Notes and Queries on Anthropology

Record summary

Notes and Queries on Anthropology was a fieldwork handbook used by colonial officials, missionaries and travelers. Its questions concerning souls, death, dreams, divination, possession, spirits and burial practices shaped what nineteenth-century observers recorded in Africa. It is not itself an apparition case, but it is an identifiable instrument in the production of comparative reports and can reveal how categories were elicited. Researchers should examine edition differences and pair the handbook with notebooks or publications from named users, since the printed prompts alone do not demonstrate that any community endorsed the implied categories.