THE BANTU OF KAVIRONDO 219
conditions and circumstances and against the interests only of the people directly or indirectly affected by the offence, the habitual offender becomes a source of danger to everybody in the tribe. He is, therefore, placed outside legal protection of the clan and may be killed by anybody when he is caught in the act of committing his next offence. Thus persons who have come to be regarded as dangerous witches or incorrigible thieves are first driven away from their clan and then, at the next provocation, put to death by the method of lynching carried out by as large and mixed a group of persons as possible to avert the possibility of a blood feud from arising. Such group action in the face of threatening danger, taken spontaneously, i.e. without a hearing of the case and often on the spur of the moment, is clearly not the same as institutionalized jurisdiction by the tribal society through recognized judicial authorities. It is rather that in such cases the person of the accuser becomes multiplied and that the tribal group by being accuser and public opinion at the same time cuts short the usual judicial procedure. It will be seen, therefore, that the occurrence of indiscriminate group-action in the face of dangerous witchcraft and habitual crime does not invalidate the basic principle of jurisdiction, viz. that it comes into force only when solicited by the victim or victims of the offence and takes place only within and between those groups of persons whose common interests are affected by the offence.1
A brief discussion of judicial procedure will show how this principle of group solidarity along clan lines works in practice, comprising ever-widening groups as the significance of the offence widens. In the initial stages of each dispute over a material
1 A similar view is taken by J. H. Driberg in his paper cited on p. 203 supra. Driberg, however, constructs a difference between two distinct categories of offences, those against individuals (or individuals representing a family, community, or association), and those directed against or affecting the whole 'body politic*. With the first category he classes such offences as homicide, theft, adultery, injuries, slander, &c., and with the second one— which he calls anti-social—witchcraft, incest, and sexual perversion. With reference to Kavirondo law this classification would not apply, as (i) from the point of view of their social repercussion, offences show a wide range of shades, affecting ever-widening groups as they increase in seriousness, and not the two distinct types which he labels fanti-individual* and 'anti-social', and (2) the amount of social disruption caused by an offence does not depend on the kind of offence (whether murder or witchcraft), but upon the particular conditions under which it has been committed, one of them being the previous record of the offender, another one the motives underlying his action.