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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Deep-Down Time: Political Tradition in Central Africa
Author:Vansina, JanISNI
Year:1989
Periodical:History in Africa
Volume:16
Pages:341-362
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:political ideologies
Bantu-speaking peoples
migration
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Politics and Government
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/3171791
Abstract:Around 1850 the peoples of central Africa from Duala (Cameroon) to the Kunene River (south Angola) and from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes shared a common view of the universe and a common political ideology. This ideology included assumptions about roles, statuses, symbols, values and the notion of legitimate authority. This paper addresses the question of how the social construction of such a common constellation can be traced over great time depths and over great regional scale. The common ideology is expressed in a terminology which goes back to the ancestral language of the first agriculturalists who settled in the area. All languages spoken in the area belong to a single language family, Western Bantu. The approximate date of the arrival of farmers and the dispersal of the Western Bantu languages may be as early as 2000 BC. As direct evidence on this period is scarce, the author focuses on indirect evidence. He first discusses the establishment of an ethnographic baseline, representing the earliest time for which written data are available on language, society, and culture. Then he deals with the use of oral traditions and linguistic data. Finally he considers the development of research designs that utilize the various kinds of indirect evidence, including the insights derived from the setting up of a proto-baseline referring to the time when the single ancestral language was spoken. Notes, ref.
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