THE KINGDOM OF THE ZULU 47
a short time Government rule was confirmed.1 To-day it is a vital part of Zulu life: of ten matters I heard discussed one day in a chief's council seven were directly concerned with Government. Fifty years of close contact with Europeans have radically changed Zulu life along the lines known all over South Africa.2 The military organization has been broken and peace established. The adoption of the plough has put agricultural labour on to the men, and they go out to work for Europeans in Durban, Johannesburg, and elsewhere. The development of new activities and needs, the work of various Government departments, missions, schools, stores, all daily affect the life of the modern Zulu. Communication has become easier, though pressure on the land is greater. Money is a common standard of value. The ancestral cult and much old ceremonial have fallen into disuse.
Zululand is divided into a number of magisterial districts, which are divided into tribes under chiefs,3 who are granted a limited judicial authority and who are required to assist the Government in many administrative matters.4 Within a district the magistrate is the superior political and judicial officer. He is the representative of Government. His court applies European law and is a court of first instance and of appeal from chiefs in cases between Natives decided according to Zulu law. He co-operates with other Government departments, and with the chiefs and their indunas. This, according to statute, is the political system: the chiefs are servants of Government under the magistrate, whom they are bound to obey. In Zulu life the magistrate and the chief occupy different, and in many ways opposed, positions.
The modern Zulu political system is ultimately dominated by the force of Government, represented in the district by the police. They are few in number, for the area and population they control,
11 lack space to discuss historically the way in which Government rule has been accepted, but have tried to make this implicit in my account of the system to-day.
2 See I. Schapera (Editor), Western Civilization and the Natives of South Africa (Routledge, London, 1934).
3 For population figures and maps see N. J. van Warmelo, A Preliminary Survey of the Bantu Tribes of South Africa (Union Government Printer, Pretoria, 1935). Magisterial districts comprise about 30,000 people; tribes vary from tens of to a few thousand taxpayers.
* These -duties are defined by the Natal Code of Native Law, Proclamation No. 168 /I932. See W. Stafford, Native Law as Practised in Natal (Witwaters-rand University Press, Johannesburg, 1935)-