Archaeological evidence and conventional explanations of southern Bantu settlement patterns

Africa ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Huffman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Cultural Preference ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe settlements of Bantu-speaking people in Southern Africa vary widely in size and distribution, ranging from the dispersed homesteads of the Nguni to the large towns of the Tswana. These two extremes have interested Africanists since the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Europeans first encountered the Thlaping at Dithakong near present-day Kuruman. Today the contrast between Tswana and Nguni settlements are most often attributed to differences in social stratification, cultural preference or environmental conditions.These conventional explanations provide a focus for considering the meaning of settlement patterns among the southern Bantu. I first develop a model of political and settlement hierarchies to isolate the essential differences between Nguni and Tswana communities, and then I present archaeological evidence that calls into question the conventional explanations.

The myth of the Zulu homestead: archaeology and ethnography

Africa ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hall
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Colonial Expansion ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Historical Accounts

Opening ParagraphTo those outside the anthropological disciplines, the Zulu are probably the best known chiefdom of southern Africa. Zulu military prowess acted as a sharp break on the process of colonial expansion in the nineteenth century and led to a series of battles which have been immortalized on celluloid and in the more popular historical accounts of the era. Despite this, the Zulu have prompted a comparatively sparse ethnography that is based largely on the work of nineteenth-century observers and is less comprehensive than the literature on some other southern African communities.

Firearms in Southern Africa: A survey

1971 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-530 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shula Marks ◽  
Anthony Atmore
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Settler Population ◽  
White Settlement

The relationships of the peoples of southern Africa after the establishment and expansion of the white settlement in the mid-seventeenth century can be seen in terms of both conflict and interdependence, both resistance and collaboration. The conflict often split over into warfare, not only between black and white, but also within both groups. As time passed, firearms came to be used by ever-widening circles of the combatants, often as much the result of the increased collaboration and interdependence between peoples as of the increased conflict. As Inez Sutton has pointed out, ‘in contrast to most of the rest of [sub-Saharan] Africa, the presence of a settler population ensured that the supply of arms was the most modern rather than the most obsolete’, and on the whole non-whites were acutely aware of changes in the manufacture of firearms in the nineteenth century.

The world of the Yoruba taxi driver: an interpretive approach to vehicle slogans

Africa ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olatunde Bayo Lawuyi
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
World View ◽  
Motor Vehicles ◽  
Taxi Driver ◽  
Wealth Status ◽  
Southwestern Nigeria ◽  
The World ◽  
Status Mobility ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the slogans which are so prominent and ubiquitous on motor vehicles as expressions of social stratification among the Yoruba of southwestern Nigeria. I interpret the slogans in the context of the taxi owners' and drivers' social interactions, not just as disembodied expressions of a total Yoruba world view. In studying the slogans I pay particular attention to processes of accumulation of wealth, status mobility and the way these are affected by cultural values. It is argued that the vehicle owners make different claims at different stages of their careers. Their fears and hopes at each stage must be understood in the light of the contemporary Christian and traditional mix of beliefs about destiny, the world and God.

Event and Portent: the Fall of Old Oyo, a Problem in Historical Explanation

Africa ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 186-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Crucial Importance ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Historical Explanation ◽  
Covering Law ◽  
Opening Paragraph

Opening ParagraphExplanation, or the identification and assessment of the causes of events and situations, occupies the central place in nearly all historical writing in the present century. It is also the aspect of history which is most keenly debated by philosophers, and is the main issue today in the unending, wearisome, but seemingly inescapable controversy as to whether history belongs, or belongs more, with the sciences or with the humanities. The scientific or positivist school, numbering among its recent exponents Popper and Gardiner, emphasizes the extent to which historical explanation attains a regularity akin to, though not identical with, that found in the physical and other sciences, Hempel adding the contention that such explanation can always, and often should, be reduced to a ‘covering law’, or single universal statement subsuming the whole explanation. The idealists, among whom Croce, Collingwood, and most recently Oakeshott are prominent, stress conversely the uniqueness of history, and Dray has reinforced their position by his attack on the covering law thesis. The debate is one in which historians themselves have taken little part, and African historians none at all, despite its crucial importance for almost every aspect of their profession. Yet it is a debate which needs continuous illustration from the historiographical process, a need which historians are best able to meet. The aim of the present article is to contribute to the debate by examining as a problem in historical explanation the fall of Oyo, the powerful state of the northern Yoruba, in the early nineteenth century.

The socio-ecology of firewood and charcoal on the Freetown peninsula

Africa ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 57 (4) ◽  
pp. 457-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Akindele Cline-Cole
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
Wood Fuel ◽  
Western Area ◽  
Opening Paragraph ◽  
Political Economic

Opening ParagraphIn a country which in the last 200 years has undergone continuous and often momentous political, economic and social changes, few things are capable of conveying as strong an impression of stability and changelessness as wood fuel (charcoal and firewood) consumption and production; and nowhere is this more striking than on the Freetown or Western Area (formerly Colony) peninsula. In this region, which has always accounted for the major share of national electricity, kerosene and cooking gas (LPG) consumption, not only is current percentage household firewood consumption only fractionally lower than in the nineteenth century but a much higher proportion of households consume charcoal now than at any time in the last two centuries (Cline-Cole, 1984a). Today firewood and charcoal combined supply a minimum of 80 per cent of total peninsula energy demand for both domestic and non-household uses (Davidson, 1985). Freetown's firewood consumption also represents some 10 per cent of the national total (Atlanta, 1979).

People at the Gates

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Flordeliz T. Bugarin
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Traded Goods ◽  
Economic Interaction ◽  
The Impact

During the early nineteenth century in South Africa, the British built Fort Willshire on the banks of the Keiskamma River. At its gates, they established the first official trade fairs and mandated that trade throughout the Eastern Cape be confined here. This area became a vortex in which a variety of people convened, traded goods, and influenced cultural and economic interaction. This chapter introduces the various Africans who gravitated to the region, claimed the surrounding lands throughout the river valley, and vied for economic resources and political power. By looking at the archival records, oral traditions, and archaeological evidence, research demonstrates that the region consisted of a variety of people with different backgrounds and affiliations. Furthermore, this area provides a model for understanding the impact of the British on the Xhosa, yet it is just as much a window to the interactions between various Xhosa factions and chiefdoms.

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