Right and Left Hand among the Kaguru: A Note on Symbolic Classification

Africa ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. O. Beidelman
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
East Central ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
The Social ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Social Anthropologist ◽  
Right And Left Hand

Opening ParagraphThis paper presents the general features of dualistic symbolic classification among the Kaguru, a Bantu people of east-central Tanganyika, East Africa.It has been written as a result of my reading Needham's stimulating article, ‘The Left Hand of the Mugwe’, which recently appeared in Africa. Using Bernardi's ethnographic data on the Meru, Needham isolates a dualistic symbolic classification of those people. The result is a very striking illustration of the order and understanding gained by the social anthropologist once this important feature of Meru ideology is shown. Needham then goes on to indicate some of the relations which such a symbolic classification may have to certain structural divisions of a society.

EEG efficient classification of imagined right and left hand movement using RBF kernel SVM and the joint CWT_PCA

AI & Society ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 621-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rihab Bousseta ◽  
Salma Tayeb ◽  
Issam El Ouakouak ◽  
Mourad Gharbi ◽  
Fakhita Regragui ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Hand Movement ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Rbf Kernel ◽  
Right And Left Hand ◽  
Kernel Svm

Fighting of Bulls as Symbolic Expression of Divisions in the Hima Camp

Africa ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yitzchak Elam
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Social Aspects ◽  
Type I ◽  
Type Ii ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Group Type ◽  
The Social ◽  
Descent Group ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Do So

Opening ParagraphIn the course of tracing the social aspects of witchcraft and sorcery in East Africa, Middleton and Winter (1963: 11–13) distinguished two types of neighbourhood. In type I neighbours tend to be co-members of a unilineal descent group; type II in terms of descent is heterogeneous.The authors implied that, while tensions existed in both these neighbourhoods, type I was likely to give rise to more acute forms of interpersonal conflict. It is an involuntary association in which relationships are ascribed at birth, being therefore ‘inborn and innate’, i.e. compulsory. By contrast, neighbours of the second type ‘…live together because in the ultimate sense they choose to do so’. This freedom of choice conduces to an easier contact between them as proved by the absence of accusations of withcraft and the prevalence of accusations of sorcery. Accusations of sorcery are viewed by Middeton and Winter as symptoms of milder conflicts.

Nilotic, ‘Nilo-Hamitic’, and Hamito-Semitic: A Reply

Africa ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 364-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph H. Greenberg
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
General Classification ◽  
Present Discussion ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphIn my general classification of African languages, the so-called ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ languages of East Africa were placed in the same subdivision as the Nilotic languages within a much larger linguistic stock called Macro-Sudanic. In a recent review of this work Welmers has suggested the geographic designation Chari-Nile as more appropriate, an emendation in terminology which is herewith accepted. In the same work, the traditional Hamito-Semitic family was accepted with some modifications, not relevant to the present discussion, as another major African linguistic stock, distinct from the Chari-Nile family although perhaps distantly related to it. On this view, the term ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ is inappropriate for this group of languages and the name ‘Great Lakes’ was suggested in its place. In his recent work on the Nilotic languages, Oswin Köhler takes a position very similar to my own in regard to the ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ languages. Moreover he suggests that the Bari-Masai group of languages forming the bulk of ‘Nilo-Hamitic’ is as distant from Nandi-Suk, hitherto always included under the same designation, as it is from the Nilotic languages proper. He therefore proposes a threefold division into Western Nilotic (Shilluk, Dinka, Nuer, &c), Eastern Nilotic (Bari, Masai, Lotuko, &c), and Southern Nilotic (Nandi-Suk). I am inclined to agree with him and this view is borne out by the material assembled in the later part of this article.

The Kenya Masai: A Nomadic People under Modern Adminstration

Africa ◽  
1939 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. James
Keyword(s):  
East Africa ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Political ◽  
Dramatic Effect ◽  
The Social ◽  
Nomadic People ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Native Policy ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphExisting accounts of the Masai may be broadly grouped under three heads: (1) The popular impressionist accounts of the tribe by travellers in East Africa; the numerous travel works on this part of Africa nearly all contain some mention of the tribe, but in the main, these descriptions are calculated for their dramatic effect, and thus become largely inaccurate and valueless for the serious student. (2) Studies of the tribe such as those contained in the works of N. Leys and W. M. Ross. These authors approach the subject rather from the political angle, and make a study of the tribe largely for the purpose of criticizing Kenya's native policy. (3) The works dealing with the tribe from the ethnographic and anthropological standpoint; of the older works, the most important are those by A. C. Hollis and M. Merker. Among the more recent contributions the most outstanding are those by L. S. B. Leakey and S. Storrs-Fox. Daryll Forde has also given an account of the tribe from the point of view of the social geographer.

Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process an Investigation in the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast

Africa ◽  
1936 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Fortes
Keyword(s):  
Zero Point ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Historical Reconstruction ◽  
The West ◽  
The Social ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Social Anthropologist ◽  
European Civilization

Opening ParagraphIn considering the effects of the contact between African societies and European civilization, one is apt to forget that the exploitation of Africa by Europeans began more than five centuries ago. To trace the consequences of this long intercourse between Africa and Europe is a legitimate and worthwhile task. But is it a task for the social anthropologist? Previous contributors to the present symposium have emphasized the necessity of historical reconstruction in order to understand the effects of contact with European civilization upon a particular culture. They have been fortunate in dealing with cultures where the initial impact of the white man is recent enough to be within living memory. On the West Coast of Africa no feat of skill or imagination would suffice to establish a reliable zero point of culture contact. One would presumably have to be content with the construction of an ‘ideal type’ based on the scanty literature and on descriptions of cognate cultures. But must we therefore abandon every hope of investigating the influence of European civilization in these areas, and confine ourselves to the regions of recent contact where the procedure sponsored by Dr. Hunter and Dr. Mair can be successfully employed? I do not think so; and I shall endeavour to describe an approach which is, I believe, equally applicable both in societies which have recently come under the influence of culture contact, and those which have reached an advanced stage of Europeanization.

Chiefship and Politics in the Mlanje District of Southern Nyasaland

Africa ◽  
1961 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
R. L. Wishlade
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
East Africa ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Administrative District ◽  
Southern Province ◽  
The Social ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphMlanje is an Administrative District in the Southern Province of Nyasaland. It is densely populated compared with other parts of Central Africa, having a population of 209,522 in 1945, which represented a density of 138 per square mile. The population is tribally heterogeneous, and was composed, in 1945, of 71 per cent. Nguru, 21 per cent. Nyanja, and 5 per cent. Yao people. The Nguru are the most recent arrivals, having immigrated into Nyasaland mainly during the present century. The term Nguru is used to refer to the representatives in Nyasaland of a number of tribes inhabiting that part of Portuguese East Africa which Lies to the east of Nyasaland; these immigrants call themselves Lomwe and in Mlanje are mainly Mihavani and Kokola. The Nyanja are the indigenous inhabitants of the area, who were living there before the invasion of the Mangoche Yao during the nineteenth century. Although they are linguistically distinct, the social organization of these three groups is markedly similar, and there has been a great deal of intermarriage between them, particularly between the Nyanja and the Nguru. No one of them is in sole occupation of a continuous stretch of territory, even the smallest residential groups are often tribally heterogeneous, the similarity of the social organization enabling Nyanja to be absorbed into Nguru hamlets and vice versa. For this reason it is impossible to use a tribal unit as a unit of reference in a discussion of the political organization of this area.

The Mäsqal-Pole: Religious Conflict and Social Change in Gurageland

Africa ◽  
1968 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-468 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Shack
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Social Phenomena ◽  
Social Fabric ◽  
The Social ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Made In

Opening ParagraphIn An Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand, Professor Gluckman argued that in situations of conflict, pre-existing groups do not divide neatly into opposing halves, but that groups realign themselves according to the values, motives, and interests governing them at a given time; and that groups who are opposed when facing one situation may find themselves aligned when the nature of the situation differs. Similar studies of social change in Africa and elsewhere have further advanced Gluckman's contention. In all these studies the analytical procedure adopted was to interpret the situational behaviour of the actors in terms of the influence of the wider social system of which they were a part. However, a great deal of the ethnographic data anthropologists gather in the course of field research are derived from chance observations of social phenomena occurring in relatively unstructured situations within which the individuals involved have a wide range of choice in determining the way they interact with others. This paper is based upon just these sorts of ‘imponderable’ facts of Gurage life which, when first recorded in the field, appeared less clearly a part of what Malinowski once called ‘the real substance of the social fabric’ of a changing tribal society than they do now in retrospect. I attempt here to interpret the spontaneous and contradictory behaviour of individual Gurage and groups in the setting of an Ethiopian Christian religious ceremony known as Mäsqal. This analysis of situational behaviour is made in terms of selected aspects of historical or ‘processive’ social change in Gurageland, a tribal district in south-west Ethiopia.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document