Abstract
The traditional aspects of a Chiga village. Buhara, has already been reported (Omori 1968). At the present paper the author attempts to elucidate some innovations in rural life at a southwestern part of Uganda, East Africa, where he has done .a field reserch for five months in 1967. The factors of innovations are apparently such newly introduced practices and institutions as 1) an expansive consumption, of western commodities, 2) enlarged opportunities to visit and live in urban areas, 3) the establishment of a centralized local government and of a formal village court, and 4) extended education of the primary school level. They certainly deserve to a closer examination. Problems of social change has ardently been debated on by some cultural and social anthropologists. The diffusionists (culture-circle, culture-area school) insist on the change brought by transferred and accumulated new culture elements. The incompetent elements to altered environmental conditions tend to be replaced by more adequate ones. Then, following to the rearrangement of relevant elements, a traditional value system and a social structure are fundamentally transformed. The dynamists (Mercier 1966), on the other hand, persist in an innovation introduced by certain institutional contradiction immanent in the society. An inherent factor may, however, be stimulated and spured into action more effectually by inpacts from outside. To the present situation of the Chiga village the latter view seems to be more properly applicable. Impacts from surrounding African cultures are little influential in comparison with those from European civilization. Abundant sort and amount of commodities are expended in rural life. Farmers raise staple crops by themselves and keep certain heads of domestic animals though, they have to buy salt and sugar as well as oil, matches and cooking utensils. Men and women are normally in the clothes of foreign made. Grass huts in a hemispherical type are now relinquished and people live in solid huts with cemented floor, well-constructed wall and a zined-roof.
