International African Institute

Garçons et Filles: le Passage à l'Age d'Homme chez les Gbaya Kara by Pierre VidalReview by: Philip BurnhamAfrica: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 50, No. 3 (1980), pp. 331-332Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1159136 .

Accessed: 15/06/2014 06:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Cambridge University Press and International African Institute are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to Africa: Journal of the International African Institute.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:26:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS REVIEWS

The author refers to himself as 'a budding church historian' (Preface, ix) and devotes many pages to internal church organisation, the methods and biographies of missionaries, to persecutions, and the reactions of congregations, increase and decrease of congregations and to doctrinal matters. There is a final chapter summarising the activities of other missions that competed with the Church Missionary Society in a marginal way. However, some of these matters seem to be fragmentary, and are not well integrated into the text in an organic manner.

A book such as this must be assessed for its contribution to local history. It is the very first of its type in Niger Delta studies. and is a major addition to studies of the history of this region of Africa. Its contribution, however, has been unduly restricted to purely church history because of its failure to integrate the results of earlier works in the cultural, social and economic history of the Niger Delta. For example, the attempt to increase religious depth through taking account of traditional religion, has been unable to take full account of the studies of Robin Horton among the Kalabari, in spite of the fact that this is also the home area of Tasie. Little effort has been made to understand the traditional religion of other groups.

One example of the distance between present published cultural and social history and its integration into this study will suffice. On pages 3-4, a 1906 work by A. G. Leonard is cited for a list of the 'major groups' of people in the Niger Delta. Naturally, the listing is incomplete, and group designations do not agree with those accepted by the communities named. For example, Brass should read Nembe, Ekpahia is Ekpeye, and Ogbeyan should read Ogbia.

Some of the defects of the study derive from its own history. It was the result of financial assistance from the World Council of Churches Theological Education Fund. The slant towards purely Christian religious history, which is not necessarily a defect, may be understood in the light of this history. Secondly, although the book was published in 1978 after Tasie had become a Professor at the University of Jos, the study originates in a doctoral thesis of the University of Aberdeen written in the late 1960s, in Britain. The sources were, accordingly, mainly missionary archival material, together with scholarly publications available in British libraries from colonial times and up to the early 1960s, and some local Niger Delta sources collected from the place of his undergraduate education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Some attempt has been made to update the bibliography by listing more recent publications on the Niger Delta, but the information from these publications has not been successfully integrated into the body of the earlier manuscript.

In sum, this is a technically well-produced book with a definite place in the list of significant contributions to the history of the Niger Delta. It also deserves a place in the literature of the Christian church in Africa.

E. J. ALAGOA

Garfons et Filles: le Passage a l'Age d'Homme chez les Gbaya Kara. By PIERRE VIDAL. Nanterre: Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, 1976. (Recherches oubanguiennes, 4). Pp. 384, ill., maps.

Initiation rituals, especially those involving lengthy stays in initiation camps under conditions of secrecy, are one of the least well documented features of African societies. The present study is to be welcomed therefore since it provides extremely detailed descriptions of the labi and bana initiations among the Gbaya Kara, a major group of the western Central African Republic. In all, Vidal's study is the result of more than ten years of research, which involved learning the secret language of the labi and prolonged residence in the initiation encampments.

The labi is one of the Gbaya male initiations and is carried out every five to ten years for all the boys of a locality who have reached teenage. The labi has no connection with circumcision which, among the Gbaya, is performed at an earlier age, and it is not connected with an enduring system of age sets or other forms of corporate group. Nonetheless, considerable solidarity develops among a group of initiates, who spend two to three years secluded in the initiation encampment and who undergo rigorous training in the secret language, in bushcraft,

The author refers to himself as 'a budding church historian' (Preface, ix) and devotes many pages to internal church organisation, the methods and biographies of missionaries, to persecutions, and the reactions of congregations, increase and decrease of congregations and to doctrinal matters. There is a final chapter summarising the activities of other missions that competed with the Church Missionary Society in a marginal way. However, some of these matters seem to be fragmentary, and are not well integrated into the text in an organic manner.

