Note 47 — Chapter I · DEFINITION AND DISTINCTION FROM KINDRED PHENOMENA.

The foregoing remarks would be almost superfluous, were it not that some ethnographers in such cases spoke of “slave tribes” and “slave districts”. This may partly be caused by the natives themselves making an incorrect use of the term “slavery”. In North Africa the coast tribes call the inland tribes their slaves, because they keep them bound by a trade monopoly. In the same regions a chief calls himself the slave of another chief, to whom he has to pay a tribute47. As in some cases the slaves live together in separate villages48, it may be difficult to decide whether we have to deal with slave villages or with subjected groups. The criterion then is, whether the subjected people have each an individual master. When we are informed that such is the case, or that they are bought and sold, we may be certain that they are slaves.