Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-dnltx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T11:42:47.028Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Bantu in the Crystal Ball, II*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2014

Jan Vansina*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Interest in the question of Bantu expansion rose dramatically in the 1950s as historians, archeologists, and anthropologists all joined in the fray. This reflected both the rise of Africa in world affairs and the expansion of research in general. The scholars involved were typically a new breed of professionals, and as such more dependent than their predecessors on universities or research institutions. The School of Oriental and African Studies in London achieved overwhelming dominance from about 1950 until the late 1960s, so that opinions held by its staff found the widest audience. The new scholars also were, for the most part, anti-racist, sympathetic to African nationalisms, and of liberal or socialist persuasion. They tended to reject the notion of “conquest,” believing in gradual change rather than abrupt cataclysmic mutation, perhaps because they were repelled by their recent experiences during the war. As had happened earlier, these extraneous circumstances left a deep imprint on the speculations that were now proposed. Early in this period a new paradigm almost achieved consensus, but after 1968 this fell apart and during the last decade two new trends have appeared: the single-minded quest for a new paradigm and the search for better understanding through the study of analogous processes, coupled with a more radical skepticism.

Murdock

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1980

Footnotes

*

The first part of this paper appeared in HA, 6(1979), 287-333.

References

NOTES

154. See Vansina, Jan, “Bantu in the Crystal Ball, I,” History in Africa, 6(1979), 321–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The social organization of Bantuists influenced the success of particular speculations, since such success is measured by the consensus of scholars, in turn strongly influenced by institutional realities.

155. Schebesta, Paul, Die Bambuti-pygmäen vom Ituri, (Brussels, 1950)Google Scholar; Bulck, V. van, “Het probleem der Pygmeeëntaal volgens Schebesta,” Kongo-Overzee, 14(1948), 305–09.Google Scholar

156. Murdock, G.P., Africa: Its Peoples and their Culture History (New York, 1959), 12.Google Scholar

157. Ibid., 45.

158. Ibid., 271-74.

159. Ibid., 279.

160. Ibid., 279, 300.

161. Ibid., 349-50.

162. Ibid., 306, 357, 373.

163. Ibid., 377.

164. Ibid., 383-86.

165. Ibid., 96-99, 277.

166. Clark, D., “A Note of the Pre-Bantu Inhabitants of Northern Rhodesia,” South African Journal of Science, 47(1950), 8085Google Scholar; Oliver, R. and Fagan, B., Africa in the Iron Age: c. 500 B.C. to A.D. 1400 (London, 1975), 9496.Google Scholar

167. Clark, , The Prehistory of Southern Africa (Harmondsworth, 1959), 21–22, 283.Google Scholar

168. Ibid., 283.

169. Ibid., 283-84.

170. Ibid., 303.

171. Ibid., 311-12.

172. Hiernaux, J., Le début de l'age des métaux dans la région des grands lacs” in Mortelmans, G. and Nenquin, J., Actes du IV° Congrès panafricain de préhistoire et de l'étude du quaternaire (Tervuren, 1962), 382Google Scholar; Posnansky, M., “Bantu Genesis,” Uganda Journal, 25(1961), 8693.Google Scholar Compare this with his slightly earlier Pottery Types in East Africa,” JAH, 2(1961), 183–85.Google Scholar

173. Posnansky, , “Bantu Genesis,” 9192.Google Scholar

174. (London, 1959), 130-31.

175. Wrigley, , “Speculations on the Economic Prehistory of Africa,” JAH, 1(1960), 196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The text dates from November 1958 and was presented to the African History Seminar at SOAS. Minutes AH/58/4.

176. Ibid., 202, and interventions in the SOAS seminar on 14 January and 18 February, 1959.

177. Ibid., 198, and SOAS seminar session 14 January 1959 for his source, Malcolm Guthrie.

178. SOAS seminar session.

179. Session of 28 January 1959, amplified in the sessions of 4 February, 11 February, 18 February, and 4 March.

180. Proto-Bantu had a term for iron, said Guthrie at the seminar on 28 January. Oliver's formulation of what became the London paradigm first occurred on 18 February 1959 at the seminar.

181. Concluding statement of the session of 4 March.

182. Huntingford, G.W.B., “The Peopling of the Interior of East Africa by its Modern Inhabitants” in Oliver, R. and Mathew, G., History of East Africa, I (London, 1963), 58–93, esp. 8192.Google Scholar

183. (Harmondsworth, 1962), 29-32. There are some shifts in Oliver's position in later editions of this very influential textbook.

