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Nyoro symbolism: the ethnographic record

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Rodney Needham
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Extract

This paper is an attempt to establish certain contested facts about Nyoro symbolism. The need to do so results, in brief, from the following circumstances. Eight years ago I published an analysis of the significance of right and left in Nyoro symbolic classification (Needham 1967). John Beattie, who had done field research among the Nyoro, then brought out an article in which he contended that I had seriously misrepresented the nature of Nyoro representations of their own culture and history, ‘even in so far as these can be understood from readily available published sources’. His main concern in his critique, consequently, was ‘to set the Nyoro ethnographic record straight’ (Beattie 1968: 413).

Résumé

LE SYMBOLISME NYORO: LES DONNEES ETHNOGRAPHIQUES

Un article antérieur sur la classification symbolique Nyoro (Needham 1967) a été sujet de controverse pour Beattie (1968) qui maintenait que cette analyse était basée sur une répresentation inexacte de la littérature ethnographique. Cette critique semble avoir été trouvée justifiée par Firth (1975). Le présent article considère l'assertion de Beattie d'avoir remis les choses à leur place dans les archives ethnographiques. On découvre, au contraire, que Beattie a négligé une large proportion des sources historiques et ethnographiques, en particulier celles en langues étrangères, en faveur de ses propres observations sur la société moderne Nyoro. Les accusations, en particulier de représentations inexactes, sont examinées séparément en concluant que les sources ethnographiques disent vraiment ce que Needham a signalé qu'elles disaient. La réplique termine avec un nouvel exposé d'un certain nombre de questions factuelles sur le symbolisme Nyoro et on suggère à Beattie qu'il trouverait plus de profit à essayer d'y répondre.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 1976 , pp. 236 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1976

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