THE BANTU OF KAVIRONDO 199
a less fertile, grassy plain, about seven times the size of the area occupied by the Logoli.1 Like all Bantu Kavirondo, both tribes are mixed pastoral-agricultural. They practise hoe-culture to a fairly even extent, but while the Logoli own two or three head of cattle only per family, the average among the Vugusu is nine head per family, and individual herds of sixty to eighty head are not exceptional among them.
II. Definition of the Political Unit
The logical starting-point of any study of political organization is the demarcation of the political unit as the group and area of reference. In so far as the concept of the political unit involves the notions of power and authority, it would have to be defined as constituting that group of people which submits persistently and in an organized manner to leadership for the purpose of maintaining itself as a unit. It is thereby distinguished from other groups over which it exercises no authority and in contrast to which it recognizes and promotes its own unity. It may or may not maintain relationships with such other groups, and these relationships may either be friendly or hostile, depending upon the preponderence of common or mutual or of conflicting interests between them. The political structure of the unit thus defined would consist of the system of political institutions which maintain the unit as an entity, protecting it against disintegration from within as well as against dangers threatening from without.
A demarcation of the political unit and an analysis of political structure on the basis of this definition meets with some difficulty in the case of the Bantu of Kavirondo. In tribal societies in which political integration has reached the level where a central authority—a chief, a tribal council, &c.—is recognized, the tribal group is a clearly defined political unit: Externally, in that the central authority or government regulates all political relations with foreign groups, and internally, in that it forms the highest authority with regard to the inner maintenance of the group as a body politic. Even where this authority is delegated to smaller groups, the tribal society still constitutes the only political
1 The respective density per square mile is 391 among the Logoli (of South Maragoli) and 73 among the Vugusu (of North Kitosh or Kimilili district). Census of 1932.