International African Institute

Change and Development in Nomadic and Pastoral Societies by Galaty; Salzman; Nomads ofNiger by Carol Beckwith; Marion Van OffelenReview by: A. H. M. Kirk-GreeneAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 55, No. 2 (1985), pp. 225-226Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1160312 .

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his subject in 'geographical terms', since his object has been a spatially defined territory and not an ethnic, language or ethno-linguistic group. He then sets the scene in chapter I, but the failure to separate significant ethnic influences and interaction (in other words, the dynamics of acculturation) in the following chapters shows what a difficult task this is. This problem is compounded by the fact that the author's interpreters and translators did not carry out their assignment impeccably. Although there are several examples of shortcomings in this respect, the two translations on p. 103 are a notable instance.

The author's treatment of the slave trade is interesting, but attempts at measurement of its magnitude (both imports and exports) are futile, as they have no statistical validity. One appreciates, though, the paucity of the data. A more serious point of contention is the author's rather unfortunate statement that ' "counter-colonial" historians, like the colonial historians they criticize, often overestimate the influence of a colonial power and underestimate the internal dynamics of African politics' (p. 139). The simple fact here is that, with regard to colonial history, there are two schools of thought: firstly that the impact of colonial rule was slight, and secondly that it had far-reaching consequences for African societies. This latter tradition developed mostly from Ibadan, by African scholars who are too conscious of the resistance of African institutions to foreign influence. But this is not to say that continuity necessarily prevents change, nor do far-reaching con- sequences suggest destruction of African institutions. Indeed, the institutions survived, carved out new roles in changed circumstances, and are still respected to the extent that, even where they may visibly impede modern progress, governments are too timid to tamper with them radically. Unless, of course, the author believes in the' simplistic dichotomy of a 'displacement/rejection' model. The case, however, still remains unproven, and in spite of the continuity of African institutions (perhaps resilience), they were seriously affected in form and function by the colonial impact.

In chapter IX the author's attempts to justify the colonial take-over via a policy of divide and rule are made in arguments that are only too transparent. For instance, he argues that, when Galhinas was ceded in 1882, Governor Havelock was 'probably sincere' in assuring the chiefs that he did not want their country, but by 1889 'officials were inter- preting the treaties almost as if the signatories had become colonial subjects' (p. 140). But were the officials wrong, and in what light does this place Havelock's 'assurance'?

Two other issues have intrigued this reviewer: chapter X, where the author seems to have put together everything left over of Galhinas 'culture', and the title of the book, which includes 'palm kernels', but nothing whatsoever in the text gives information on this replacement commodity for slaves except two passing references. The cautious reader is at a loss to understand this serious omission as indeed palm products hold the key to the economic history of coastal West Africa from roughly the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century!

There are a few mistakes of typography, translation, etc., and the flow of the author's style is sometimes marred by detours into other subjects before returning to the original topic. In spite of this, Dr Jones's book deserves recommendation.

ARTHUR ABRAHAM Fourah Bay College

GALATY and SALZMAN, Change and Development in Nomadic and Pastoral Societies, Interna- tional Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, 33, Leiden: Brill, 1982, 52 guilders, ISBN 90 04 06587 3.

CAROL BECKWITH and MARION VAN OFFELEN, Nomads of Niger, London: Collins, 1983, 224 pp., ?30, ISBN 0 00 216370 5.

The condition of nomads has been brought to the fore of the African scene by two over- lapping phenomena of the 1970s. One has been an internal, local, state dissatisfaction with

his subject in 'geographical terms', since his object has been a spatially defined territory and not an ethnic, language or ethno-linguistic group. He then sets the scene in chapter I, but the failure to separate significant ethnic influences and interaction (in other words, the dynamics of acculturation) in the following chapters shows what a difficult task this is. This problem is compounded by the fact that the author's interpreters and translators did not carry out their assignment impeccably. Although there are several examples of shortcomings in this respect, the two translations on p. 103 are a notable instance.

