, Fortes described these as first, an apparently insatiable demand for schools, and, second, an almost equally if not more powerful development of what he called ‘new witch-finding cults’. That the demand for education of all kinds continues and is gradually being met is well known; it would be interesting, and perhaps, in the light of occurrences in other parts of Africa, significant to learn what has happened to the new cults.


1930 ◽  
Vol 62 (7) ◽  
pp. 161-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. J. Brown

This genus has been considered synonymous with Ludius Esch. but seems distinct by the following characters: form usually robust and strongly convex; front moderately convex, not margined; prothorax wider than long; elytrai striae moderately impressed at base, very feeble or obsolete elsewhere; prosternal lobe rather short; the prosternal process in lateral aspect very strongly arcuate between the coxae and with the apical portion strongly oblique; the prosternal sutures almost straight; coxal plates narrow, more or less narrowed externally; tarsi filiform, the claws simple. Type Limonius estriatus Lec.


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