This article examines how the schools of the Ibadi-Omani diaspora have had an impact on religious education and Afro-Arab relations in post-revolutionary Zanzibar. Much of the existing literature about Ibadism and the Omani diaspora in Zanzibar centres on the island’s economic history, stories of Arab elites under sultanate rule and the politics of the 1964 revolution. Little work explores how Ibadis in Zanzibar today distinguish themselves from other Muslims by marrying within the Omani community, running religious charities, wearing Omani clothing, attending Ibadi mosques, and enrolling their children in Ibadi schools. This research offers a fresh perspective on Ibadism and Oman–Zanzibar relations under neoliberalism through an examination of the lived experiences of Ibadis and non-Ibadis affiliated with the schools of the Istiqama Muslim community and organization.

The title of the present article is taken from a Chaha sentence given below that describes the importance of the äsät in the life of the Gurage, whose country is situated in the south-west of Addis Ababa. Indeed the äsät, or the banana-like plant, known as Ensete edulis, provides the staple food of the Gurage diet. The root, the stem of the leaves, and the trunk provide substance for bread; the leaves serve as wrapping material, as base-stands for pots, as load-carriers, and as fuel; the dried leaves are made into small plates for serving chopped meat; and the fibre serves as rope. For some of the Gurage dialects I collected as many as thirty names for the different kinds of äsät, some of these kinds being used as medicines for various forms of illness. The äsät is a frequently recurring theme in the Gurage folklore, folktales, proverbs, and riddles.

Chez tous les peuples, civilisés ou non, le pouvoir royal est marqué ou symbolisé par un emblème qui peut être une couronne, un sceptre, ou quelqu'autre objet comme l'escabeau doré, ou Golden Stool que le livre de Edwin Smith a rendu célèbre. Au Basutoland l'un des premiers portraits du roi Moshesh le représente tenant en main un bâton, ou sceptre, d'environ un pied et demi de longueur et surmonté d'une boule ronde. C'étaitle molamu oa tsukulu, ou ‘bâton (en corne) de rhinocéros’ qui est pour les chefs du Basutoland, le principal emblème du pouvoir. Parmi les écrivains qui ont dépeint les coutumes des Basuto nous n'en connaissons pas qui aient parlé en détail de ce sceptre d'apparence plutôt commune, mais dont l'importance mérite d'être signalée.

Toute la population Yombe est répartie en neuf groupes généalogiques à l'intérieur desquels la loi de l'exogamie n'est plus guère observée aujourd'hui. Ces groupes dénommés zimvila (sing, mvila) s'appellent du nom de leur ancêtre respectif Ntinu Makaba, Nanga Nakongo, Phudi Nzinga, Makhuku i Ntinu, Manianga Nakongo, Mbenza Nakongo, Numbu Nzinga, Ngimbi i Khota, Madunga Namboma, tous fils d'une mère légendaire Mbangala, la femme auxneuf seins.

Social legislation of far-reaching importance for Africans in the French territories of West and Equatorial Africa is contained in a recently published decree (No. 51-1100 of 14 September 1951, relatif à certaines modalités du mariage entre personnes de statut personnel en A.O.F., en A.E.F., au Togo et au Cameroun).

This legislation involves the overriding of native customary law at certain vital points, particularly in relation to the institution of bride-price. In so far as bride-price is a factor contributing to the dependent status of the adult African woman and tending (under modern conditions) towards the commercialization of the marriage transaction, the decree is designed to neutralize its effects.

This case study probes the close link between locality and musical production. The setting is Opuwo, a small city in northern Namibia, notorious for its many bars. Here the music of a local band, Bullet ya Kaoko, provides the soundtrack to the quest for belonging and identity that takes place in the marginal space constituted by these bars and pubs. Bullet ya Kaoko performances are characterized by the simultaneous articulation of paradoxical images and different models of identification: they use keyboards and synthesizers to rework an old genre (omitandu, praise songs), fuse Kwaito moves with the elders' warrior dance, and weave Herero polyphony into a jive-like beat and structure. Lyrics, music and dance address the challenges of (post-)modern life and give voice to uncertainty and fragmentation. At the same time, they embed people in kinship and place, evoking a strong yet encrypted sense of belonging. The music of Bullet ya Kaoko is ironizing: it questions, but does not answer. It challenges both the old and the new, but refrains from solving the tensions created by their juxtaposition.

This article considers the role of embodied experience in promoting revolutionary ideology in Guinea. The Republic of Guinea has long held close ties with China, and in the 1960s and 1970s the country pursued its own Cultural Revolution. While Chinese songs and aesthetics had little direct artistic influence, the Guinean state embraced Maoist ideals of social and self-transformation and discipline. Such ideals were translated into daily life through the regulation of bodies, including practices of dance, movement and physical gesture that sought to create revolutionary subjects. I show here how embodied practices, including the circulation of dancers and official delegations, cultivated Guinea's relationship with China; and how practices of movement and dance were inwardly experienced within Guinea during its own Cultural Revolution. In so doing, I address some of the contradictions of the Revolution and of Guinea–China relations. While the regime pursued its goals through violence and brutality, former revolutionary subjects today remember the moment for both its pain and its pleasures – for the hardships the body had to endure and for the nationalist pride that many still feel today.

Among the Moba of northern Togo, initiation into the voluntary and secret association of Kondi offers men and women a way of achieving a measure of social and ritual power. For the Moba, accepted notions about ancestral authority, specialist knowledge, and the spatial realm of the wilderness inform their concepts of power. One of the ways in which the achievement of power is conceptualised is through the transformation of the individual during the process of initiation into Kondi. Following the tripartite structure of separation, transition and reintegration, Kondi initiation directs the individual through the movement of social space as the initiate's status is transformed from that of a newborn to that of an adult in the community. This transformative process is reinforced in the spatial domains of bush and village in which initiation takes place and in the kinds of dress worn during the various phases of initiation which signal the initiate's dissociation and association with the community. Through the acquisition of esoteric knowledge available only to the initiated, and through the approval of the ancestors who sanction Kondi, members of the secret association are distinguishedfrom the non-initiated and enjoy a measure of power and authority in Moba communities.