Grist for the Mill: On Researching the History of Bulozi

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Abstract
Since African history began to be produced in quantity one-and-a-half academic generations ago, there have rarely been shortages of new explanatory theory, though sometimes there has been paucity of data, more often of field than of archival materials. Usually there has been little open discussion of the kinds of methodological problems that both of the other circumstances pose. This contribution to that debate attempts to be deliberately simple, perhaps naive, in order to permit general points to peer through specific examples. It is about the intellectual, technical, and personal complications of field work generally and is illustrated from my own research on the last hundred years in Bulozi, the western part of Zambia. In topic as well as technique, I hope that these experiences have a wider relevance, for much attention is focused on the times of colonial impact.I have in the title purposely set limits on the discussion. I look at the grist being brought to the mill rather than at what is done with it after it has been ground, in the belief that if the quantity and nature of adulteration can be judged -- for no grain is entirely pure -- one may hope to compensate for it in the baking and so produce reasonable bread. Also, extending the analogy a little, I shall identify types of grain, for no amount of baker's skill can produce a wheat loaf from rye flour.

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