Review: With Frobenius in Kasai

Author(s): Jan Vansina

Reviewed work(s):
Leo Frobenius: Ethnographische Notizen aus den Jahren 1995 und 1906. III: Luluwa, Sud-
Kete, Bena Mai, Pende, Cokwe by Hildegard Klein
Source: The Journal of African History, Vol. 31, No. 2 (1990), pp. 322-323
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/182777
Accessed: 09/10/2009 18:56
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.
Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup.
Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The
Journal of African History.
http://www.jstor.org
JOURNAL
OF AFRICAN HISTORY
JOURNAL
OF AFRICAN HISTORY
population reformulee,
h la fois a travers la mode de
production
et la mode de vie
(ainsi qu'en temoignent
les
projets
d'urbanisation au dix-neuvieme
siicle). Que
ceci
passe par
la
captation
du
pouvoir
intellectuel et la formulation d'une culture
de
gouvernement,
voila
qui
ne saurait
surprendre
et
qui
constitue une
pertinente
relecture de nos sources
ideologiques
traditionnelles.
D'un
petit
fait
-
banal constat
-
Timothy
Mitchell cree un
systeme sophistique
d'explication qui prend
en
charge
les
multiples aspects
de ce
processus
d'evolution
dans
lequel l'Egypte s'engage
a
partir
du
regne
de Muhammad
'Ali,
avec
l'espoir
pathetique
de dominer
par
la meme la nature
in6galitaire
des
rapports
entre
nations a
l'epoque
coloniale. C'est h cette
pensee que l'Egypte
doit aussi le role
phare qui
a ete le sien dans ce
chapitre
de la
longue
duree
historique que
nous
pla,ons
sous le
signe
du 'Global Civilisation'.
Timothy
Mitchell nous fournit
ainsi,
avec
Colonising Egypt,
une
grille
de
lecture,
qui pour
etre constituee en
paradygme parfois
artificiel
ou, pour
le
moins,
excessivement intellectualise,
n'en est
pas
moins une
apprehension large
de cette
realite egyptienne, suscitant, par
la meme,
l'int6ret de
l'historien, toujours
h la
recherche de
quelque
fil d'Ariane. En un
mot, Timothy
Mitchell a reussi h de-
banaliser une
epoque
dont
trop d'ouvrages quelconques
avaient fini
par
nous
lasser. Recommandons donc cette lecture stimulante.
Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle MAGALI MORSY
WITH FROBENIUS IN KASAI
Leo Frobenius:
Ethnographische
Notizen aus den
Jahren I905
und
I9o6.
III:
Luluwa, Siid-Kete,
Bena
Mai, Pende,
Cokwe. Edited
by
HILDEGARD KLEIN.
(Studien
zur Kulturkunde, 87). Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner
Verlag, I988. Pp.
xxi+278; 500 ill., 15 plates.
DM.
98.
This third instalment of the notebooks and
ethnographic journal
of Frobenius
deals with what is now the core of the
province
of western Kasai in Zaire. As with
the first two
volumes,
this has not been a
straightforward
editorial
task,
as the
facsimile
(p. 81)
of a
page
of the
journal
shows. The notes are so
sketchy
as to be
almost
meaningless by
themselves. Dr Klein used the whole
legacy: jottings
in the
notebooks,
the
journals,
the sketchbooks of Hans Lemme
(the painter
who
accompanied Frobenius),
the notecards Frobenius made for the
objects
which
went to the Museum in
Hamburg,
other miscellanea at the Frobenius Institut
(Atlas
of
drawings
and collection of
photographs),
and information from Froben-
ius' travel book Im Schatten des
Kongostaates (Berlin: Reimer, 1907)
and from
his Dichtkunst der Kassaiden
(Atlantis XII) (Berlin: Diederichs, 1928).
