Patronage is a term that refers to the economic or social power that allows cultural institutions and cultural forms to come into existence and be valued and promoted. Patronage can take the form of a simple and direct transaction,such as the purchase or commissioning of works of art by wealthy people, or it can take the form of the support and recognition of social institutions that influence the production of culture.The patronage system may even,in one sense,be said to be the whole society, in so far as a specific society may recognize and endorse some kinds of cultural activities and not others. This is especially true in colonial situations where the great differences between the colonizing and colonized societies means that some forms of cultural activity crucial to the cultural identity of the colonized,and so highly valued by them, may simply be unrecognizable or, if recognized at all, grossly undervalued by the dominant colonial system. The dominance of certain ethno-centric ideas from European culture at the time of the colonization of other cultures, such as nineteenth-century romantic,liberal-humanist assumptions,concealed such communal cultural systems by promoting the idea that the only significant cultural product is that concerned with and produced by individuals. Post-colonial cultures resist such a concealment because it is impossible to discuss the culture of such societies without recognizing the power of colonial institutions, ideologies and patronage systems in validating some forms of culture and denying the validity of others.The privileging of writing and other inscriptive arts over the oral and the performative arts,as well as over other kinds of signifying practices such as sculpture, painting, carving, weaving, ceramics – the whole body of material inscription beyond the written – offers a classic example of such privileging. Colonial powers instituted these privileges through patronage systems that preferred and encouraged written forms over orality. In the hands of the early missionary patrons, the acquisition of literacy was seen as the mark of civilization,and being raised to a ‘civilized’state was a concomitant of, if not an absolutely necessary precondition for, salvation.This cultural hierarchy was reinforced by Colonial Educational Systems and Colonial Literature Bureaux, whose task was to develop certain forms of communication,such as written texts in the indigenous and colonial languages – newspapers, journals and various kinds of fiction – to encourage the development of a class of colonials willing to participate in colonial modes of social and artistic production (see hegemony). Literature was given support, while oral practices were seen as primitive and were thus neglected or actively discouraged. Although some colonial administrations recognized and even encouraged writing in the indigenous languages, they often did so in ways that transformed local forms of cultural production and encouraged the colonized to accept the superiority of European practices over the local. Thus, for example, in Northern Nigeria, Hausa was encouraged by the Colonial Literature Bureau in the region as a language of expression, in accordance with the policies of ‘indirect rule’ that the British administration in West Africa favoured.But traditional,religious forms were discouraged,while modern forms such as the short fictional narrative were actively promoted. This was seen as consistent with the colonial policy of ‘modernization’ which resulted in the supplanting of local cultural practices by imported European ones. Patronage systems continued to influence the development of postcolonial cultures into and beyond the period of independence, as publishers actively promoted some forms of expression over others (see Lefevere 1983; Griffiths 1996). The control exercised by missionary presses and Colonial Literature Bureaux is obvious,but it may be just as powerfully exercised by the more hidden forces of patronage operated by foreign-owned publishing companies or other media outlets and by the location of the prominent journals of critical assessment in the erstwhile metropolitan centres (Mitchell 1992). The dispute about language choice often intermeshes with these issues of patronage and control,as does the issue of the control of the ownership of the copyright to editions of texts in various designated world or local ‘markets’. As culture is increasingly commodified,the ownership of these agencies for commissioning, licensing and distribution can have profound effects, not only on the pricing and availability of material,but on the selection of the art forms and genres,themes and styles of products that are actively promoted.