ABSTRACT
The Azande occupy a large area in the center of Africa along the Nile-Congo divide, an area divided among three countries: Sudan, Zaire, and the Central African Republic. If the clans had ever had much function or importance in the political or territorial organization of the Azande, it had been replaced by the centralized political organization under their chiefs. The provincial senior inspector of agriculture objected at the point to the manner in which the need for resettlement had been described. He disapproved of the implication that Zande resettlement was being undertaken purely to facilitate agricultural supervision, for he believed it was being carried out as much for administrative as for agricultural purposes. The primary cause of food shortages, according to the Azande, was the large amount of time and energy that had to be spent on work for the government, in which they included moving for resettlement and cotton cultivation, in addition to labor on roads and public works.
