Abstract
Mr. Claridge's “Bush Tribes” are the Ba-Congo of Northern Angola, and the country the inhabitants of which he describes stretches from the Congo on the north to St. Paul de Loanda in the south, and from the Kwilu and Kwangu rivers in the east to the Atlantic. He writes of the native with sympathy, but, for the most part, despises his customs: he rarely fails to stigmatise them as “degrading,” “disgusting,” or worse when he has an opportunity. Notwithstanding this drawback, as it must seem to those who wish to study native custom impartially, the author has given a full and careful account of Ba-Congo culture, and his collection of folk-lore is both interesting and useful. The most important part of his book deals with fetishism, and, in particular, with the N'Kamba fetish of the women, which controls their most important function, that of child-bearing. The men are rigorously excluded from the rites of this fetish. A "Death and Resurrection "secret society, which effects “cures” by death and rebirth, is described from information supplied by a native, but here unfortunately the author's prejudice colours the narrative to such an extent that considerable knowledge of similar societies is required to disentangle the facts.
Wild Bush Tribes of Tropical Africa.
G. C.
Claridge
By. Pp. 314. (London: Seeley, Service and Co., Ltd., 1922.) 21s. net.
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Wild Bush Tribes of Tropical Africa . Nature 110, 340 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110340c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110340c0