I take as my second illustration of experiments in living, the way of life of the Bantu tribes of South East Africa. My main reasons for this choice are: (1) The pattern of Bantu culture rests on a number of principles of social organisation and contains a number of institutions which are common among primitive people but which are not found among the Trobrianders. For example, they reckon kinship through the male, they practise polygamy, they worship their ancestors, they have initiation rites and they pay the bride price or bride wealth. (2) Not only is there an extensive literature about them, but Junod, on whose account I shall mainly rely, has given a more detailed description of their moral ideas than we usually get from field workers among primitive peoples. (3) A comparison between their culture and that of the Trobrianders illustrates a truth to which I have already called attention, namely that the different aspects of a people's culture do not develop uniformly, for neither the Bantu commerce, which is exceedingly primitive, nor their industrial development will bear comparison with the Kula arrangements and the high craftsmanship of the Trobrianders. Yet they have a keener sense of justice, and they have developed a very remarkable system for its administration. They have also a more developed form of religion, and it plays a greater part in their lives. We shall, therefore, be able to see more clearly in their case the relation between primitive morality and religion strictly so called. (4) They have been in contact with Western civilisation for more than a century, though it is only in the past two or three generations that it has exerted any marked influence on them. The results of these contacts will enable us to see the close interdependence between their institutions; for external interference with one tends to affect others as well.

The principles which determine the fundamental structure of the ways of living of all the Bantu tribes are much the same, but there are differences of detail in the way in which different tribes apply and combine them. Accordingly, while the main outline of the following account applies to all Bantu tribes, and while some of its details will be illustrated by reference to other tribes, it is concerned specially with the Tonga2 group of tribes described by Junod in his Life of a South African Tribe.

The Bantu practise a mixed form of agriculture, partly arable, partly grazing. Much of the land which they occupy is covered by rocks and sand-dunes and forests. It is, therefore, sparsely populated, the households or kraals being usually a mile or more apart. This comparative isolation and relative economic independence of the villages has, as we shall see, an important significance for certain aspects of their way of life.

What, then, are the principles which determine the framework of their social structure?

(1) The principle of kinship is at least as important among them as among the Trobrianders, but the Bantu reckon kinship through the father. The father is head of the family. He is the source of authority, to whom obedience is due. From him status and goods are inherited. The attitude to him and his kin is, therefore, more like that adopted towards the maternal uncle and his kin among the Trobrianders—an attitude of deference to authority and dutifulness to the source of discipline and legality. But this attitude is partly softened by the natural affection between parents and children. The attitude to the mother and her kin is much less restrained. Indeed “the deepest bond of affection known to these people”3 is that between mother and children.

(2) The second principle of the Bantu social organisation is seniority. In the family the older brother takes precedence, and the others follow in order of age. The same principle applies between sisters, between the children of different brothers, between families within the clan, and between clans within a tribe. On it status everywhere depends.

(3) The principle of seniority also underlies the third feature of their social structure—the chieftainship. While the tribe generally is believed to consist mainly of descendants in the male line of one ancestor, the chief is supposed to be the most direct descendant, that is, through the eldest son of the eldest son, and so on.4 The chief occupies a position of preeminent importance. He is responsible for the maintenance of law and order. To him all members of the tribe owe allegiance, and he can call on them for various services in peace and war. He has also the largest herd of cattle. But though the chief has much more wealth at his disposal, there is very little difference between his standard of living and that of a commoner. They both eat the same sort of food, wear the same sort of clothes and live in the same kind of hut. The possession of greater wealth merely offers an opportunity and imposes an obligation to provide more hospitality and to give more generously. The personal prestige which this confers ranks in the estimation of the Bantu higher than personal comfort. But the chief's prestige does not rest merely on riches and power. He is also the chief priest. He has the most powerful magic, and he acts as mediator between his people and their ancestral gods. He is in fact the symbol of the unity of the tribe, and this is no mere empty symbolism. The unity of the tribe finally rests on allegiance to him rather than on kinship from a common ancestor. For when a tribe has a popular chief, members of other tribes, individually and in groups, ask to be allowed to join it. They are allowed to do so and to enjoy all the privileges which membership involves on condition that they declare their allegiance to the chief and undertake the various duties which he requires from his tribesmen. Despite such transfers, however, the clan based on kinship retains its unity, especially for ritual purposes and the regulation of marriage.

(4) The relationship of husband and wife, on which the unity of the individual family rests, cuts across the clan unity reckoned in the patrilineal line. But among the Bantu kinship by marriage is a much weaker bond not only in legal theory, but in actual fact than kinship by blood. Among us, the tie of mutual affection which binds man and wife is regarded as the strongest of all ties and takes precedence over all others, including ties binding a person to his brothers and sisters. Among the Bantu the position is reversed. They reckon the tie of blood the strongest of all bonds. This is the key to many of their institutions and much of their behaviour, and in particular to many of their marriage customs. Among them marriage is patrilocal, that is, the wife goes to live at her husband's village; and polygamous, that is, one man may have and usually has several wives. Each wife, with her children, occupies a separate hut, and has a separate field allotted to her. Among wives and children the principle of seniority holds. The first or great wife has precedence over all the others, and the others have precedence according to the order of their marriage; while the status of children follows that of their mother. In general, among the Tonga group of tribes, there is clan exogamy to the eighth degree, but there are minor differences in this respect not only between different groups of tribes but even within the same group. On the mother's side, a man may marry anyone beyond his first cousin. Subject to these conditions, a man may marry anyone within the tribe, but it is considered desirable that his wives should be taken from people who are already known to his kinsmen. A man may even marry certain persons within the prohibited relationship, provided a special ceremony is performed as a safeguard against untoward consequences.5 There are also women, such as his wife's younger sister or his brother-in-law's daughter, whom it is considered specially suitable for a man to marry. It is not obligatory on him to do so or on them or their families to agree, even if he wants to, but there is a feeling that such unions are specially appropriate.

(5) Among the Bantu the territorial unit is the village or kraal. This normally consists of a man with his wives and children, his brothers and their wives and children, and other relatives in the patrilineal line, such as unmarried brothers and unmarried, divorced or widowed sisters. The senior male member acts as head of the village. He maintains order in the kraal and acts as its representative to the outside world. A group of such villages usually connected by kinship constitute a sub-district, and several sub-districts constitute a district, and so on up to the area ruled over by the paramount chief.

