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In 1937–38, the American doctoral candidate William R. Bascom conducted anthropological research in the sacred Yorùbá city of Ilé-Ifẹ̀, Nigeria. Bascom’s visit was a decisive moment in the history of African art, as, in 1938, he observed the chance discovery of unique copper and copper alloy heads, two of which he acquired and exported to the USA. Bascom’s actions in 1938, and his subsequent conflicts with British officials who demanded the return of the heads in the 1940s, have become matters of controversy and scholarly debate. Historian Robert Tignor and anthropologist Simon Ottenberg have presented contrasting arguments regarding the affair. This article draws on material from several archives to shed further light on this discussion, resolve remaining areas of dispute, and explore what the study of this controversy tells us about the nature and practice of anthropology, the impacts of Western exhibitions of African art, and early cultural preservation and repatriation efforts of the late colonial period. At a time when colonial-era collecting practices are facing increased critical re-examination, and with intensified calls for the repatriation of Nigerian cultural patrimony in Western museums, this article reflects on how the study of this controversy contributes to present restitution efforts.

This article advances a decolonial ideological critique of religion as a state ideological apparatus for advancing political authority and control of strategic resources in Black Panther movie. It argues that the kind of religious matrix which informs Wakanda begs critical interrogation as to how the fictitious nation portrays the role of African religious heritage in contemporary neo-colonial politics. On the one hand, Black Panther sought to overcome the dichotomy between modern scientific and African spiritual technologies by presenting religious heritage as decidedly adaptable and integrate-able with emerging scientific ideas. On the other hand, the movie failed to rethink problematic elements of African religious heritage which are perpetuated in most contemporary African democratic dictator regimes. Black Panther's uncritical retrieval and indiscriminate utilisation of African religious systems undermined its potential to reimage and alternatively demonstrate how African religio-cultural heritage could be reinterpreted and critically reconstructed in order to respond effectively to the challenges emerging from the fourth industrial revolution. It remains that Black Panther did not engage adequately with African religions as a resource for promoting African agency to give Africans impetus for social and political transformation and development in postcolonial Africa.

This article examines the encounter between the social anthropologist Meyer Fortes and his wife Sonia, on the one hand, and the Talensi people of northern Ghana, on the other, in the years 1934-7. Based in large part on the Forteses' extensive corpus of recently archived field notes, diaries and other papers, it argues that the quotidian dynamics of that encounter were in many ways quite different from those of Talensi social life as enshrined in Meyer's famous published monographs. Far from entering a timeless world of enduring clanship and kinship, the Forteses grappled with a society struggling to come to terms with the forces of colonial change. The focus is on the couple's shifting relationship with tow dominant figures in the local political landscape in the 1930s: Tongrana Nambiong, the leading Talensi chief and their host in the settlement of Tongo, and Golibdaana Tengol, a wealthy ritual entrepreneur who dominated access on the part of `stranger' pilgrims to the principal oracular shrine in the adjacent Tong Hills. These two bitter rivals were, by local standards, commanding figures yet both emerge as psychologically complex characters riddled with anxiety, unease and self-doubt. The enthnographic archive is thereby shown to offer the possibility of a more intimate history of the interior lives of non-literate African peoples on remote colonial frontiers who often passed under the radar of the state and its documentary regime. Reprinted by permission of the International African Institute

In the two decades after the Second World War, Meyer Fortes was a central figure in what was then called ‘British social anthropology’. Sometimes dismissed as simply a follower of Radcliffe-Brown, Fortes’ theoretical influences in fact ranged from Freud to Parsons. He formulated a distinctive theoretical synthesis, and produced the most influential version of ‘descent theory’. Fortes is currently out of fashion, but four decades after his retirement from the Cambridge chair a revaluation is in order.

