The Cowboys: A Nigerian Acculturative Institution (ca. 1950)

From 1952 to 1955 I carried out field research in eastern Nigeria, centered at Enugu, and I wrote the paper below, with the present title, before leaving Nigeria, which to my regret I have never revisited. It is reproduced with a very slightly edited text (but added explanatory footnotes), since it now supplies a twofold historical testimony, first, to an African situation, and second, to the discourse interests (and terminology) of an expatriate “colonialist,” a British academic historian, half a century ago. In the paper I commented on the first. I now let the second speak for itself. The article should incite Nigerian scholars—or ex-Cowboys—to question, correct, enlarge, and update my account.