Documents
eHRAF is comprised of thousands of ethnographic sources including monographs, journal articles, dissertations and manuscripts. Use this page to find relevant documents by searching or filtering. Each document in eHRAF also contains a Publication Information page with added metadata including brief abstracts written by HRAF analysts who have subject-indexed the file.
The politics of kinshipBook 1964 • Van Velsen, J.
Lakeshore Tonga • Africa > Southern Africa
A superb ethnography on Lakeshore Tonga kinship and politics, which employs a situational analysis approach. The study shows how leaders to the extent possible attract followers and augment or maintain power by manipulating lineage and affinal connec...The missionary factor among the Lakeside Tonga of Nyasalandarticle 1960 • Van Velsen, J.
Lakeshore Tonga • Africa > Southern Africa
Missionaries arrived in Tongaland in 1877 only a few years after the Tonga won independence from their Ngoni overlords. The missionaries tried to maintain their neutrality among the Tonga, but were drawn into playing a mediating role between rival ch...Notes on the history of the Lakeside Tonga of Nyasalandarticle 1959 • Van Velsen, J.
Lakeshore Tonga • Africa > Southern Africa
Van Velsen writes about Lakeside Tonga history and the difficulty in interpreting oral history, because he argues it is always highly selective in order to support current social structure and power relations. He constructs five periods: I) the ‘dim ...The establishment of the administration in Tongalandessay 1962 • Van Velsen, J.
Lakeshore Tonga • Africa > Southern Africa
This is a history of the development of British administration in Nyasaland from indirect rule to a district administrative system. Van Velsen shows how this was a two-way process. Indirect rule failed because the Tonga were never a chiefdom that the...Labour migration as a positive factor in the continuity of Tonga tribal societyessay 1961 • Van Velsen, J.
Lakeshore Tonga • Africa > Southern Africa
In this paper, van Velsen discusses how Tonga migrant laborers continue to maintain ties to their original villages, even though they may be away for years at a time. Few Tonga men take their wives and families to urban centers abroad, because the co...