Brazilian and African sources for the study 319
of cultural transferences from Brazil to AfricaOn the African continent sources of documentation for the study of
African-Brazilian relations are found more in traditional archives than in the
research institutes connected to universities. International relations programmes
exist in African universities but tend to treat and analyse problems on the con-
tinent itself, or Africa's relationship with Western Europe and/or the United
States. Latin America as a research topic for international relations has been
only recently discussed and analysed.^26 However with the emergence of inde-
pendent Portuguese-speaking Africa, it is expected that Africa will also be
re-thinking its policies towards Latin America, particularly Brazil. Conferences
such as the recent Nigerian FESTAC of January 1977, the more narrowly
focused Yoruba Cultural Diffusion and Diaspora Conference of July 1976
at the Nigerian University of Ife, and the African Influences in the Americas
Conference, held in Colombia during August 1977 have all presented scholarly
discussions of the varied cultural historical links between Africa and the Ameri-
cas. Interesting to note that the basic context of these discussions has been
from the African not the American side or axis.^27 Hopefully with more confer-
ences such as the present meeting in Houston, this international forum for
African-American contact and exchange can be increased.
In Dakar, Senegal, the well-organized and also well-supervised and con-
trolled national archives provide complete documentation for what was under
colonialism the French West African Empire.^28 As direct Brazilian-African
historical influence was strongest in Benin and Togo (passing over into French
administrative control from a defeated Germany after the First World War),
the Dakar archives are a useful alternative to the Paris colonial archives located
on Rue Oudinot.^29 Information which should be located in the Benin National
Archives is better sought in Dakar or in Paris. Togo has yet to open a national
archive, thereby also relegating strict historical research to the Senegalese
repository.
French-speaking Africa is also the subject of serious study at the Institut
Fondamentale de l'Afrique Noire (IFAN), located on the campus of the Uni-
versité du Dakar. IFAN in 1957 in its series, Mémoires, published the multi-
disciplinary 'Les Afro-Américains', an early study of African and Latin-Ameri-
can cultural connections. It was IFAN which sponsored some of the early
research of the photographer/anthropologist Pierre Verger, the indefatigable
researcher and pioneer in the field of African-Brazilian relations, the organ-
ization also supporting at certain stages the work of the late French ' Brési-
lienist' Roger Bastide. The library of IFAN is excellent and quite diverse;
the monograph series, while at times highly specialized and localized in terms
of subject-matter also has many monographs of a more general interest. IFAN
also serves as a kind of unofficial mecca for researchers involved in francophone
African research and acts as a clearing-house for discovering what researchers
are in what countries, working on what kind of topic and project. One can