^94 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



through universities from biology, medicine, psychology, modern 

 languages or classics; others have reached it through the channels 

 of administration or missionary work in which everyday contact 

 with native races has stimulated the desire to find out about the 

 people and their ways of life. Consequently there are various 

 methods of viewing the subject, some concerned primarily with 

 the historical or archaeological aspects, some with native languages 

 or with material culture, some with sociology and the changes due 

 to culture contact. These different aspects are considered in later 

 sections of this chapter. 



In the sphere of research organized or partly sponsored by govern- 

 ments, Professor C. G. Seligman was the first anthropologist to be 

 commissioned by an African Government to investigate for ad- 

 ministrative purposes, and his work with Mrs. Seligman in the 

 Sudan, which began in 191 1, has done much to establish the 

 science in Africa. Throughout several expeditions he served in 

 an advisory capacity to the Government, though his work was 

 financed to a considerable extent by scientific institutions in Eng- 

 land. From 1926 onwards Professor Seligman's work in the Sudan 

 was followed up by Dr. Evans-Pritchard, who has made special 

 studies of the Azande, Nuer, and Annak tribes from the modern 

 sociological standpoint (see below). He was likewise financed in 

 a proportion of two to one by scientific bodies in England and the 

 Sudan Government. Concerning purely government research, the 

 late Captain R. S. Rattray was official anthropologist in the Gold 

 Coast for a period of years, while Nigeria similarly supported Dr. 

 C. K. Meek; both of these had spent many years as administrative 

 officers before being seconded for research purposes. On the 

 retirement of these officers there was no government anthropolo- 

 gist in British colonial territories until in 1937 the Rhodes-Living- 

 stone Memorial Institute was established at Livingstone in Nor- 

 thern Rhodesia and Mr. G. Wilson was appointed to the post of 

 anthropologist there. In the same year Dr. S. F. Nadel was ap- 

 pointed by the government of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to carry 

 out a special survey of the Nuba hills. 



Research undertaken by Government officers might be expected 

 to be directly concerned with specific administrative problems, but, 

 as in any other science, it has often proved that the work which is 



