Abstract
IF support were needed for the policy of the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures in encouraging the African to express himself in literary form, it might well be drawn from this volume. The author has been engaged for more than twenty years in collecting information relating to the traditional customs of his people, the Tiv, who, to the number of more than half a million, live on the banks of the Benue in northern Nigeria. Although it is true that his action long preceded any possibility of encouragement by the Institute, which came in only at the latest stage, the result of his labour, or at least that part of it which has now been published in translation, is remarkable for its power of logical thought, its arrangement, and its grasp of the essential. If the efforts of the Institute succeed in discovering writers of anything like the same calibre among the peoples of Africa, even if their numbers are relatively small, the policy is wise, and energies have not been expended in vain.
Akiga's Story
The Tiv Tribe as seen by one of its Members. Translated and annotated by Dr. Rupert East. (Published for the International Institute of African Languages and Cultures.) Pp. xv + 436 + 24 plates. (London: Oxford University Press, 1939.) 21s. net.
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Anthropology. Nature 145, 655 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145655a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145655a0