To make
the materials
accessible,
Dr Klein had to
organize
the materials under her own
twelve
headings: 'general
and
historical', 'hairstyles, ornament, mutilations',
'house and settlement
patterns', 'agriculture, nutrition,
food
taboos, smoking',
'weapons
and rituals of
hunting',
'
industries',
'
data about the
cycle
of life
',
'
social
and
political structure', 'religion
and
magic', 'masks',
'musical instruments' and
'various '. The
headings
are hers but the text is the
original
and her own comments
are
clearly separated
from it. The text is followed
by
over five hundred of the
illustrations
by
Frobenius and Lemme.
Like its
predecessors,
this volume discloses
treasures, especially
with
regard
to
art and material culture. The data were
gathered
at a time when there was as
yet
no colonial administration on the
ground
and are therefore
irreplaceable,
even for
this area of Kasai which has been described
by
various authors of the i88os. The
descriptions
of
day-to-day
life remain invaluable to social historians. Data
population reformulee,
h la fois a travers la mode de
production
et la mode de vie
(ainsi qu'en temoignent
les
projets
d'urbanisation au dix-neuvieme
siicle). Que
ceci
passe par
la
captation
du
pouvoir
intellectuel et la formulation d'une culture
de
gouvernement,
voila
qui
ne saurait
surprendre
et
qui
constitue une
pertinente
relecture de nos sources
ideologiques
traditionnelles.
D'un
petit
fait
-
banal constat
-
Timothy
Mitchell cree un
systeme sophistique
d'explication qui prend
en
charge
les
multiples aspects
de ce
processus
d'evolution
dans
lequel l'Egypte s'engage
a
partir
du
regne
de Muhammad
'Ali,
avec
l'espoir
pathetique
de dominer
par
la meme la nature
in6galitaire
des
rapports
entre
nations a
l'epoque
coloniale. C'est h cette
pensee que l'Egypte
doit aussi le role
phare qui
a ete le sien dans ce
chapitre
de la
longue
duree
historique que
nous
pla,ons
sous le
signe
du 'Global Civilisation'.
Timothy
Mitchell nous fournit
ainsi,
avec
Colonising Egypt,
une
grille
de
lecture,
qui pour
etre constituee en
paradygme parfois
artificiel
ou, pour
le
moins,
excessivement intellectualise,
n'en est
pas
moins une
apprehension large
de cette
realite egyptienne, suscitant, par
la meme,
l'int6ret de
l'historien, toujours
h la
recherche de
quelque
fil d'Ariane. En un
mot, Timothy
Mitchell a reussi h de-
banaliser une
epoque
dont
trop d'ouvrages quelconques
avaient fini
par
nous
lasser. Recommandons donc cette lecture stimulante.
Universite de la Sorbonne Nouvelle MAGALI MORSY
WITH FROBENIUS IN KASAI
Leo Frobenius:
Ethnographische
Notizen aus den
Jahren I905
und
I9o6.
III:
Luluwa, Siid-Kete,
Bena
Mai, Pende,
Cokwe. Edited
by
HILDEGARD KLEIN.
(Studien
zur Kulturkunde, 87). Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner
Verlag, I988. Pp.
xxi+278; 500 ill., 15 plates.
DM.
98.
This third instalment of the notebooks and
ethnographic journal
of Frobenius
deals with what is now the core of the
province
of western Kasai in Zaire. As with
the first two
volumes,
this has not been a
straightforward
editorial
task,
as the
facsimile
(p. 81)
of a
page
of the
journal
shows. The notes are so
sketchy
as to be
almost
meaningless by
themselves. Dr Klein used the whole
legacy: jottings
in the
notebooks,
the
journals,
the sketchbooks of Hans Lemme
(the painter
who
accompanied Frobenius),
the notecards Frobenius made for the
objects
which
went to the Museum in
Hamburg,
other miscellanea at the Frobenius Institut
(Atlas
of
drawings
and collection of
photographs),
and information from Froben-
ius' travel book Im Schatten des
Kongostaates (Berlin: Reimer, 1907)
and from
his Dichtkunst der Kassaiden
(Atlantis XII) (Berlin: Diederichs, 1928).
