The Descriptive Sociology . of Africa IT is over fifty years
since Professor Duncan completed his volume on African races in Herbert Spencer's series of Descriptive Sociology. Since then the blank spaces of Africa have almost disappeared and a vast store of accumulated knowledge has been awaiting classification. The trustees of the late Herbert Spencer could not have selected anyone better fitted to the task than Mr. Torday, who has com- pletely rewritten and enormously enlarged Professor Duncan's volume. Mr. Torday needs no introduction to anthropologists. His own researches in the Congo and his wide reading, together with a gift of sympathy which often enables hinvto appreciate the African's point of view where the academic anthropologist would - have been harking after a false scent, these have enabled him to give such a synthesis of African 'cultures • as would have been beyond the capacity of one less experienced or more academic. It is beyond our mathematical ability to compute the number of books which Mr. Torday must have digested and the number of language's he must have inter- preted in the compilation of this immense volume, which by the criterion of either weight or words must stand alone in the annals of scientific literature. It will assuredly prove of the greatest service to students in the field, who will find condensed in one volume the material facts culled from numberless books- which they could not possibly carry about with them. We fear that it will also prove a boon to a certain type of lecturer and will release a flood of pseudo-scientific journalism, which the inaccessibility of anthropological literature has so far held in check. This may not altogether be a disadvantage, but it will Certainly mean that lesser men will reap the field which Mr. Torday has so laboriously sown. At any rate every self-respecting librarian will have to secure a copy,
The format of the volume with its ugly triple columns, which make reading difficult, and the arrangement of its contents are both governed by the conditions of the Spencer Trust, and Mr. Torday must not be held responsible for a system which he has inherited without the option of improve- ment. The change in scientific outlook since Herbert Spencer's time is well summarized in a provocative introduction : " To-day the investigator can no longer be satisfied with ascertaining what customs and beliefs exist among certain peoples : their social fabric has to be considered as a whole and research aims at discovering the function of each com- ponent element." The system of classification which Mr.
Torday has inherited is a stultification of this statement, and, as he admits, " the classification of the collected material offered some difficulties. Slavery, for instance, is, among the Central Sudanese peoples, mainly an economic institution, whereas among the majority of the Bantu it is mainly a social institution . . . Consequently, slavery is dealt with under Regulation of Labour' or Political Organization' according to its character." Similarly, " Initiation," though it is a rite both social and religious, is dealt with under " Political " in order that it may be compared with " Secret Societies." These two examples show both the kind of classification enforced on Mr. Torday and the difficulties under which he has laboured to fit his material (a great deal of which had to be redeemed from its authors' interpretations) to the Procrustean framework of his model.
An excellent map, compiled by Miss Torday, gives the positions of the eight hundred and fifty-seven tribes dealt with in this volume, and for purposes of classification these tribes are arranged in sixteen families or groups. Mr. Torday argues convincingly for his view that Bantu should be an ethnical and not only a linguistic classification ; but, as he is the first to admit, " the groupings within the larger divisions are not meant to be dogmatic; there are few instances where linguistic, cultural or physical characteristics permit the drawing of a sharp line-between the various sections." Hence we find such a classification as " Equatorial Hybrid Tribes?'
Other allocations such as that of the Bari, Madi and Lugbwara are very much open to question on cultural, even if not on linguistic grounds.
We have referred to the introduction as provocative. His championship of the Bantu is only one instance. His dogmatic insistence on the racial identity of the forest Pygmies with
their taller neighbours, the derivation of the word Daiwa, the depreciation of the Hamites, are others. This depreciation
of the Hamites carries Mr. Torday to some curious extremes.
In his . desire to proclaim the moral and intellectual para- mountcy (blessed word !) of the Bantu he would attribute the success of the Bantu-Hamitic blends almost entirely to Bantu qualities, but he has not considered whether the causes do not exist in the act of contact rather than in either of the specific cultures. The Hamitized Ovaherero are held up to obloquy in contrast with their neighbours, the Ovambo, and are allowed no redeeming quality except good manners, physical beauty and the intelligence to submit to the white man after recognizing his superior power. They are called indolent and parasitic because they keep cattle in preference to digging the soil : but is this a true criterion of cultural worth, and are not physical beauty and good manners ultimately as valuable as the ability to cultivate cereals ? If not, why trouble about aesthetics at all ?
Brilliantly written, the introduction is stimulating just because it is provocative. It deplores the present tendency to look for short cuts to the black man's mind, and does belated justice to the patient toiler, who may not be academically trained, but at least has the most precious gift of language, -which is worth years of academic theory. The background of academic theory is only of value when allied with experience and the ability -to converse without
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