22Z AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
A different situation arose when a dispute between two members of the same clan led to a dissension among the clan elders, each backed by a section of the clan, and neither section was willing to yield to the other. In such a case, the weaker section would secede from the clan land and join another clan or migrate elsewhere, and a new clan would thus come into being. The origin of many present clans is accounted for by such quarrels. The main clan and the section that has split off would at first avoid all social relations with one another and also continue to observe the rule of exogamy.1 After a few generations, when the quarrel has been forgotten, a member of the seceded sub-clan would tentatively marry an omwiwana (a niece) of the main clan, i.e. a girl whose mother comes from that clan. If this marriage produces offspring and the children survive, the two clans begin to intermarry directly. Thus the independence of the seceded clan becomes fully established and the original clan name, which at first is maintained along with the name of the man under whose leadership the clan group seceded, is dropped.
But the judicial functions of the clan were not limited to the restoration of law and order within its own ranks. They also comprised the settling of disputes that arose between members of different clans. In such a case, the wronged person and his immediate kinsmen would go to the elders of the defendant's clan. If the case was serious enough to affect the common interests of the whole clan, the plaintiff was supported by all the elders of his clan and a number of warriors, who would accompany him in his search for legal satisfaction to demonstrate to the defendant and his clan that they backed his claim. This was deemed to be the case when the life of a clan-member had been taken or seriously threatened by assault or attempted sorcery, or when a quarrel over property had reached the point where peaceful negotiations between the immediate parties concerned had come to an impasse and the dispute threatened to lead or actually had led to fighting.
If no agreement could be reached between the two clans, which would happen when one side demanded exorbitant compensation or when the inter-clan relations had been strained by a series of
1 In this case the observance of exogamy is based partly on the consciousness of still being related and partly on the existence of a feud between the two clans. Thus, close co-operation and its opposite, a state of hostility, both act as a bar to intermarriage.