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325 BOOK REVIEWS David Buxton, The Abyssinians. New York, Praeger, 1970, pp. 259, $ 8.50. The Christian civilization of Ethiopia has not received the scholarly atten- tion it deserves and, because of this, our knowledge of cultural connections between Africa and the Near East is much the weaker. For this reason, any book which attempts to draw attention to the remarkable cultural achieve- ments of this civilization is to be welcomed. As used by Buxton, the term Abyssinian refers to the Christian culture of the Semitic-speaking peoples of the Ethiopian Highlands. Three introductory chapters deal with the geography and population of the region and with the history and religion of its inhabitants. These are followed by four substantial chapters which treat the architecture, literature, painting and other arts of Abyssinian civilization. The general orientation of the book is clearly towards art history. The South Arabian origins of Ethiopian civilization are discussed and some attention is paid to later cultural influences that entered the country by way of Syria, Egypt and Portugal. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to trace cultural connections between Ethiopia and the rest of subSaharan Africa, particularly the medieval Christian kingdoms of the eastern Sudan. A weakness of the book is the author's failure to draw upon recent scholar- ly work, such as Harold Fleming's study of the history of the Semitic languages in Ethiopia, Herbert Lewis' ethnohistorical studies of the Galla, or Gus Van Beek's work on the Axumite obelisks. Buxton also has the curious habit of re- ferring to the old South-Arabian writing system as a syllabary in which the nature of the vowels is not indicated, rather than as an alphabet. Moslems are alluded to as Muhammadans. Both specialists and the casual reader can, how- ever, profit, from the photographs that accompany the text, many of which have not been published before. McGill University Montreal, Canada BRUCE G. TRIGGER BOOK REVIEWS Harold K. Schneider, The Wahi Wanyaturu : Economics in an African Society. Chicago, Aldine Publishing Company, 1970, Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, Number Forty-Eight, pp. 180, 6 maps, 23 illustrations, $ 6.95. Schneider's book is an economic study based on fieldwork conducted during 1959 and 1960 on "... two villages of the Wahi subtribe of the Wanyaturu" (p. v), a pastorial and horticultural group, in Tanzania at the time when that country was the colony of Tanganyika. It is an economic study in the widest sense with chapters on kinship, indigenous political systems, and on the posi- tion of women as well as on concerns more directly economic. The study is started with a short (six pages) chapter stating Schneider's theoretical position entitled "The Competitive Approach to African Society" in which he gives his theoretical basis emphasizing individual decision making over the communalistic approach:
Journal of Asian and African Studies (in 2002 continued as African and Asian Studies) – Brill
Published: Jan 1, 1972
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