This article examines the encounter between the social anthropologist Meyer Fortes and his wife Sonia, on the one hand, and the Talensi people of northern Ghana, on the other, in the years 1934–7. Based in large part on the Forteses’ extensive corpus of recently archived field notes, diaries and other papers, it argues that the quotidian dynamics of that encounter were in many ways quite different from those of Talensi social life as enshrined in Meyer's famous published monographs. Far from entering a timeless world of enduring clanship and kinship, the Forteses grappled with a society struggling to come to terms with the forces of colonial change. The focus is on the couple's shifting relationship with two dominant figures in the local political landscape in the 1930s: Tongrana Nambiong, the leading Talensi chief and their host in the settlement of Tongo, and Golibdaana Tengol, a wealthy ritual entrepreneur who dominated access on the part of ‘stranger’ pilgrims to the principal oracular shrine in the adjacent Tong Hills. These two bitter rivals were, by local standards, commanding figures – yet both emerge as psychologically complex characters riddled with anxiety, unease and self-doubt. The ethnographic archive is thereby shown to offer the possibility of a more intimate history of the interior lives of non-literate African peoples on remote colonial frontiers who often passed under the radar of the state and its documentary regime. Cet article examine la rencontre entre l'anthropologue social Meyer Fortes et sa femme Sonia, d'une part, et les Talensi du Nord du Ghana, d'autre part, de 1934 à 1937. S'appuyant largement sur l'important corpus de notes de terrain, journaux et autres documents récemment archivés des Fortes, il soutient que la dynamique quotidienne de cette rencontre était à bien des égards très différente de celle de la vie sociale des Talensi consacrée par les célèbres monographies publiées de Meyer. Loins de pénétrer dans un monde intemporel de clans et de parentés, les Fortes découvraient une société s'accommodant difficilement des forces du changement colonial. L'accent est mis sur la relation changeante du couple avec deux personnages dominants du paysage politique local des années 1930 : Tongrana Nambiong, principal chef talensi et hôte des Fortes à Tongo, et Golibdaana Tengol, riche entrepreneur rituel qui maîtrisait l'accès au principal sanctuaire oraculaire de la région voisine des Tong Hills par les pèlerins « étrangers ». Ces deux grands rivaux étaient à l’échelle locale des personnes imposantes qui apparaissent pourtant comme des personnages psychologiquement complexes en proie à l'anxiété, au malaise et au doute. L'article montre par là-même que les archives ethnographiques offrent la possibilité d'une histoire plus intime de l'existence intérieure de peuples africains analphabètes sur des frontières coloniales reculées qui échappaient souvent à l'attention de l’État et à son régime documentaire.

Material culture is almost entirely absent in Fortes's writing on the Tallensi, presumably a correlate of his structural functionalist position. In contrast, his unpublished notebooks compensate for this apparent gap and have been of significant use for interpreting aspects of past material culture use and materiality in the archaeological record of the Tongo Hills of northern Ghana. This point is discussed with reference to Fortes's descriptions of iron and stone in Tallensi lifeways and the materiality of festivals and shrines. Thus Fortes's unpublished archive indicates the potential offered by the anthropologist's notebook as a multi-disciplinary resource which perhaps might be paralleled in the notebooks of other anthropologists of the period. La culture matérielle est presque entièrement absente des travaux de Fortes sur les Tallensi, probablement à cause de son point de vue fonctionnaliste structurel. Ses carnets de terrain non publiés viennent cependant combler cette lacune apparente. Ils se sont avérés précieux pour interpréter les usages passés de la culture matérielle et de la matérialité à partir des archives archéologiques des Collines de Tongo, dans le Nord du Ghana. Ce point est discuté en faisant référence aux descriptions faites par Fortes du fer et de la pierre dans le mode de vie des Tallensi et de la matérialité des fêtes et des sanctuaires. Les notes non publiées de Fortes suggèrent ainsi le potentiel du carnet de terrain d'un anthropologue comme ressource multidisciplinaire, susceptible d'être comparée aux carnets d'autres anthropologues de la même période.

That Evelyn Blackwood's article did not begin with the Minangkabau situation and allow readers to see the problem that drives the argument is a pity. This is because the article is to be welcomed as a contribution to the genre of uncovering implicit assumptions rather than to a history of ideas.

The social anthropologist Sir Jack Goody gained a BLitt in 1952 at Oxford, under Edward Evans-Pritchard, rather than a doctorate.