Tribalism and Social Evolution in Africa

Abstract

While tribal systems vary widely throughout Africa, there are certain basic similarities. These similarities reveal the presence in domestic, economic, political, and re ligious life of a flexibility that makes of the tribe a living, dynamic organism. Religious consciousness dominates tribal thought and permeates tribal life, giving rise to a living moral ity. An impartial examination of the details of tribal systems reveals the falsity of many popular misconceptions, and, al though it is not suggested that such systems can or should be deliberately perpetuated, it is suggested that there is within them much of very real value. Far from being opposed to change, or opposed to nationalism, they contain the very es sence of the widest possible nationalism. Further, they are based on a moral sense which is rooted as deep as the sense of ancestry, the destruction of which opens the way to the rule of sheer expediency. The flexibility of tribal systems gives them enormous adaptive power, enabling them not only to ac cept change but to further it, assisting new nations to unity, not despite diversity, but through it.