64 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
adultery, trespass, damage to property, theft, or defamation, may either pass it over or, through the elder of his family-group, try to arrive at an agreed settlement with the offender. Failing this, he takes the matter to the court of defendant's ward-head. Crimes, such as offences against political authorities acting in their official capacity, breaches of the laws decreed by the chief, rape, assault, homicide, and sorcery, can never be compounded, but must always come to trial. All trials are heard in public, and any member of the tribe has the right to attend and take part in the proceedings, no matter in what court they are held. The parties concerned and their respective witnesses are heard in succession, listened to intently and uninterruptedly, and closely questioned by the people present. The judge then throws the matter open for general discussion, and the merits of the case are publicly argued by those wishing to do so. This is one of the principal functions of his personal advisers. Finally he sums up, in the light of the opinions thus expressed, and either pronounces his verdict or, if he feels that the case is too important or difficult, refers it to the court of his political superior. If either party is dissatisfied with the verdict, he can likewise appeal against it. The case is then heard again from the very beginning at the superior court, pending whose decision action is suspended. A case originating in a family-group may thus pass through three or four grades of intermediate court before ultimately reaching the chief.
In effect, therefore, the existing social and territorial organization is used to delegate matters of more purely local concern to the subordinate authorities, but the government of the tribe as a whole is concentrated in the hands of the chief and his personal advisers. The chief is the central figure round whom the tribal life revolves, and through whom the activities of the tribe are ordered and controlled. He is at once its ruler and judge, maker and guardian of its law, and director of its economic life, and in the olden days was also its leader in war and its principal priest and magician. It is primarily through allegiance to him that the members of the tribe express their unity. He calls and signs himself 'Kgosi ya baNgzoato\ 'Chief of the Ngwato people'; he is ceremonially addressed, by the personification of the tribal name, as 'MoNgwato'; the tribe itself is named after his ancestor, the legendary founder of the royal line; and he is its representative and spokesman in all its external relations. Like his subordinate