184. Guthrie, , “Some Developments in the Prehistory of the Bantu Languages,” JAH, 3(1962), 273–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, “Bantu Origins: A Tentative New Hypothesis,” Journal of African Languages, 1(1962), 9-21; idem, “A Two-Stage Method of Comparative Bantu Study,” African Language Studies, 3(1962), 1-24. Compare with his earlier Problèmes de génétique linguistique: la question du Bantou commun,” Travaux de l'Institut de Linguistique de l'Université de Paris, 4(1959), 8392.Google Scholar

185. Guthrie, , “Some Developments,” 276.Google Scholar

186. Idem, “Bantu Origins,” 16.

187. Hem, , “Some Developments,” 279–82.Google Scholar

188. Deschamps, H., L'Afrique noire précoloniale, (Paris, 1962), 2931.Google Scholar As a Que sais-je? volume its impact in the Francophone world was great.

189. Cornevin, , Histoire de l'Afrique, I, Des Origines au XVIe Siècle, (Paris, 1966), 377–78.Google Scholar Compare with his Histoire des peuples de l'Afrique noire, (Paris, 1960), 151–52Google Scholar, where he accepted Greenberg but saw the Bantu expansion as circumventing the forest, rather like Johnston or like some recent speculations. By 1966 the cause of Bantu expansion was seen to be the desiccation of the Sahara, a point taken from Clark, , “The Prehistoric Origins of African Culture,” JAH, 5(1964), 181–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

190. For instance see Rotberg, R., A Political History of Tropical Africa (London, 1965), 5n2 and 52n66.Google Scholar The information there may date from 1962.

191. Oliver, R., “The Problem of Bantu expansion,” JAH, 7(1966), 361–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar, first delivered as a lecture in 1965 at the Royal Society of Arts in London. Cf. Oliver, R., “Cameroun -- The Bantu Cradleland,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 1(1979), 7.Google Scholar

193. Posnansky, M., “Bantu Genesis: Archaeological Reflexions,” JAH, 9(1968), 111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also his The Iron Age in East Africa” in Bishop, W.W. and Clark, D.J., eds, Background to Evolution in Africa (Chicago, 1967), 629–49Google Scholar, and Hiernaux, J., La Diversité Humaine en Afrique Subsaharienne (Brussels, 1968).Google Scholar See Hiernaux, , The People of Africa (New York, 1974), 175–89.Google Scholar

194. Hiernaux, J., “Bantu Expansion: The Evidence from Physical Anthropology Confronted with Linguistics and Archaeological Evidence, JAH, 9(1968), 505–15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

195. Neither had up to then published a formal rebuttal. Meeussen was waiting for Guthrie's magnum opus to be completed and so probably was Greenberg. But meanwhile both had expressed their misgivings and objections orally.

196. Fagan, B.M. and Oliver, R., “Wenner-Gren Research Conference on Bantu Origins in Sub-Saharan Africa (Summary Report and Recommendations),” African language Review, 7(1968), 140–46Google Scholar; Grundemann, T., “Wenner-Gren Conference on Bantu Origins,” Bulletin of the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom (1968), 19.Google Scholar Other information from my own conference notes.

197. Huffman, T., “The Early Iron Age and the Spread of the Bantu,” South African Archaeological Bulletin, 25(1970), 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

198. Clark, J.D., The Prehistory of Africa (London, 1970), 210–14Google Scholar; idem, “African Prehistory” in D. Dalby, Language and History in Africa (London, 1970), 1-19 esp. 9-15. This volume contains papers presented at the African History Seminar of SOAS from 1967 to 1969. On Bantu expansion it also contains Guthrie's, M.Contributions from Comparative Bantu Studies to the Prehistory of Africa,” 2049Google Scholar, and Mann's, W.M.Internal Relationships of the Bantu Languages: Prospects for Topological Research,” 133–45Google Scholar, which prefigures A. Henrici's later and revolutionary findings.

199. Vansina, J., “Inner Africa,” in Josephy, A.M., ed., The Horizon History of Africa (New York, 1971), 261–66.Google Scholar

200. Ibid., 265.

201. Ehret, C., “Cattle-Keeping and Milking in Eastern and Southern African History: The Linguistic Evidence,” JAH, 8(1967), 117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

202. Idem, “Bantu Origins and History: Critique and Interpretation,” Transafrican Journal of History, 2(1972), 1-10.

203. Greenberg, J., “Linguistic Evidence Regarding Bantu Origins,” JAH, 13(1972), 189216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

204. (New York, 1968), 57-114; Gailey, H., History of Africa from Earliest Times to 1800 (New York, 1970), 2931.Google Scholar

205. (Paris, 1970), 355-63.

