Zande Bridewealth

Africa ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Social Character ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThis paper was drafted many years ago and it was against the background of this and other unpublished material that I came to the view about the nature of bride-wealth indicated in my paper ‘Social Character of Bride-Wealth, with Special Reference to the Azande’ (Man, 1934, 194).

Big Houses in Kano Emirate

Africa ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polly Hill
Keyword(s):  
Population Density ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
The Other ◽  
Economic Conditions ◽  
Economic Organization ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Village ◽  
Compare And Contrast

Opening ParagraphIn 1971–2 I undertook research in part of the very densely populated farming zone around Kano city (often called the Kano close-settled zone) in order to compare it with a Hausa village, Batagarawa, some 100 miles further north in Katsina Emirate, where I had lived and worked in 1967. At Batagarawa farmland is not scarce and members of the community are free to establish farms on uncultivated (bush) land, some of which is no further than a mile or so from the village. For some 30 to 40 miles or more around Kano city, on the other hand, there is little or no uncultivated bush and farmers with insufficient land are obliged to buy or to ‘borrow’ (aro) farmland from others. My purpose was to compare and contrast the socio-economic organization and economic conditions of farmers in the two localities, with special reference, in so far as this variable could be isolated, to population density.

Witchcraft and Colonial Legislation

Africa ◽  
1935 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 488-494 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Clifton Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Death Penalty ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
District Commissioner

Opening ParagraphThe object of this paper is to provide an answer to two questions:(i) Is the colonial legislation on witchcraft (with special reference to Kenya Colony) satisfactory? and(ii) If any alteration is desirable, what form should this take, and why?The Kenya Colony Witchcraft Ordinance No. 23/1925 imposes the penalty of imprisonment for periods up to 10 years for various offences and fines up to 1,000 s. with or without imprisonment (Secs. 2-8). Deportation (Sec.9) can be ordered by a District Commissioner. Under Section 11 the liability to the death penalty where murder has been committed by witchcraft is unimpaired.

The Future of African Art with Special Reference to Problems Arising in Gold Coast Colony

Africa ◽  
1930 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Elementary Education ◽  
Special Reference ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Art History ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Artistic Development ◽  
African Art ◽  
The Future ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe Education Code of 1887 provided for the teaching of art subjects as they were understood in South Kensington at that time—the age of Froebel and Slojd: the aim seems to have been the vague one of ‘hand-and-eye training’. But the purpose for which hand and eye were to be trained does not appear clearly in its instructions, and I am perfectly certain that the bulk of teachers of the older generation do not know of one. One cannot trace in the Code any real policy of artistic development in the country by means of the educational system. ‘Drawing’ was, and is, taught not primarily from the artist's point of view at all, i. e. as a study of form. The study of colour is not taught, nor the elements of design. Now form, colour, and design are the elements of the graphic and plastic art, and one would have thought that they would have been incorporated in a balanced scheme of elementary education. There was, and is, no provision for the training of taste, appreciation, criticism, or for the slightest perception of the horizons of art history.

194. Social Character of Bride-Wealth, with Special Reference to the Azande.

Man ◽  
1934 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 172 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Social Character

Thangata in Pre-Colonial and Colonial Systems of Land Tenure in Southern Malaŵi with Special Reference to Chingale

Africa ◽  
1977 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-191 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. A. K. Kandaŵire
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Village Community ◽  
Colonial Form ◽  
Forced Labour ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
The Village

Opening ParagraphA contrastive account of pre-colonial and colonial systems of land tenure in Malaŵi cannot avoid adopting thangata as its central concept. The 1921 Land Commission of Nyasaland asserted that the practice of thangata:seems to have had a foundation in the conditions of purely [African] life under which the member of the village community worked for a certain period in the gardens of his chief, the latter assuming towards the former a responsibility which has its parallel in the relations of the best European landlords towards their native tenants today. The practice was known from the beginning by the [Cheŵa] word ‘thangata’ meaning ‘to assist’. In return for his right to occupy certain land the [African] ‘assisted’ his chief or his European landlord in the latter's work upon his own land.There is a whole world of difference between traditional thangata and colonial thangata. The former is nothing other than a social institution which embodies a pre-colonial notion of reciprocal labour. In the colonial situation the term came to mean forced labour. In this paper I analyse the term in its colonial form. My aim is to show that thangata is a colonial institution in that it originated from processes of British colonisation of Malaŵi. This aim requires that the pre-colonial system of land tenure be characterised first before tracing the formation of the colonial system.

Woman-Marriage, with Special Reference to the Louedu—its Significance for the Definition of Marriage

Africa ◽  
1974 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen Jensen Krige
Keyword(s):  
Special Reference ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Full Control ◽  
Actual Fact ◽  
Inherited Wealth ◽  
Homosexual Relationship ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe marriage of a woman to a woman, found in many African societies, has not been given the attention it warrants, and is still imperfectly understood. Herskovits imputed to it sexual overtones that are foreign to the institution when, after stating quite definitely that such marriage did not imply a homosexual relationship, he went on to add ‘although it is not to be doubted that occasionally homosexual women who have inherited wealth…utilize this relationship to the women they marry to satisfy themselves’ (Herskovits, 1938, 1: 319–20). He made no attempt to substantiate his statement. And Lucy Mair, for all the clarity and grasp displayed in her excellent book on marriage, seems to have failed to appreciate the nature of the institution when she says, ‘According to Evans-Pritchard's account of the Nuer it is usually barren women who make such marriages, and indeed it is hard to imagine a woman who had her own children doing so’ (my italics; Mair, 1971: 60). In actual fact it is usually married women with children of their own who contract such marriages, except, it would appear, among the Nuer. By woman-marriage we mean the institution by which it is possible for a woman to give bridewealth for, and marry, a woman, over whom and whose offspring she has full control, delegating to a male genitor the duties of procreation.

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