Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-7pwfn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T15:45:17.522Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Further Note on Funeral Friendship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Mary Tew
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A Detailed description of a kind of joking relationship among the Ambo is welcome for several reasons. The institution of funeral friendship is found in the cultures of a far wider region than that indicated by the writer. Not only do the tribes of the Bemba and Nyanja groups associate partnership in funeral obligations with freedom of mutual abuse, but this is also culturally accepted widely in Tanganyika and Portuguese East Africa. It seems that from the Zambezi in the south to Lake Tanganyika, and from the east coast to the Luangwa river, are to be found the main elements of the institution described for the Ambo. Hitherto they have been known by their vernacular names: banungwe for the Bemba, uzukuru for the Nyanja, Tumbuka and Lake Shore Tonga, mwilo for the Yao, utani for the Ngoni and neighbouring tribes of Tanganyika. In every case funeral obligations mutually accepted are made the basis of an alliance between persons belonging to different clans, or even to different tribes.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 1951, pp. 122 - 124
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1951

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

page 122 note 1 Stefaniszyn, B., Africa, xx. 4, 1950, pp. 290–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 122 note 2 Richards, A. I., ‘Reciprocal Clan Relationships among the Bemba’, Man, 1937.Google Scholar

page 122 note 3 Scott, D. C., Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Manganja, 1892Google Scholar; Stannus, H. S., ‘Notes on Some Tribes of British Central Africa’, J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst. xl, 1910Google Scholar. D., Fraser, Winning a Primitive People, 1914, p. 156Google Scholar; MacAlpine, A. G., Tonga Religious Beliefs and Customs’, J. Roy. Afr. Soc, xviii, Jan. 1906, pp. 188–9, 257-68Google Scholar; Young, T. C., Notes on the Customs of the Tumbuka-Kamanga, 1931, p. 169.Google Scholar

page 122 note 4 Stannus, H. S., ‘The Wayao of Nyasaland’, Harvard African Studies, 1923Google Scholar, Varia Africana, iii, p. 241 ; Macdonald, D., Africana, 1882, pp. 102–3.Google Scholar

page 122 note 5 Scrivenor, T. V., ‘Some Notes on Utani’, Tanganyika Notes, iv, 1937Google Scholar ; Pedler, F. J., ‘Joking Relationships in E. Africa’, Africa, xiii. 2, 1940Google Scholar ; Moreau, R. E., ‘The Joking Relationship (Utani) in Tanganyika’, Tanganyika Notes, xii. 1941Google Scholar ; ‘Joking Relationships in Tanganyika’, Africa, xiv. 3, 1944Google Scholar ; Spies, E., ‘Observations on Utani customs among the Ngoni of Songea District’, Tanganyika Notes, xvi. 1943.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., 'Zande Blood-Brotherhood, Africa, vi. 4, 1933.Google Scholar

page 123 note 1 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic among the Azande, p. 43.Google Scholar

page 124 note 1 Wilson, G., ‘Nyakyusa conventions of Burial’, Bantu Studies, 1939Google Scholar. This account does not mention funeral friendships, but we learn that they do exist among the Nyakyusa from Moreau, op. cit.