Culture, History, and Grass‐Roots Politics in a Northern Cameroons Kingdom
PREDICTIONS of the results of two plebiscites which took place in Northern Cameroons in 1959 and 1961 were almost wholly wrong, and postballoting analyses proved equally erroneous. They failed because relevant cultural data were not considered. Political events take place in a cultural and historical matrix, and if this fact is ignored, prediction or even general understanding of political developments is impossible. This paper attempts to relate such political episodes to their matrix in an important kingdom of the area. Though many of the details of analysis are peculiar to this particular kingdom, the dominant currents of history and culture in much of Northern Cameroons are similar enough that this example possibly affords broader understanding of contemporary political development in that area.
Higi Armed Combat
ONE APPROACH to the study of the warfare of a tribal people is to analyze the total range of types of armed combat in the society. Any fight involving weapons, whether it be between individuals, an individual and a group, or between groups, is considered armed combat. A perusal of the anthropological literature dealing with warfare reveals only two studies which have employed such an approach. Nearly 40 years ago W. Lloyd Warner, in his classic study of Murngin warfare (1931), described six types of engagements in which these Australian aborigines used weaponry. These types included fights, killings, night raids, planned battles, pitched battles between regions, and peace-making fights. Recently, Napoleon A. Chagnon studied the Yanomam6 of Venezuela (1967) and examined five forms of violence through which these Indians express their fierceness. This "graded system of violence" includes duels, club fights, spear fights, raids, and the assassination of visitors. The following analysis of Higi armed combat describes five types of conflict in this society: duels, staff fights, feuds, raids, and battles. The social and political context of each type of combat is discussed, and the causes and outcomes of the conflicts are analyzed. The present study differs from those of Warner and Chagnon in that the three types of armed combat-duels, staff fights, and feuds -which occurred within the Higi political community2 focused upon are classified as internal conflict; and the two types of armed combat-raids and battleswhich occurred between this political community and other Higi political communities are classified as external conflict. Such a distinction is useful because it
Negotiating the cultural and economic outcomes of sport heritage attractions: the case of the National Baseball Hall of Fame
ABSTRACT Contemporary museums must balance their roles as commercial entities and repositories of various, and often dissonant, heritages and histories. Sports museums in particular often have clear commercial and nostalgic aims, particularly through tourist visitation, though the extent to which they represent more challenging narratives remains unclear. This paper examines how one of the most famous sports museums in the world, the National Baseball Hall of Fame (NBHF) in Cooperstown, New York, balances its dual role as tourist attraction and repository of baseball's sometimes checkered past. It was found that different sections of the museum provide greater or lesser degrees of engagement with more controversial issues, although the commercial outputs and appeal of the museum remains clear throughout. Utlimately, the NBHF demonstrates that balancing veneration and critique in collections can be commercially prosperous, and can provide a template for other sport and popular culture museums who may be wary of incorporating more challenging narratives in their exhibits. Furthermore, the symbiotic relationship between the Hall of Fame and the village of Cooperstown, particularly in creating and maintaining cultural and economic outputs, requires further exploration.