ABSTRACT
In the 1880s the Tio on the plateau around the capital Mbe, as on the other Bateke plateaux, lived scattered in villages which were generally small in size ranging from less than ten inhabitants to perhaps forty. They practised agriculture, hunted, and gathered food and other commodities needed in daily life. Between the villages there were links of kinship and co-operation so that clusters of them formed what has been called the little society or the neighbourhood. By cultural standards it becomes difficult to say where the Tio begin and end. Population density is a major element of any social system, so that changes in density would almost certainly have implied major changes in the social system. To describe the way of life of an ethnic group during a particular period of time raises questions concerning the object of the analysis itself: what and who is studied and questions dealing with the availability of data.
