A Further Note on Joking Relationships

Bibliographic Data

ID7547719
AuthorsA R Radcliffe‐brown (corresponding author), A R Radcliffe-Brown
Year1949
Volume19
Issue2
Pages133-140
Publication date1949-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAfrica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-9720 • E-ISSN: 1750-0184
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1156517
OpenAlexW2076287124
LanguageEN
Citations received69
References cited5

Opening Paragraph Professor Griaule's article on ‘L'Alliance cathartique’ in Africa of October 1948 raises a methodological point of considerable importance. If we wish to understand a custom or institution that we find in a particular society there are two ways of dealing with it. One is to examine the part it plays in the system or complex of customs and institutions in which it is found and the meaning that it has within this complex for the people themselves. Professor Griaule deals in this way with the custom by which the Bozo and the Dogon exchange insults with each other. He considers it as an element in a complex of customs, institutions, myths, and ideas to which the Dogon themselves refer by the term mangou . He shows us also what meaning the natives themselves attribute to this exchange of insults (p. 253). As a piece of analysis the article is admirable, and is a most important contribution to our growing knowledge of West African society

Alliance · Element (criminal law · Epistemology · Institution · Meaning (existential · Mythology · Paragraph · Point (geometry · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Wish · African history and culture analysis · African history and culture studies · Anthropology · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy

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