The author's treatment of the slave trade is interesting, but attempts at measurement of its magnitude (both imports and exports) are futile, as they have no statistical validity. One appreciates, though, the paucity of the data. A more serious point of contention is the author's rather unfortunate statement that ' "counter-colonial" historians, like the colonial historians they criticize, often overestimate the influence of a colonial power and underestimate the internal dynamics of African politics' (p. 139). The simple fact here is that, with regard to colonial history, there are two schools of thought: firstly that the impact of colonial rule was slight, and secondly that it had far-reaching consequences for African societies. This latter tradition developed mostly from Ibadan, by African scholars who are too conscious of the resistance of African institutions to foreign influence. But this is not to say that continuity necessarily prevents change, nor do far-reaching con- sequences suggest destruction of African institutions. Indeed, the institutions survived, carved out new roles in changed circumstances, and are still respected to the extent that, even where they may visibly impede modern progress, governments are too timid to tamper with them radically. Unless, of course, the author believes in the' simplistic dichotomy of a 'displacement/rejection' model. The case, however, still remains unproven, and in spite of the continuity of African institutions (perhaps resilience), they were seriously affected in form and function by the colonial impact.

In chapter IX the author's attempts to justify the colonial take-over via a policy of divide and rule are made in arguments that are only too transparent. For instance, he argues that, when Galhinas was ceded in 1882, Governor Havelock was 'probably sincere' in assuring the chiefs that he did not want their country, but by 1889 'officials were inter- preting the treaties almost as if the signatories had become colonial subjects' (p. 140). But were the officials wrong, and in what light does this place Havelock's 'assurance'?

Two other issues have intrigued this reviewer: chapter X, where the author seems to have put together everything left over of Galhinas 'culture', and the title of the book, which includes 'palm kernels', but nothing whatsoever in the text gives information on this replacement commodity for slaves except two passing references. The cautious reader is at a loss to understand this serious omission as indeed palm products hold the key to the economic history of coastal West Africa from roughly the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century!

There are a few mistakes of typography, translation, etc., and the flow of the author's style is sometimes marred by detours into other subjects before returning to the original topic. In spite of this, Dr Jones's book deserves recommendation.

ARTHUR ABRAHAM Fourah Bay College

GALATY and SALZMAN, Change and Development in Nomadic and Pastoral Societies, Interna- tional Studies in Sociology and Social Anthropology, 33, Leiden: Brill, 1982, 52 guilders, ISBN 90 04 06587 3.

CAROL BECKWITH and MARION VAN OFFELEN, Nomads of Niger, London: Collins, 1983, 224 pp., ?30, ISBN 0 00 216370 5.

The condition of nomads has been brought to the fore of the African scene by two over- lapping phenomena of the 1970s. One has been an internal, local, state dissatisfaction with

225 225 REVIEWS REVIEWS

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REVIEWS REVIEWS

the status of their nomadic and pastoralist population as citizens of a sensitively indepen- dent state. In the eyes of planners and politicians, and often of indigenous academics, they lack the 'dignity' and those social services enjoyed by the urban populations which constitute the norm for developing countries - education, health facilities, goods and services. Nor, the bureaucrats protest, do they recognize national borders or pay taxes. The second factor has been the international, continent-wide publicity focused upon the pastoralists' pitiful plight by the awesome ifnpact of the linked disasters of drought, famine, war, pestilence and refugees upon their traditional way of life, primarily economic yet hence profoundly social. Right or wrong, the romantic image of the proud pastoralist, enviably in arcadian liberty and nobly indifferent to the constraints of physical conditions and the concept of any superior authority, has been dismissed as incompatible with tl e required image of Third World nations. A way of life is thus, for good or bad, on the wane.

The two books reviewed here represent the conflicting thrusts of these opposing views. The Galaty and Salzman consists often papers presented to the special session on nomadism organized by the Commission on Nomadic Peoples (founded in 1978 as an agency of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) in response to a request to its Secretary General, Professor Cyril Belshaw. Together, the delegates from fifteen countries spread across five continents articulated what they termed their 'primary point of commonality': their concern for the plight of contemporary nomadic peoples caught by the indifferent forces of social change. General considerations of this fundamental pastoral problem are well discussed in the chapters by H. K. Schneider and A. Bourgeout, supported by specific African case studies on the Samburu, Maasai and Fulani. That there are divergent views on the requisite economic activities in pastoral societies as well as on the political ambitions of the state and on the cultural values of the nomadic communities is well brought out in P. O. Salzman's concluding essay. Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of such important, interesting and potentially valuable symposia is that the voice of the nomad himself is (?can be) rarely heard on the dialectic of change and the schemes which the working groups design to decide his future.