We have now before us the main principles which constitute the structure of Bantu society: kinship reckoned through the father, family exogamy, polygyny, patrilocal marriage and seniority with a hierarchy of status culminating in the paramount chief. In the eyes of the natives this structure derives its authority from its antiquity. Indeed its main lines are believed to have been already laid down when their first ancestors emerged from reeds, with many of the present characteristics of their descendants, including much of their knowledge and skill and many of their customs. And as their ancestors are their principal gods, whose goodwill is ensured by the observance of certain tribal customs, this confers on the principles of the hierarchy a semi-religious sanction. But while this guarantees a high degree of stability to the social structure, changes do from time to time take place, and these sometimes amount to considerable reorganisation. For example, though the antiquity of the principle of seniority and the institution of the chieftainship is sufficient to compensate for minor faults of character or of administrative ability in the holders of positions of authority, it does not render them immune from criticism nor does it enable them to use their power for personal ends. The headman or even the chief may be deposed for incompetence or maladministration; and there are other ways in which his position may be undermined. For example, a reigning chief may appoint his brothers or other relatives as sub-chiefs of districts and such positions tend to become hereditary. As we have seen in the case of the chief, families or groups may transfer their allegiance from one sub-chief or headman to another. Consequently, a descendant of one of these sub-chiefs may by force of personality and reputation for just administration so enhance his position and increase the number of his people as to threaten the position of the legal chief. Open conflict may then result, and if the sub-chief is victorious, he may transfer the chieftainship to his own family, and reduce the legal chief to a subordinate position; and the change may be accepted by the tribe as a whole. This is why I described the seniority of the reigning chief as in part a legal fiction.

Consider next the Tonga view of the supernatural, the unseen forces, personal and impersonal, which operate in their environment and which provide the background of all their thinking and acting. They believe that after death their ancestors continue to live and behave more or less as they did during their lifetime. They regard them as still members of the clan, able and willing to exercise an influence on its affairs; so that their religion has been not inappropriately described as the extension of the principles of family life based on seniority into the next world. The ancestors of a particular family are worshipped only by the living members of that family, and their powers for good or evil are limited to the members of their own family. On the other hand the ancestors of the chief, who during their lifetime were expected to take an interest in the welfare of the whole tribe, are still publicly appealed to on behalf of the whole people in times of crises or disaster. What these gods expect from their worshippers is merely a continuance of the respect and deference which, on the basis of their seniority, was regarded as their due in their lifetime. The Bantu religious ritual lays down the ways in which this deference is to be shown. In accordance with its requirements, offerings are made to the ancestors and they are appealed to for prosperity on certain stated occasions, as well as in all the crises of life. Such occasions include marriage,6 death,7 removal to a new village,8 drought,9 harvest festivals10 and so on. If the proper ceremonies are performed, the ancestors are believed to be as much under an obligation to look after the interests of their descendants as they were during their lifetime. Accordingly, when disaster overtakes the devout Bantu, he sometimes scolds his ancestors for neglecting their duties,11 so that his prayers are sometimes as much protests as petitions.12 But while these ancestor gods are believed to be keenly interested in the correct performance of tribal ritual and in the payment of due respect to themselves, they do not seem to pay much regard to the spirit in which the worship is given, and still less to the conduct of their worshippers towards one another in the ordinary affairs of life. But though Bantu worship consists largely of ritual without reverence, and though their religion does not demand that they should behave morally towards one another, there are, as we shall see, ways in which their magico-religious beliefs indirectly affect their conduct to their fellows; and the ritual practices in which they lead them to engage profoundly influence their attitude to one another.

The Bantu do not draw a very clear distinction between supernatural forces which operate directly and impersonally and those which involve the intervention of personal agents. Most of the ceremonies which they perform at the main crises of life are magical rather than religious. Only in the case of marriage and death is there a direct appeal to the ancestors, and even these appeals are accompanied by ritual practices, the due performance of which is believed to produce the desired results directly and automatically.

The impersonal supernatural forces operate in two main ways. On the one hand, certain things or happenings have in themselves properties or powers which, without the intervention of any agency, human or superhuman, produce certain effects, mostly harmful. Such powers are possessed, for example, by menstrual blood, abortion, the birth of twins, lightning and so on; and appropriate action has to be taken if these untoward consequences are to be prevented. For example, one of each pair of twins has to be killed and purifying rites performed. On the other hand, there are things like magical medicines or formulae which require a human agent to use them. When so used they directly produce the appropriate results. Some of them may be used by anybody, others only by a properly trained expert, the magician.

The belief in magic pervades every aspect of Bantu life, but it is specially prominent in relation to agriculture, ill-health and the main transitions of life. The failure of agriculture is to them the greatest of calamities for it threatens their very existence. Accordingly, every step in the agricultural process is accompanied by its appropriate magical rite, and the natives sincerely believe that this is essential to the success of the crop. The main rites in connection with agriculture are performed by the husbandman himself, and appeals to the ancestors are often mixed with them. Thus they do not play so important a part in organising and timing the agricultural process as they do among the Trobrianders. Among the Bantu the organising work is done by the chief and the hierarchy. Similar magical rites are necessary to ensure the success of hunting and fishing and all other activities which are dangerous or of uncertain issue. Ill-health, especially serious illness which threatens or causes death, is believed to be mainly due to magic, and only by magical means can illness be cured. In all cases the power of magic is morally neutral. It can be used either for good or for evil purposes. In other words, there is among the Bantu both a white and a black magic. Black magic is greatly feared, and when it is discovered it is the most severely punished of all crimes.

The Bantu divide the life of man into a series of well-marked stages and they regard the transition from one state to the next as fraught with danger. To get over these critical periods the individual has to be supported and protected by a number of magico-religious rites. We find such rites performed, for example, at birth, when a child gets his first tooth, when he begins to crawl, when he is weaned, at puberty, at marriage and at death. The rites at the more important transitions serve to introduce the individual to a new status, and some of them help to impress on him his new duties and responsibilities. For example, the ceremony at crawling is intended to make the child a full member of the clan. Till it is performed he is not regarded as fully human, and if he dies his mother buries him without assistance or ceremony.13 Until the ceremonies at weaning, which takes place about the age of three, are performed, the mother must not again become pregnant, a restriction which is rendered less onerous by the institution of polygyny. The ceremonies at death are designed not only as an expression of affectionate remembrance of the deceased but also as a means of helping them on their way to the next stage of their life story, where they join the elder members and ancestors of the clan who are also the family gods. But the most important of the transition rites are the initiation ceremonies which take place at puberty, somewhere between the ages of ten and sixteen. These ceremonies constitute the youth's introduction to real manhood and they are meant to impress upon him his new status as an adult member of the tribe. They occur every four or five years. They take place at a lodge in the wilderness where the boys are secluded for a period of three months. There they are exposed to a severe discipline and a series of hardships in order to teach them “endurance, obedience and manliness”.14 They are also taught magico-religious formulae, but among the Tonga at any rate they are not given much moral instruction. Such instruction as they receive is indirect, by means of symbolism rather than precepts. Many of the formulae which they have to learn “may appear to the observer or reader, unaware of their setting and significance, as crude; but”, we are assured, that “to the native they do not appear so. Out of their context they might convey to the native mind some obscenity, corresponding somewhat to the translation into licentious language by indiscriminate use in ordinary social relations of the scientific terminology of a professor in physiology. But. . . they are taught in an atmosphere of such awe and respect for the school, and all it stands for, that their psychological effect cannot be otherwise than to emphasise the importance of the things that are taught.” And among the things which the schools succeed in inculcating are “obedience, discipline and general good behaviour, qualities that make many a European employer prefer ‘boys’ that have been through the schools to others”.15

Those who pass through these schools together tend to become united for life by bonds of friendship and mutual service—thus strengthening the cohesion and solidarity of the tribe—and, among some tribes, these groupings provide the organisation on the basis of which are arranged military service and other forms of communal work, such as the labour required by the chief for working his fields or building or repairing his huts.

