Identities, identifications, cultural contacts: these are the themes of an ambitious, tough book, which must be of interest to Africanist, not so much because some of the contributions relate to African land (Olivier Leservoisier, the negotiation of categories of destitute origin in the Haalpulaaren of Mauritania; Philippe Laburthe-Tolra, on the ‘Chief’ nkukuma figure in the Beti of Cameroon; Susanne Fürniss, on the borrowing of a circumcision rituel by the Baka du Cam...