Suchergebnisse

Africans today in rejecting their European rulers do not reject their techniques of production & gov; they assert African control over them. Africa is passing through a process of change from small-scale to large-scale org, econ & pol'al; generalizations are impossible, but throughout Africa south of the Sahara production for exchange was less important than production for subsistence. It has, however, become part of a world system of production for exchange through incorporation in the pol'al systems of European nations. The consequent widening of the scale of soc relationships has had great effects on African society. The growth of towns produces a modern Ur society, & only there have the unifying forces of the modern pol'al & econ systems their effect. In all Africa local solidarity remains strong because so many local groups have until recently been autonomous pol'al units. The gulf between literate & illiterate is deep & there are great difficulties of staffing public services & industry. The whole pol'al system is superimposed on smaller-scale politics. The new rulers may yet afford tolerance of opposition; they must be authoritarian enough to maintain stability & yet not so oppressive as to provoke resistance. IPSA.

It appears to be characteristic of a very large number of societies that from time to time movements arise in opposition to the established religious institutions, offering either new means of attaining the benefits offered by the established religion or new interpretations of its dogmas. The leaders of these movements often claim to have received direct revelation from supernatural sources, and for that reason are frequently called prophets, though this name is of wider application, embracing also such persons as the Hebrew prophets, whose chief function appears to have been that of moral criticism, and also the givers of oracles who have a recognized place in some established systems. There is no reason to suppose that the movements of this kind which appear among non-European peoples subject to European rule form a class by themselves, but, owing to the circumstances in which ethnographic information has been collected, the bulk of this refers to subject peoples, and among such peoples religious movements are largely concerned with the relations between subject and ruler.