266 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
they have been established to maintain. Their vigour is due to the abolition of traditional methods of obtaining redress for wrongs. Chiefs and headmen are the judicial officers, assisted sometimes informally and for reasons of etiquette and of ancient habit by a few elders. Their jurisdiction is confined to civil wrongs, and though they could until recently inflict fines in special cases, they lacked penal sanctions for the enforcement of their verdicts. The best' of them tried, therefore, to arbitrate justly, so as to gain the acquiescence of both litigants. Generally a chief deals with cases in which members of his community are defendants. The hearing fees paid were a lucrative source of income until recently.
These judicial powers have enhanced enormously the prestige and authority of chiefs, especially within their own clans. Their judgements are influencing the development of Tale law and custom. Yet their administrative authority is still bounded by the cleavages of the native social structure. The Tograana, for instance, though recognized by the Administration as chief of the Talis, has no effective administrative control over them. The limit of his effective authority is the close-knit community consisting of his own clan and two adjacent clans, which have always been intimately united to Tongo by local, kin, and ritual ties.
In the native system, the secular authority of a chief or a tendaana is derived, on the one hand, from his ritual status, and on the other, from his supremacy in the hierarchy of lineage elders. Chiefs and tendaands, especially those who are considered to be of senior rank, are always treated deferentially. Their ritual prestige and status in the lineage hierarchy has always enabled them to command individual or communal assistance from the whole clan in return for the customary recompense. They had no right to tax, tribute, or service. They were and are morally obliged to be hospitable and generous, especially to their clansfolk, but they have never had economic obligations towards them severally or collectively.
As head of the maximal lineage, a chief or tmdaana must be informed of all important affairs that concern it. His assent is necessary in the conduct of many, especially if they involve relationships—jural, ceremonial, or economic, whether pacific or hostile—with other clans. A chief cannot, for example, allocate any land except his own to a new settler, but his consent and blessing