It will be clear from the Report presented by the Admnistrative Director to the Executive Council (published elsewhere in this number) that the officers of the Institute have been giving much thought to the need fro increasing the annual income available for the general purpose of the Institute. This matter was very fully ducussed by the Council at its recent meeting, and it ws resolved that the annual subscription to the Institute should be increased, as from January 1954, to 35s. The need for this decision is greatly regretted, but it should be pointed out that, in spite of constantly rising costs, the subscription has only risen by 5s. since the Institute's foundation in 1926, and that the present rate of subscription barely covers the cost of printing and distributing the Journal.

By the time this number of the Journal appears we shall have moved to these premises, which provide more adequate space for our library, as well as facilities for holding meetings and lectures. We ask our members to excuse any inconvenience caused by our change of address and by the inevitable dislocation of work due to the move; we hope to reduce this to a minimum, and we extend a cordial invitation to all our friends to visit us at our new home.

In my two books on the Nuer I gave some account of the importance of cattle in their economy and social life. I scarcely mentioned their role in religion as I did not wish to stray too far from the topics I was then discussing. I summarize very briefly what was said there before discussing their religious significance.

In a previous article on the Shilluk I discussed the laws of homicide and the legal and ritual functions of the reth or King. An interpretation of Shilluk law and authority is not easy because, apart from early contacts with the peoples of the northern Sudan, they have been subjected to external influences and some kind of Government since the early years of the last century. These contacts began with cursory and not altogether happy encounters with the Turco-Egyptian Government which were followed by the establishment of a provincial headquarters at Kodok in 1867 under the authority of a mudir; later came the turbulent and dismal years of the Mahdia and finally the occupation by the present Government in 1898. It would be idle to suppose that the political system of the Shilluk has remained unaffected by these influences. The Shilluk are by reputation an exceptionally conservative people and certainly the effects of their relations with outsiders are, to the casual observer, hard to detect. Profound changes have taken place none the less, especially in the sphere of customary law, and these changes are undoubtedly gathering momentum.

A visitor to West Africa today will find most of the conventional trappings of a western civilization. He can travel on trains and in motor-cars and airplanes, and stay at rest-houses equipped with electric light and a flushed toilet. He can visit African homes furnished in the latest western style in which there is refrigeration and cooking is done by electricity. He will see Africans working in shops, offices, and factories, growing crops for foreign consumption, and leasing and renting land. He will visit churches and schools, play outdoor games, attend dances, performances of amateur dramatics, baby shows, and buy a flag for charity—all these activities being organized by Africans. On the other hand, he will also see a majority of Africans living in huts of wattle and daub and of grass, herding cattle, and cultivating their farms and plots with home-made implements, pounding their food in mortars, crossing rivers in dug-out canoes, dancing to the music of wooden drums, and worshipping ancient gods and spirits.

La présente publication fait partie d'une étude d'ensemble des centres urbains de l'Afrique Equatoriale Française. Ces recherches dont nous avons été chargé par le Haut-Commissariat de la République en A.E.F, présentent l'originalite d'être les premières qui aient été poursuivies par des spécialistes des sciences humaines, non dans une intention purement érudite, mais afin que des mesures administratives puissent être prises dans le but de dormer une solution à certains problèmes posés par la colonisation.

D'autre part, ces travaux ne sont qu'une introduction à des recherches plus approfondies. En effet, eu égard au temps dont nous disposions par rapport à l'importance du problème envisagé, nous avons dû nous en tenir, une fois le cadre tracé, à l'étude de points particulièrement importants dans l'évolution actuelle. Le rapport complet de ces recherches a fait l'objet de publications dont le présent article constitue le résumé.

An attempt will be made in this paper to examine religious affiliation in Freetown (the capital town of Sierra Leone) at the formation of the Colony, and its later developments, from an historical viewpoint, with a view to assessing its contribution to the social evolution of the community. Freetown is rich in missionary records and journals and these, though they deal mainly with the evangelistic aspect of church activity, provide sufficient data to justify some tentative generalizations on the relationship between religious affiliation and the social stratification and growth of the community.

Freetown is an assembly of African peoples of different ethnic origins who became integrated into a community around norms and patterns of behaviour which were not African but western. The main agents in this cultural transformation were the Negro Nova Scotian and Maroon settlers. But the transformation was aided by the patronage and favour which the settlers received from the European administration, and, more important, by the missionary and evangelical activities of the Protestant churches. The Christian religion in Freetown was thus from the outset a positive, cohesive influence rather than a disintegrating force as it has been in some other parts of Africa.

