British imperialism in west Africa during the late nineteenth century is known to be the product of the interrelations between expansionist forces at the center of empire and those at the periphery on the one hand, and the relationship between the peripheral forces and African circumstances on the other hand. Expansionist forces at Whitehall included nationalistic sentiments and inter-European rivalry, economic considerations, and public reactions to these motivations. Of the expansionist forces at the outposts of empire, pressure from commercial interest groups and the activities of the men on the spot are notable.

Indeed, the work of the military personnel on the outposts of empire was instrumental to British territorial annexations. As officers and non-commissioned officers to the colonial army of the West African Frontier Force (WAFF), the British personnel hailed from all rungs of society, and seconded from metropolitan regiments into active service in West Africa. Their motivations largely included economic interests, sport and adventure, while the African auxiliaries enlisted out of economic considerations. Naturally, the men on the spot were indispensable to British expansion, as they particularly constituted a reliable source of information for policymakers at home. They also subscribed with their superiors to the use of force to maintain political supremacy on the frontiers of empire. The men on the spot controlled the timing, pace, and extent of British military imperialism. However, they had to reckon with indigenous response, as their prerogatives met challenges in African interests and concerns, such as territorial inviolability and non-interference in their internal affairs. This interplay of military imperialism and African response is aptly demonstrated in the British encounter with the Semolika in Northern Nigeria.

The articulation of antislavery among Africans remains to be studied. Overall, the staple of animated questions, debates, and conclusions of the vast literature on abolition of slavery in the last two decades or so has neglected African contributions of ideologies of antislavery to the global abolition epoch in the Atlantic world. Charting a new trajectory for the study of abolition in Africa, as well as the global abolition epoch, this study examines the ideologies of antislavery among Africans as expressed in the Gold Coast Times (Cape Coast) during the heyday of the British abolition of slavery in the Gold Coast in 1874-75. The study, echoing African agency, reveals the manifest presence of the African intelligentsia abolitionists in the late nineteenth-century Gold Coast. The origin and timing of the African intelligentsia's antislavery attitudes in the Gold Coast are not made known in the sources. However, the sources do reveal that antislavery flowered in the littoral region between Elmina and Accra, the hub of precolonial intellectual activities, political activism, and diffusion of cultures, linked to the larger Atlantic world.

Overall, I argue that antislavery existed among the African intelligentsia and that they articulated their ideologies of antislavery in several ways, both on the eve of the British colonial abolition of slavery and in its immediate aftermath. The study is divided into four main parts. The first section problematizes the sources and addresses some methodological considerations. For its part, the second portion interrogates the comparative historiography on abolition, while the third section conceptualizes the African intelligentsia abolitionists and their association with the Gold Coast Times, the main platform for the African intelligentsia's espousal of ideologies of antislavery. Divided into two parts, the final section examines the African intelligentsia's articulation of antislavery both before and after the inauguration of abolition by the colonial state.

It really was a chance occasion, just before Christmas 2003. On my way to the Dogon area I had greeted my friends in Sangha, and was speaking with a Dutch friend, when a French tourist lady suddenly barged into the hall of the hotel and asked me: “There should be a cavern with a mural depicting Sirius and the position of all the planets. I saw it in a book. Where is it?”. My friend smiled wrily, amused by the irony of situation: by chance the lady had fallen upon the one who had spent decennia to disprove this kind of “information”. “In what book?” I asked, and named a few. It was none of these, and she could not tell me. Cautiously (maybe she had planned her whole trip around this Sirius “experience”) I explained to her that though there was a lot to see, this particular mural did not exist. She left immediately, probably convinced she stumbled on a real ignoramus.

In retrospect I never meant to criticize Marcel Griaule, it just happened as a consequence of other choices, which eventually led me to Dogon country. After completing my PhD thesis on the Kapsiki/Higi of northern Cameroun and northeastern Nigeria, I started scouting for a second area of field research. For two reasons, I wanted a comparable setting: to allow myself to feel at home easily because I seemed to have less time, and to use in general the approach of controlled comparison. In my first field research I had made a more or less classic ethnography of a group of comparable size (150,000) in a similar environment, living in the Mandara Mountains south of Lake Chad and straddling the border between northern Cameroun and North Eastern Nigeria.

