Michael Banton

Adaptation and integration in the social system of Temne immigrants in freetown

This paper presents a study of what is sometimes called detribalization—the process by which tribal people, especially those who have left their homeland and obtained paid employment in towns, are separated from the social and cultural heritage of their tribe. But this is too superficial a statement of the matter. It is necessary to define the problem in sociological terms before attempting a systematic analysis of the process. Accordingly I shall start by describing the system of social relations prevailing among Temne in Freetown, and shall examine the forces which, over the past fifty years, have influenced its character. At the beginning of this period relationships among the Temne immigrants appear to have been relatively close and stable, but, from the 1920s, disintegrative tendencies became progressively more marked until, at the end of the 1930s, the young men carried out a series of swift changes which resulted in a more successful adaptation of the system and its closer integration.