ANTHROPOLOGY 59 I 



it is reasonable to foresee that there will be a steady and increasing 

 flow of studies on individual tribes from the pens of administrative 

 officers themselves; but men and women with a more intensive 

 training in the methods of anthropological research must also find 

 an important place in the African field. The part that is being and 

 could be played by anthropology in relation to administrative 

 departments is explained in the chapter on 'Studies in social life' 

 in An African Survey, but in relation to other parts of this scientific 

 volume, it can be demonstrated similarly how anthropology enters 

 the sphere of the technical departments in any African territory. 

 Many problems, connected with administration, but coming 

 within the purview of agriculture, are those resulting from econo- 

 mic changes. The traditional social and economic order of native 

 society is being changed by world economic conditions, which are 

 quite beyond the control of Africa itself. Thus the cultivation of 

 new crops for the world's markets and the demands for labour for 

 European enterprises have profound and far-reaching eflfects on 

 the family, the tribal organization, religious beliefs and sanctions, 

 traditional morality and other branches of social structure. The 

 effect of these changes may be disastrous unless there is an under- 

 standing of the native social and economic systems, and unless an 

 attempt is made on the basis of adequate knowledge to replace 

 them, where they are breaking down, by new incentives to labour, 

 new values and new economic wants. 



The developments in methods of production by Africans for 

 their own subsistence also raise many anthropological problems. 

 Detailed knowledge of native methods of cultivation is clearly 

 necessary, since important practices may be overlooked by agri- 

 cultural officers in their necessarily rapid surveys. Thus in one 

 area a complicated five- or seven-year rotation of crops was dis- 

 covered by a sociological research worker, whereas it had pre- 

 viously been presumed that the people in question had a hap- 

 hazard system with no rotation. In another instance the question 

 had to be decided by Government whether the food shortage 

 during certain months of the year was acute enough to make it 

 worth while to undertake the efifort of introducing a new crop for 

 native consumption. The only means by which this information 

 could be obtained was by careful records of the nature and quan- 



