A Dictionary of Ila Usage, 1860-1960
A Dictionary of Ila Usage, 1860-1960

Author: Dennis G. Fowler

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 912

ISBN-13: 9783825847678

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This book is based on material collected by missionaries at Kasenga Mission in Zambia. Edwin Smith began in 1901 to note each new Ila word, together with illustrative sentences dictated by his Ila informants. Later missionaries continued this practice, so that in 1959 the author found a mass of over 12,000 items already collected. As the largest body of Ila ever assembled, the dictionary offers much of interest in several fields. The language has a consistent agglutinative structure of great sophistication, logical as Latin, flexible as Greek. The speakers reveal not merely the preoccupations of daily existence in Ila villages a century ago, but an outlook both sensitive and wryly humourous. Feared in battle, fearful of spirits, revering God; hunters of lion and buffalo, polygamous, romantic, ribald in men's company, but highly proper in women's, tender towards children, with a high regard for the arts of hospitality, conversation, and love, the Baila spring with verve from these pages. Appendices list nearly 2,000 synonyms, 276 proverbs, l64 metaphors, 216 customs, 400 trees with their medicinal uses, 290 plants, 150 birds, and grammatical tables.

The Ila Speaking
The Ila Speaking

Author: Dennis G. Fowler

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9783825861155

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" ""The Ila Speaking"" is a record of life in a Central African village around a century ago. It originated in conversations recorded by Methodist missionaries as they attempted to learn the language and customs of the Ila people. Over the years 1906 to 1966 they collected over 12000 items. What began as a vocabulary with examples ended as the self-portrait of a people and a way of life. The author worked with the Ila from 1958 to 1966, later producing a ""Dictionary of Ila Usage"" (LIT Verlag 2000). The present book is a series of extracts from the dictionary arranged by subject, with a commentary. It is the author's hope that `the voices come over loud and clear to you the reader, and that you come away from this book with a feel for Ila humour, Ila life, and Ila reflections on people and their ways. I did, and I am sure you will too' (Professor Graham Furniss, School of Oriental and African Studies - London). "

Hausa Urban Art and Its Social Background
Hausa Urban Art and Its Social Background

Author: Friedrich W. Schwerdtfeger

Publisher: LIT Verlag Münster

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9783825856434

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"When I started my investigation of decorated houses in the walled city of Zaria in late 1976, it was above all to record the rapidly disappearing external wall decorations. Hence, the survey was perceived as a rescue operation to collect as many photographs and drawings as possible before these decorations disappeared altogether, and also to record vital information about them from compound heads living in decorated houses, and from the master craftsmen who created them. During an introductory stock-taking survey we listed nearly one thousand decorated houses. When I concluded the survey in 1985 the material collected included 75 recorded life stories of craftsmen. When I finally completed the manuscript of this book hardly any of the old traditional external wall decorations had survived. It was obvious that traditional wall decoration had become a thing of the past, no longer relevant to the younger generation of compound heads in the city of Zaria, and indeed in most other traditional towns in northern Nigeria." ( From the introduction)

Collecting Food, Cultivating People
Collecting Food, Cultivating People

Author: Kathryn Michelle De Luna

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2016-09-27

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 0300225164

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A rich analysis of the complex dynamic between food collection and food production in the farming societies of precolonial south central Africa Engaging new linguistic evidence and reinterpreting published archaeological evidence, this sweeping study explores the place of bushcraft and agriculture in the precolonial history of south central Africa across nearly three millennia. Contrary to popular conceptions that place farming at the heart of political and social change, political innovation in precolonial African farming societies was actually contingent on developments in hunting, fishing, and foraging, as de Luna reveals.

Windows on the African Past
Windows on the African Past

Author: Ahmed G. Fahmy

Publisher: Africa Magna Verlag

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 3937248323

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Archaeobotany has significantly increased our knowledge of the relationships between humans and plants throughout the ages. As is amply illustrated in this volume, botanical remains preserved in archaeological contexts have great potential to inform us about past environments and the various methods used by ancient peoples to exploit and cultivate plants. This volume presents the proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on African Archaeobotany (IWAA) held at Helwan University in Cairo, Egypt, on 13-15 June 2009. Studies presented herein clearly illustrate that African archaeobotany is a dynamic field, with many advances in techniques and important case studies presented since the first meeting of IWAA held in 1994. Authors have employed classical and new archaeobotanical techniques, in addition to linguistics and ethnoarchaeology to increase our knowledge about the role of plants in ancient African societies. This book covers a wide range of African countries including Egypt, Ethiopia, Libya, Nigeria, South Africa, and the Canary Islands. It is of interest to archaeobotanists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, agronomists, and plant ecologists.

Speaking with Substance
Speaking with Substance

Author: Kathryn M. de Luna

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-06-27

Total Pages: 172

ISBN-13: 3319910361

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This volume proposes a supplemental approach to interdisciplinary historical reconstructions that draw on archaeological and linguistic data. The introduction lays out the supplemental approach, situating it in the broader context of similar interdisciplinary research methods in other world regions. Reflecting the arguments of the volume and its goal to document the process rather than the outcome of interdisciplinary collaboration, the volume is organized into two two-chapter case studies. Within each case study, the non-specialist develops an historical interpretation using their own research findings and published data from the other discipline.This chapter is followed by critical commentary from the specialist, a dialogue clarifying the commentary and specialists’ methods, and a second short historical interpretation that deploys insights from the supplemental approach. The conclusion reflects on the challenges of disciplinary conventions to interdisciplinary research and the contribution of the supplemental approach to efforts to know the history of oral societies in Africa and beyond