The Royal African Society

Abyssinian Adventure by J. F. MacDonaldReview by: Czeslaw JesmanAfrican Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 227 (Apr., 1958), pp. 151-153Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/719316 .

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151 151 BQOK REVIEWS BQOK REVIEWS

to compensation in cash. Polygamy is still held to be desirable, and figu given from five villages show fifty per cent more married women thm med men. (Unfortunately, comparable figures for the unmarried are not given, nor are the implications of such marital unbalance explored from the point of view of the practice of sister exchange, or of the ses ratio generally.) Chapters on the family, the village and its inter-relationships, on the linkages brought about in the society through womenS on the judicial system, on ancestor cults and on witchcraft, help to complete the account of a society in which traditional fonns and values are still largely currerlt. The book as a whole is a very neat job. (But why do the publishers not date this monograph r any other of the series ?) The treatmeIlt is compact, carefully set out, alld theoretically suggestive. A little austerely, perhaps, the author has refrained from pving much documentatioxl in case terms. But he has followed his own lirle in terminology, even when it is not a fashionable one he writes of " a patrilineal society JJ; he does not use the current distinction between " witchcraft " and " sorcery " because he finds it cumbrous and because the Amba themselves do not make the distinction. A final point of interest as a book by an Americm scholar who worked under the au?pices of the Bntish Coloni.? Social Science Research Council, and who became a Senior Research Fellow of the East Africall Institute of Social Research, this is a good example of combirled operations. Raymond Firth

Abyssixiian Adsenture. By J. F MacDonald. Cassel. " The tanks dived into steep pits, only to cliinb ponderously QUt again . . a One over ambitious driorer tried conclusions neth a tall, slender camel- thorn. He charged it, gathenlng speed as he went. The tree seemed to recoil from the terrifying impact and thrust the taxlk backurards, so that it all but toppled over. The speetators were hugely amused and chattered gleefully ' He go jump too much. No be so ? ' FJ

Seldom a short passage of a book epitomised it aLs adequately as the above excexpt from " Abyssinian Adventure ". For, essentially it is a record of modeIn techrlological warfare, true enough at its tapering off end oIlly, pitted against the hostile and resilient forces of the raw desert which in the end emerges nctoriolls out of the conflict. The succeeding campaigns of the second World War have already receded into the histoncal past. In retrospect their true significance can be better appreciated now than in the days of the actual contest, seen through the smokescreens of semi-mendacious and invariably tendencious Press releases. Thus for example, it call be safely argued that the overthrow of the Itahan Colonial Empire in i:ast Afnca was one of the tuming points of the warX Yet, while fighting was going on, it was almost ridiculed by the official Bntish sources since for considerations of psychologici warfare the Italians were assumed to be complete poltroons and fighting them was almost humiliating.

to compensation in cash. Polygamy is still held to be desirable, and figu given from five villages show fifty per cent more married women thm med men. (Unfortunately, comparable figures for the unmarried are not given, nor are the implications of such marital unbalance explored from the point of view of the practice of sister exchange, or of the ses ratio generally.) Chapters on the family, the village and its inter-relationships, on the linkages brought about in the society through womenS on the judicial system, on ancestor cults and on witchcraft, help to complete the account of a society in which traditional fonns and values are still largely currerlt. The book as a whole is a very neat job. (But why do the publishers not date this monograph r any other of the series ?) The treatmeIlt is compact, carefully set out, alld theoretically suggestive. A little austerely, perhaps, the author has refrained from pving much documentatioxl in case terms. But he has followed his own lirle in terminology, even when it is not a fashionable one he writes of " a patrilineal society JJ; he does not use the current distinction between " witchcraft " and " sorcery " because he finds it cumbrous and because the Amba themselves do not make the distinction. A final point of interest as a book by an Americm scholar who worked under the au?pices of the Bntish Coloni.? Social Science Research Council, and who became a Senior Research Fellow of the East Africall Institute of Social Research, this is a good example of combirled operations. Raymond Firth

