70 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
than the judges of the lesser courts. He controls the distribution and use of the tribal land, organizes large collective hunts, and regulates trade relations with outsiders and the time for sowing and harvesting crops.
With the extension of European control, the chief's administrative duties have greatly increased. He is responsible to the Administration for maintaining law and order in the tribe, preventing crime, and collecting hut-tax and other dues. He must carry out all orders and instructions issued to him, and render any assistance required from him, by responsible officers of the Government; and he is expected to co-operate with the District Commissioner and other members of the Administration in all sorts of political, economic, social, and educational schemes and developments. His formerly undivided control over every aspect of public life has thus been diffused through various Government departments with superior authority. He must, further, deal with the traders, missionaries, would-be concessionaires, and other Europeans living in his Reserve, visiting him, or writing to him; and must issue to his subjects receipts for tax payments, permits for the sale of cattle and corn, and passes to leave the Reserve on v.'sits to the Union or in search of work. The complaint sometimes made against Tshekedi that he is an * office chief' rather than a 'kgotla chief* indicates sufficiently the change in administrative methods that all this has entailed.
Formerly the chief was also the head of the tribal army. He organized military expeditions, often accompanying them himself, performed the necessary war magic, and disposed of the prisoners and loot. With the abolition of inter-tribal warfare under European government, all this has disappeared. Formerly he also organized the great tribal ceremonies upon which the welfare of his people was held to depend. But Kgama, from the time he was converted, fought against these 'heathen1 practices, and after he became chief deliberately ceased to observe them. Since they could not be celebrated without his authority and participation, they have altogether died away, and with them his functions of tribal priest and magician. The Ngwato are now officially a Christian tribe, acknowledging the ritual leadership of the local missionary. The latter is therefore to some extent a rival authority, whose claim to the allegiance of the faithful has at times brought him into conflict with the chief. The monopoly given by Kgama