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 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.

Everywhere in West Africa contact with Western economy has brought changes in the technology of the indigenous people; today, side by side with the old man chipping away at a block of wood, making an image or a mask, and the weaver with his horizontal loom producing yard upon yard of narrow cloth strips to be sewn together into huge, flowing robes, sit the tailor making khaki shorts on his treadle sewing-machine and the carpenter nailing together planks for doors and window frames. In the traditional craft industries a father hands on his knowledge and skill to his sons; thus some crafts become the preserve of certain lineages. The sudden impact of the new technology did not give the craftsmen an opportunity to adapt their work to the new machines and tools; new men were recruited who had never been craftsmen and thus today the numerous tailors, carpenters, builders, and their like are not related to their fellow workers by blood ties; but, independent as these workers may appear, they are usually united to their fellow craftsmen by bonds of economic agreement whereby their work is strictly regulated. This study will attempt to describe the organization of the traditional crafts in some Yoruba towns and to show how the new crafts have formed guild organizations which preserve many of the functions of the older craft organization, but have a structure based not upon the lineage but upon the territorial divisions of society.

There are no such people, any more than there were such people as the Philistines.

In ‘L'origine du nom Fulani’, I showed that the words ‘Philistine’ and ‘Fulani’ come from a common root F-L which in the Indo-European languages means ‘foreigner, stranger, alien’ and, by a secondary meaning, ‘inferior’. Consequently there is no single group of people represented by the word ‘Philistine’ any more than there can be any special group represented by the word ‘Foreigner’. Such names are coined on the well-known principles of ethnocentrism, whereby one calls one's own group ‘The Men’ and all others ‘Outsiders’. Thus Meek writes that the Bachama tribe, Northern Nigeria ‘. . . call themselves the Gboare or Men, a term which is doubtless the same as Gbari (the name of a large tribe in the Niger and Zaria provinces), Bari (in Eastern Sudan) and Ka-Bwari (Tanganyika). The root gba = man is also found in the Upper Ituri regions of Central Africa under the form mu-gba or ba-gba.’

This study of a specific instance of culture contact, that provided by the situation of West African students in Britain, is limited to a discussion and analysis of their association in the West African Students' Union. The fact of common geographical origin partly explains the formation of such a Union, for the same reason as United States, Canadian, South African, and other large groups of students living in Britain have become so organized. But this would ignore the situation of colour prejudice facing coloured students in Britain, and also their colonial status in relation to Britain. Because of this determining characteristic of being an association of coloured colonial students, the West African Students' Union has developed, throughout its history, certain features not normally found among students' unions, and which are reminiscent of ‘protest movements’. The analysis which is presented here seeks to determine the reasons why West African students organized themselves into the West African Students' Union from 1926 onwards. It is unfortunately not possible to do more here than touch briefly upon the major changes which took place during that time, but as most of the data here presented have not hitherto been published, enough details have been included to give an idea of the manner in which members of the West African Students' Union responded to the situation of culture contact. The paper is divided into two parts: first, an historical account of the type of ideas held by the members of the Union; and, secondly, a discussion of the reasons why West African students join the Union.