ABSTRACT
Labour organization in Nupe, in every field of economic activity, is characterized by a twofold principle: the distinction between individual work and family work or, in native terminology, between buca and efako. In certain areas where other forms of production are practised besides agriculture—mostly forms of production involving less heavy work and higher money-return—these additional productive techniques supply the buca work to which the men turn 'after hours'. The resources of the family working-unit thus gain the significance of capital proper, invested in the maintenance of labour; without it, without the prospect of fulfilling all these economic obligations towards the members of the working-unit, the efako group cannot be maintained satisfactorily. The co-operation of the efako group is more or less regularly supplemented by a system of mutual assistance and large-scale collective labour among the villagers, an institution which the Nupe have in common with all other Nigerian tribes.