Most historians writing about twentieth-century Africa have, at one time or other, used colonial statistical data. When we do this, we normally add a disclaimer, pointing out that these statistics are likely to be unreliable, and then proceed to use them anyway. But surely, we should be able to say something more definite about the reliability of these data? If we know more about the process by which these statistics were collected, for which aims, and with what preconceived ideas in mind, we should be able to establish, if not a margin of error, then at least some idea of which aspects of colonial statistics are more reliable than others. Furthermore, the process of colonial data-collecting was linked to establishing ethnic and other categories, which have since become generally accepted. This paper addresses these questions in an analysis of the context and contents of the published report of the 1921 Census of Southern Nigeria, and discusses its usefulness as a source for historians. The issues I discuss here with specific reference to this Nigerian census are characteristic for colonial censuses in general and should therefore be of relevance to all historians using colonial census data, and also—more generally—help us to understand how some of the most basic categories describing African societies have been constructed in the process of the acquisition of information by colonial governments.

The evidence for the period separating the times of the two Benin dynasties, that of the ogiso and that of the oba, is extremely scanty and does not look very trustworthy. There are not even any direct indications as to the time when the events under consideration took place. However, an analysis of the Second dynasty's history allows to arrive at the conclusion that the events preceding its advent to power could date from the late twelth and early thirteenth centuries (Bondarenko 2001:160n64; 2003). There are no possibilities for giving a more concrete date, nor for the exact calculation of the respective periods' length. However, the scant information about it still permits an interpretation of the very events of that time (though it looks like none of the professional Benin students has ever attempted it). In fact, we have either to operate with the sources which are in our disposal, or abandon trying to reconstruct an important episode of the Benin kingdom's history and concede that we must categorically deny the very possibility of giving any credit to information provided mainly by oral tradition and ethnography.

The British Parliamentary Papers continue to be a valuable source of information for historians of the African past. A vast amount of material on African affairs involving British interests can be found in these Papers. This essay deals with the way that the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was presented in the Parliamentary Papers, specifically volume 13 of the Irish University Reprint Series entitled Colonies—Africa: Southern Africa General, 1878-80. It examines the kind of information presented, as well as the kind of material not presented. It analyzes the function of these Papers in their own time and in secondary sources on the Anglo-Zulu War. Finally, it considers the kinds of questions historians must ask in order to make these documents as useful as possible.

The term “Parliamentary Papers” used in the broadest sense refers to all of the official published records of the British Parliament. This includes the record of its proceedings and various debates; the reports of Parliamentary Committees and non-Parliamentary Committees; and the official documents of various departments that discuss routine business. In a narrower and more precise sense, the term “Parliamentary Papers refers to specific sets of papers that came before the House of Commons, were printed for Parliament's use, and were part of a numbered series of papers.” The papers in this narrower group are considered “Sessional Papers,” popularly called “Blue Books,” a name given them in the nineteenth century because the government printers bound the majority of the papers in blue covers.

“La troisiesme partie de ce Recueil est la Relation d'un Voyage fait en la Coste d'Afrique, depuis le treiziéme degré de latitude septentrionale, jusqu'au troisesme du costé du Sud. L'Auteur estoit Officier dans un navire de guerre que Monsieur le Comte d'Estrée détacha de son escadre pour favoriser le commerce que nos François font en cette coste-là de temps immemorial & sur tout depuis qu'il a pieu au Roy de la joindre aux concessions de la Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. Il n'omet aucune chose de ce qui peut rendre son journal accomply. Il est exact en tout, il marque la latitude des lieux, où il a eu le moyen de prendre la hauteur, le gistement des costes, les Nations avec qui l'on peut trafiquer, celles dont il faut se défier. Il remarque enfin leur Religion, leurs moeurs, & tout ce qui peut rendre une Relation parfaite.”

(Justel 1674:2-3)

“J'ai entretenu le chevalier d'Ailly sur son voyage et dans tourtes les choses qu'il m'a dittes, je veoy bien qu'il s'est acquitté ponctuellement de tourtes celles qu'on luy avoit recommandez dans ses instructions. Il aura l'honneur de vous envoyer ses mémoires à la première occasion, et vous verrez, monsieur, par les siens et ceux du sieur de Gémosat, qu'il ne reste rien à désirer de tourtes les conoissances qui peuvent estre nécessaires.”

