This article focuses on the symbolic qualities of sorghum beer and milk among the Iraqw, an agropastoralist people living in northern Tanzania. The author illustrates how the villagers of Maghang, in the southern part of Mbulu District, handle and make use of these two products, and illuminates the manner in which both products become associated with qualities that are perceived as positive and desirable. With the spread of the market economy and of money as a medium of exchange, the symbolic content of sorghum beer and milk has come under considerable pressure. As products in demand, they may today circulate in impersonal relations which lack the social and religious qualities that they traditionally communicated. The monetization of sorghum beer and milk has not, however, caused a breakdown in established practices or in the structures of meaning in which such practices are embedded. The author describes some of the processes which seem to be of importance in explaining this remarkable cultural continuity in the face of fairly radical social change. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French.
