ABSTRACT
The authority of the African Chief has a sacred character; no doubt this will disappear, but at present it exists and must be taken into account. When an administrative officer in the course of his duties enters into relations with the chief of a district or a village, causing him to execute orders or to take action, the administrator, a secular official, enters the sphere of the divine. And this does not apply only to chiefs. At every contact, even to-day, with native life he meets the impact of religion. In the political reactions of the people, in their habits of work and their modes of life, religion is always an invisible factor. Problems which to all appearance concern only agricultural production, conceal a religious element. It is no paradox to say that the most useful of all animals to native agriculture in Africa is the chicken, the animal which the peasant offers in sacrifice with prayer before choosing his plot of land, before clearing it, imploring rain for it, cultivating it and gathering in the harvest.
