^{Page 113 note 1} Curtin, Philip, ‘Field Techniques for Collecting and Processing Oral Data’, in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), IX, 3, 1968, p. 368.Google Scholar

^{Page 114 note 1} Ibid. The proper use of these data has been examined and applied effectively by several noted scholars, including Jan Vansina, D. P. Abraham, Ian Cunnison, Ivor Willis, Robert Smith, and Georges Balandier.

^{Page 114 note 2} Sturtevant, William C., ‘Anthropology, History and Ethnohistory’, in Ethnohistory (Buffalo, N.Y.), XIII, I, 1966, p. 130.Google Scholar

^{Page 114 note 3} See Rodney, Walter, ‘A Reconsideration of the Mane Invasions of Sierra Leone’, in The Journal of African History, VIII, 2, 1967, pp. 219–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and P. E. H. Hair, ‘Ethnolinguistic Continuity on the Guinea Coast’, ibid. pp. 247–68. Taken together, these articles are good examples of the results which can be obtained by trained scholars using traditional documents and applying recent ethnographic and linguistic data to them.

^{Page 114 note 4} Smith, Robert, Kingdoms of the Yoruba (London, 1969), pp. 98–9.Google Scholar

^{Page 114 note 5} Eisenstadt, S. N., Essays on Sociological Aspects of Political and Economic Development (The Hague, 1961), p. 12Google Scholar. The essay from which the above quotation is taken deals primarily with problems of political development in new states, but the analytic framework which the author uses is worthy of careful study.

^{Page 115 note 1} Smith, M. G., Government in Zazzau (Oxford, 1960), pp. 1–14 and 330–2Google Scholar; and ‘Field History Among the Hausa’, in The Journal of African History, II, I, 1961Google Scholar. Smith has successfully taken on the problems of political history and political theory in both of these studies, primarily from an anthropological point of view. In elucidating governmental forms, modes, and functions, he has discovered considerable regularities within the process of political change, regularities which could be explained in terms of several ‘laws of structural change’.

^{Page 115 note 2} See Wylie, Kenneth C., ‘Innovation and Change in Mende Chieftaincy, 1880–1896’, in The Journal of African History, X, 2, 1969Google Scholar. Later developments in Luawa and other chiefdoms in the Kailahun district are explained in my Ph.D. thesis, ‘The Politics of Transformation: indirect rule in Mendeland and Abuja, 1890–1914’ (Michigan State University, mimeo., 1967).Google Scholar

^{Page 116 note 1} Little, Kenneth, The Mende of Sierra Leone (London, 1951)Google Scholar. This does not mean that Professor Little's work is not ‘significant’, but that its historical value is limited. His book is straightforward and carefully researched. It is an absolute necessity for anyone studying Mende social or political organisation. But much more analytical work needs to be done on the Mende before the process of political change is understood in the same way as we now understand that process in Zaria.

^{Page 116 note 2} Robert Smith, op. cit. pp. 99–106.

^{Page 116 note 3} Lloyd, P. C., ‘The Political Development of West African Kingdoms’, in The Journal of African History, IX, 2, 1968, p. 329.Google Scholar

^{Page 116 note 4} Vansina, Jan, ‘The Use of Process-models in African History’, in Vansina, J., Mauny, R., and Thomas, L. V. (eds.), The Historian in Tropical Africa (Oxford, 1964), pp. 375–89.Google Scholar

^{Page 117 note 1} Smith, , Government in Zazzau, pp. 294–303Google Scholar. This ‘appearance’ of consensus, covering up very complex struggles for power, influence and authority, seems more important in Abuja, during the period of British consolidation, than in Zaria, probably because the former was a Hausa-ruled area, never taken over by the Fulani. See Wylie, , ‘Politics of Transformation’, pp. 121–62.Google Scholar

^{Page 117 note 2} See Wylie, , ‘Innovation and Change’, in The Journal of African History, X, 2, 1969, pp. 11–22.Google Scholar

^{Page 117 note 3} Swartz, Marc J., ‘Basis for Political Compliance in Bena Villages’, in Swartz, Marc J., Turner, Victor W., and Tuden, Arthur (eds.), Political Anthropology (Chicago, 1966), pp. 89–108.Google Scholar

^{Page 117 note 4} Lloyd, P. C., ‘The Political Structure of African Kingdoms: an exploratory model’, in Banton, Michael (ed.), Political Systems and the Development of Power (New York, 1965), p. 63.Google Scholar

^{Page 117 note 5} Ibid. pp. 84–5. In reference to this process, Lloyd makes a division between kingdoms ‘where these offices [whose holders make political decisions] are open to almost all members of the society and those where they are reserved to persons of certain closed social groups’. He then goes on to grade the ‘openness’ of the political systems in question and to distinguish the methods of recruitment in each, eventually arriving at three variants of his model.

^{Page 117 note 6} Forde, Daryll and Kaberry, P. M. (eds.), West African Kingdoms in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1967)Google Scholar. A notable exception is the article on ‘Ashanti Government’ by Ivor Wilks. But even this piece could be improved by analysis, using some sort of process models.

^{Page 118 note 1} Cf. Lloyd, , ‘The Political Structure of Kingdoms’, pp. 83–94.Google Scholar

^{Page 118 note 2} This research, for a doctoral dissertation, was carried out in 1966–7 with the aid of a Hinman Fellowship and an International Studies Program Fellowship, both from Michigan State University.

^{Page 118 note 3} See Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition (Chicago, 1965), p. 21.Google Scholar

^{Page 119 note 1} The three categories were: planned changes which were institutionalised, planned changes which failed to persist, and unplanned changes which were institutionalised. In addition, a list of current offices was compiled in Mendeland, divided into two groups, one made up of pre-British titles, one for those created in this century. Wylie, , ‘The Politics of Transformation’, p. 15.Google Scholar

^{Page 119 note 2} Ibid. pp. 274–5.

^{Page 119 note 3} Balandier, G., La Vie quotidienne au royaume de Kongo (Paris, 1965)Google Scholar. See especially pp. 42–85 in the translated edition, Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo (New York, 1968).Google Scholar

^{Page 119 note 4} Smith, , Government in Zazzau, pp. 100–2, 112–18.Google Scholar

^{Page 120 note 1} Lloyd, , ‘The Political Development of West African Kingdoms’, p. 322.Google Scholar

^{Page 120 note 2} Ivor Wilks, ‘Ashanti Government’, in Forde and Kaberry (eds.), op. cit. p. 212.

^{Page 120 note 3} Hollins, N. C., ‘A Short History of Luawa Chiefdom’, in Sierra Leone Studies (Freetown), XIV, 06 1929, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

^{Page 120 note 4} Alidridge, T. J., The Sherbro and its Hinterland (London, 1901), p. 190.Google Scholar

^{Page 120 note 5} Dominique Zahan, ‘The Mossi Kingdoms’, and Jack Goody, ‘The Over-Kingdom of Gonja’, in Forde and Kaberry (eds.), op. cit. pp. 152–75 and 180–204.

^{Page 121 note 1} Capt. Butt-Thompson, Frederick, Sierra Leone in History and Tradition (London, 1926), p. 40.Google Scholar

^{Page 121 note 2} For examples of the combined use of tradition and written records in West Africa see: Hair, op. cit. p. 247; Rodney, op. cit.; and Wilks, Ivor and Priestley, Margaret, ‘The Ashanti Kings in the 18th Century’, in The Journal of African History, I, I, 1961, pp. 83–96.Google Scholar