Social Facts and Fabrications
"Customary" Law on Kilimanjaro, 1880–1980

A study of the difference between law in the life of an African people and in the local courtrooms.

Sally Falk Moore (Author)

9780521312011, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 27 June 1986

416 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.61 kg

In this book, Sally Falk Moore examines a hundred years in the history of an African people, the Chagga of Kilimanjaro, in order to understand how their present system of 'customary' laws came to be the way it is, and how the idea of custom was used in Tanzania's experiment with African socialism. She discusses the changes that have occurred in the formal legal system, alongside the vast economic and political transformations that came with cash cropping and colonial rule. She also presents a 'legal' chronicle of the members of one lineage to illustrate its use of the formal legal system. This study of the difference between law in the life of a people and law in the local courts will interest teachers and students of legal anthropology and law and also provides an important contribution to anthropological theory. In addition it has practical relevance for the understanding of the operation of 'traditional' institutions and will appeal to readers interested in African history and African studies.

List of tables
List of illustrations
Foreword by Alfred Harris
Preface
Introduction: A time-orientated anthropology: events, processes and history
Part I. Precolonial Economy, Politics and Law: 1. the nineteenth century on Kilimanjaro: ivory, slaves, cattle and warfare
2. Practical norms and mystical ideas in Chagga law
3. The powers and obligations of chiefs and commoners
Part II. Twentieth-century Transformations: Economy, Government, Courts and Cases: 4. The German period: chiefs, cattle, cash and courts
5. The British colonial period and beyond: an economic overview
6. The formal structure of local government and local courts
7. The case reports
Part III. The modern uses of 'customary law': lineage, land and organisational control: 8. The localised patriline in the 1960s and 1970s
9. The chronicle of the M - lineage
10. The local lineage and the larger setting
Epilogue: From types to sequences: social change in anthropology
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Anthropology [JHM]