27o AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
rights, for they are the concern of the whole clan, since all have leviritic rights to one another's widows and all children replenish the clan. This is a consequence of the elaborate differentiation of Tale society according to agnatic descent, and of the strength of exogamy as a factor of social cleavage. The abduction of wives— inconceivable, as we have seen, if ties of clanship exist between the abductor's group and the husband's—was and is regarded as a serious violation of a clan's rights. The injured clan would threaten to suspend ritual co-operation, or to retaliate in kind, or to go to war, and the lineage elders of the abductor's clan would immediately take steps to return the woman. This was indeed the most frequent cause of both small and large wars in the old days, as it is of much litigation to-day. Disputes over bride-price debts or over the possession of children form the largest proportion of cases brought to chiefs' courts. Formerly, they were a prolific source of armed conflicts and of cattle raids. Adultery provokes similar reactions, though it did not formerly precipitate war, since it does not usually break up marriage. If the adulterer belongs to the same clan as the wronged husband, a neighbouring clan, or one which has any ties with it, a ritual reconciliation is necessary. The lineage heads, sometimes with the aid of chief or t&ndaana, negotiate and arrange this. No compensation is exacted.
In all such cases, territorial remoteness from one another or wide social cleavages between the two groups concerned made it almost impossible to obtain redress for wrongs. The injured group had to await an opportunity to retaliate in kind.
In the background there lurked always the ultimate sanction— the right to resort to self-help, nominally permissible only if there were no ties between the two groups concerned, but sometimes employed even against clansmen. The commonest method was by raiding (yik), especially if claims to goods or livestock were at issue. The creditor, alone or aided by members of his lineage, would, at the risk of being shot, seize livestock belonging to any clansman of the debtor in payment of the debt. The latter would have to retrieve his loss from the actual debtor by putting pressure on him through their lineage elders, appealing if necessary to the chief or tzndaana for support. He was entitled to receive only the number of livestock originally owed. Any loss in excess he might make good by a retaliatory raid; or he might appeal to the head of the creditor's maximal lineage, through an intermediary, to order