What we find, then, is that among the Bantu magico-religious performances are regarded as necessary at every point at which failure, danger or disaster threatens the native from causes which he does not understand, and which he has not learned to control; and they serve the purpose of inspiring confidence and strengthening morale. But we need not enter further into the details of these magico-religious rites, for they contain no principle which we have not already met among the Trobrianders. While the details of the ritual performed and the points at which it is applied differ from people to people, according to their history and experience and the points at which the environment seems to threaten their welfare, the belief in and the appeal to unseen powers, personal and impersonal, and the functions which this appeal performs in their lives, remain much the same.

In addition to their belief in impersonal supernatural power, the efficacy of magic, and the power of their ancestral gods, the Bantu also believe in the existence both of minor spirits who were never incarnate, at least in human form, and in a supreme spiritual power. Their conception of this supreme power is vague and indefinite, and our authorities are uncertain as to how far they conceive it as personal. But whether personal or not, it is regarded as remote from and little interested in the affairs of men. There is no suggestion among the Bantu that any supernatural agent will call them to judgement after death, or that their happiness hereafter is in any way determined by their conduct to their fellow-men in this life.16

Against the background of their magico-religious ideas regarding the nature of the universe, natural and supernatural, and their own destiny as part of it, and within the general framework of the social structure which I have described, the Bantu have developed moral and social institutions for satisfying their fundamental human needs. It is in the detailed working of these institutions that the principles and beliefs which we have been considering find concrete expression, and help to determine the rights and duties of individuals. What, then, are these institutions? On what principles do they operate? How do they dovetail into one another so as to constitute the characteristic Bantu way of life?

I am not suggesting that the institutions of the Bantu are the only ones which could function within the structure which I have described, or that all their details are determined by it; but only that it helps to make them what they are and that many of their special features cannot be understood without reference to it; that, in short, even if the parts of their way of life are not in their own nature necessarily connected, they are so interwoven in the habits of thinking and feeling and acting of the natives as to form a relatively integrated pattern. It is the nature of this pattern and the relations of a man to his fellows within it which determine his rights and duties, his privileges and responsibilities.

It would be impossible in the time at my disposal to give a detailed description of all Bantu institutions and the ways in which they are related. I propose, therefore, to give one main illustration, the series of interrelated institutions which centre round the nature and functioning of the Bantu family, and to explain more briefly some of their economic arrangements and some aspects of their system of legal administration. These are among their most characteristic institutions. They contain their provision for the satisfaction of some of their most fundamental needs. And they provide typical examples of the inter-dependence of their institutions, as well as of the way in which the principles of their social structure and their magico-religious ideas penetrate into their social institutions, and help to make them what they are. In trying to understand the Bantu family, e.g., and the duties and obligations that arise in connection with it, we shall find it necessary to take account of their ideas of kinship, seniority and clan solidarity, their economic arrangements, their ancestor worship and their ritual practices. Without a grasp of these, we cannot hope to understand the nature and functioning of their family life.

Among the Bantu, marriage is a complex, protracted and costly process; but it is necessary to give a man full status as an adult member of the community. When a young man decides that he wants to marry, he does not go to the girl of his choice and propose marriage. For, owing to the operation of the principle of kinship, marriage among these people is a contract between families or groups, at least as much as between individuals. The young man, therefore, informs his father of his desire. If the father, usually after consultation with other members of the group, approves, he opens negotiations, through an intermediary, with the girl's parents. If they and their group are satisfied that an alliance is desirable, the girl is consulted. If she consents, protracted negotiations follow between the families regarding the lobola—the bride wealth or bride price, as it is sometimes rather inaccurately called. This is one of the most characteristic of Bantu institutions, and it shows how their marriage arrangements and their economic affairs are inextricably interwoven. The bride wealth consists of payments, sometimes spread over a period of years, made by the bridegroom, or rather by his father, sometimes with the assistance of his kinsmen, to the father of the bride. It takes many different forms: so many head of cattle, so many hoes, or more recently so much money, and so on.

These payments are not regarded by the natives as a price for which the girl is sold to her husband's family, but it is often referred to as compensation to the girl's family for the loss of a member, and the payment is often used to get a wife for the bride's brother. If it is not a price paid for the bride, much less is it a dowry given to her, for it goes to her father's family in their village, while she goes to live with her husband in his. But whatever its origin or early significance, lobola is “what constitutes legal marriage, which to the Bantu is inconceivable without it”.17 No doubt the ordinary marriage ceremony also comprises many ritual performances, much festivity and many exchanges of gifts, but lobola is marriage in the sense that unless it has been paid any children of the union are illegitimate, that is, without social status, and belong to the family of the mother, not that of the father. Moreover if, as sometimes happens, a poor man, who or whose family cannot raise the necessary payment, runs away with a girl, the children are illegitimate unless negotiations are opened with the wife's family and payment promised and in due course made. This is the normal ending to runaway Bantu marriages.

In addition to making marriage legal, lobola serves many other purposes. It gives social standing and a certain security to the wife; for if she is badly treated, and has in consequence to leave her husband, he cannot claim the return of the payment. It gives stability to the marriage; for if a wife leaves her husband without due cause, or is divorced for legitimate reasons, the bride wealth has to be returned by her people.18 It emphasises the solidarity of the family and clan; for other members besides the father are liable to be called on to contribute towards the payment. It cements the bonds between brother and sister, and gives the sister an additional claim on the brother for whom her lobola provided a wife, and on the children who result from his marriage. It also helps to unite by bonds of lifelong friendship and mutual service the two groups to which the husband and wife belong. To begin with, there is apt to be a certain suspicion and mutual distrust between the two groups. This no doubt partly accounts for the formal correctness, often amounting to a taboo on any intimate personal relations, between the spouses and their relatives-in-law, especially between the husband and his mother-in-law and the bride and her father-in-law. But when the union has proved harmonious and the alliance has been fully established, especially by the birth of children, this distrust lessens and the taboos and avoidances may be considerably mitigated; but, despite many exchanges of gifts and other mutual services, the relations between the two groups tend always to remain somewhat strained and formal.

