ABSTRACT
Professor Lucy Mair's lucid article summarises both a massive detailed knowledge of Africa and its recent changes, and wide acquaintance with writings on 'social change'. Knowledge and belief are much more difficult. The scheme that follows arose directly from attempts at description; it is an extension of Professor Mair's definition. The author proposes four types of changes. The four types are not mutually exclusive; and they each imply the others: changes in social relationships; changes in knowledge and beliefs; changes in values; changes in the general characteristics of the society. The accurate reporting of changes in values is at least as difficult as the accurate reporting of beliefs. In Turkish Village the author explained that the paradoxical gap between the universally stated ideal of the large three generation patrilineal household and the actual preponderance of simple one-marriage households was due to demographic factors.
