In this paper I consider kithitu (pl. ithitu) among the Kamba, a ‘Bantu speaking’ people in Central Kenya. Kithitu is a kind of magical medicine (muthea) in a broad sense. Its form is a medicine container, such as an animal's horn or a human tibia, in which magical medicine is packed. Medicine is mainly made from plants, but it is very difficult to know the constituents of medicine because secrecy about the ingredients is strictly kept.
There are many kinds and many uses of ithitu among the Kamba, but in this paper I examine Kilonzo's kithitu which is very well-known in the northern part of Kitui District. There are many oral traditions and much gossip about the kithitu in which its potency and the people's fear of it are always expressed.
Here I consider how the Kamba explain the various qualities and power of the kithitu, including:
1. The owner must keep his kithitu in the bush (kitheka) far away from his homestead (musyi). If he puts it in his homestead, the people of his homestead will die because of the strong effective power of the kithitu.
2. After using the kithitu, the owner and the persons concerned must not leave it without wiping off their eyes, hands and the soles of their feet with a mixture of juice from some plants and the soil of an ant hill, or with mwoyo (the undigested contents of a goat's stomach), because they have to cleanse the destructive power of the kithitu before coming back to their homes.
3. The kithitu sometimes comes near to the owner's homestead from the bush and cries like a man asking a goat's blood to drink. On such occasions, the owner must kill a goat and take the blood to the kithitu immediately. It is said that if he neglects this, all the members of his homestead will die.
4. The owner of strong kithitu can not have his real sons. It is believed that his real sons die young one after another because he always uses the kithitu.
5. The kithitu is used in oaths as kuya kithitu (to eat kithitu). It has the power to judge the truth. The accuser and the accused go to the bush and each of them swears over the kithitu, saying that if he tells a lie the kithitu may kill him. But people don't swear over the kithitu directly without kusuna kavyu (to lick a hot knife), ordeal as the first step, because the kithitu is so dangerous that a liar is killed with it. Swearing over the kithitu is connected with law, morals, values, legal procedure, clan conferences (mbai), political power and so on.
The kithitu is used as uoi (magical power to knock down an enemy or a rival). When some person encounters serious difficulties brought by his enemy, he visits and asks the owner of the kithitu to kill his enemy. The owner chants a spell against the enemy, striking the kithitu with a twig.
The Kamba categorize uoi into two parts: Uoi wa mundu ume (uoi of man) and uoi wa mundu muka (uoi of woman). The kithitu belongs to the category of uoi of man. It has the characteristics shown below:
(1) A person who wants to use the kithitu must pay money to the owner. It costs about three hundreds shillings (equivalent to about fifteen thousands yen). Kuthooa kithitu (to buy kithitu) means to use kithitu as uoi.
(2) Women and children cannot approach and use the kithitu because administering it is always attended by some danger and secrecy. Only the male adults can use it.
(3) It is forbidden to use the kithitu without socially justified reasons. To use kithitu is basically permitted by the society, but only if people follow the prescribed pattern of usage. The kithitu as uoi is deeply related to the kamba magico-religious beliefs a

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Ethnographic literature on woman-marriage in patrilineal societies in eastern and southern Africa shows a lot of confusion about ethnographers' assessments of this type of marriage due to the misuse of analytical terms. This paper aims to examine the validity of two guiding concepts in the writings of woman-marriage: female husbands and the house-property complex.
The term female husband refers to a woman who takes on the legal and social roles of husband and father by marrying another woman in accordance with the approved rules and ceremonies of her society. There are two major types of female husband. A surrogate female husband is a woman who acts as a substitute for a male kinsman in order to provide offspring for the latter's agnatic lineage. An autonomous female husband is one who marries independently, without any reference to male kin, and who is always a pater to children born by her wife or wives.
The house-property complex is a system of property holding and inheritance in which all property held by a polygynous family in patrilineal societies is divided and held separately by the nuclear family, or ‘house’, of each wife. This institution is thought of as an important factor in practices of woman-marriage. Its distribution is from the southern Sudan through East Africa to the east of Victoria Nyanza and into the eastern part of southern Africa.
Problem arises if an ethnographer encounters a practice of woman-marriage in a society in which the house-property complex exists. Because both concepts which are built on different principles conflict each other in such a situation. I suggest three criterions for deciding which concept is more efficient explanation of woman-marriage in question, namely a source of bridewealth, the legitimacy of a child, and the appropriateness of the application of the term female husband.
A case study of woman-marriage among the Mbeere, one of the Northeastern Bantu-speaking peoples, is more cogently analyzed in terms of the house-property complex rather than the idea of female husbands in the light of those criterions. (i) There is a principle of internal segmentation of a polygynous family, in which each wife attaches much importance to keeping a single ‘house’. (ii) After woman-marriage, a sonless married woman stands as mother-in-law for the young woman, and as a grandmother for the latter's child, which is clearly manifested in the modes of address and naming of a child.

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本特集は，アフリカの脱植民地化に影響を及ぼしたことで知られる黒人文化総合誌『プレザンス・アフリケーヌ』創刊70周年に前後して同誌の共同研究を進めてきた文学・文化人類学の専門家による研究成果の集成である。

『プレザンス・アフリケーヌ』誌は，A.セゼールやL.S.サンゴールといったカリブ・アフリカ出身の文化人にとってかけがえのない創作の場であったばかりでなく，政治，経済，歴史，教育等の専門家が集う学術分野を超えた集団討議の場でもあった。主要言語はフランス語であるが，英語圏からの執筆者もおおく，スペイン語やポルトガル語による作品も掲載された。また同誌は黒人のみに開かれていたわけではなく，創刊にはJ.-P.サルトルやA.ジッドといったフランスの白人知識人が参加した。またプレザンス・アフリケーヌは，アフリカ系知識人の作品を送りだしてきた出版社でもあり，第1回黒人作家芸術家会議をはじめとする歴史的イベントを組織した事業体でもある。

序論である本稿では，言論媒体であると同時に多種多様な人々の交流と混淆を促す運動そのものでもあったプレザンス・アフリケーヌの相貌を概観し，この文化複合体を研究することの今日的意義を明らかにする。

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