Abstract
IT is inevitable that the anthropologist should suffer a feeling of disillusion, almost at times mounting to the level of discouragement, when he looks back on the history of our official relations with ‘native’ races during the period of, say, the last fifty years. The lessons of his science, in his eyes plain so that he who runs may read, have been neglected time and again. Racial prejudices and tribal customs and beliefs have been flouted. Sometimes they have been ignored through lack of knowledge, sometimes deliberately set aside or suppressed. Even where there has been little or no overt resistance, tribal organisation has been weakened, with a consequent deterioration in the character of the people; but often acceptance of the decree of the European administration has been enforced only by a heavy expenditure of blood and treasure, of which both sides have had to bear the cost.
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Magic and Administration in Africa. Nature 129, 629–631 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/129629a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/129629a0