Nevertheless, the lobola arrangement has its disadvantages from the wife's point of view. Under it her children are not her own, but belong to her husband and his family. She is at times in danger of being regarded as an outsider, for whose services her husband and his family have paid. This is seen, for example, in the Bantu attitude towards adultery. Adultery with a wife is regarded not as a crime against her, but against her husband, the theft of that for which he has paid. Accordingly, the adulterer has to pay compensation to the husband. It should be added, however, that this is only one aspect of the native attitude towards adultery. For they also believe that there is a magico-religious sanction against it. An illegitimate baby causes a difficult and protracted birth,19 and adultery produces undesirable physical effects on men.20

Thus marriage to the Bantu is mainly a secular contract, validated by economic exchanges and mutual services; but it is also accompanied by magico-religious ceremonies. The principle ceremony takes place before the bride leaves her father's house, when sacrifices are made to the ancestral gods, and a prayer is offered not only for her material prosperity but also for her moral welfare in her new home. But what specially strikes us about the Bantu thought of marriage is that all the emphasis is laid on the mutual services of the spouses to one another, while nothing is said or thought about mutual affection or regard. The woman has done her duty by her husband if she cultivates his fields, cooks his food and rears his children, while he has done his duty by her if he supplies her with a hut and cattle and other amenities. In their view the tie of blood is stronger than the tie of marriage, and the duties which it imposes are more stringent. The husband tends to reserve his friendship for his male companions and his affection for his sisters and the other members of his father's family. The wife bestows her affection on her children and her brothers, and her companionship on her female friends. She continues to worship the gods of her father's family, and it is to her brothers and her other near kin that she turns for advice in perplexity, and flees for help and protection if she finds life too difficult. This does not mean that married life among them is not often happy and harmonious, or that tender affection between the spouses does not sometimes develop. But their whole conception of marriage and the values which are realised in it are different from ours, and affection is not one of the values expected from it.

We might bring out the difference between their conception of marriage and ours in this way. Man needs companionship and affection, and he also needs a mate and other personal services. In our way of life, the family provides all these—sexual satisfaction and intimate personal services on the one hand, and the deepest bond of friendship and the tenderest affection on the other. In the Bantu way of life, the satisfaction of these different needs is provided by separate institutions, the former through the family, the latter through other channels. As Culwick puts it, “in Bantu society physical attraction, affection and companionship usually follow quite different channels, a man desiring his wife, loving his sister and seeking companionship among his male relations and friends. The same is true for the woman. The most important object of her affections is usually one of her brothers, while her female relatives and friends provide her with companionship. If she is in trouble she invariably goes to her male clansmen, not to her husband. He is from another group and is therefore not to be trusted as one would one's brother.”21 As a result, not only is divorce among them relatively easy, but it is neither regarded as a disaster nor does it usually leave such a legacy of bitterness and frustration as it does among us.22

In our way of life, however, the family performs another function. It provides for the care and the early training of children. How, then, does Bantu divorce affect the children for whose sake, even more than for the parents', stability of marriage seems to us essential? To discover the answer to this question, we must consider other aspects of their married life, especially polygyny. The ambition of every Bantu is to have several wives and many children as well as much cattle. This will enable him to be generous and hospitable to his friends, and on the extent of his generosity, in large part, depends his social standing among his fellows. Accordingly, “to have a large harem is to have succeeded in life”.23

Among the co-wives the principle of seniority holds, and each has her place in the hierarchy. They are said to be so free from sexual jealousy that the first wife sometimes indicates to the husband a woman who might be suitable as an additional partner. To their husband's affairs with unmarried girls they seem to be entirely indifferent. This does not mean that jealousy is absent from their nature or that it never appears, but only that their way of life discourages it and that their institutions provide little scope for its expression. Relations between the co-wives, though sometimes strained, are usually fairly harmonious and there is much co-operation and mutual help between them. Though each is responsible for the cultivation of her own field, and has her own storehouse, they often arrange to work together and cultivate the different fields in turn. Though each is complete mistress within her own hut, there is much co-operation in cooking and looking after the children. Though each hut has its own cooking arrangements where food from its own storehouse is prepared, at the main meal of the day—the evening meal—no household cooks merely for itself. Each prepares a portion for the husband and his male friends and any visitors who may be with him. It also sends a portion to every other household, to wives and children alike. Thus, while the system cannot be regarded as communal, it means that everyone within the kraal gets his share of what is going and that no one is left destitute. Junod describes the profound impression of the unity and solidarity of the kraal which this meal leaves on the observer.24

This co-operative community of women which makes up the female section of the kraal includes not only the co-wives of the same husband but also the wives of his brothers, and it may be others, such as grandmothers, young unmarried sisters and divorced or widowed sisters who have returned to the village. These unattached women occupy a separate hut and play their part in the work of the kraal, including looking after the children. Accordingly, children are from their earliest years accustomed to the care and protection of several women, to all of whom under the classificatory system they apply the same term—‘mother’ or ‘grandmother’ according to their age. They also stay at times for longish periods with their grandparents or their maternal uncle in their mother's village. Thus they have a right of entry into several huts on more or less equal terms; and it is equally natural for them to stay in any one of them.25 Wherever they are, they associate freely with the other children of their own age group who are related to them by blood, whether through the father or the mother, and they are expected to take their share in the work of herding the goats, caring for the cattle, and performing various domestic duties. Consequently, when the original hut is broken up, owing to the divorce of their mother, either on her own or her husband's initiative, they continue to live much the same life, cared for by much the same seniors and doing much the same work: only they have one fewer home that they can call their own. In these circumstances the break-up of the marriage of their father and mother is not for the children the major catastrophe which it is in our form of society.26 If there are young children, they continue to live with their mother who is still responsible for their care; and even the older children may still visit her and her family, and may even stay for longish periods with them in the village to which she has returned. For, provided certain formalities regarding the lobola have been complied with, there is usually little bitterness between the divorced parents or their families.

What we find then is that, subject to the general framework of their social structure and their magico-religious ideas, marriage is for the Bantu a secular contract based on a reciprocity of mutual services. Each partner has his or her duties to perform and rights to claim. Each recognises that the performance of his duties is a condition of his claim to the reciprocal services being satisfied. They recognise the arrangement as good in that it provides the means to satisfy important needs, and therefore they recognise its duties as binding. When they cease so to regard it, they bring the arrangement to an end, the conditions under which this can be done being also socially prescribed by law and morals. Once they withdraw from the arrangement or fail to fulfil its requirements, they can no longer claim their rights under it.

The principle of reciprocity of mutual services, of which their marriage arrangements are a typical example, supplies the key to most of their other institutions and to the way in which they think of their duties and obligations to one another—always granting the principles which determine the framework of their constitution, principles which enter into and, in all sorts of subtle ways, condition the detailed working of all their institutions. This principle is the basis of all their rules of distributive justice, the rules according to which land and its products and other privileges and amenities are distributed among them. But though the principle and the rules in which it finds expression are, like their family arrangements, partly concerned with the interchange of goods and services and thus have an economic aspect, they are primarily moral; and the duties and obligations which arise in connection with them are, and are recognised as being, moral duties and obligations; for among the Bantu there is no sharp distinction drawn between economic and moral relations. Economic relations are regarded by them as relations between persons, and therefore their moral aspect, the part which they play in promoting the welfare of individuals and so in contributing to social well-being, is clear to them. They seem to have no notion which exactly corresponds to our conception of ownership, and therefore any attempt to describe the economic aspect of their institutions in any of our terms which imply the concept is apt to be misleading. If we are to understand their attitude to such matters, we must consider what functions such goods and services perform in their way of life and what rights and duties devolve on individuals and groups in connection with them.