Abyssixiian Adsenture. By J. F MacDonald. Cassel. " The tanks dived into steep pits, only to cliinb ponderously QUt again . . a One over ambitious driorer tried conclusions neth a tall, slender camel- thorn. He charged it, gathenlng speed as he went. The tree seemed to recoil from the terrifying impact and thrust the taxlk backurards, so that it all but toppled over. The speetators were hugely amused and chattered gleefully ' He go jump too much. No be so ? ' FJ

Seldom a short passage of a book epitomised it aLs adequately as the above excexpt from " Abyssinian Adventure ". For, essentially it is a record of modeIn techrlological warfare, true enough at its tapering off end oIlly, pitted against the hostile and resilient forces of the raw desert which in the end emerges nctoriolls out of the conflict. The succeeding campaigns of the second World War have already receded into the histoncal past. In retrospect their true significance can be better appreciated now than in the days of the actual contest, seen through the smokescreens of semi-mendacious and invariably tendencious Press releases. Thus for example, it call be safely argued that the overthrow of the Itahan Colonial Empire in i:ast Afnca was one of the tuming points of the warX Yet, while fighting was going on, it was almost ridiculed by the official Bntish sources since for considerations of psychologici warfare the Italians were assumed to be complete poltroons and fighting them was almost humiliating.

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.141 on Tue, 17 Jun 2014 22:21:08 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

152 AFRICAN AEFAIRS

The moment the East African carnpaign ended and Emperor Haile

Selassie I replaced the Duke of Aosta, Italian Viceroy and Commander-in-

Chief at the New Ghebbi in Addis Ababa, this astonishing feat of arms was

forgotten almost overnight under the accurnulating impressions of subsequent

events. And yet on the grand strategical plane the British victory in East

Africa in 1941 was an event of capital importance. Unless it had been won

the future, and more resounding achievements in Africa and in Europe would

not have been possible. Yet veIy little about all this has appeared in print during or since the war.

A Ministry of Information pamphlet " The First To Be Freed " gives a wholly

inadequate and irritatingly supercilious version of events, as though the

fighting and administrative effort which made it possible were a walk-over

and an elementary exercise in logistics. Indeed it turned out to be an

exceedingly swift operation but at the time nobody, and certainly not the

British H.Q. in Nairobi, could have either hoped for such a pass or foreseen it.

As the curtain was rung up in autumn of 1940 on the Kenya theatre of

operations, the odds appeared to be hopelessly against the British. Their

numerical inferiority in trained troops was something like 16 to 1; on other

African fronts the Italians could not be said to be doing badly. They had

driven the British from Somaliland, and taken the port of Berbera. In the

Western desert t}zey had advanced to Sidi Barrani. Radio Rome and Radio

Addis Ababa crowed victory; the morale of the Italian troops was yet an

unknown quantity. At this juncture two East African brigades entrusted with the hopeless

task of repulsing superior enemy forces from Kenya in the desolation of

scrub and sand of the Somali border were reinforced by two West African

brigades. The author of the book, a South Rhodesian tobacco planter c.ans

manded a platoon in one of them. His " AbyssirIian Adventure " is an admirable account of the operations

which followed and of the British invasion of Somaliland. Hjs not

ulconsiderable narrative talents are enhanced by a wholesome irreverence

of approach to " our " side, " their " side, to Ethiopian partisans neth whom

he came into a fleeting association, and to Somali herdsmen. He calls a

spade a spade and it is a relief to read a humorous and terse description of

exotic war without the fatuous jocosity, and " Boy's Own " pluckiness

usually reserved for similar occasions. Mr. MacDonald writes warmly about

the West African soldiers he led into battle and about his British and South

Afncall comrades and much less so about his colonel and " brass " in general.

He speaks highly about the resourcefulness of Benedetti, an Italian guerilla

leader-a formidable opponent with dainty footprints in contrast to the

pure baboonery of the Fascist policy of racial discrimination.

Human affairs pale into insignificance against the background of the

North-West Frontier desert of Kenya and its inhabitants, the Somalis,

stoical alld " as merciless as their country ".

Buna, Wajir, Juba. The author does not say so explicitly, but his fascina-

tion with the and and apparently featureless land of the Somalis, is obvious.

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153 153 BOOK REVIEWS BOOK REVIEWS

It would be very difficult to find a logical answer to this state of mind so frequent among those i:uropeans who had the good luck of visiting this unprepossessing corner of Africa.

