The concept of the mythical charter, validating claims to ritual or political authority, is a familiar one to social anthropologists, although, due to a better understanding of the interaction of myth and history, there has been a tendency in recent years to speak of the ‘historical’ rather than the ‘mythical’ charter. Those who use such terms are not primarily interested in the charter as evidence of a system of ideas, worth studying for its own sake. Their emphasis is on the function of the charter, rather than on its meaning. However, a brilliant lead has been given in the exploration of myths as systems of ideas by Claude Lévi-Strauss who places a given text within the whole corpus of oral literature proper to a society. Going, perhaps, further than this, Victor Turner corrects the predominantly literary approach of Lévi-Strauss by his examination of the ‘positional meaning’ of the symbols employed by such texts—a meaning derived from a totality of elements, rites, and institutions within a whole culture.

This study is based on data collected as part of a series of demographic surveys conducted in 1961–2 in different parts of the Sudan. The primary aim of the surveys was to study fertility differentials in the country.

The study of marriage patterns, however, is a prerequisite for any serious investigation of fertility especially in a country like the Sudan where birth control, as understood in countries of the West European type, is almost unknown.

Les Nyende, population agricole au nord-ouest du Dahomey, appartiennent au groupe des langues voltaïques. Leur nombre est d'environ 12.000. Ils sont divisés en dix-neuf clans dont les traditions orales et les coutumes actuelles révèlent des origines assez diverses. Pour des raisons historiques, géographiques ou rituelles certains d'entre eux se sont alliés, de sorte qu'ils se regardent mutuellement comme frères, ce qui, dans l'une ou l'autre de ces alliances, va jusqu'à la reconnaissance de la loi de l'exogamie. Avant le regroupement imposé par le régime Maga (1960), la répartition territoriale correspondait en majeure partie à la division clanique. A côté du chef de terre (uteŋ-yenɔ ou ussɔ-hadɔ) dont l'autorité est pratiquement limitée aujourd'hui au domaine rituel, et du vieux du lignage (ukwiεmɔ), il y a, depuis le temps des Français, le chef de village (ukwatɔ) qui, sous l'autorité du chef d'arrondissement, s'occupe des taxes et d'autres affaires d'administration locale.

It is generally understood that Swahili is the official national language of the Republic of Tanzania. Perhaps because the concept of a national language has never been clearly defined within the Tanzanian context, there is some misunderstanding in the minds of many Tanzanian citizens as to the factual linguistic situation in their country. Certainly at the time when the country became independent and Swahili was first proclaimed a national language, it was proclaimed as such in opposition to English. The original intention was eventually to replace the language of the former colonial rulers, English, with Swahili. Comments by responsible African writers support this original intention. For example, Professor Ali Mazrui in an article published as recently as 1967 commented on the comparatively mild and smooth conclusion of British colonial rule and contrasted this with the anti-British language policy in Tanganyika after independence. ‘While Kenya had a violent anti-British insurrection and Uganda had its moments of rioting and boycotting against this or that aspect of British rule, the nationalist movement in colonial Tanganyika sometimes seemed to be almost Anglophile. Yet that old Anglophile Tanganyika has now become, in the area of language policy, anti-English’.

The title of the present article is taken from a Chaha sentence given below that describes the importance of the äsät in the life of the Gurage, whose country is situated in the south-west of Addis Ababa. Indeed the äsät, or the banana-like plant, known as Ensete edulis, provides the staple food of the Gurage diet. The root, the stem of the leaves, and the trunk provide substance for bread; the leaves serve as wrapping material, as base-stands for pots, as load-carriers, and as fuel; the dried leaves are made into small plates for serving chopped meat; and the fibre serves as rope. For some of the Gurage dialects I collected as many as thirty names for the different kinds of äsät, some of these kinds being used as medicines for various forms of illness. The äsät is a frequently recurring theme in the Gurage folklore, folktales, proverbs, and riddles.