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The Native Races of East Africa

Chapter 2: PREFACE
By Wilfrid D. Hambly
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About This Book

A regional survey that describes the peoples, environments, and customs of East Africa, combining geographical overview with ethnographic detail. It contrasts forest hunter-gatherer lifeways with pastoral and agricultural societies and profiles groups such as Pygmies, Nilotic and Bantu communities, the Masai, Akikuyu, and Baganda. Chapters outline social organisation, ceremonies, folktales, material culture, and subsistence methods, and discuss linguistic and racial interactions including Arab and Hamitic influences. The narrative also notes the impact of trade, railways, and monetary exchange on local economies and offers practical observations aimed at readers interested in teaching or travelling in the region.

Printed in Great Britain by
Morrison & Gibb Ltd., Edinburgh

PREFACE

During recent years there has been a very happy tendency to change the nature of geographical teaching from a monotonous memorising of the names of natural features to a subject of living interest.

In the endeavour to effect this change there has been a serious omission in our failure to appeal to natural interests of children by making the human element a central feature of geographical work.

A study of the picturesque lives of native races of the British Empire is an absolute essential if the teacher wishes to impart the appropriate colour and setting to a subsequent course of economic, regional, and political geography.

The sharp contrast between European beliefs and customs and those of primitive people is in itself an incentive to study and interest. In addition to this, a sympathetic understanding of the many native races who are controlled by English statesmanship is necessary for the material and moral progress of dominions in the British Empire.

W. D. HAMBLY.