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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Indigenous beer in southern Africa: functions and fluctuations |
Author: | McAllister, P.A. |
Year: | 1993 |
Periodical: | African Studies |
Volume: | 52 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 71-88 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | Southern Africa South Africa |
Subjects: | beer Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00020189308707768 |
Abstract: | Beer is universally made among southern Bantu and probably in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, as the ethnographic record indicates. In the first part of this article the historical and contemporary use of beer among southern Bantu-speakers is surveyed, with occasional reference to people living further north in order to indicate that the data presented here represent only part of a much more widespread pattern. The second part deals with fluctuations in the availability and use of beer among Xhosa-speakers (or 'Cape Nguni') in South Africa over a period of approximately 150 years (c. 1800 to c. 1950) and reasons for these fluctuations. What emerges in both parts of the paper is that beer drinking cannot be regarded merely as an African 'custom' or 'tradition'. Instead (or in addition) it is clear that fluctuations in the manufacture and use of beer are linked to the strategies used by people to react to, or come to terms with, circumstances beyond their control, such as climatic or political circumstances. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |