Although Redfield's (1947) folk–urban continuum has been subjected to valid theoretical critiques (Miner 1952 and Mintz 1953) the tempting simplistic dichotomy this construct implies is still basic to our view of the social universe. Apparently anthropologists, like many of the groups they study, often prefer to conceptualize in dyadic terms. Thus, in an almost complete disregard for historical processes this proclivity has manifested itself in African studies by a contrast between a static ‘tribal’ hinterland opposed to a more dynamic urban domain. More recently as a mediating agent the tribal notion wound its way into African cities via a theoretical migration and re-emerged somewhat inelegantly as ‘supertribalism’ (Rouch 1956: 60), ‘urban tribalism’ (Gluckman 1960: 55) and ‘retribalization’ (Cohen 1969: 1–6). As a consequence the ‘tribe’ remains a basic conceptual category assumed applicable to both urban and rural Africa.

Public masquerades constitute extremely important symbolic forms among the Mende of Sierra Leone. Masquerades are a means of mediating between the secret Societies which dominate Mende social life and the general community. Through masking performances the public is kept informed of important events which occur in the secret domain and is allowed carefully limited participation in the experience of Society members. The masquerades make visible the powerful ‘medicines’ (haleisia) of the secret Societies without revealing their essential mystery. Maskers personify and dramatize the powers of the ‘medicines’ and exact respect and tribute from the spectators. At the same time, participants and audience are drawn into a common experience, which is aesthetically heightened by techniques of theatre, dance, music, and the plastic arts. The resultant feeling of unity and harmony helps to overcome the threat of disunity implicit in the division of the community into separate secret factions.

Much ink has been spilled over the problem of bridewealth, its meaning and its functions. As Gray (1960) has summarized it, the debate first focused on refuting the idea that bridewealth was a kind of payment for the purchase of a wife, and this question still lingers on without having been quite solved. Others have seen in bridewealth a transference of rights and duties over a woman from the woman's group to the husband's group. Leaving aside the economic aspect of the transaction, this view seems particularly valid with regard to societies in which different amounts of bridewealth may be given to obtain different sets of rights and duties over spouses and their offspring (Bohannan 1949; Horton 1969; Williamson 1962). These ideas about bridewealth as a regulator of rights and duties over spouses and children are now generally agreed upon so that Goody (1973: 3), one of the acknowledged experts in these matters, can write that: ‘the relative size of payment is in a general sense linked with the quantum of rights transferred.’ Thus, generally, in societies having several kinds of marriages with a concomitant variation in bridewealth between the kinds of marriages, the rights over the woman and her children will also vary according to the amount paid, more rights being conveyed with a more expensive payment (Goody 1973: 16-17).

Several attempts have been made to understand the development if not the origin of Akan culture in terms of the diffusion of (a) traits from the north which were taken south with the expansion and disintegration of the great savanna trading empires and the southward migration of Mande Dyula merchants and (b) traits which were already present prior to that migration in a large area once populated mainly by Guan in the Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Togo, and today populated for the most part by Akan, Adanbe, and Ewe. The mixing of these cultural traits and the point of origin for the Akan expansion appear, to have taken place along a trade route stretching from the Sahara to the Atlantic coast, close to the site of Begho near Wenchi in the Bono Techiman state (Boahen 1966; Goody 1959, 1966, 1968; Wilks 1962).

This essay attempts to interpret the apparent association between participation in the cattle trade of the Southern Sudan and the decreasing frequency of ghost marriage among the Atuot. The commentary on social change is peripheral to the analysis since this phenomenon is a constant rather than extraordinary social process. Arens (1976: 2) has recently emphasized the same point, adding ‘social change by its nature is a broad and ill-defined concept that cannot claim a distinct area of enquiry but rather allows for the choice of an infinite variety of areas for discussion.’ Because societies and cultures are products of historical processes they are likewise open and subject to perpetual change.

This study begins with a cursory discussion of recent Nilotic history followed by a summary description of the cattle trade. Certain forms of traditional Atuot marriage are then examined. In the conclusion, reference is drawn to data which support the assertion that involvement in this sector of the Sudanese economy directly influences the frequency of ghost marriage.

This paper attempts to clarify a little further certain of the symbolic categories of the Banyoro of western Uganda, and at the same time to refocus attention on some of the methodological difficulties involved in the analysis of ethnographic material through the framework of the binary mode of symbolic classification. This entails some consideration of a recent contribution to this journal by Professor Rodney Needham, in which he attempts to rebut my detailed criticisms of his version of some aspects of Nyoro symbolism (Needham 1976; Beattie 1968; see also Needham 1967; 1973; and Beattie 1976: 232 n. 4). In doing so he repeats certain of his earlier misrepresentations, as well as introducing some new ones. He also asserts, of a number of my own—and some other—publications on Nyoro ritual and symbolism, to which I had drawn attention, that ‘they were either not relevant to [his] train of argument or, in general, were redundant to [his] primary sources’ (Needham 1976: 237). These assertions must be very briefly considered before I go on to deal with the further arguments he now advances.

In this paper I shall describe the rites performed for Luguru girls at puberty, and attempt an interpretation of their symbolic significance and sociological functions. In a recent article (Brain 1977) I have re-examined the whole question of initiation rites, and I propose to treat the Luguru case in the light of the ideas developed therein.

Briefly, I see the rites as having both psychological and sociological importance. Psychologically, they compensate for male envy of female precreativity (Bettelheim 1954); affirm the culturally prescribed sex roles (Freud 1962 [1905] and Rank 1929); and provide a means of dealing with the threateningly anomalous nature of the transition from an asexual to a sexual world (Douglas 1966). Sociologically, they effect a transition from one status to another; clarify male and female roles and the nature of legitimate authority; and provide instruction in traditional lore and sexual conduct. It is plain that the psychological and sociological aspects overlap considerably. This is most evident in what I regard as the prime function of the rites: to correct any tendency on the part of women to assume a dominant role in a society where political and economic factors might permit them to do so.