206. Randles, W.G.L., “La civilisation bantou: son essor et son déclin,” Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations 29(1974), 267–81.Google Scholar

207. Heine, B., “Zur genetische Gliederung der Bantu-sprachen,” Afrika-Ubersee, 56(1973) 164–85Google Scholar; Henrici, A., “Numerical Classification of Bantu Languages,” African Language Studies, 14(1973), 82104.Google Scholar

208. Heine, B., “Gliederung,” 164–70.Google Scholar

209. Ibid., 172-75.

210. Ibid., 181-82.

211. Coupez, A., Evrard, E., and Vansina, J., “Classification d'un échantillon de langues bantoues d'après la lexicostatistique, Africana Linguistica, 6(1975), 133–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Data for the project had been assembled from 1954 onwards. The conclusions about migrations are exclusively Coupez's.

212. Ehret, , “Patterns of Bantu and Central Sudanic Settlement in Central and Southern Africa, Transafrican Journal of History, 3(1973), 171.Google Scholar

213. Coupez, A., “Classification,” 152.Google Scholar

214. Heine, B., Hoff, H., and Vossen, R., “Neuere Ergebnisse zur Territorialgeschichte der Bantu,” in Möhlig, W.J., Rottland, F., and Heine, B., Zur Sprachgeschichte und Ethnohistorie in Afrika (Berlin, 1977), 5770.Google Scholar

215. The main publication of this conference will be C. Bouquiaux, G. Manessy, and J. Voorhoeve, L'expansion bantoue. I have seen most of the linguistic papers, while some others, such as the anthropologists A. Kuper and P. Van Leynseele, or archeologists such as N. David, P. de Maret, and F. Van Noten kindly sent me copies of their papers, for which I am very grateful. Information about A40 and A60 from Dr. J. Voorhoeve, confirmed by others.

216. Bennett, P., and Sterk, J., “South Central Niger Congo: A Reclassification,” Studies in African Linguistics, 8(1977), 241–73.Google Scholar

217. Dalby, D., “The Prehistorical Implications of Guthrie's Comparative Bantu,” JAH, 16(1975) 481502CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 17(1976), 1-28. Since then Dalby has abandoned the idea of genetic relationships between languages altogether. See his Language Map of Africa and the Adjacent Islands (London, 1977).Google Scholar

218. Oliver, and Fagan, , Africa in the Iron Age, 7879.Google Scholar

219. Ibid., 32.

220. Guthrie, , Comparative Bantu (4 vols.: Farnborough, 19671971) 1: no. 74/21, 74/25Google Scholar; 2: 83/24.

221. Guthrie, , “Contributions from Comparative Bantu Studies to the Prehistory of Africa” in Dalby, , Language and History, 28–30, 4445.Google Scholar

222. Oliver, and Fagan, , Africa in the Iron Age, 7375.Google Scholar

223. Maret, P. de and Nsuka, Y., “History of Bantu Metallurgy: Some Linguistic Aspects,” History in Africa, 4(1977) 4366.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

224. Hiernaux, J. and Gauthier, A.M., “Comparaison des affinités linguistiques et biologiques de douze populations de langue bantu,” Cahiers d'études africaines, 66/67 (1977), 241–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

225. Oliver, R. and Fagan, B., “The Emergence of Bantu Africa” in The Cambridge History of Africa, II, From c. 500 B.C. to A.D. 1050, (Cambridge, 1978), 342–409, 750–56.Google Scholar

226. Ibid., 357-59, 405-06.

227. Ibid., 358.

228. Oliver, , “Cameroun,” 7.Google Scholar

229. Ibid., 10.

230. Ibid., 17. Metallurgy, he now surmises, derived from the Upper Uele. His argument is partly based on resemblances between newly-discovered pottery from that area and Early Iron Age pottery of Urewe ware as in Soper, R.C., “Resemblances Between East African Early Iron Age Pottery and Recent Vessels from the North-Eastern Congo,” Azania, 6(1971) 233–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

231. Derricourt, R.M., “Classification and Culture Change in Late Post-Pleistocene South Africa” in Renfrew, C., ed., The Explanation of Culture Change: Models in Prehistory (New York, 1973), 625–31.Google Scholar