As another illustration of the way in which the economic and the moral aspects of the principle of reciprocity are bound together and affected by the principles of their social organisation, we may take their system of land tenure.27 The land occupied by the tribe is all subject to the jurisdiction of the chief in a twofold sense: (1) no new individual can occupy any part of it or derive any benefit from it without his consent; and (2) he requires certain services and payments in kind from those who reside within this territory. But it is not his in the sense that he could sell any of it or otherwise alienate it from the tribe, nor yet in the sense that he could dispossess any member of the tribe or his heirs from the part which has been allocated to him, except as punishment for some serious offence for which they might be driven out of the tribe altogether.

The detailed arrangements by which land is allocated to individuals or groups are not carried out directly by the chief himself, but through the hierarchy of sub-chiefs and headmen. So that the principle of seniority on which the hierarchy rests as well as the institution of chieftainship enters into the system of land tenure. The principle of tribal unity also enters; for all members of the tribe are entitled to land to be cultivated. But though, subject to their continued allegiance and services to the chief or to the community whose representative the chief is, neither they nor their heirs can be dispossessed, they can neither sell the land nor give it away to anyone else; and, if they leave it, it reverts to the chief or the tribe. In the same way when a husband gives land and cattle to one of his wives and her children, he cannot take them away from them or their heirs as long as they continue to use them; but they have from the produce to provide food for him and the other members of his village or kraal. Thus in order completely to understand the Bantu system of land tenure, we have to consider all these and other principles, including their laws of marriage and inheritance.

Similar considerations apply to their other economic arrangements. Putting the matter generally we may say that to the Bantu the value of wealth consists not so much in its possession or accumulation as in its use; and much of this use consists in giving it away, i.e. in applying it to promote the good of others rather than the individual's own selfish pleasure. The personal prestige which this brings to him ranks higher with the Bantu than his own personal comfort. As we have already seen, there is very little difference between the standard of living of the chief and the commoner; and the fact that the higher status of the former gives him command over more wealth merely imposes on him a greater responsibility to be generous in giving it away. Nevertheless, wealth is not communally owned. Different people have definite rights in regard to the use and disposal of different forms of property. These rights are clearly defined and other people are expected to respect them; and, whether or not they in fact do so, they recognise an obligation to do it.

What applies to the economic aspect of their institutions applies equally to their other relations and duties to one another. They are all expressions of the principle of reciprocity. And though some of the details of the way in which the principle works in their institutions are due to the other principles which I have described and which the Bantu regard with the respect due to the customs of their people, its operation makes it easy for the individual member of such small groups to see that the smooth working of their institutions is for his own good as well as that of his fellows. Each sees what the main rights and duties of every individual within the group are; and he recognises that the due discharge of all of them is for the general good. He sees that it is to his advantage that everyone else should do what the system requires of him, however burdensome he may find his own duties and however much he may at times want to evade them. When he does try to evade them, others are not slow to remind him of them; and if he persists in his evasion, they are likely to express their disapproval, among other ways, through the weapon of reciprocity which their interdependence has placed in their hands. But though fear of such consequences, economic or other, may provide an additional stimulus to the individual to do his duties, it is not what makes them duties or even what makes the native recognise that they are his duties. They are his duties because they are necessary for the effective functioning of the institutions which constitute the way of life of his people; and he recognises them as duties and as binding on him because he recognises that way of life as good. The Bantu's sense of duty is probably neither stronger nor less variable than that of the rest of mankind; and while he often, perhaps usually, does what he believes to be his duty, his motives for doing it are usually mixed. But it is important to distinguish between his motives for doing his duty, when he does it, and his recognition that certain actions are right and that it is his duty to do them. The evidence suggests that he regards them as his duties, not out of respect for custom or fear of consequences, but because he sees that they are required for the smooth functioning of a form of life which he believes to be on the whole good both for himself and for his people.

So far I have been mainly concerned with Bantu rules of distributive justice and the grounds on which the natives regard them as right. It is on much the same grounds that he regards as right the other moral rules which he recognises as binding. But before considering the detailed evidence for this conclusion, I want to consider briefly the Bantu system of corrective justice. They do not rely on the working of the principle of reciprocity alone to maintain the equilibrium of their way of life or to restore it when it is disturbed. They have also developed a complex system of legal administration for dealing not only with crime but also with civil disputes. This consists of a series of courts, with a uniform procedure, involving the calling of witnesses and the giving of evidence, and the right of appeal from lower to higher courts. Thus they have made for themselves the distinction between the legal and the merely moral aspects of the rules which they regard as right, the distinction which Malinowski is at such pains to insist on in the case of people like the Trobrianders who have no ad hoc machinery for enforcing law, or indeed any laws in the strict sense.

The senior member of a kraal tries to maintain law and order within his own village; but the lowest court is really that of the headman of a sub-district. He deals with minor disputes mainly between members of different kraals. The need for legal machinery is more necessary in dealing with such disputes because the relative self-sufficiency of each kraal makes economic sanctions less effective in relation to them. But the sub-district headman has no means of enforcing his decision, if the law-breaker should prove recalcitrant. Cases in which this happens, as well as all major disputes, are referred to the headman of the district, to whose court there is also the right of appeal against the verdict of the sub-district head. From the district court again cases may be referred, and there is a right of appeal, to the chief's court.

The chief's court deals not only with appeals from the lower courts but also with all serious disputes and all crimes involving capital charges. It consists of the chief's counsellors, mainly his senior male relatives, sometimes under the presidency of the chief himself and sometimes not. The proceedings are in public, though the court usually retires to consider its verdict. Once the main evidence has been heard, anyone present may take part in the discussion, but not in the decision. In passing sentence the court takes the demeanour of the accused into consideration. If, e.g., the guilty person confesses and shows signs of contrition, the sentence is less severe. The court may also, when considering its verdict, take account of the conduct of witnesses in the case; and, if it is satisfied that any of them has been guilty of gross perjury, it may punish him by the imposition of a fine. There is usually no difficulty in enforcing the decision of the court once it is confirmed by the chief; for the alternative to submission is to flee the tribe. The laws which the courts administer and the penalties which they impose we shall consider below, for they throw a great deal of light on the moral ideas of the Bantu.