If the Galaty and Salzman volume fulfils the role (as it admirably does) of providing the important, intellectual text implied by its origin of concern with the conflict of traditionalism v. modernization in nomadic societies, the Van Offelen and Beckwith volume constitutes a colourful, full-blooded appeal to the second of the nomadic themes outlined above, that of nostalgia for the threatened and irreplaceable splendours of the nomadic way of life. Here is an undisguisedly evocative portrait of the 50,000 Wodaabe of the Niger Republic. No disrespect is intended when one says that the worthwhile and objective text by Marion van Offelen is upstaged by the superb and subjective photographs (144 of them in full colour) by Carol Beckwith (who already has the prestigious Maasai to her credit). To dismiss Nomads of Niger as a coffee-table book is to allow the eye to dominate the mind: it repays careful reading as much as it encourages self-indulgence in the illustrations. No library shelf on the Fulbe can be considered complete without it.

A. H. M. KIRK-GREENE

St Antony's College, Oxford

R. FOLEY, Off-site Archaeology and Human Adaptation in Eastern Africa, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 3, BAR International Series 97, Oxford: British Archaeological Review, 1983, 265 pp.

M. HALL, Settlement Patterns in the Iron Age of Zululand, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 5, BAR International Series 119, Oxford: British Archaeological Review, 1981, 191 pp., ?10.

Both these reports derive from doctoral theses presented at the University of Cambridge and are based on fieldwork done in the middle and late 1970s. Foley starts from the entirely

the status of their nomadic and pastoralist population as citizens of a sensitively indepen- dent state. In the eyes of planners and politicians, and often of indigenous academics, they lack the 'dignity' and those social services enjoyed by the urban populations which constitute the norm for developing countries - education, health facilities, goods and services. Nor, the bureaucrats protest, do they recognize national borders or pay taxes. The second factor has been the international, continent-wide publicity focused upon the pastoralists' pitiful plight by the awesome ifnpact of the linked disasters of drought, famine, war, pestilence and refugees upon their traditional way of life, primarily economic yet hence profoundly social. Right or wrong, the romantic image of the proud pastoralist, enviably in arcadian liberty and nobly indifferent to the constraints of physical conditions and the concept of any superior authority, has been dismissed as incompatible with tl e required image of Third World nations. A way of life is thus, for good or bad, on the wane.

The two books reviewed here represent the conflicting thrusts of these opposing views. The Galaty and Salzman consists often papers presented to the special session on nomadism organized by the Commission on Nomadic Peoples (founded in 1978 as an agency of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences) in response to a request to its Secretary General, Professor Cyril Belshaw. Together, the delegates from fifteen countries spread across five continents articulated what they termed their 'primary point of commonality': their concern for the plight of contemporary nomadic peoples caught by the indifferent forces of social change. General considerations of this fundamental pastoral problem are well discussed in the chapters by H. K. Schneider and A. Bourgeout, supported by specific African case studies on the Samburu, Maasai and Fulani. That there are divergent views on the requisite economic activities in pastoral societies as well as on the political ambitions of the state and on the cultural values of the nomadic communities is well brought out in P. O. Salzman's concluding essay. Perhaps one of the saddest aspects of such important, interesting and potentially valuable symposia is that the voice of the nomad himself is (?can be) rarely heard on the dialectic of change and the schemes which the working groups design to decide his future.

If the Galaty and Salzman volume fulfils the role (as it admirably does) of providing the important, intellectual text implied by its origin of concern with the conflict of traditionalism v. modernization in nomadic societies, the Van Offelen and Beckwith volume constitutes a colourful, full-blooded appeal to the second of the nomadic themes outlined above, that of nostalgia for the threatened and irreplaceable splendours of the nomadic way of life. Here is an undisguisedly evocative portrait of the 50,000 Wodaabe of the Niger Republic. No disrespect is intended when one says that the worthwhile and objective text by Marion van Offelen is upstaged by the superb and subjective photographs (144 of them in full colour) by Carol Beckwith (who already has the prestigious Maasai to her credit). To dismiss Nomads of Niger as a coffee-table book is to allow the eye to dominate the mind: it repays careful reading as much as it encourages self-indulgence in the illustrations. No library shelf on the Fulbe can be considered complete without it.

A. H. M. KIRK-GREENE

St Antony's College, Oxford

R. FOLEY, Off-site Archaeology and Human Adaptation in Eastern Africa, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 3, BAR International Series 97, Oxford: British Archaeological Review, 1983, 265 pp.

M. HALL, Settlement Patterns in the Iron Age of Zululand, Cambridge Monographs in African Archaeology 5, BAR International Series 119, Oxford: British Archaeological Review, 1981, 191 pp., ?10.

Both these reports derive from doctoral theses presented at the University of Cambridge and are based on fieldwork done in the middle and late 1970s. Foley starts from the entirely

226 226

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