The culture concept carries many implications for the educationist which have still to be worked out. Perhaps its greatest value will prove to lie in providing a corrective to the intellectualist fallacy to which teachers and educationists are singularly prone. By taking into account the complex and largely non-intellectual processes of acculturation, the teacher in Africa will realize that he is unlikely to effect a direct transference of intellectual propositions and idea-systems; and he may be saved from disappointment when he sees the truths he has dealt in employed to subserve ‘illegitimate’ ends.

I am here concerned with social control as it exists in Tonga society, where there are no obvious political institutions concerned in the maintenance of order. As in any society, control rests eventually on the sanction of force, here applied through a resort to vengeance on the part of an organized group if it feels that this is the only way to enforce its rights.

The present account of Luvale female puberty rites has a twofold object. Firstly to provide a short factual description of the ritual, on which existing information is scanty. Data from the Luvale provide the basis of the present notes, but occasional reference is made to the allied tribes. Secondly an attempt is made to estimate how far the rites have been affected by present-day influences.

Les trois institutions qui s'appellent en kinyarwanda inzu, ubwoko et umulyango n'ont pas joui, à notre connaissance, d'un traitement définitif et pleinement satisfaisant dans la littérature ethnologique consacrée au Rwanda. D'autre part, les informateurs que nous avons interrogés sur ces institutions de parenté nous ont donné des réponses très divergentes, voire contradictoires. Il est aisé de découvrir la raison de cette confusion. Durant les trois ou quatre siècles d'occupation de ce pays d'agriculteurs bantu—les Hutu—par une minorite dominante de pasteurs — les Tutsi, les groupes de parenté ont subi un lent processus de changement sous divers aspects. L'expansion territoriale progressive sous une dynastie unique et l'intensification du contrôle exercé par l'autorité centrale sur le pays ont eu nécessairement une influence considérable sur l'autonomie, le fondement territorial et les fonctions sociales de ces groupes de parenté tant chez les Tutsi que chez les Hutu. C'est pourquoi il n'est pas étonnant qu'il y a une cinquantaine d'années, alors que cette évolution se poursuivait et au moment où l'influence de la culture et de la puissance d'Occident allait se faire de plus en plus envahissante et permanente, la situation des groupes de parenté n'était pas complètement stabilisée. Dans le présent article nous nous proposons d'indiquer les lignes principales de l'interprétation que nous croyons pouvoir dormer de ces trois institutions et de leurs relations.

It is a well established fact that every culture contact has its effect on language. Every new thing or concept that is introduced requires a name. This is achieved either by coining a word in the language of the people to whom it is introduced or by the adoption of a foreign word. Thus it is possible to trace the different culture influences on any people by establishing the origin of the foreign words in their language. The fact that in Swahili most commercial terms are of Arabic origin (e.g. fedha = money, duka = shop, biashara = trade, &c.) would seem to prove that from ancient times Arabic traders sold their wares on the coast of East Africa. Today the increasing number of English words in Swahili is indicative of the influence of British administration and its introduction of modern amenities (baisikeli = bicycle, motakaa = motor-car, reli = railway, &c). The spread of Christianity in Africa may be seen by the general use of such words as padre (priest), ubatizo (baptism), Biblia (Bible), &c, as also from the use of Christian names now heard everywhere. Even among pagans there are so-called wapenda jina (people who desire a name), who are ashamed of their pagan names and call themselves Pauli, Kasiani, &c, in order to belong, by name at least, to Christianity, the religion of the day.

During the past fifty years certain interesting marriage practices have been reported for various tribes in Northern Nigeria by a number of writers, but so far not much attention has been directed towards classification and analysis of the institutions concerned. This is attempted in the present paper, mainly on the basis of field-work among two tribes of Zaria Province, Northern Nigeria—the Kadara and the Kagoro—both of which practise an institution here referred to as secondary marriage, though their cultures are otherwise strikingly different.

The Konkomba live in Northern Togoland in both French and British Mandated Territory and principally about the banks of the Oti River, a tributary of the Volta. Their country lies between 9° and 9° 50' N. and 0° and 0° 50' E. The total population is about 45,000. Their language is one of the Gurma group of the Voltaic family. The great majority of them live on a grassland plain that lies between the low hills of eastern Dagomba and the Kotokoli hills. The plain is very low-lying and conditions are severe, alternating between considerable desiccation and severe flooding. The compounds are grouped in small hamlets of a dozen or so straggling along low ridges in the plain; in the wet season communication between hamlets is very difficult.