We have now seen the Bantu magico-religious ideas about themselves, their fellows and their natural and supernatural environment, the main principles of the social structure which they have built up against this background, some typical examples of the institutions by which, within this framework, they try to satisfy their nature and needs, and the machinery by which they try to maintain law and order. Bearing this complex structure in mind, and remembering that none of their rules of conduct can be understood except as it functions within, and subject to the conditions of, this general framework, let us try to distinguish the different rules or classes of rules which they consider right and the reasons why they consider them right. In considering the grounds of the obligations which they recognise, we should remember that some of their rules may be regarded as right for more than one reason, and that the natives themselves do not always distinguish clearly between these different grounds of obligation. Much less do they distinguish between what makes a rule right and what makes them believe that it is right. These distinctions we have to try to make for ourselves, and the effort to make them is rendered more difficult by the fact that few of our authorities themselves make such distinctions. Nevertheless, our authorities make it clear that some forms of conduct are believed by the natives to be obligatory without any clear understanding on their part as to why they should be as they are. They are accepted on authority and enforced by supernatural sanctions, but they are not seen to be right in any other sense. But, as we have already seen in part, there are other forms of conduct which, while they are in the first instance accepted on authority, are regarded as right in the sense that they are, and are seen by the natives to be, involved in a way of life or a system of institutions whose working they understand and find good. They see the reasons for such forms of conduct, they understand why they are right. No doubt they seldom reflect on these reasons or consciously formulate them in abstract terms; and when asked for them they may be at a loss to state them. In this, however, they do not greatly differ from the majority of the members of civilised communities. Such difference as there is, is one of degree rather than of kind.

What kinds or classes of rules of conduct, then, are recognised by them as right, and what do they regard as the grounds of their obligatoriness? First, there are rules which, as we have seen, are regarded as obligatory because they have a magico-religious sanction. Among these we may distinguish two classes, although the natives do not always distinguish clearly between them. Breaches of the one class evoke the displeasure of personal supernatural agents, principally their dead ancestors, and they are believed to be punished through the active intervention of these agents. Breaches of the other class are believed to produce disastrous consequences either for the individual or the group, directly and automatically, without the intervention of any personal agent.

To the first class belong all rules regarding ritual observances and respect for the ancestors, including such things as the offering of the first fruits of the harvest of which the ancestors are believed to partake, and what I might call the principles of the constitution, such as respect for the hierarchy and the chief, and the rules about exogamy. Non-observance of these rules evokes the displeasure of the family gods, and so brings misfortune and disaster on their descendants. The ancestral gods also punish with death those who lose all restraint in sexual matters, “but to other sins”, we are told, “they are quite indifferent”.28

Even the rules thus sanctioned are not inflexible. There are exceptions to them which are recognised as right, and even supported by magico-religious sanctions. For example, there are recognised exceptions to the principle of seniority and to the principle of exogamy. These illustrate the distinction which we considered among the Trobrianders between tribal law and legalised usage. A detailed discussion of them would show both how changes in their institutions and customs come about and the way in which the principle of the conceived good of the group determines these changes.

To give one example. The heir presumptive to the chieftainship may marry and may indeed have several wives before he succeeds to the office. The first of his wives has all the prerogatives of the great wife and she continues, according to tribal law and for ritual purposes, to occupy this position after her husband becomes chief. But for certain other purposes she does not remain the great wife, and her children do not succeed their father in the chieftainship. This honour is reserved for a wife chosen for the chief by his counsellors—a wife whose lobola is paid not by the chief or his father, but by the tribe as a whole. This royal consort takes precedence in practically everything except ritual over the original great wife. Here we see both the relative inflexibility of ritual requirements and the way in which modifications in other rules and institutions come about, when they are considered desirable in the interests of the community.

To the second class of supernaturally sanctioned rules belong all taboos and all magical requirements. Certain acts or occurrences as well as magical rites and spells are believed to have a peculiar potency for good or evil, and these results follow automatically unless steps are taken to counteract them. Many of these taboos refer to sexual intercourse, which under certain circumstances is regarded as essential for the welfare of the community and at other times is forbidden as liable to produce disastrous consequences. For example, sexual relations, mostly of a ritual kind, have to be performed for the good of the community on such occasions as after settling in a new kraal or at the completion of the period of mourning for the dead; while such relations are forbidden during the period of moving to a new village or during hunting expeditions. Failure to observe these taboos is believed to bring misfortune not merely on the individuals themselves, indeed sometimes not at all on them, but on the group as a whole or on the headman. There are also occurrences for which no one is responsible, like abortion or the birth of twins, which are fraught with danger unless proper magical steps are taken to deal with them.

Junod is satisfied that the Bantu distinguish between an act which is taboo because it is dangerous, i.e. liable to cause misfortune, and one which is morally wrong, even though some acts are both taboo and morally wrong. A person who commits some of the tabooed acts may, as we have seen, be protected by magico-religious means against the danger to which he has exposed himself or others, but in the case of some acts the natives say that though the danger or taboo has been removed, the ‘badness’, the moral evil, of the act still remains.29 Thus though there are some acts that are both tabooed and morally wrong, the native does not confuse the two characteristics.

Most of the Bantu moral rules, however, have no supernatural sanction. On this the testimony of our authorities is explicit and unanimous. Junod's testimony is particularly valuable in this connection not only because he was a keen and sympathetic observer, and knew the Bantu very intimately over a long period of years, but also because he himself thought the absence of such a sanction the gravest defect in Bantu morality. “Bantu religion”, he tells us, “is a non-moral religion, by which I do not mean that it is immoral, that is, opposed to the law of morality, but that it has no, or at least very little, connection with the moral conduct of the individual. It has no moral prescriptions except those that ensure the hierarchical order in the family. It neither promises rewards nor threatens punishment after death.”30 And at the end of his account of their morality he concludes: their “religion is non-moral; the ancestor gods themselves are non-moral. . . . If the great fault of Bantu religion is that it is non-moral, that of Bantu morality is that it is non-religious. No supreme legislator has ordained it. Hence the want of the idea of the absolute in the dictates of the Bantu conscience. Nevertheless, the rudiments of morality are present in the Tongan conscience, the feeling of duty, the sense of right and wrong. These are independent of the essentially self-interested idea of taboo.”31 Junod's testimony in this respect is confirmed by Eiselen and Schapera32 and Willoughby.33

Why, then, do the Bantu regard the rules of their secular morality, the rules which have no supernatural sanction, as right? Junod, who, as we have just seen, considers the secular character of their morality its chief weakness, puts the answer thus: “For the Bantu, the (moral) law is the interest of the clan.34 Theft is bad because it ruins individual property, and it is necessary to respect property otherwise collective life becomes impossible. So theft, blows, murder and witchcraft are condemned and punished because these actions endanger society and its recognised modes of life.”35 Such are the reasons given by the natives themselves why they regard certain actions as obligatory, certain rules as right. Respect for custom, fear of punishment, human or divine, economic or legal sanctions, may provide powerful motives and strong incentives for doing what they believe to be right. But before these motives can begin to operate, rules have to be recognised as right. What makes the rules right and the duties obligatory, is the fact that the rules are implied in their conception of the good life, and the duties required for the smooth working of its institutions, and that they are recognised by the natives to be so. No doubt there is much uncritical and unquestioning acceptance of tradition, much passive acquiescence in the customs of their ancestors, as well as much merely outward conformity to traditional requirements. There is much intolerance of change and criticism, an absence of the pioneering spirit and the experimental approach. Their conception of ‘the interest of the clan’ may, from our point of view, be narrow or mistaken, mixed up as it is with much superstition, but it is their conception of the good of the group, as that good is embodied in their institutions, that sets them their duties and prescribes their obligations. It requires of them that they subordinate their personal advantage and private inclinations to the larger good, the good of the group as a whole, a good which they also recognise as their own.