(D'Estrées à Colbert, MC 156bis, 27 may 1671, 542)

The Zulu kingdom holds a special place in both popular culture and historical scholarship. Zulu—a famous name, easy to spell and pronounce—is as recognizably American as gangster rap. The website of the “Universal Zulu Nation” (www.hiphopcity.com/zulu_nation/) explains that as “strong believers in the culture of hiphop, we as Zulus … will strive to do our best to uplift ourselves first, then show others how to uplift themselves mentally, spiritually, physically, economically and socially.” The Zulu Nation lists chapters in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington, Miami, Virginia Beach, Los Angeles, Detroit, New Haven, Hartford, New Jersey, and Texas. Mardi Gras in New Orleans has featured a “Zulu Parade” since 1916. The United States Navy underscores its independence from Britain by using “Zulu time” instead of Greenwich Mean Time. Not to be outdone, the Russian Navy built “Zulu Class” submarines in the 1950s and Britain's Royal Navy built a “Tribal Class Destroyer,” HMS Zulu. The common factor linking black pride, Africa, and prowess in war is the Zulu kingdom, a southeast African state that first attained international fame in the 1820s under the conqueror Shaka, “the black Napoleon.” His genius is credited with innovations that reshaped the history of his region. “Rapidly expanding his empire, Shaka conquered all, becoming the undisputed ruler of the peoples between the Pongola and Tugela Rivers … In hand-to-hand combat the short stabbing spear introduced by Shaka, made the Zulus unbeatable.” In South Africa Shaka's fame continues to outshine all other historical figures, including Cecil Rhodes and Paul Kruger. A major theme park, “Shakaland,” commemorates his life and Zulu culture. A plan was unveiled in 1998 to erect a twenty-story high statue of the Zulu king in Durban Harbor that would surpass the ancient Colossus of Rhodes.

The years 2003-04 mark the centennial observance of a debate that emerged in Paris, Freetown, and Monrovia over whether or not the Liberian Benjamin Anderson trekked to the fabled town of Musadu in 1868. Musadu, now situated about five miles northwest of Beyla in Guinea-Conakry, or eighty-five miles northwest of the Liberian border town of Yekepa, represented Liberia's interiormost claim in the nineteenth century. Anderson's challenger was a captain in the French army named Henri d'Ollone, who went to West Africa in the late 1890s and surveyed some of the land that the French had recently conquered. Anderson won the debate, given the fact he was still alive and could prove that he went to Musadu, and because eminent persons such as the French diplomat-scholar Maurice Delafosse, and perhaps even the famed pan-Africanist Edward W. Blyden, came to his defense.

The controversy was set in the context of Britain, France, and Liberia's competing claims for land during the heyday of the western conquest of Africa. This paper examines the main contours of the debate, sets the debate in historical context, and republishes the most important primary sources so readers can examine the case more closely for themselves. While some have mentioned the controversy that emerged between d'Ollone and Anderson, the first detailed examination of what happened has been published in Fairhead et. al. (2003:79-88). This paper is a followup to that study.

This paper addresses the challenges facing researchers seeking to explore the post-colonial history of Zambia, a country whose social infrastructure in general, and academic and research facilities in particular, are in a state of apparently perpetual decline. It describes some of the major archival resources available and their (significant) limitations. It surveys recent and ongoing attempts to document the history of nationalist movements and leaders. Finally, it explores the potential for developing a history of post-colonial Zambia which escapes the assumptions of a still dominant nationalist historiography, and which thereby contributes to a deeper understanding of the lives actually lived by Zambians since Independence.

The tendency for colonial and post-colonial governments and their advisors to seek to depoliticize issues of power, inequality and control, by turning them into “technical” or developmental issues, has been noted by historians and anthropologists. The historiography of post-colonial Zambia is a prime example of the conflation of history with development, creating a discourse that assesses historical change by the achievement of supposedly neutral development goals, and conflates the ideologies and policies of nationalist politicians with those of the nation as a whole. The relatively benign judgments passed by prominent historians of the colonial era in their postscript surveys of the government of Kenneth Kaunda's United National Independence Party (UNIP) in Zambia's First Republic (1964-72) have retained an unwarranted influence. This is partly because of the dearth of post-colonial historical studies of equal importance conducted during the last 20 years. UNIP's leading historian, Henry Meebelo, while providing valuable insights into the African perspective on decolonization, played a leading role in establishing nationalism as the unquestioned norm of progressive understanding, axiomatically placing all social forces which came into conflict with it as reactionary and illegitimate.

