Contenu du sommaire

Adaptability of Traditional Farming Methods in Tropical Africa: The Dagari Territory (Haute-Volta). In studying the agricultural developments and the farming system of the Haute-Volta Dagari, a paleonegritic population, the author found that through numerous though very limited means, traditional fanning methods are being adapted to new conditions. The Dagari are constantly worrying about problems of water control, soil exhaustion and of agricultural techniques. The carrying capacity of their territory reaches, in this specific Sudan climate, 50 people/km2. To achieve this result, they resort to all the farming methods known to preindustrial and precapitalist people: terraced cultivation, draining and irrigation networks, crop rotation and shifting cultivation. To help solve remaining problems, new techniques obviously should be introduced. But they should take into account the original capacity for adjustement, as revealed by the study of Dagari agriculture, and that has not been the case so far.

Transformation of Rural Food Habits between 1850 and 1936. Having studied 357 answers to a questionnaire issued by the Encyclopédie française in 1935 on rural eating habits, the author has attempted to trace the evolution of food habits between 1850 and 1936 from a quantitative as well as a qualitative point of view with a breakdown into different periods. In a further stage, the emphasis has been laid on studying innovations as perceived by a rural milieu in particular on the consumption of beef and veal in relation to feasts and the social corresponding occasions.

Judiciary Inquiries in the Old Namur County, Source of Rural History. Judiciary inquiries recorded the declarations of the witnesses who were heard during the instruction of the trials. The drafts filed up in the offices of the clerks of the courts. Those of the Council of Namur, the main judiciary institution of the old Namur County, dating from the 15th to the 18th century, were classified and an analytical inventory was published on the collection. Those documents represent an especially valuable source of information. The present article was meant to emphasize its essential elements about past country life, as well on the level of justice and society as on the level of economy and technology. It intended to underline a few new prospects for historical research in this field.

Villages and Migrants: How Rural Youths Perceive their Native Environment when away from Home. This article shows how migrants of rural communes relate to their former environment, how they feel, judge, live that surrounding. Instead of considering the visible topographical features that can be observed by the geographer, the author decides to concentrate on the intangible ties that bind a person to his home, attempting to define an individual or collective sense of belonging and to discover what attitudes and behaviour it may imply. Data for this study were taken from informal group talks with rural youths arriving for a period of professional training in regional centers. One hundred and one compositions written by these students on the subject "My Commune" where also analyzed, and excerpts from them are often cited to make the reader more aware of the ideas and feelings of rural inhabitants. One can experience one's environment on many different levels ; four of these, considered to be the most essential, are treated in detail — physical, social, economic, and cultural. The motives prompting youths to enroll for professional training are discussed, as are the ways in which leaving home modified their perception of their native environment.