1484 American Anthropologist [72, 19701 overt communication about the application of legal concepts-without precedent or leg- islation” (p. 3 12).

Chief, Council and Commissioner: Some Problems of Government in Rhodesia. J. F. HOLLEMAN. Assen, Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum (for Afrika-Studie- centrum) ; New York: Humanities Press, 1969. xix + 391 pp., figures, maps, bibli- ography, index. $9.00 (cloth).

Reviewed by MARC SWARTZ University of California, Sun Diego

Hobbes proposed to found his “science of man” on the basis of historical studies but gave up the attempt in the end because he decided historians were too untrustworthy to provide the basic data for a science. Boas believed that through the minute investiga- tion of the history of specific cultures there would ultimately appear general principles of diffusion and cultural development. It would appear that his belief was, at best, a very long-range one, and his main legacy was an antipathy toward theory and a reluc- tance to formulate even the most tentative generalities. History as part of a vital science of man has, in short, fared rather poorly and most efforts aimed at generalization have been, and continue to be, based on syn- chronic investigations.

One reason for this has been the sorts of units that most anthropologists have studied and the epistemological status they have as- signed these units. While there are notable exceptions, most recent as well as past work has focused on a tribe, a village, a neighbor- hood, or whatever and has dealt with “out- side” forces as being of a different nature and status from those originating within the unity of study. Only rarely have we centered our attention on the progression of events, regardless of their provenience, and at- tempted to understand their interplay unfet- tered by notions about what is “modern” and what “traditional” or what is “native” and what “foreign.” Partly because of its rarity, then, Professor Holleman’s rich and meticulous study of events mainly centering in (but not limited to) the Mangwende Tribal Area of MaShonaland is welcome and praiseworthy.

The core of the study concerns the events

that led up to the rise to power and eventual expulsion of the Shona chief Munhuwepayi. In presenting this case, which forms the core of the book, Holleman treats us to a full consideration of the myriad forces at play, taking into account not only “traditional” ri- valries but also giving full weight to forces stemming from the actions of the White government and its local representatives. We see the interplay of competition between various kin lines with claims to the chief- tainship; the effect of such governmental de- crees as the African Land Husbandry Act of 1951 (since replaced by the notorious Land Tenure Act); the Native Council and its in- terests and goals; the administrative styles of successive Native Commissioners in the Mangwende Area; changing policies in the White government; and the tensions and common interests among such other con- cerned parties as missionaries, various gov- ernmental agencies, and groups of Africans ranging from traditionally minded elders to city-oriented migrant workers and national- ist politicians. The wealth of the book is so great, in fact, that even a list of the various participants in the events involved in the central case (there are several related and smaller scale cases as well) is beyond the scope of this review. What must be stressed, however, is that all these data are not a con- geries but rather a series of clearly, often dramatically, interrelated temporal se- quences beginning at the end of the last cen- tury and extending into the middle of the 1960s.

Holleman was involved in some of the later events he describes as a member of the commission that investigated the chief‘s per- formance, and his work in the area in ques- tion stretches over a score of years. He tells us at the outset that the book will “add little to anthropological or political theory.” To this I must enter a demur. Not only has he provided rich material for the study of what Paul Friedrich calls “political middlemen,” but he gives us the sort of data on which a really historically based “science of man” can arise.

Femmes de Kinshasa: hier et aujourd‘hui. SUZANNE COMHAIRE-SYLVAIN. Ecole Pra- tique des Hautes Etudes, Le Monde $Outre-Mer Pass6 et Present, Troisikme SBrie, Essais VIII. Paris & Le Ham:

Book Reviews 1485

Mouton, 1968. 383 pp., tables, appendix, works consulted. n.p. (paper).

Reviewed by GRACE HARRIS University of Rochester

The first of the two studies contributing to this book was done in 1943-1945, having most of its results published in 1950 in “Food and Leisure among the African Youth of Lkopoldville (Belgian Congo) .” Information on the women living in the two “native towns” attached to the city is scat- tered through that earlier publication, but is here assembled in Part I. The second study, of six months’ duration during 1965, dealt with the Congolese women living in the communes and satellite towns forming the present-day Kinshasa. Its data and conclu- sions make up much of the remaining four parts. The author expresses the hope that her work will contribute to the development of a program for the “advancement and emancipation of the Congolese woman.”

The first study depended heavily on in- formation gathered from school children. The second used interviews with French- speaking Congolese, meetings with women’s associations, and about a hundred question- naires distributed to men and women of var- ious tribal groups. Numerous published sources have been used as well. The encom- passing book is thus not a field-study mono- graph.

Part I treats demography, administrative and political matters, education, housing, cleanliness, costume, hairdress, marriage, concubinage, prostitution, work, old age, recreational activities and resources, house- holds and families, friendship groups, volun- tary associations, and race relations; it ends with six biographical sketches. Similar cov- erage is given for the time of the second study in Part 11. The latter includes also a section on household formation and decline together with forms of marital and other unions, but it does not provide either in- formation or analysis parallel to what is now standard in British and American studies of marriage and domestic group cycles. Part 111 is on work, with some interesting informa- tion on the expression of attitudes towards working women. Part IV concerns the “evo- lution” of women; its material on voluntary associations is perhaps the most useful part of the book. Part V includes twenty-four

biographical sketches; it ends with a short chapter on the changes occurring between 1965 and 1967, telling us that there are now five gas station attendants, a burgomaster, and a minister for social problems among the women of Kinshasa.