Portuguese archives contain a wealth of documents that are insufficiently utilized by, and often unknown to, historians of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century west Africa. Lusophone sources are crucial for the period of earliest contact between Europeans and West Africans. While the publications of Avelino Teixeira da Mota are widely known, the work of contemporary Portuguese scholars such as Maria Emilia Madeira Santos, Maria Manuel Torrão, and Maria João Soares does not have the same visibility except among lusophone scholars. Relatively few Africanists have recognized the potential significance of the Portuguese archives for Senegambia, a region generally considered within the orbit of francophone or anglophone west Africa. The Portuguese archives remain a rich source of hitherto unknown documents, some of which will lead to fundamental transformations in our historical knowledge of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Upper Guinea coast.

The two of us have worked extensively on the history of the Luso-Africans in Senegambia and the Guinea of Cape Verde. Mark has investigated the construction and evolution of their identity. Horta, in particular, has for many years focused on their representation in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Portuguese sources. Both writers have argued elsewhere—following Boulègue and Moraes—that among these Luso-Africans—or “Portuguese” as they were known in contemporary sources—there were New Christians, some of whom were probably practicing Jews. Evidence of the Jewish presence in west Africa remained scanty, however, and we argued that if some “Christian” Portuguese were in fact practicing Jews, they were Jews primarily in the privacy of their own communities.

The path to the publication of our collaborative research concerning an aspect of earliest Church Missionary Society history has been an irregular, and often despairing, one. For a time it seemed unlikely that we would ever finish our research, and that was simply the research part of it. The prospect of collaboration by husband and wife, persons trained in disciplines—history and sociology—guided by approaches seemingly opposed to each other, was not a promising one from the start. Simply put, could we cooperate, work through the processes of writing, thinking, and rewriting/rethinking within a single household, and endure the stress associated with meeting demands placed upon us by a publisher and full-time jobs as instructors? Had we been aware that this project would last for nearly thirty years for Bruce and twenty for Nancy, and consume entirely too much of our lives, we are pretty certain—in retrospect—that we would never have embarked on it.

Bruce was the first to encounter the archive of the Church Missionary Society, during his dissertation research in London in 1966. At that time his principal objective was to scan records found in that archive for bits and pieces of data relating to political development and economic transformation of a part of coastal Guinea/Conakry from 1800 to 1850. That was a region where the Church Missionary Society had operated schools and mission stations between 1808 and 1816/17. Among the Society's earliest missionaries sent to West Africa was one named Peter Hartwig—a person who, according to other missionaries and early historians, had deserted the sacred cause to become a slave trader, and yet had returned to the Society's service at the eleventh hour, only to die in 1815 in a yellow fever epidemic then sweeping the African coast. Still, something seemed to be amiss in that narrative, for correspondence found in the archive suggested that it was a very complex affair. It was apparent that a careful review of Hartwig's experiences would be a worthwhile research project, but for a later time.

All social groups make rules and attempt, at some times and under some circumstances, to enforce them. Social rules define situations and the kinds of behavior appropriate to them, specifying some actions as “right” and forbidding others as “wrong.” When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on by the group. He is regarded as an outsider.

But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so. Hence, a second meaning of the term emerges: the rule-breaker may feel his judges are outsiders.

Peter Hartwig was a German seminarian recruited by the Church Missionary Society in 1803 to serve as one of its first two missionaries in Africa. He was sent to Freetown, a settlement established for Africans and people of African descent who had returned to Africa from Britain and the Americas. Hartwig was to reside at Freetown temporarily and to be supervised while there by a locally-based Corresponding Committee composed of Sierra Leone Company officials. The Society directed that, after a year's residence in Sierra Leone, Hartwig and his fellow recruit Melchior Renner would establish a mission among Susu peoples north of Freetown, where they were to convert indigenous Africans to Christianity. Hartwig, however, failed to meet the Society's expectations, violated the norms of the Corresponding Committee that the Society had established at Freetown to guide mission progress, and left the Society's service within three years of reaching the coast. He seemingly had become unable to adjust to changing realities, a wrongdoer and a moral example to other missionaries of what to avoid becoming.3 How are we to interpret his failure from a sociological perspective?