To make
the materials
accessible,
Dr Klein had to
organize
the materials under her own
twelve
headings: 'general
and
historical', 'hairstyles, ornament, mutilations',
'house and settlement
patterns', 'agriculture, nutrition,
food
taboos, smoking',
'weapons
and rituals of
hunting',
'
industries',
'
data about the
cycle
of life
',
'
social
and
political structure', 'religion
and
magic', 'masks',
'musical instruments' and
'various '. The
headings
are hers but the text is the
original
and her own comments
are
clearly separated
from it. The text is followed
by
over five hundred of the
illustrations
by
Frobenius and Lemme.
Like its
predecessors,
this volume discloses
treasures, especially
with
regard
to
art and material culture. The data were
gathered
at a time when there was as
yet
no colonial administration on the
ground
and are therefore
irreplaceable,
even for
this area of Kasai which has been described
by
various authors of the i88os. The
descriptions
of
day-to-day
life remain invaluable to social historians. Data
322 322
concerning houses,
settlements and burials are of
special
interest to
archaeologists
and
any
historian of
precolonial
Kasai. The
jottings
on social and
political
structures and
religion
are sometimes
priceless
because
they
often
diverge
from the
then received
anthropological
wisdom. Notes on historical
tradition,
such as those
concerning
the Bena
Mai,
for
instance, bring
fresh information.
A
particular advantage
of this volume is that with the
exception
of materials
about the Pende and the
Cokwe,
and much of the data about
art,
the contents of
this volume can be
compared
to the first
426 pages
of P. Denolf's Aan de rand van
de Dibese
(Brussels:
I. R. C.
B., 1954)
which deal with the same
topics.
Denolf
collected his data from
1919
to
I950.
Each author has his
advantages:
much of
what Frobenius still describes as
living usage
had become obsolete and the author
was more attuned to African life and
values,
but Denolf was fluent in Tshiluba and
stayed
for a
generation.
Both volumes enrich each
other,
and
jointly they
allow one
to follow in realistic detail
how, when,
and in what measure colonialism
destroyed
the old
ways
of life.
Dr Klein has
painstakingly
reconstituted a rich and
important legacy
that
seemed
hopelessly
lost. She will be remembered with
deep gratitude
for
genera-
tions
by
students of these areas. These three volumes are her
legacy
to scholars.
Unfortunately
she did not live to
complete
the task. A fourth volume
dealing
mostly
with the Luba and
Songye
of eastern Kasai still needs to be
completed.
Let
us
hope
that the Frobenius Institut will be able to
publish
this as well. It would be
a most suitable tribute to Dr Klein and her work.
University of Wisconsin,
Madison JAN VANS INA
SOMALI POLITICAL ECONOMY
The State and Rural
Transformation
in Northern Somalia
I884-I986. By
ABDI
ISMAIL SAMATAR. Madison:
University
of Wisconsin
Press, 1989. Pp.
xix+
204.
$40 ($i7.50 paperback).
Abdi Ismail Samatar's book has
very clearly
stated
objectives. First,
he wishes
to
challenge
the dominant 'infertile'
paradigm
of Somali studies
represented
most
recently by
the work of David Laitin and S. S. Samatar.
Second,
he asserts the
concept
of the
'suspended
state' as central to
understanding
Somalia's
post-
colonial
underdevelopment. Throughout
the book Samatar
struggles
to reconcile
Somalia's unusual colonial
history
to dominant theories of the African state
founded
upon experience
from settler or
agriculturally
based colonies.
Though
he
organizes
the six
chapters chronologically,
the book's overall
argument
divides more
subtly
into two
strangely contradictory
narratives. The
dominant
story
is the
growth
of the colonial state and
capitalist
relations from the
late nineteenth
century through
its
post-colonial phase.
Northern Somaliland was
administered
by
a colonial state concerned more with
strategic
interests and a small
livestock
export
to Aden than intervention in rural
production.
The
post-colonial
manifestation of this
philosophy
has been the
emergence
of a
petit-bourgeois
Somali state
suspended
above its rural
political economy
and
dependent
on
international aid. In Samatar's
view,
this
peculiar
state
structure, along
with the
capitalist
world
economy,
bears
primary responsibility
for the
poverty,
under-
development,
and
suppression
of democratic institutions in modern Somalia.