The book treats a numerous and heteroge- neous collection of topics, with relatively lit- tle space given to any one. Although there is some justification for this, considering the paucity of anthropological books providing substantial information about women, the long-term usefulness of the book is thereby diminished. More clearly on the debit side, one looks in vain for a theoretical frame- work and even for coordinating ideas be- yond the vague notion of attitudes and the apparent conviction that it is important to count things. That the author sympathizes with her subjects one cannot doubt. The book assumes what cannot, in fact, be as- sumed for most anthropologists: an interest in the life of women; and it is not likely to stimulate such an interest. There is much of value here, but one must wonder who will read it and to what end. Who are the subjects of this book? They

belong to a category of humans whose mem- bers are physically distinctive. Like their fel- lows elsewhere, the women of Kinshasa have distinguishing modes of dress and hair- dress; they are subject to political, economic, educational, and other barriers. They would like to go to the movies more often, but moving around in a nighttime city may be dangerous for them, taxis are more costly than they can usually afford, and in any case their evenings out may be spoiled by row- dies. If they are rural in upbringing, they are thought crude, dirty, and ignorant; if city- reared, they are said to be proud and cheeky. Those who live independently are assumed to be sexually promiscuous.

If these people were, say, a congeries of caste groups, cultural and social anthropolo- gists might well have been tripping over each other in their eagerness to study them. Elaborate theoretical frameworks would have been constructed and heated exchanges would take place in convention sessions as- signed to their discussion. But they are women.

As the more obvious forms of racism die out in anthropology, there arise the prophets of the New Machismo, proclaiming the in-

1486 American Anthropologist [72, 19701

evitability-indeed, perhaps, the desirabil- ity?-of the state of affairs described by Comhaire-Sylvian. They flourish in what is almost an anthropological vacuum. For all too often, cultural anthropologists have dealt with the roles of the sexes in societies in warmed-over Freudian clichis. Social an- thropologists have commonly either ignored women outside the context of narrowly de- 6ned kinship studies or, as exchange theo- rists, have reduced women to the status of “goods” passed around among men. (Only recently I heard a female human publicly re- ferred to as “it” at an anthropological con- vention.)

Is it a little strange, perhaps, that for all its wide ranging concerns, anthropology has left the study of women largely to sociology and social psychology with their everlasting emphasis on attitudes and social problems? Perhaps not. We may be seeing just one of the ways in which the intellectual boldness and integrity of our discipline are repeatedly undermined by conservatism and wishful thinking.

It is regrettable that Comhaire-Sylvain’s strenuous and often interesting efforts do not contribute more towards improving this situ- ation.

Neighbors and Nationals in an African City Ward. DAVID PARKIN. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. xvii + 228 pp., figures, maps, plates, appendices, index, references. $6.00 (cloth).

Reviewed by LEONARD PLOTNICOV University of Pittsburgh

In recent years the surprising viability of traditional institutions and ideologies under conditions of urbanization and modem tech- nological and social changes in the nonin- dustrialized world has caused us to recon- sider our previous notions that conditions in the new cities were incompatible with tradi- tional behaviors and cultures, and thus forced their demise. By this I do not mean “tribalism” or ethnic nationalism-which, in most cases, is not a traditional ideology at all-but instances of traditional cultural and social systems being maintained in what ap- pear to be inappropriate contexts.

The book under review provides a case of this sort. It describes the situation of Ken-

yan immigrants (mostly Luo, with some Luhya) in Kampala, Uganda, and the man- ner in which they responded to the threat, initially real and alarming, of political and economic discrimination against non-Ugan- dans during the post-Independence years. However, the actual number of Kenyans who suffered job dismissals or business dis- advantages in favor of native Ugandans was slight. Still, the apprehension of large-scale anti-Kenyan acts by government and private enterprise under government pressure strengthened tribal and national solidarity among Kenyans. This was expressed in a growing and keen competition between trib- ally based soccer teams and in the mainte- nance of traditional ideological idioms for social control among tribesmen. Since it was inappropriate to organize themselves politi- cally to oppose the external political pres- sure they felt, the immigrants chose, or were forced (it is not clear which), to respond with an “exaggerated” and “ceremonial” in- terest in Kenyan national politics in order to demonstrate to Ugandans their acceptance of expatriate status and their disinterest in Ugandan politics and such related activities as trade unionism. This apparently eased a difficult transition period; but the author makes little use of similar situations else- where in Africa to test his conclusion. He also fails to recognize that similar responses and behaviors can and do occur among tribesmen living in alien areas of their own nation.

The author, creditably, has provided us with sufficient information to allow our pro- posing alternative explanations. The Ken- yans in question are not labor migrants but skilled artisans, clerks, and entrepreneurs whose income is above average. They reside in two large government housing estates in Kampala East, and their average length of residence in the city is over fourteen years. They are overwhelmingly tribally endoga- mous and maintain their wives and children with them. Their elite members, who had been prominent or active in local politics and trade union activities until the Ugandan government made this impossible or imprac- tical, remained involved in local conimunity affairs in order to avoid the impression of parochialism and to show good neighborli- ness.

I prefer a less restricted definition of po-