232. Schmidt, P., “A New Look at Interpretations of the Early Iron Age in East Africa,” History in Africa, 2(1975), 127–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

233. Ibid., 133-35.

234. Phillipson, D.W., “The Chronology of the Iron Age in Bantu Africa,” JAH, 16(1975), 321–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

235. Idem, (London, 1977), 102-230. Summary of his ten stages of Bantu expansion, 227-30. See also idem, “Archaeology and Bantu Linguistics,” World Archaeology, 8(1976), 65-82; idem, “The Spread of the Bantu Language,” Scientific American, 236(1977), 106-14. Cf. also his The Early Iron Age in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Critical Reappraisal,” Azania, 11(1976), 124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

236. Idem, Later Prehistory, 172-79.

237. See, for instance, Maret, P. de, Noten, F. Van, and Cahen, D., “Radiocarbon Dates from West Central Africa: A Synthesis,” JAH, 18(1977), 497501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

238. F. Van Noten, “The Early Iron Age in the Interlacustrine Region. The Diffusion of Iron Technology,” paper presented at the Viviers Conference.

239. N. David, “The Archaeological Background of Cameroonian History,” paper presented at the Viviers Conference.

240. Lunyiigo, Lwanga, “The Bantu Problem Reconsidered,” Current Anthropology, 17(1976), 282–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

241. Gramsley, R., “Expansion of Bantu-speakers versus Development of Bantu Language and African Culture in situ: An Archaeologist's Perspective,” South African Archaeological Bulletin, 33(1978), 107–12.Google Scholar

242. P. de Maret, “Bribes, débris et bricolage,” paper presented at the Viviers Conference.

243. Möhlig, W., “The Bantu Nucleus: Its Conditional Nature and Its Prehistorical Significance,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 1(1979), 109–42.Google Scholar Earlier articles by Möhlig in the same vein are Guthries Beitrag zur Bantuistik aus heutiger Sicht,” Anthropos, 71(1976), 673715Google Scholar; Zur frühen Siedlungsgeschichte der Savannen-Bantu aus authistorischer Sicht” in Möhlig, , Rottland, , and Heine, , Sprachgeschichte, 166–93.Google Scholar His “The Problem of a True Historical Classification of the Bantu Languages,” submitted to the African Linguistics Colloquium of Leiden in 1978 is expected in due course.

244. Kuper, A and Leynseele, P. Van, “Social Anthropology and the ‘Bantu Expansion’,” Africa, 48(1978), 335–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

245. Greenberg, J., The Languages of Africa (Bloomington, 1963), 38Google Scholar, calls it a “relatively recent movement” on the basis of the wide extension of Bantu languages and the relatively small differentiation among them. But strong conversion also exists among many Australian languages, which must have been spread over the whole of Australia millennia ago. See Dixon, R.M.W., “The Nature and Development of Australian Languages,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 8(1979), 433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The rate of differentiation is not necessarily constant as, e.g., the development of English shows. On this point Johnston may be right; see the first part of this article, 312.

246. Möhlig, , “Bantu Nucleus,” 123–26, 131–33.Google Scholar

247. Hiernaux, “Bantu Expansion.”

248. Hiernaux and Gauthier, “Comparaison.”

249. Ranger, T., “Towards a Usable African Past” in Fyfe, C., ed., African Studies Since 1945 (London, 1976), 21.Google Scholar

250. Casson, L., “Who First Crossed the Oceans?” in Casson, L., Mysteries of the Past (New York, 1977), 30Google Scholar, mentions the same onomatopoeia: (kuk) as Polynesian and Peruvian terms for “chicken.” On the other hand some onomatopoeia, such as those used for “bell” in Africa, are so numerous and variable that such terms may have value as proof because so very many possibilities exist. On fowl consider also the English cock, French coq, both very close to kuk!

251. Murdock, , Africa, 2.Google Scholar

252. Ibid., 271.

253. Anttila, R., An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics (New York, 1972), 386–87.Google Scholar

254. For the Mambese see Maeyer, F. de, “Een eigenaardig geval van tweetaligheid op de taalgrens der Soeden- en Bantoetalen in Belgisch Kongo,” Kongo-Overzee, 9(1943), 173–75.Google Scholar

255. Anttila, , Introduction, 173–74.Google Scholar

256. Winter, J.C., “Language Shift Among the Aasax, a Hunter-Gatherer Tribe in Tanzania,” Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika, 1(1979), 175204.Google Scholar

257. Dalby, , “Prehistoric Implications,” 487–89, 501.Google Scholar