A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom: Compiled for the Bechuanaland Protectorate Administration (Classics in African Anthropology) - Hardcover

Schapera, I.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 3894736852 ISBN 13: 9783894736859

Publisher: Lit Verlag, 1997

Synopsis

When Professor Isaac Schapera was asked in 1934 by the Protectorate Administration to compile a record of the traditional and modern laws of the Tswana tribes he had already been working since 1929 on a comprehensive ethnographic study of the Kgatla, and his investigation was therefore based on a thorough previous knowledge of the social structure as a whole. Schapera gives a picture of what Tswana law was like in former times, and shows that, contrary to expectation, modern European contact and the administration of tribes by the then Protectorate Government ended the original uniformity of the system, and created considerable diversity. Schapera conscientiously kept within the original mandate of the Administration and produced an authoritative, straightforward compilation. Despite its modest title it has deservedly become a classic and far exceeds its primary object, which was to serve as a handbook for the information and guidance of government officials and administrators of the law. This is a reprint of the first edition published in 1938.

About this title

Synopsis

A reprint of the first edition published in 1938. A specifically legal anthropology, its focus is on the careful, systematic presentation of the normative understandings of the Tswana world its "rules" without examination of the actual practices of everyday life or of enforcement. Appendices offer detailed data on lineages and age regiments. Distri

Edition details

• Publisher: Lit Verlag
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3894736852
• ISBN 13: 9783894736859
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 349