African Ethnographic Studies of the 20th Century

Originally published in 1943 this book discusses the life and culture of the Lovedu, a Bantu tribe in South Africa. As well as discussing the Rain-Queen, much of the book is devoted to the royal institutions; the network of links woven by kinship, marriage and marriage cattle, the legal procedure of compromise and appeasement and various aspects of magic, witchcraft and religion. Considered as a whole, the culture emerges as a structure supporting and in turns supported by the Rain-Queen.