JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF AFRICAN LANGUAGES AND CULTURES

VOLUME II

JULY 1929

SOCIAL SYSTEMS OF AFRICA

BY RICHARD THURNWALD

NUMBER 3

HE study of the social problems of Africa demands primarily

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which to-day represent the fundamental conditions determining the direction in which the life of the natives is developing. It is not a question of one single manifestation or another, since whatever we may find anywhere as custom or practice is only part of an entire system, intimately connected also with the intellectual life of the people.

The form under which these social and mental conditions are manifested is different in each tribe. In order to gain an idea of their immense variety it is, however, necessary to lay stress on any features they have in common, and thus to find types of systems. We might be tempted to pick out and group features from this tribe or that in order to evolve types in this way. This would, however, give us pictures in no way representing actual facts. We should, therefore, be better advised rather to select certain definite tribes and let them serve as representatives of the required types.

In this selection we meet with certain difficulties; though in reliable observations and good descriptions of social and especially economic conditions our supply of material is somewhat scanty, it is absolutely essential to find for each required type a suitable representative tribe that has been well described. Sometimes we are entirely without the

'Africa', the Journal of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures, is published by the Institute, but except where otherwise stated the writers of the articles are alone responsible for the opinions expressed.

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comprehensive description that we need for one type, another time there are a number of valuable reports from which to choose.

It is also a great temptation to include variants of the types in our description. In the following article we have only taken two main aspects of the African social system on which to base our types, (1) the methods by which food is procured and the state of technical knowledge, and (2) political structure. This does not, of course, cover all the factors forming the whole social structure, since these must also be sought in the history and the special natural endowment of the ethnical group and its constituent tribes. It is also due to these last two influences that the state of technical knowledge and the results of contact between two different ethnical groups are not always the same in every case. Finally, it also depends on the kind of soil and the climate, the geographical characteristics and the type of animal and plant life of the district in which these processes take place. Therefore it is impossible in attempting to typify the various social systems to avoid leaving out a great many fine shades and individual details. The concreteness of our representative examples to some degree compensates for this.

In the period which we are considering to-day, we see the product of all these influences in some completed form, already toned down and welded into a harmonious whole by the course of events, in the shape of social organizations, intellectual ties, opinions, and prejudices. It is these forces from the whole of an earlier phase of life, now passed into history, which have to-day been brought into a reasonable harmony and have produced the separate concrete forms of social organizations. These last we now try to group clearly in types on certain common features.

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From these considerations it seemed to us advisable at the end of the description of each configuration to glance briefly at its history, as far as in the case in question we have been able to discover it.

Lastly, in order to increase the practical value of these descriptions of types, we have tried to say a few words about the adaptability of the tribes representing each of the types to the requirements of our European dealing which now confronts them. Most important are any special gifts making them suitable for particular professions and