Apart from relatively late Semitic influence … the civilizations of Africa are the civilizations of the Hamites, its history the record of these peoples and of their interaction with the two other African stocks, the Negro and the Bushman, whether this influence was exerted by highly civilized Egyptians or by such wider pastoralists as are represented at the present day by the Beja and Somali.…The incoming Hamites were pastoral ‘Europeans’—arriving wave after wave—better armed as well as quicker witted than the dark agricultural Negroes.

The present study is intended both as a substantive historical contribution, and as an illustration of the possibilities and the limitations of one particular type of historical inferences that can be drawn from language, namely, the study of words borrowed from one language into another. Two other basic linguistic sources for culture-historical conclusions are not considered here, those based on the relationships and distribution of languages as such, and those based on the reconstructed vocabularies of particular Ursprachen, that is, the ancestral speech-forms of specific groups of genetically related languages. These latter two methods are not excluded either for dogmatic or methodological reasons, but simply because they do not yield relevant results for the particular problems being considered, although they are very useful in other connexions. It should, however, be mentioned that, as will appear at a number of points in the discussion, a valid linguistic classification furnishes an indispensible framework for nearly all inferences drawn from linguistic data including the interlinguistic contact phenomena which are the subject of the present study.

One of the most sustained and in its effects far-reaching movements of population in the recent history of North Eastern Africa is the expansion of the Hamitic Somali from the shores of the Gulf of Aden to the plains of Northern Kenya over the last ten centuries. Although written historical evidence is available for only a few periods, oral tradition is so abundant, and from a variety of sources both inside and outside Somaliland, so much in agreement, that it is possible to reconstruct much of this Somali migration, at least in broad outline, with what I believe is a fairly high degree of probability.

No general account of the archaeology of Ife has ever been published, although the demand for such an account has been increasing with the growing interest in the art of Ife. This paper attempts to fill the gap by providing a survey of the investigations which have been conducted there. The reader is also referred to a paper by William Fagg and the present author which attempts to summarize the reliable factual knowledge about Ancient Ife, inferring from the archaeological finds evidence of the materials which have not survived. So far as possible repetition here of material contained in that paper is avoided. Moreover, since the archaeologist who works on ethnohistoric problems has other means of investigation than the pick and shovel, this paper will refer to ethnographic accounts as well as to excavations.

Bien que l'île ait été connue des Arabes pendant le Moyen Age, et que sa découverte par les Portugais date de 1500, c'est seulement cette année-ci qu'en a été réalisée, par mes soins, la première histoire synthétique. Et pourtant le nombre d'ouvrages consacrés, en tout et en partie, au passé de Madagascar apparaît plus considérable que pour toute partie de l'Afrique Tropicale. Mais la division de l'île entre des peuples divers ne connaissant du passé que leurs propres ancêtres, et surtout le souci prédominant des Européens de retracer leurs propres aventures ont empêché longtemps la conception d'une histoire totale, que semblait cependant imposer l'unité géographique, linguistique, voire même ethnographique, de ce petit continent si original.

A Cluster of some eighteen small tribes, numbering in all some 70,000 people, which lives on the rolling heights between the rivers Kasai, Sankuru and Lulua in the Kasai province of the Congo, are called Kuba by their neighbours. They form a kingdom which is in fact a federation of tribes, dominated by a central group, the Bushoong, whose chief is king of the whole congeries. This federation was imposed by the Bushoong upon the other tribes by conquest or threat of arms during the course of the three last centuries. As with all conquest states of which this one, although a federation, is typical, the different tribes controlled do not all have the same culture. One group, comprising the central tribes, is similar in culture and language. It includes the Bushoong, Ngeende, Pyaang, Byeeng, and Bulaang tribes. Other tribes are culturally akin to this group. Still other tribes belong to the Lulua-Luba Kasai cluster. Among these the patrilineal Coofa and the matrilineal Kete may be mentioned. Finally, other tribes like the Ngoombe or Mbeengi participate in the general type of Mongo cultures. The social structure of all the Kuba tribes with the exception of Coofa and Mbeengi is matrilineal. They are grouped in matrilineal clans, which are divided in small autonomous residential lineages, which can be called clan-sections. Clan-sections of different clans make up a village. The village is ruled by a set of dignitaries and a general council composed of the clan-section heads. The tribes of the central group and the ones who are culturally akin to it group several villages in chiefdoms which are ruled by chiefs assisted by councils. In these tribes, with the exception of the Bushoong, different chiefdoms are united loosely on a tribal scale. The Bushoong, who are the most numerous, are constituted in one chiefdom only. The religion of all the tribes of this cluster is very similar. Ancestor worship is practically absent. There are beliefs in a Supreme Being, in nature spirits, and in spirits or forces which control charms. Furthermore, mention must be made for the whole congeries of tribes of a flourishing art, especially decorative art, which is expressed in weaving, matting, woodcarving, ironworking and even architecture.

There are a number of accounts of the strange world of Africa as seen by adventurers, explorers, missionaries, soldiers, and traders in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. By piecing together their accounts we can get quite a good picture of the African lands and peoples which they visited. There was only one, however, who attempted to put down a connected history of what took place in Angola during the first century of its history, i.e. beginning with the founding of Luanda in 1576.

After recovery from his alarming accident at Bagamoyo at the end of 1889, Emin Pasha decided to enter the German service in East Africa. At the beginning of 1890 he was appointed the leader of an expedition into the interior of the continent. Part of Emin's instructions read as follows:

In accordance with instructions received by me from the Imperial Chancellor, and the arrangement made with Your Excellency, I have the honour to give you the following directions with regard to the mission undertaken by you:

(I) Your Excellency is to secure on behalf of Germany the territories situated south of and along the Victoria Nyanza Lake, from Kavirondo and the countries between Victoria Nyanza and Tanganyika up to the Muta Nzige and Albert Nyanza, so as to frustrate England's attempts at gaining an influence. I consider that the extension of the line from Kilimanjaro and the Kavirondo Bay to the north west, up to the frontier of the Congo State, constitutes the Anglo-German frontier. Any extension warranted by the circumstances of the sphere of influence just described would be regarded by me as redounding to Your Excellency's special merit.

The claims of no people…are respected by any nation until they are presented in a national capacity. (Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered, Philadelphia, 1852, p. 210.)

…it is not so much Afro-Americans that we want as Africans. (Casely Hayford, Ethiopia Unbound, London, 1911, p. 173.)

…on us too depends in a large degree the attitude of Europe towards the teeming millions of Asia and Africa. (William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, ‘The Present Outlook for the Dark Races of Mankind’, African Methodist Episcopal Church Review, Philadelphia, XVI, 1900, pp. 102–3.)