The Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology come as a natural extension of the Cambridge Papers in Social Anthropology. Like the Papers, they are intended to be representative of the research and scholarship in Social Anthropology that is carried on in the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge. The Papers have served to make available to students of Social Anthropology the results of some of our shorter studies and seminar discussions. The monograph series will, it is hoped, be a parallel channel for the publication of the larger studies which are rapidly accumulating in our departmental archives. These studies have, for the most part, grown out of theses submitted for post-graduate degrees; but it is not intended that the monographs should be restricted to this source of supply. Post-graduate theses in Social Anthropology are normally based on original research in the field; and our main aim is to ensure the publication of field-work studies that would otherwise remain inaccessible to the world of anthropological learning. Monograph studies by other hands than those of our research students will therefore, we hope, also find a place in the series.

We are fortunate in being able to launch the series with Dr Abrahams's study of Nyamwezi political organization. The Nyamwezi are the second largest ethnic group in what was formerly the territory of Tanganyika, now Tanzania. They are bound to play an important part in the political and social development of that country.