ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how certain isolated African traits have held over in American Negro behavior, most often in uninstitutionalized form. The specific survival of African etiquette is the matter of turning the head when laughing, or in speaking to elders or other respected persons of averting the eyes and perhaps the face. The role of the secret societies in the parts of Africa from which the slaves were derived is well known, but has been stressed in favor of the large number of less sensational, but no less important, nonsecret associations. In Africa, and in the West Indies where Africanisms persist, marriage is not a matter requiring approval of the state. Only consent of the families concerned is needed, while marriage rites depart from the secular only to the extent that they are directed toward obtaining the benevolent oversight of the ancestors. The economic situation of the Negro was active force in establishing the "maternal" family type.