Historical drama can be described as a form of drama which purports to reflect or represent historical proceedings. Since time immemorial writers have combined fiction and history in creative works. Lawrence Langner has ascribed the popularity of historical drama to the desire of the theatergoer to spend an evening in the company of kings, queens, and other historical personages; the opportunity to become familiar with far greater events than those which take place in the lives of ordinary people; and that historical plays recreate great deeds done by great personages in the past. Historical facts are then creatively adapted and made available in play form to the audience. Adaptation has been defined as “the rewriting of a work from its original form to fit it for another medium … The term implies an attempt to retain the characters, actions, and as much as possible of the language and tone of the original…” The history play is also defined as “any drama whose time setting is in some period earlier than that in which it was written. We can also go further to describe the history play as one “that reconstructs a personage, a series of events, a movement, or the spirit of a past age and pays the debt of serious scholarship to the facts of the age being recreated.

Judging from the foregoing, Akinwunmi Isola's play, Efunsetan Aniwura falls into the category of historical drama, treating as it does the story of the eponymous heroine who was the second Iyalode (queen of women) of Ibadan and who died on 30 June 1874. Prominent themes in Yoruba historical plays include war, conflict, and class struggle. Olu Obafemi has declared that the dramatization of the history, myth, and legends of the Yoruba community forms the bulk of the themes of Yoruba drama. These factors are vividly portrayed in Akinwunmi Isola's plays. Akinwunmi Isola is one of the most prolific playwrights who use their mother tongue to write plays in Nigeria. He is a Professor of Yoruba language and he uses the Yoruba language in writing his plays despite the fact that he is proficient in English and French languages.

Colonial sources can provide historians with a wealth of information about African lives during the colonial period, but they must be read against the grain, filtering out valuable information from the biases and prejudices of European officials. The task of studying African women's history using colonial sources is even more complicated, as women were not often the focus of the colonial agenda, and contact between colonial officials and African women was relatively limited, and often indirect. Particularly in those arenas of African social, cultural, and political life deemed as women's spheres, colonial officials had little incentive to intervene. As a result, historians of later generations are faced with relatively sparse documentation of women-centered social activity during the colonial era. For their part, African women guarded cultural and political spheres under their influence from outside intervention, thus making it difficult for Europeans, and particularly European men, to gain a full and accurate understanding of women's individual and collective experiences under colonial rule.

This paper will examine colonial research and documentation of African women's birthing practices.to illustrate both the potential for using these sources to understand some basic elements of women's experiences, and the limitations of this source material in providing deep and accurate insights into African women's history. Using an example from colonial Cameroon, we will see how European interest in women's birthing practices was motivated by colonial economic and scientific agendas steeped in racism and sexism, preventing European researchers from obtaining a balanced and accurate understanding of this women's sphere of social life. On the other hand, the documents reveal efforts of African women to prevent the colonial infiltration into women's arenas of influence.

Our primary concern in this essay is with reconstructing the history of material culture. As anyone who has ever looked into the material culture of Ethiopia quickly discovers, the travel accounts of early European visitors can be a rich and varied source for illuminating any number of such traditions, including those of metal-, leather-, basket-, and woodworking, as well as pottery, weaving, and painting. Dating from the first part of the sixteenth century, the descriptions of journeys and residences in Ethiopia became more prevalent in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when they also begin to include illustrations of more than the landscape. As sources for the reconstruction of a particular material tradition, these accounts can offer valuable insights into the nature of the objects and the people who produced and used them. Conversely, they can be frustrating to work with, since the pertinent data they contain most often come in the form of a sentence here or there. Rarely are there entire sections dedicated to descriptions of particular traditions or processes, unless one happened to be of special interest to the writer.

Among those scholars who have used travel accounts to great effect is Richard Pankhurst. For many decades, as even a cursory examination of his numerous publications illustrates, he has been mining this mother lode for the scattered sentences and tantalizing suggestions they offer. His most comprehensive writing on this subject is an often-cited 1964 article, “Old Time Handicrafts of Ethiopia.” Divided into sections, each dealing with a different tradition, Pankhurst cited various descriptive accounts that mentioned specific traditions. The basic approach taken in this and other publications that have followed is one perhaps best described, in keeping with the mining metaphor, as one of “prospecting” or in some cases mining “surface deposits.”

