The NegroDu Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
History
The Negro
Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt)
Africa -- History; Black race
"How like is the market traffic, with all its uproar and sound of human
voices, to one of our own markets! There is the same rivalry in praising
the goods, the violent, brisk movements, the expressive gesture, the
inquiring, searching glance, the changing looks of depreciation or
triumph, of apprehension, delight, approbation. So says Stanley. Trade
customs are not everywhere alike. If when negotiating with the Bangalas of
Angola you do not quickly give them what they want, they go away and do
not come back. Then perhaps they try to get possession of the coveted
object by means of theft. It is otherwise with the Songos and Kiokos, who
let you deal with them in the usual way. To buy even a small article you
must go to the market; people avoid trading anywhere else. If a man says
to another; 'Sell me this hen' or 'that fruit,' the answer as a rule will
be, 'Come to the market place.' The crowd gives confidence to individuals,
and the inviolability of the visitor to the market, and of the market
itself, looks like an idea of justice consecrated by long practice. Does
not this remind us of the old Germanic 'market place'?"[48]
Turning now to Negro family and social life we find, as among all
primitive peoples, polygamy and marriage by actual or simulated purchase.
Out of the family develops the typical African village organization, which
is thus described in Ashanti by a native Gold Coast writer: "The headman,
as his name implies, is the head of a village community, a ward in a
township, or of a family. His position is important, inasmuch as he has
directly to deal with the composite elements of the general bulk of the
people.
"It is the duty of the head of a family to bring up the members thereof in
the way they should go; and by 'family' you must understand the entire
lineal descendants of a materfamilias, if I may coin a convenient phrase.
It is expected of him by the state to bring up his charge in the knowledge
of matters political and traditional. It is his work to train up his wards
in the ways of loyalty and obedience to the powers that be. He is held
responsible for the freaks of recalcitrant members of his family, and he
is looked to to keep them within bounds and to insist upon conformity of
their party with the customs, laws, and traditional observances of the
community. In early times he could send off to exile by sale a troublesome
relative who would not observe the laws of the community.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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