This essay argues that the apparent discrepancies between oral tradition and other kinds of historical evidence in the western Serengeti, Tanzania, result from a rupture in time and space. As people were incorporated into a meta-ethnic region to the east dominated by the Maasai in the last half of the nineteenth century, they created new ways of calculating time and organizing space based on new kinds of age-sets. Within this larger context of widespread disasters the small, unconsolidated western Serengeti ethnic groups that we now know as Nata, Ikoma, Ishenyi and Ngoreme formed their identities. New generational and gender contests of power came into play as western Serengeti peoples responded creatively to the pressures of the late nineteenth century by mobilizing their own internal cultural resources.

During the colonial period, the Yao formed the main source of recruits for the King's African Rifles Nyasaland (Malawi) battalions. Originally, the main reason for the large number of Yao volunteers was probably the simple fact that the recruitment office was near Yao areas. However, due to prevailing racial ideals the British colonial military interpreted this as a sign of a ‘martial spirit’. This led to active encouragement to enlist the Yao, which in turn made military service ever more attractive among this group. They became the ‘martial race’ of Nyasaland, a concept which continued to affect British recruitment policies until the Second World War.

A partir de sources orales et d'archives foncières, fiscales et administratives, cet essai sur la propriété africaine rend compte des pratiques foncières, résidentielles et sociales d'un groupe de commerçants africains qui investirent, durant la période coloniale, les quartiers européens de Ouagadougou et de Bobo-Dioulasso en Haute-Volta. La comparaison de ces villes inégalement insérées dans les circuits de l'économie coloniale renseigne sur les marges de manœuvre de ces commerçants, et notamment de leurs aptitudes à jouer des différentes réglementations foncières alors en vigueur. Au-delà des comportements collectifs qui révèlent généralement un double investissement résidentiel (centre européen/quartiers africains), les stratégies individuelles témoignent des liens fréquents entre l'assise foncière des propriétaires, leur envergure sociale et leur rôle politico-administratif.

This article focuses on the implications of an emir of Kano's decision to forbid women from inheriting houses and farms in 1923 and a successor's reversal of that policy in 1954. The earlier emir justified his policy by claiming that women inheritors were becoming prostitutes and the later one argued that women's re-enfranchisement would ameliorate the poverty of destitute elderly women. Both these events appear to have been radical innovations for their time and reflect continuous anxiety over women living outside of male control and a longer-term attack on women's public role. While the emirs' explanations do not fully comprehend the political logic of their decisions, both the proclamations and the way they were explained illustrate contradictions and ambiguities within Hausa conceptions of gender.

RECENT studies addressing the ‘African diaspora’ have sought to provide global context for the experience of people of African descent. The two books under review – each a major contribution to studies of the African diaspora – provide an opportunity to take stock of the emerging genre of historical and cultural studies of which they are a part. The perspective of the African diaspora has the advantage of locating movements and connections of Africans around the world, and in so doing has the power to inform and sometimes surprise. From such a perspective, for instance, Alberto da Costa e Silva notes that during the 1860s a French bookseller in Rio de Janeiro sold a hundred copies of the Qur'an each year, mainly as clandestine sales to slaves and ex-slaves. This evidence confirms the continuing significance of Islam in Brazil, and raises the possibility that the religious practice was sustained through continuing contacts with West Africa. Over a century later, novelist Alice Walker launched a headline-grabbing campaign against female circumcision in Africa. As Joseph McLaren shows, Walker's campaign reflected not the shock of an African-American's initial encounter with the complex social practices of the African continent, but her considered judgment after decades of visits to East Africa. These examples suggest the range and interest of linkages across wide distances that may be elicited through studies of the African diaspora. They reflect the contributions of an academic enterprise that is apparently settling into a permanent place on the scholarly and curricular scene.