The Songhay Empire was a remarkable west African state, flourishing in several areas including territorial and trade expansion, development of a strong military and centralized government, unprecedented support for learning and scholarship, and skilful relations with the greater Sudanic and Islamic lands. Songhay arose out of the remains of the Mali empire under the rule of Sonni Ali ca. 1464. Yet it was the empire's second ruler, Askiya Muhammad, who initiated the century-long golden age of peace and stability, bringing Songhay to its zenith. This era was particularly fruitful for the cities of Gao, Timbuktu, and Jenne, the empire's administrative, scholarly, and trade centers respectively. Timbuktu soared to preeminence in the Sudan and became known in other parts of the Muslim world, producing many respected scholars. However, by the later part of the sixteenth century fractious disarray among the descendants of Askiya Muhammad weakened the state, ultimately leading to the Moroccan invasion of 1591. Songhay's capitulation to the invaders ended the age of the great medieval west African states.

A forged travel account reminds me of a raffia palm in central Africa, because there is a use for every part of such a palm: the wine (sap), the nuts (edible), the raffia (for textiles), the other leaves (for roofcovering), the branches (for furniture), its pith (for making various articles), and lastly the grubs inside the pith (also edible). Nothing is wasted. In the same way a forged travel account can be deconstructed until all its parts down to the very last sentence or proper name can be used as evidence for one or another kind of history. The considerable interest fraudulent travel accounts can have for the historian of Africa is usually far underrated because once they are exposed as forgeries they tend to be summarily dismissed and henceforth to be avoided like the plague. At most, it is conceded that sometimes part of a forged account rests on the author's observations and experiences at the time and in the place where his (the known forgers seem to have been all male) narrative placed them and may therefore actually be genuine.

The usefulness of forgeries as evidence goes well beyond this, however, and rests on two arguments. First, a narrative forgery is never totally the product of a person's imagination, if only because it strives to achieve the verisimilitude required to be passed off as genuine. A good part of any such forgery must therefore rest on valid observations made by someone, somewhere. If one can discover from where and when such elements stem, they add new evidence to the record about that where and when. Secondly, the very choice of topics and themes; raised in a forgery is historical evidence in its own right, for it tells us much about the expectations of both the social milieu in which the work was written and its intended audience at the time (not always the same social aggregates). To develop and illustrate these points, there may well be no better instance than the notorious book whose unmasking raised a great geographic furor in the earlier nineteenth century—the notorious Douville forgery.

In December 2002 the Swiss Society for Ethnomusicology (CH-EM), in cooperation with the Centre for African Studies of the University of Basel and with mission 21 (formerly Basel Mission), organized a symposium on the theme “Popular Music from Ghana: Historical Records as a Contribution to the Study of African History and Culture.” The conference concluded a week of lectures, workshops, and concerts with Ghanaian “palmwine” and Highlife music, a program which was realized in cooperation with the Basel Academy of Music and the two associations, Ghana Popular Music 1931-1957 and Scientific African e.V. The papers read at the symposium are, in our opinion, of interest to the readers of History in Africa, as they discuss a specific kind of source and the methodological issues pertaining to it, as well as offer insights into possible themes of research, giving some idea of the potential of the recordings as a source. We present the contributions here in a slightly revised form, and, in order to round off the discussion, we have invited the curators of two further sound collections of interest to scholars working on African history, to describe their archives.

This paper introduces a unique collection of roughly 700 historical recordings of African popular music generated by a Swiss trading company, which today is located at the archives of mission 21 (formerly Basel Missioin) in Basel. The music was recorded and distributed by the Union Trade Company of Basel (UTC) during the 1930s and 1950s in the Gold Coast and Nigeria. The collection represents a rich resource for the study of African history and cultures and caters for the growing interest shown by social historians of Africa in everyday life and accordingly in leisure activities and consumption.

As music and dance undoubtedly play an important role in African social and religious life, they have received much attention and there is a longstanding tradition of ethnomusicological research that has led to a great number of sound collections. The historian interested in the “modern” and “postmodern” or in popular culture, however, tends in many cases to be frustrated by the material contained in these archives. The ethnographic collectors often showed a blind eye to the modernizing forces within the African musical cultures they researched and concentrated on documenting what they perceived as the “original” or “traditional.” Furthermore the collection and documentation of the popular music of the day was rarely on the agenda of national research institutions and archives in postcolonial Africa. In the case of Ghana at least three initiatives have resulted in important collections of music that go beyond a narrow ethnographic documentation. The first, by Prof. Kwabena Nketia at the Centre of African Studies at the University of Ghana, features a mixture of field recordings and a few commercial records. The others focus specifically on the commercial and popular. These are the Gramophone Records Museum in Cape Coast, discussed below by its founder Kwame Sarpong and the Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF) of John Collins in Accra.