24o AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
in all these respects. In the transition zones between two 'tribes' dwell communities equally linked by residential contiguity and by structural ties to both. Indeterminate frontiers roughly demarcate the Tallensi as an aggregate of communities speaking one dialect and having more cultural nuances in common and more social bonds with one another than any of them have with neighbouring 'tribes'.
Any inhabitant of Taleland calls himself Tabq by contrast with Mamprusi, Gorisi, &c. Among themselves, however, they distinguish the clans dwelling on and around the Tong Hills as the 'real Tails'.*
These and other Tale clans had to be subjugated by military operations which engendered a lasting respect for the power of the white man. Since then (c. 1911) a system of administration has been evolved under British control intended primarily to maintain peace and to provide the labour and materials necessary for opening up the country. Based in a rough and ready way on native institutions, it nevertheless endowed native functionaries with powers, backed by the sanction of force, both different and superior to any permitted them by custom.2 Alongside of the system thus imposed by the Administration, though partially submerged by it, the native political institutions still flourish, however, because the ends they subserve vary considerably from those of the modern innovations. Apart from the Administration, no other contact agents are active within Taleland. The foundations of the native social system remain intact.3
77. Character of the Political System
Twenty-five years ago there was no one who had authority over all the Tallensi; no one who could exact tax, tribute or service from
11 use Tallensi, the form current in the dialect (Gorni) of the Gorisi for all the inhabitants of Taleland. In their own dialect (Talni), they speak of themselves as Tatis (sing. Toby), a form which, for the sake of clarity, I shall keep for the 'real Talis' only.
2 In 1933 this system of administration began to be replaced by a new machinery of government based on the principles of Indirect Rule. This political experiment has already produced marked and valuable changes, but a consideration of them must be left for a later publication. I confine myself here to the period preceding 1934, *&& <*ate of my first visit to the Tallensi.
3 cf. my paper on 'Culture Contact as a Dynamic Process', Africa, ix, i, 1936. Reprinted in Methods of Study of Culture Contact in Africa, Mem. XV, Int. Inst. of African Languages and Cultures.