Buchbesprechungen
Literatur
Bargatzky, Th. 1988: Review of Lowell D. Holmes, Quest for the real Samoa: The Mead/Free-
man controversy and beyond. In: Pacific Studies 11 (3): 131â151.
Beaglehole, E.; Beaglehole, P. 1938: Ethnology of Pukapuka. Bernice P. Bishop Museum Bulle-
tin 150. Honolulu.
Epstein, A. L. (ed.) 1967: The craft of social anthropology, London.
Gluckman, M. 1967: Introduction. In: A. L. Epstein 1967.
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lands. Doctoral Dissertation. University of Chicago, Department of Anthropolgy.
Schweizer, Th. 1990: Margaret Mead and Samoa: Zur Qualität und Interpretation ethnologi-
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Volker Harms
Casajus, D.: La tente dans la solitude: la société et les morts chez les Touaregs Kel Ferwan.
Atelier d'anthropologie sociale. ISBN 0-521-30970-0 (C. U. P.)/2-7351-0190-8 (M. S. H.). 390
S., 36 Photos, 41 Fig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press / Paris: Editions dela Maison des
Sciences de l'Homme 1987.
Although the central róle of the tent in nomadic life has been recognised in titles such as Ras-
wan's, the nature of that róle has until now been largely neglected. Here at last it is adequately
explored within the now classic French framework of two counterpoised poles. The tent is pre-
sented as the permanent setting for the continuity in Kel Ferwan society, in juxtaposition to the
surrounding emptiness which threatens it, personified by the kel esuf âthose of the wastesâ, es-
sentially the malevolent spirits of those whose identity has not been preserved. This permanence
is both conceptual, as established in tent form as an image of the cosmos, hence following divine
ordinance since the beginning of time, and actual in the sense that, on the marriage of an elder
daughter, she inherits her motherâs own tent, which she in turn will maintain with newly-woven
matting, before passing it on in due course to her own daughter. As the domain and actual pro-
perty of the woman, and her home with a possible succession of husbands, the tent stands in the
same relation to the female world as the veil to the male: a man, essentially tentless unless accep-
ted by a woman, wears his veil permanently as a protection against the kel esuf in the outside
world, and to be worthy of Godâs benificence, just as a woman shelters from the spirits in her
tent, which must be secured by particular rituals at times of marriage and birth, or celebrations
of its sanctity.
The camp, by contrast, is presented as a male domain, the site chosen by men, and its tents
grouped patrilineally; as such it is impermanent not only in spatial terms but as a social unit, ten-
ding to disperse when the authority of the dominant male fails, or when the number of grand-
children exceeds acceptable limits. Thus whereas the tent is constantly renewed, the fabric of the
camp, represented by its folds of thorn bushes, ages and ultimately fails. The movement between
camps, and through the wastes, appears to threaten the permanence of Tuareg society while ac-
tually guaranteeing its survival by assuring new pasture on the one hand, and new brides and
Progeny on the other. While a man must leave his mother's tent at adolescence, and remain effec-
tively roofless until he marries and is received in his wife's tent, he remains in his camp while it is