With the death of Monsieur René Hentsch at Geneva the Institute has lost a great friend, whose understanding and generous assistance were of the greatest help in the days when the plans for our Institute were laid and the first steps were taken which led to its foundation as an international body in 1926.

We are glad to announce two more additions to the membership of our Interim Committee: Dr. W. Huender of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Monsieur J. Soustelle, who is replacing General Sicé during his absence abroad.

Members will be glad to hear that, following on recent events, we have again been able to get into touch with the Institut Français de l'Afrique Noire at Dakar and our member, Professor Monod, its Director.

Since our last issue, another of the books embodying the results of studies in the field by our Fellows has been published. It is The Realm of a Rain Queen, A Study of the Pattern of Lovedu Society, by Dr. and Mrs. J. D. Krige. We hope to publish a review of this book in October.

On going to press, 58 entries have been received for the Prize Essay Competition. The latest date for sending off manuscripts was 1 April 1943, but, in order to allow for delays in the post, manuscripts will be accepted up to the end of June.

The research programme of the Institute, has been an experiment in applied anthropology from the start. The first volume of Africa announced that one of the Institute's major aims was ‘the closer association of scientific knowledge and research with practical affairs’ ‘Practical Anthropology’ was the title of an article published by Malinowski in the succeeding volume, when he advocated the study of such subjects as African political systems, native customary law, land tenure, and economic activities, which were likely to prove useful to the administrator. The Institute's first five-year plan of research was centred on the comparative study of changes in African society produced by such factors as European administration and education, the introduction of modern industry, and the influence of Christianity. This five-year programme, and the work which grew out of it, must be recognized as the first organized attempt, as set out in the original plan, ‘to provide, through disinterested study of the facts, a scientific sociological basis for dealing with practical questions of administration and education … and to place in increasing measure at the disposal of administrators, educators, missionaries, and those engaged in industry and commerce, and of the native leaders of African society, the exact knowledge which will assist them in determining the right relations between the institutions of African society and alien systems of government, education, and religion’.

The indigenous crafts of West Africa are so primitive in comparison with the mechanized industries of Europe that they may easily be omitted from schemes for future progress. Plans have been suggested for the extensive development of backward areas such as Nigeria as part of the post-war aim of the expansion of world trade. Large measures of social reconstruction, together with the starting of new industries and the improvement of old have been advocated in order that poverty may be lessened and the equipment of public services increased. Of many of these schemes there is no doubt that, if they were possible of achievement, industrial organizations would be set up that would have no relationship to African life as it is now. Experts in materials and industrial processes are not usually interested in sociological questions, nor are they accustomed to take them into account. They are concerned with efficiency, and have only to satisfy themselves that there is a sufficient supply of labour which is capable of manipulating machinery. Experts in the science of economics, for their part, have to decide whether there will be a market for the products of new or improved industries and therefore must necessarily examine some aspects of the life of the people in the area which they are studying. But the predominating factors of advertisement and price enable them to disregard deeper questions of cultural disintegration. Yet thorny questions would eventually arise upon which Africans would have decided opinions: such as the use of land for the exploitation of minerals, and the ownership and control of industries. The supply of labour might at first appear to Africans an innocuous, even a beneficial function, but later it might be discovered that the movement of workers into industrial towns was undermining the whole basis of their society

The Manya-Krobo are one of the eight groups comprising the Adangme-speaking peoples who inhabit the Shai Plain between the River Volta and the Accra Plain. Until about 1890 the Krobo head-quarters were on the Krobo Hill, a rocky fastness which rises abruptly like a craggy island out of the perfectly flat plain. They have now abandoned this hill and made their head-quarters in the town of Odumase near the foot.

The Tallensi of the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast furnish data of special interest for the study of comparative social structure among the peoples of West Africa. Large as the ethnographic literature on West Africa is, it is singularly lacking in analytical data concerning social structure. Some of the most useful collections of ethnographic information on West African peoples thus lack the foundation without which a coherent picture of a society is impossible. Tables of kinship terms, enumerations of kinship usages, catalogues of marriage and inheritance customs, and such-like information are no more than the raw materials for the construction of a systematic representation of social structure. And very often the raw materials are not sufficient. There are plenty of bricks but no mortar. The reasons for such lacunae are obvibys. A sympathetic amateur ethnographer can bring together material of inestimable value; but without a good theoretical grounding in modern social anthropology the field worker will not look for, and even if he stumbles across it, will not recognise the kind of material necessary for an understanding of social structure. He must; first of all, have the concept of a total social structure clearly in his mind; and he must look for the connexions, which are very often implicit, by which ostensibly discrete processes and institutions are related to one another in a meaningful pattern.