A book such as this must be assessed for its contribution to local history. It is the very first of its type in Niger Delta studies. and is a major addition to studies of the history of this region of Africa. Its contribution, however, has been unduly restricted to purely church history because of its failure to integrate the results of earlier works in the cultural, social and economic history of the Niger Delta. For example, the attempt to increase religious depth through taking account of traditional religion, has been unable to take full account of the studies of Robin Horton among the Kalabari, in spite of the fact that this is also the home area of Tasie. Little effort has been made to understand the traditional religion of other groups.

One example of the distance between present published cultural and social history and its integration into this study will suffice. On pages 3-4, a 1906 work by A. G. Leonard is cited for a list of the 'major groups' of people in the Niger Delta. Naturally, the listing is incomplete, and group designations do not agree with those accepted by the communities named. For example, Brass should read Nembe, Ekpahia is Ekpeye, and Ogbeyan should read Ogbia.

Some of the defects of the study derive from its own history. It was the result of financial assistance from the World Council of Churches Theological Education Fund. The slant towards purely Christian religious history, which is not necessarily a defect, may be understood in the light of this history. Secondly, although the book was published in 1978 after Tasie had become a Professor at the University of Jos, the study originates in a doctoral thesis of the University of Aberdeen written in the late 1960s, in Britain. The sources were, accordingly, mainly missionary archival material, together with scholarly publications available in British libraries from colonial times and up to the early 1960s, and some local Niger Delta sources collected from the place of his undergraduate education at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Some attempt has been made to update the bibliography by listing more recent publications on the Niger Delta, but the information from these publications has not been successfully integrated into the body of the earlier manuscript.

In sum, this is a technically well-produced book with a definite place in the list of significant contributions to the history of the Niger Delta. It also deserves a place in the literature of the Christian church in Africa.

E. J. ALAGOA

Garfons et Filles: le Passage a l'Age d'Homme chez les Gbaya Kara. By PIERRE VIDAL. Nanterre: Laboratoire d'Ethnologie et de Sociologie Comparative, 1976. (Recherches oubanguiennes, 4). Pp. 384, ill., maps.

Initiation rituals, especially those involving lengthy stays in initiation camps under conditions of secrecy, are one of the least well documented features of African societies. The present study is to be welcomed therefore since it provides extremely detailed descriptions of the labi and bana initiations among the Gbaya Kara, a major group of the western Central African Republic. In all, Vidal's study is the result of more than ten years of research, which involved learning the secret language of the labi and prolonged residence in the initiation encampments.

The labi is one of the Gbaya male initiations and is carried out every five to ten years for all the boys of a locality who have reached teenage. The labi has no connection with circumcision which, among the Gbaya, is performed at an earlier age, and it is not connected with an enduring system of age sets or other forms of corporate group. Nonetheless, considerable solidarity develops among a group of initiates, who spend two to three years secluded in the initiation encampment and who undergo rigorous training in the secret language, in bushcraft,

331 331

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:26:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

332 REVIEWS

and in dancing. Vidal provides a meticulous description of this training and its associated symbolism which, like so many other initiations, involves a symbolic death and rebirth of the initiates.

The bana, the principal Gbaya women's initiation, is of shorter duration than the labi and has no secret language, but in its way is no less rigorous. The chief ordeal is excision, aAd this is followed by a period of seclusion and instruction.

In the last decade, these initiations have largely been stopped under the pressure of the government of the Central African Republic, and Vidal's work thereby is doubly valuable as a record of a distinctive feature of Central African culture. The author has also produced a film with the same title as the book which is available through the Musee de l'Homme in Paris.

PHILIP BURNHAM

This content downloaded from 185.44.79.179 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 06:26:53 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions