700 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [80, 19781

unexplored regions of the continent's interior. From among the many specimens of South

American tribal material cultures he collected, over 6,000 are today in the Museum of An- thropology and Ethnography in Leningrad, while others are in the Volkerkunde museums of Hamburg and Berlin; the NPprstek Museum of Asian. African, and American Cultures in Prague; and the Museum of the American In- dian in New York. His contacts were extensive and worldwide. Among his correspondents was Al& HrdliWa, who was interested in securing from FriE skulls, skeletons, and preserved brains (the current prices in 1906 were $5, $7.50 to $10, and $15 to $20. respectively). FriE gave an account of his research, discoveries, and ex- plorations in numerous articles and books. some addressed to the scholarly community, some to the general public, and still others to young readers. The fourth, revised and enlarged edi- tion of his most popular book, Indians ojSouth America, which is reviewed here, has been pre- pared by FriE's son, Ivan, an accomplished Czech filmmaker.

The book is excellent testimony to the scope of FriE's travels, which were undertaken on mule or horseback, in dugouts, or on foot, whether to the Tapanyuna of the Brazilian Mato G r o w , the Pehuenche of the Argentine pampas, or the dozens of other tribal societies in between. The list is impressive and includes, among others, the AngaitC, Araucanians (Ran- quelche), Bororo, Caduveo, Caingang, Ca- ingua, Cayapo, Chamacoco. Chiriguano, &an& Guarani, Guayakl, Lengua, Morotoco, PayaguP, Picunche, Pilaga, Puelche, SanapanP, ShavantC, Tereno, and Toba. FriE lived with many of these peoples for weeks or months at a time, sharing fully in their daily lives. He even took back to Prague with him in 1909 a seriously ill vChamacoco man by the name of Chemuish (Cerwuz). FriE's accounts of marriage customs (including the couvade), supernaturalism, warfare, body painting and pictography, methods of counting, mythology, primitive medicine, and other subjects are not only entertainingly written but possess the in- sight of a superb observer and a relaxed yet eager participant in the activities of hu many Indian hosts. Not one to miss an opportunity for adventure, no matter how dangerous, Frir ex- plored the Pilcomayo River basin in a search to determine the cause of death of the Spanish ex- plorer Enrique de Ibarreta, who was killed there by local Indians just before the end of the 19th century.

Appended to the present edition (pp. 207-224) is an extract from the diary of G. F.

Cancia, who in 1902 set out to establish the reason for the disappearance along the northern border of Paraguay of the well-known Italian painter and explorer-ethnographer Guido Bog- giani. The entire diary as well as a manuscript of Boggiani's own journal detailing his four-year stay among the Indians is but a small part of Frir's legacy, which includes great quantities of his as yet unpublished notes, over 2,000 neg- atives, 36 Indian vocabularies. an unfinished herbarium of cacti, and other materials resulting from his travels. It would be tragic if time eventually took its toll of what is likely to be an irreplaceable source of information on the ethnography of the South American interior at the beginning of this century.

The text is handsomely printed and accom- panied by 64 pages of Frif's original photo- graphs and drawings, two maps, and a sampling of his correspondence.

Kraal and Castle: Khoikhoi and the Founding of White South Africa. Richard Elphick. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977. xxii + 266 pp. $17.50 (cloth).

Brian M. du Toit University of Florida

Despite the subtitle of this book, it would be fair to state that Elphick has produced a his- torical ethnography of 17th-century southern Africa, or perhaps more accurately, the south- em tip of this region. He has sketched the dynamics of contact among indigenous com- munities, mostly Herders and Hunters, and among these and white individuals. These latter initially were shipwrecked sailors or traders, later soldiers and officials of the Dutch East In- dies Company, and finally free burghers. By the end of the period which is discussed we find almost a mirror image developing, marked by the emergence of a white society interacting with persons representing increasingly more fragmented indigenous communities.

Kraal and Castle is divided into four pans. The first deals with the Cape Khoikhoi before the arrival of whites, the second with Europeans and the Western Cape Khoikhoi (1488- 1701), the third with the process of decline among the latter people during 1652-1701, and finally a chapter dealing with the collapse of the Old Order.

ETHNOLOGY 701

Elphick uses the term “hunter” to refer to San with the result that it becomes unclear in some places whether he is speaking of a hunter or a “hunter” (p. 10) and sometimes a Bushman (p. 32). By using Khoikhoi and hunter rather than Herder and Hunter, or Khoikhoi and San, he sounds somewhat like comparing apples and cats. His justification for this is unconvincing. In discussing the history of these people, more questions arise than are answered: If the Khoi- khoi “originated as a hunter group in southern Africa” (p. 10) how could they also have “first reached the region” (p. 11)) Whatever hap- pened to the Central Sudanic speakers who are joint parents of the Khoikhoi, or in their absence, if the hunters “simply stole the livestock” (p. 12). whom did they steal it from? If , on the other hand, “Khoikhoi words were borrowed’ by Southeast Bantu, where did this contact take place? In the eastern or western Cape, since Bantu speakers were relative late ar- rivals on the scene?

While the Khoikhoi recognized a “chief’ or “captain,” the Dutch often erred by refemng to “king.” So does Elphick when discussing the In- qua and we read about their “chief’ (p. 46,48), their “king” (p. 34). and their “powerful king” (p. 50). The discussion of t h e w of dagga (Can- nabis satrva) is filled with uncritical acceptance of errors from other authors. Elphick accepts Raven-Hart’s suggestion that pipe smoking was taught by Europeans (p. 62) and ignores ar- chaeological evidence to the contrary; he repeatedly refers to important evidence not presented (p. 65); on page 67 he states that dagga did not originate from the Xhosa but on the map (p. 66) shows this trade route as “at- tested.” He makes a strong point that stock figures “are almost certainly too low” (p. 92) and then UMS those same figures to prove that Harry was “the most wealthy” individual on the peninsula (p. 105). It is not clear why “va1ley”and “river” are translated (Maps 1 and 2) but “bergen” not.

Except for the first two chapters which seem very unconvincing, Elphick has produced a study which is richly documented, lucidly writ- ten, and dynamically presented. It illustrates the simultaneous development of white eociety and the decline of the Khoikhoi as viable com- munities. He convincingly illustrates that ‘ I . . . the European subjugation of southern Africa began, not because statesmen or merchants willed it, nor because abstract forces of history made it necessary; but because thousands of or- dinary men, white and brown, quietly pursued their goals, unaware of their fateful conse- quences” (p. 239).

The African Diaspora: Interpretive Essays. Martin L. Kikon and Robert I. Rotberg. Cam- bridge: Harvard University Press, 1976. xii + 510 pp. $18.50 (cloth).

John Stewart University of Illinois, Urbana

This is an anthology of 16 essays, mostly by historians but also by anthropologists (two), political scientists, a classics scholar, a literary scholar, and one sociologist. Three are con- cerned with the presence of blacks in the Graeco-Roman world, medieval Islamic society, and pre-19th-century Britain, respectively; three deal with the African slave trade, and one with the consequences of that trade in Brazil. Another three deal with religion and society in the Caribbean; one essay focuses on the social structure of Afro-Americans in the U.S.; and the others treat sociopolitical issues in Fernando Po, Mauritius, the French West Indies, Nova Scotia, and the US., individually.

This is a useful volume, particularly for its wealth of historical information. The intention behind the book seem twofold: (1) to bring to the reader’s awareness the existence of aggre- gates in widely separated parts of the world, and throughout history, which are linked by their common origin in an African homeland; (2) to show something of the vicissitudes with which these aggregates have been faced and the man- ner of their survival. On each of these counts the achievement is adequate. For those who have been closely following the scholarship of blacks this past decade, however, this book is not over- ly ambitious. Despite its scope, the volume re- mains unnecessarily tentative. Any unifying theme, beyond the question of origins, remains obscure; and while much is made in the in- troductory essay of our being awakened to the utility of the concept “diaspora” in the pursuit of future scholarship on blacks outside the African continent. there is no discussion of the validity of such usage apart from passing ref- erence to the similarities between the African and Jewish experiences.

Should “diaspora” be taken to mean simply the relocating of bodies, or does it entail the dispersion of a certain core culture as well? Does the concept speak of the stylized attitudes of others with respect to a particular group? Or is it all of these? “Diaspora” also signals unity of a profoundly peculiar sort that transcends race or common origins, and includes suffering of tragic proportions: We speak of a European migration, but not of a European diaspora. Which of these aspects of the concept apply most properly to Africans and their descendants