SOME YORUBA KINGDOMS UNDER MODERN CONDITIONS1
| Author | P. Morton‐Williams |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1955.tb00110.x |
| Date | 01 October 1955 |
| Published date | 01 October 1955 |
174
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
(b)
The
progressive farmer with an economic holding
must
sooner
rather
than
later
return
to live on his
land;
this
will enable
the
size of village to
be decreased to more homogeneous proportions. Asmall labour force
will be required by these farmers
and
this
can
best be provided by
local villagers with little or no
land
of their own.
(c)
An artisan class
must
be encouraged in
the
village community,
and
loans provided for
them
where necessary.
(d)
The
lot of
the
Kikuyu
women can be eased in village life.
(e)
Titles for village plots. As emergency conditions allow
the
present
position to clarify, village residents should be given a secure title to a plot
of
land
in
the
village to offset
any
desire to
return
to
the'
ahoi '
tenant
system which would damage proper farm planning on consolidated
economic holdings. This
must
not
lag behind
the
plan to give titles
to farmers with considered economic holdings.
(f)
The
building of villages has created a serious wood fuel shortage in some
areas
and
avigorous policy of reafforestation is required.
It
is of course far too early to ' go
firm'
on a policy of permanent village
settlements for
the
Kikuyu, though it is encouraging to note
the
increasing
number who are building semi-permanent houses with corrugated iron roofs
in some of
the
villages. At
the
appropriate stage, athorough survey will be
required to assess
the
best sites,
the
size
and
form of
any
permanent villages,
and
also a complete review of
the
siting of schools, churches, dispensaries, shops,
markets,
and
road facilities, throughout
the
district, to meet
the
situation
at
that
time.
SOME YORUBA KINGDOMS
UNDER
MODERN CONDITIONS!
By P. Morton-Williams,
West
African
Institute
of Social
and
Economic
Research,
University
College,
.
Ibadan,
Nigeria
T
HE
Yoruba people, who
number
about
four million, inhabit south-western
Nigeria
and
part
of western Dahomey. They are divided into some two dozen
named
tribes, which are characterised by variations in
the
form
and
inter-
relations of
their
major social institutions, by dialect differences, by facial
markings,
and
by a consciousness in
the
people themselves of belonging to
distinctive groups.
Their social organisation has been
adapted
remarkably successfully in
the
course of
the
last few centuries to great changes in
the
environment,
and
to-day
many
new institutions are being assimilated. This development has
not
been
without
conflicts; nevertheless, on
the
whole,
the
Yoruba look to
the
future
. !
Some
of
the
field
research
for
this
paper
was
done
in 1953, in course of
my
work
for
the
West
African
Institute
of Social
and
Economic
Research
:
the
greater
part
was
done
in 1950-51,
while
Iheld a
Horniman
Studentship
of
the
Royal
Anthropological
.Institute
augmented
for field
expenses
by
a
grant
from
the
Research
Fund
of
the
University
'of
London.'
To
the
Trustees
of
the
Emslie
Horniman
Anthropological
Scholarship
Fund
and
to
the
Central
Research
Funds
Committee,
I
wish
to
express
my
thanks.
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