Most people are aware that Nigeria is named after the river Niger, but many may be surprised to hear that the word Niger is not derived from the Latin adjective niger meaning ‘black’, but from a Libyan and Sudanic root, meaning ‘water“or ‘river’. This word was used by the geographer Ptolemy some 1,800 years ago in the Greek form of ‘Niγɛιρ’, and it is used to-day by the tribes of lake Chad in the form of njer. But Pliny employed the form Nigris, and from very early times the land of the Niger was called Nigritia. The modern name of Nigeria was only invented forty-six years ago by Miss Flora Shaw, who became, quite appropriately, the wife of Lord Lugard, the master-builder of Nigeria. In a letter to The Times, written in 1897, Miss Shaw said, ‘It may be permissible to coin a shorter title for the agglomeration of pagan and Mahomedan States which have been brought, by the exertion of the Royal Niger Company, within the confines of a British Protectorate.’ Her suggestion that the new title should be Nigeria was at once accepted. But it did not receive official recognition until the territories of the Royal Niger Company were formally taken over by the Imperial Government in 1900, and were formed into the two administrations known as Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria. Fourteen years later these two administrations were amalgamated into a single Nigeria, which then became, next to India, the most populous dependency in the British Empire.

Of the various aspects of ethnology, perhaps that of economics has been most neglected. Within the past few years a number of books and articles have appeared with the intent to remedy this situation, but the study of the economic life of primitive peoples is still in its infancy. Particularly is this true of consumer economics in primitive societies. More and more data, especially of a concrete, quantitative nature, are needed. This study is a small contribution in that direction. It presents the annual monetary incomes and expenditures of sixteen Ibo natives living in the community of Ozuitem in south-eastern Nigeria.

From time to time there have appeared in this journal notes on the lingua franca spoken along the central section of the River Congo. On the usual principle of discarding the prefix in referring to the names of Bantu languages, this lingua franca has been called Ngala. In this case, however, we are obliged to retain the prefix to avoid confusion, as there exists in this area more than one language whose name is derived from this stem.

The appearance of this report, with the far-reaching proposals which it contains, is an important landmark in the history of the African peoples in the various British territories. It is, in a way, a sequel to, or rather the culmination of, the many statements which have been issued by the Colonial Office concerning the education of the people in these territories, from the publication of the White Paper on Education in Africa in 1942. But the report is more than that; it is the reply of the Government to the constantly increasing demand of the people themselves. There can be no doubt that for some years the main activities in the various territories will be connected with the education of the people and the spread of literacy—matters with which our Institute has been closely connected for many years, and in which the great majority of our members are keenly interested. It is felt, therefore, that a full account of the proposals and suggestions in the report will be appreciated by readers of Africa.

The tribes living round Lake Tumba, a lake some thirty-five miles long by twelve wide lying north of Lake Leopold II (approximately o° 30′ south latitude, and 18° east longitude) and draining into the Congo River at the confluence of the Ubangi, lack cohesion and show a considerable variety of custom and language. But they are known collectively as Tumba, the Government adaptation of the Native term Ntomba. Most of them are found to the east of the lake, the whole group numbering perhaps little more than forty to fifty thousand at the present time, though there is evidence that the last twenty years have seen a great decrease in population. European occupation of this area goes back barely fifty years, Protestant missions having been established for about the same length of time. The first mission post was established at Ikoko on the north-east shore of the lake, one of the villages of a group known as Bonginda. In pursuing this investigation particular attention has been given to the practices of this group, but mention is occasionally made where considerable differences have been found elsewhere.

In recent years increasing attention has been given to the question of developing small-scale industries in the Colonial Dependencies. It is now generally agreed that such a development is essential in the interests of the territories themselves and for the ultimate benefit of Great Britain and, the world. So enthusiastic indeed has been the acceptance of this new policy that there is now a danger that adequate attention may not be given to the needs of the local communities themselves, the service of which is the main justification for the establishment of these industries. However important it may be for world prosperity that the purchasing power of the peoples of Africa should be raised, it is no less important that every scheme of industrialization should be related to the requirements of the peoples of Africa, and the organization of the industries must be in harmony with local traditions. If this is not done the new industries, whether they are built up on local traditional crafts or are completely ‘exotic’, may prove to be socially disruptive. Every development of this kind has social and political consequences which are as important as the economic results, and which may, indeed, override financial and economic considerations. An increase in the material prosperity of Africa would be paid for too highly if the price should prove to be the disintegration of African society.