The Effect of Commercial Cloth on the Rundi Culture

Abstract

“Beer belongs” says Madison Avenue. In Burundi, the anthropologist would agree. But as beer-drinking has become excessive, it has created major problems in a number of young African nations, including Burundi. Missionary Hohensee looks beyond such obvious factors as the introduction of commercial brews, and finds a pattern of ramifying culture change that is reminiscent of Lauriston Sharp's “Steel Axes for Stone-Age Australians.” The alien villain that upset the cultural balance is not so much European beer as European cloth.