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Bride-Wealth Among the Hehe1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

G. Gordon Brown
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Extract

The following notes on the transfer of property by a man to his bride's father on the occasion of marriage are written as a result of the late Mr. Torday's paper upon this custom. Since the appearance of Mr. Torday's paper, and his suggestion that the word ‘earnest’ be used to designate this property instead of ‘bride-price’, many other people have written on the subject and many other terms have been suggested. It is not my intention to add to the already large list of possible terms, but to examine the custom as it exists in one tribe, the Hehe of Iringa, Tanganyika Territory. Such studies have, of course, been made in many good monographs on African tribes, but certain aspects of the custom, which are of some relevance to the present controversy, have not been emphasized.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , April 1932 , pp. 145 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1932

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References

page 145 note 2 Man, 1929, p. 5, ‘Bride-Price, Dower or Settlement.’

page 145 note 3 Letters and papers scattered in Man from 1929 to 1931.

page 145 note 4 The subjects of the chief of the Hehe number about 67,000, but these include some border-line people not really Hehe. The area of land occupied by the tribe is a rough estimate and should exclude the land occupied by non-Hehe subjects of the chief.

page 146 note 1 Accounts of this tribe have been given by Nigmann, E., Die WaHehe, Berlin, 1908Google Scholar, and by Dempwolff, O., ‘Beiträge zur Volksbeschreibung der Hehe’, Baesskr-Archiv., Band iv, Heft 3, 1913.Google Scholar

page 147 note 1 There are three kinds of variations in the amount: functional, according to the social circumstances surrounding the marriage; historical; and local, different norms holding for different localities. The first two are dealt with later on in the paper, the last cannot be discussed at present.

page 147 note 2 It is hoped to substantiate this in a future paper.

page 150 note 1 Cross-cousin marriages account for approximately 25 per cent, of the total number of marriages.

page 150 note 2 Munyamwingi, a slave or child of a slave taken in war. There was little stigma attached to this form of slavery.

page 153 note 1 A hoe was worth more then than now, but we could not get even approximate equivalents. Informants disagree and we doubt the accuracy of the table of values given by Nigmann, op. cit., p. 44.

page 153 note 2 Given by Nigmann, op. cit., p. 59. We confirmed this fact as we were fortunate enough to know the son of the man who took the mafungu to Merere.

page 155 note 1 Term suggested by Professor Radcliffe-Brown to designate the function usually-referred to as compensation, Man, July 1929, No. 96.

page 155 note 2 Both the levirate and the sororate are dying out since European occupation.

page 157 note 1 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Man, 1931, No. 42.Google Scholar

page 157 note 2 e.g., C.G., and Seligman, B. Z., Man, 1931, No. 85Google Scholar; but cf. Raglan, Lord, Man, 1931, No. 84.Google Scholar