The book's more subtle
sub-plot, consisting
of some
interesting
field data and
effective use of colonial
records, however,
narrates a
quite
different
story:
the
gradual
transformation of a rural
economy
in which both
pastoralists
and a new
group
of
agriculturalists respond admirably
to new markets and
technologies.
The
11-2
concerning houses,
settlements and burials are of
special
interest to
archaeologists
and
any
historian of
precolonial
Kasai. The
jottings
on social and
political
structures and
religion
are sometimes
priceless
because
they
often
diverge
from the
then received
anthropological
wisdom. Notes on historical
tradition,
such as those
concerning
the Bena
Mai,
for
instance, bring
fresh information.
A
particular advantage
of this volume is that with the
exception
of materials
about the Pende and the
Cokwe,
and much of the data about
art,
the contents of
this volume can be
compared
to the first
426 pages
of P. Denolf's Aan de rand van
de Dibese
(Brussels:
I. R. C.
B., 1954)
which deal with the same
topics.
Denolf
collected his data from
1919
to
I950.
Each author has his
advantages:
much of
what Frobenius still describes as
living usage
had become obsolete and the author
was more attuned to African life and
values,
but Denolf was fluent in Tshiluba and
stayed
for a
generation.
Both volumes enrich each
other,
and
jointly they
allow one
to follow in realistic detail
how, when,
and in what measure colonialism
destroyed
the old
ways
of life.
Dr Klein has
painstakingly
reconstituted a rich and
important legacy
that
seemed
hopelessly
lost. She will be remembered with
deep gratitude
for
genera-
tions
by
students of these areas. These three volumes are her
legacy
to scholars.
Unfortunately
she did not live to
complete
the task. A fourth volume
dealing
mostly
with the Luba and
Songye
of eastern Kasai still needs to be
completed.
Let
us
hope
that the Frobenius Institut will be able to
publish
this as well. It would be
a most suitable tribute to Dr Klein and her work.
University of Wisconsin,
Madison JAN VANS INA
SOMALI POLITICAL ECONOMY
The State and Rural
Transformation
in Northern Somalia
I884-I986. By
ABDI
ISMAIL SAMATAR. Madison:
University
of Wisconsin
Press, 1989. Pp.
xix+
204.
$40 ($i7.50 paperback).
Abdi Ismail Samatar's book has
very clearly
stated
objectives. First,
he wishes
to
challenge
the dominant 'infertile'
paradigm
of Somali studies
represented
most
recently by
the work of David Laitin and S. S. Samatar.
Second,
he asserts the
concept
of the
'suspended
state' as central to
understanding
Somalia's
post-
colonial
underdevelopment. Throughout
the book Samatar
struggles
to reconcile
Somalia's unusual colonial
history
to dominant theories of the African state
founded
upon experience
from settler or
agriculturally
based colonies.
Though
he
organizes
the six
chapters chronologically,
the book's overall
argument
divides more
subtly
into two
strangely contradictory
narratives. The
dominant
story
is the
growth
of the colonial state and
capitalist
relations from the
late nineteenth
century through
its
post-colonial phase.
Northern Somaliland was
administered
by
a colonial state concerned more with
strategic
interests and a small
livestock
export
to Aden than intervention in rural
production.
The
post-colonial
manifestation of this
philosophy
has been the
emergence
of a
petit-bourgeois
Somali state
suspended
above its rural
political economy
and
dependent
on
international aid. In Samatar's
view,
this
peculiar
state
structure, along
with the
capitalist
world
economy,
bears
primary responsibility
for the
poverty,
under-
development,
and
suppression
of democratic institutions in modern Somalia.
The book's more subtle
sub-plot, consisting
of some
interesting
field data and
effective use of colonial
records, however,
narrates a
quite
different
story:
the
gradual
transformation of a rural
economy
in which both
pastoralists
and a new
group
of
agriculturalists respond admirably
to new markets and
technologies.
The
11-2
REVIEWS REVIEWS
323 323