The d, tlle sand and the corrosiere sun have obliterated by now all matenal traces of the second World War in the Horn of Afnca. Hence " Abyssinian Adventure " is both an interesting narrative and a historical source of considerable importance. One could only question the suitability of its title; the book deals principally with campaigning in Somaliland alld thus could hardly be called an " Abyssinian " adventure unless one accepts the proposition that the whole of North East Africa is an Abyssmian domain in one sense or another.

Czeslaw Jesman

Atrican Di#covery. MargeIy Perham and J. Simmons. Faber & Faber. 30s. To collate material for a book of this type is not an easy task, but on this

occasion the authors have excelled themselves. In this second edltion, for it was first published over two years ago) they have made available to the student of African histoly, a vast selectioIl of extracts from the diaries and records of eleven well-known explorers.

One cannot help feeling though, that by {' extracting J incidents and commentaries, the authors have left out many vital links. That is particu- larly so, I feel, of the section that deal with Spekes discovery of Uganda. It seems terribly " bitty.J' Of course, in a book of this size (280 pages), it is difficult to use the best passages and at the same time do justice to the logs of so many travellers.

The period covered by this anthology is from 1769 to 1873 when the English language was very picturesque. It is, therefore, particularly pleasing to note that very few alterations have been made either to the spellings or the punctuations.

Throughout the book there are to be found some remarkable character studies, so much so that one feels that one has actually met the person concerned. In their tings, which in manner, differ greatly, one is given a vivid picture of the way life in this barbarous and lonely country affected them. The physical strain is also portrayed very clearly, in some of the journals, and in particular in that of Hugh Clapperton. Passages which leave one with the most vivid pictures of prevailing conditions, at the time, are those covenng Bruce's quest for the tmth about the source of the Blue Nile, Livingstone's discovety of the Victoria Falls and Mungo Park's discovery of the Nile.

To say that this book should have a place on every bookshelf is over- rating it, but I think it fair to say that it would be a boon to evety student of the Continent.

Nicholas C. Hllrst

It would be very difficult to find a logical answer to this state of mind so frequent among those i:uropeans who had the good luck of visiting this unprepossessing corner of Africa.

The d, tlle sand and the corrosiere sun have obliterated by now all matenal traces of the second World War in the Horn of Afnca. Hence " Abyssinian Adventure " is both an interesting narrative and a historical source of considerable importance. One could only question the suitability of its title; the book deals principally with campaigning in Somaliland alld thus could hardly be called an " Abyssinian " adventure unless one accepts the proposition that the whole of North East Africa is an Abyssmian domain in one sense or another.

Czeslaw Jesman

Atrican Di#covery. MargeIy Perham and J. Simmons. Faber & Faber. 30s. To collate material for a book of this type is not an easy task, but on this

occasion the authors have excelled themselves. In this second edltion, for it was first published over two years ago) they have made available to the student of African histoly, a vast selectioIl of extracts from the diaries and records of eleven well-known explorers.

One cannot help feeling though, that by {' extracting J incidents and commentaries, the authors have left out many vital links. That is particu- larly so, I feel, of the section that deal with Spekes discovery of Uganda. It seems terribly " bitty.J' Of course, in a book of this size (280 pages), it is difficult to use the best passages and at the same time do justice to the logs of so many travellers.

The period covered by this anthology is from 1769 to 1873 when the English language was very picturesque. It is, therefore, particularly pleasing to note that very few alterations have been made either to the spellings or the punctuations.

Throughout the book there are to be found some remarkable character studies, so much so that one feels that one has actually met the person concerned. In their tings, which in manner, differ greatly, one is given a vivid picture of the way life in this barbarous and lonely country affected them. The physical strain is also portrayed very clearly, in some of the journals, and in particular in that of Hugh Clapperton. Passages which leave one with the most vivid pictures of prevailing conditions, at the time, are those covenng Bruce's quest for the tmth about the source of the Blue Nile, Livingstone's discovety of the Victoria Falls and Mungo Park's discovery of the Nile.

To say that this book should have a place on every bookshelf is over- rating it, but I think it fair to say that it would be a boon to evety student of the Continent.

Nicholas C. Hllrst

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