The age system of the Nilo-Hamitic peoples : a comparative analysis.
Doctoral Thesis
1952
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University of Cape Town
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Abstract
The aim of the present work is a comparative study of the age-systems of the Nilo-Hamites and of their functions in the whole setting of the Nilo-Hamitic social organisation. It was our original plan to cover the whole area of East Africa influenced by the Hamites, and study the age-systems of such peoples as the Hamitic, the Nilotic, the Nilo-Hamitic, and the Bantu-Hamitic peoples. The reason for such an ambitious plan was the still widely held opinion that the age-systems of all those peoples originated from the Galla. This opinion is voiced by Driberg under the issue "Age-grades" in the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. He writes: "The Galla, with their very complex system (of age-grades), are the centre and source of this (Hamitic) culture; and from them it has permeated all the Nilo-Hamitic tribes which cluster round them, the Masai, the Nandi, the Topotha, the Turkana and the Didinga." A superficial comparative examination of the age-systems of all these peoples is sufficient to convince oneself of the essential di£ferentiations which make a borrowing of the systems from the Galla a rather improbable Hypothesis.
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Bernardi, B., Bernardi, B. 1952. The age system of the Nilo-Hamitic peoples : a comparative analysis. University of Cape Town.