ABSTRACT
Reprinted from the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 91, pp. 166-191, 1961. Meyer Fortes was born in South Africa and received his professional degrees from the University of Cape Town and the University of London. Originally trained as a psychologist, he turned to anthropology under the influence of C. G. Seligman and Bronislaw Malinowski. He is William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology and a Fellow of King’s College at Cambridge University. Ghana (formerly the Gold Goast) is the area of his major field work; he has also worked and traveled in Nigeria and South Africa. His books include The Dynamics of Clanship among The Tallensi, The Web of Kinship among the Tallensi, Oedipus and Job in West African Religion, and Kinship and the Social Order: The Legacy of Lewis Henry Morgan.