The fact that the Bantu not only find their own way of life good, but that they sometimes reflect on their rules and customs and institutions, and compare them with those of other people, with a degree of objectivity and impartiality which is not common even among those who pride themselves on their higher civilisation, appears from the reprimand given by a native woman to a missionary who had preached a sermon against the Bantu custom of allowing the women to do all the heavy carrying. She said: “You observe us and you wonder at certain things. We also on our side are observing you, and we see things that we also do not understand. When your wife does the washing you remain standing by and do not help her. With us it is the men who do the washing. Again we have seen your wife sewing and mending your clothes and the clothes of the children, and you beside her not thinking of helping her. With us, it is the men who make the clothes.” Having spoken thus, she put her two hands joined together on the mat, as if she were cutting something in two, and said: “That is the way your forefathers distributed the work, a little heap here and another little heap there, and they said, ‘This is the work of men and that is the work of women’. Our forefathers proceeded in the same way, and said, ‘This is men's work and that is women's work’ . . . . We must leave it so. The gospel has no concern with these matters. We do not wish to have the reputation of being lazy, and you do not wish it either.”36

Stated in general terms many of the Bantu moral rules are much the same as our own—not to steal, not to kill, not to bear false witness;37 but the ways in which they interpret these rules and the exceptions which they make to them are determined by their particular institutions. Our authorities make it quite clear that the natives do not regard their rules as having an independent authority in their own right. They do not regard them as what some contemporary ethical writers call self-evident obligations, even of the prima facie sort, that is, as rules which contain the grounds of their rightness within themselves and which, therefore, neither admit of nor require any justification or reason beyond themselves. The Bantu regard their rules as the conditions of effective co-operation, on which corporate well-being depends, and as binding only because and in so far as they are required by such co-operation. The conditions of effective co-operation between any group of people are much the same everywhere and most of them are clear enough even to the least imaginative. Within the small community of the Bantu kraal or district or even tribe, the individual both finds co-operation good and recognises that it is a necessary condition of realising his major interests and chief values. It is equally clear to him that co-operation requires a minimum of mutual trust and goodwill which finds expression in the observance of certain rules between those who co-operate. Beyond the limits of the group, whose good they identify with their own, the Bantu do not recognise any rules as binding; and even within the group they recognise them as binding only so far as they are expressions of, or required by, the co-operation on which individual and corporate well-being, as they conceive it and as it finds expression in their institutions, depends.

We may illustrate this from their attitude to lying and theft. “To tell lies”, Junod writes, “they regard as mere play. . . if the lies are not intended to harm your fellow-men.”38 On the other hand, they regard perjury on the part of a witness in court as a punishable offence, because it does harm to others and interferes with the administration of justice. They also treat defamation of character as a punishable offence. Of their attitude to theft we are told: “Theft is universally condemned, not so much for its immoral39 character as for the fact that it renders a normal social life impossible”.40

The attitude of the Bantu to their moral rules and their reasons for regarding them as right, and their non-observance as wrong, might quite well be expressed in words recently used by the Speaker of the British House of Commons in reprimanding a member who had been found guilty of “corruptly accepting payment for the disclosure of secret information”. He said: “If other members acted as you did, it would be impossible to maintain mutual confidence. The system under which we work would break down.”41 The Bantu, like the British House of Commons, find their institutions on the whole good. The forms of conduct which are required for their maintenance and proper functioning they regard as obligatory. Neither their institutions nor ours are such perfect instruments for carrying out their purposes that no improvement in them is possible; but as long as they are accepted as good, they provide the grounds of the obligation of certain forms of conduct, the reasons which make certain things right and certain duties binding.

Among the rules of conduct which they recognise as right and which are not subject to supernatural sanctions, the Bantu distinguish three main classes:

(1) There are social conventions and customs regarding such matters as dress and greeting, respect to parents-in-law, attitude to pre-marital sex relations or to the bathing of men and women in different places. These are regarded as right because they are the traditional customs of the people. The native conforms to them because others do so, and he has no special inducement to do otherwise. He would feel ill at ease if he behaved differently from his neighbours in such matters. The natives do not believe that any harm would follow from the non-observance of such customs, but they say it would not be ‘decent’ or ‘respectful’.42

(2) From such actions they distinguish actions which are morally right or wrong, actions which they regard as obligatory though they often find them difficult and burdensome and sometimes feel inclined to evade them. To describe their attitudes to this class of actions the Bantu have an unusually rich vocabulary. They not only have terms for duty, right and conscience, terms which, according to Junod, show “a clear and deep sense of right-doing”;43 they also distinguish within what is bad between what is morally wrong, “bad in the heart”, and what is aesthetically ugly, “ugly as regards the face”.44 As “clear evidence” of their “developed moral ideas”, Junod quotes, not only his own conversations with the natives, but also their folk-lore, in which vice is punished and virtue rewarded, and “the pangs of conscience are depicted in a wonderful manner”.45 In this folk-lore we find “punishment following on such faults as jealousy, obstinacy, unkindness, presumption, disobedience, self-will, laziness and selfishness, and we find kindness and pity rewarded”.46 Such accounts emphasise the importance which the natives attach to the inner aspect of moral conduct as distinct from mere outward conformity.

The duties which are thus regarded as morally obligatory include mutual services both in the way of assistance and gifts between kin by blood and marriage, duties of hospitality and many other duties towards individuals and groups which are involved in the working of their institutions. They also include the duty of complying with more general rules, such as promise-keeping and respect for life and property, which express the minimum of mutual trust and goodwill necessary to make any form of social life possible. The working of the principle of reciprocity, the desire for prestige and fear of loss of esteem or of ridicule and contempt, and many other motives may act as additional inducements to the native to perform such duties, but many of them are not legally binding and their performance cannot be directly enforced.

(3) Some of these duties, however, are so important for the welfare of the community, and especially for safeguarding the rights of others, that their fulfilment, from whatever motive, is better than their not being fulfilled at all. The Bantu do not leave the enforcement of these to the incentives provided by the principle of reciprocity and the normal working of social forces. They have, as we have seen, established legal machinery to enforce them. But the rules which are thus enforced do not derive their rightness from the fact that the courts enforce them; rather the courts enforce them because they are already recognised as right.

No doubt the fact that society has attached legal sanctions to a course of conduct helps to bring its rightness or wrongness home to the individual. As a result of it, he may come to regard as right some things which he had not so recognised before. The social disapproval which finds expression in the sanctions attached to certain forms of conduct may find an answering echo in his own conscience; and he may come to condemn such conduct not only in others but in himself. He may then avoid it because he believes it to be wrong and not just because it is forbidden or punished.47 But whatever value legal sanctions may have in helping the individual to recognise what is morally right, the sanctions neither make the rules to which they are attached right nor can they ensure more than external conformity to them. As regards the grounds of their rightness, the rules to which such sanctions are attached among the Bantu do not differ from other moral rules. We are, in fact, explicitly told that “the courts do not create or even confirm the rule: they merely recognise it”48 and enforce it. The rules which are thus enforced “are inherent in the social system of the people”. They are accepted “as binding and obligatory” because “they satisfy the more fundamental and common needs of life in society”.49 But the work of the courts helps to clarify these rules and gives them greater precision. “Their decisions afford a precedent for. . . the future. When there is any dispute regarding the nature or validity of the law, it is settled by discussion among the old men. . . appeal being made to what has been decided in similar cases in the past. . . . It is only when no precedent can be found that the court feels called upon to supply one in the form of an ad hoc decision. . . . Bantu law has undoubtedly grown and expanded in the form of such decisions, so that it has become very largely a system of oral ‘case law’.”50

Some of the obligations which are enforceable at law arise out of the specific position of a man as a member of a particular institution; others, such as respect for life and property, apply to all members of the tribe irrespective of status. The large majority of the civil cases coming before the courts are concerned with marriage arrangements, especially lobola and divorce. Others concern cattle and so on. The court “may force a man to carry out the obligations he has neglected to fulfil, or to make restitution or pay compensation for the damage he has done or to suffer punishment for the offence he has committed”.51 “The most common form of punishment is the imposition of a fine”, the amount of which varies “according to the position of the offender, the enormity of his offence, his previous record and his ability to pay”.52

The following may be quoted as illustrating the crimes dealt with and the relative heinousness which the natives attach to them.53 Witchcraft is considered the most serious of all crimes. It is punished with a cruel death, by hanging, impaling or drowning. Of old the punishment for murder was death, but it has now been reduced to a fine; but even after the fine has been paid, the murderer is scorned and despised and treated as unclean. Like most primitive people, the Bantu do not regard any occurrence as an accident. They therefore tend to attribute to a person some intention to produce even the accidental results of his actions. Accordingly, while they distinguish between murder and what we would call accidental manslaughter, a person who is found guilty of the latter does not get off scot-free. He or his family have to give to the family of the dead man a girl and ten hoes or an ox. Other crimes and their usual punishments are adultery, a fine equivalent to the lobola; ‘fighting which ends in blows and wounds’, eight pounds; theft, fines of varying amounts; ignoring a court order, two pounds.

Though the Bantu have such a keen sense of justice, and have provided so adequately for its administration, their ideas regarding it differ in certain respects from ours. E.g. they still accept the principle of collective responsibility in cases in which we would not be prepared to do so; as we have seen, though they distinguish between murder and accidental manslaughter, they do not allow the latter to go entirely unpunished; when a man does damage or commits a crime with a borrowed tool such as an axe or a spade, the owner, though entirely ignorant of what has happened, is regarded as in part responsible; and a breach of their law committed by an outsider, i.e. a member of the tribe but of another group or district or clan, is punished more severely than a breach by a member of the group. On the other hand, not only is the vendetta not practised among them, but there is no tradition of its ever having been practised. And even in the case of those rules to which legal sanctions are attached, they regard mere external conformity as the minimum which can be enforced, not as the maximum which is morally required of the good citizen. As regards both the demands which they make and the grounds of their rightness, these rules do not differ from other moral rules. They are enforced by the courts because they are first recognised as right, not regarded as right because they are enforced; and they are regarded as right because they are recognised as conditions of the forms of co-operation on which the working of their institutions and their way of life as a whole depends.

There are three other points about Bantu moral ideas which should be noted here, though I propose to defer consideration of their implications till a later stage in my argument.

(1) Their moral horizon does not extend beyond the limits of the tribe or, at most, the group of tribes. Those beyond these limits have no rights, and moral conceptions and considerations do not apply to them. This is no doubt partly due to ignorance and fear, especially fear of the unknown. It is significant in this connection that even so developed a primitive people as the Bantu believe that white people are cannibals.54

(2) Instances are given by our authorities of individuals who have a private conscience in the sense that they do not always regard as right some of the customs approved by their people. Junod,55 for example, mentions a young man who refused to indulge in pre-marital sexual relations which are customary among the Bantu, not because he did not feel inclined to, but because he did not regard the practice as right. They also give instances of serious moral deliberation and conflicts of loyalties. These are not cases of ordinary moral struggle in which a man who knows his duty may find it difficult to do it, but cases in which a man, after serious reflection, finds it difficult to discover what his duty is. Culwick,56 for example, quotes cases of young chieftains who after serious moral deliberation refused to accept Christianity on moral grounds or from a sense of duty. They were much attracted by the teaching of the missions and accepted what they took to be the main ethical teaching of the gospels, but they found some aspects of the requirements of the church inconsistent with the duties and responsibilities which they had undertaken, not only responsibilities for the welfare of their tribe, but duties to particular individuals, which these individuals had a right to expect them to fulfil. Junod57 refers to a similar dilemma on the part of the heir to a chieftainship, which was resolved by a refusal to accept the responsibilities of the position.

(3) I have quoted our authorities to the effect that Bantu morality is secular and that their religion is non-moral and does not help to make them morally better; but while their religion does not tell them what their duties to their neighbours are, and while it does not in the main directly encourage them to perform them, or discourage them from neglecting them, nevertheless their magico-religious beliefs and practices indirectly provide an added incentive to perform those duties which they independently regard as obligatory. There are indeed instances in which they seem to encourage them directly to behave morally.

To take the indirect effects first. Common ritual and worship make for the social cohesion and solidarity of those who engage in them. When the common worship is that of the recent ancestors of the family who are still regarded as its senior members, it is a powerful influence in fostering social sentiments, and it provides a strong stimulus to the individual to obey the laws of the group and do his duties to his fellow members. As regards the direct effects, we find instances in which a high level of moral conduct and, sometimes, the performance of difficult moral duties are required either as a pre-condition or a part or an accompaniment of ritual performances. To give just one example of each: If brothers, or even other members of families, have become estranged, they have, before approaching their ancestral gods for certain benefits, to be genuinely and publicly and ritually reconciled.58 Part of the ritual ceremonies in connection with mourning consists in members of the family who have, or believe they have, grievances against the others airing them publicly, thus removing a cause of bitterness and hatred.59 A similar reconciliation is required as part of the ritual when a new village is being established.60 Finally, no quarrels between co-wives at home are permitted during the three months of the initiation ceremonies at the lodge in the wilderness.61 Whether or not such practices were introduced into the magico-religious ritual with this end in view, their beneficial moral effect is unquestionable and considerable.