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Koena Chieftainship Seniority in Basutoland

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

Ian Hamnett
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Extract

Basutoland is administered by a unified and centralized hierarchical chieftainship (borena). At the head of the hierarchy stands the Paramount Chief, whose jurisdiction extends over the whole nation. Under him there are twenty-two Principal and Ward Chiefs, each having jurisdiction over the whole of his ward. In each principality there are a varying number of subordinate chiefs with their own (minor) wards, there being a total of about 460 such chiefs in the territory. The general effect is one of loose-fitting Chinese boxes, the loose fit being due to the fact that a chief (at any level of the hierarchy) does not grant the whole of his ward to subordinate chiefs but retains a part in his own hands, so that the sum of all the subordinate wards in any chiefdom is not as great as the totality of the superior ward of which they are parts.

Résumé

LES DROITS CONFÉRÉS PAR L'ÂGE DANS LA CHEFFERIE KOENA AU BASUTOLAND

Les droits conférés par l'âge pour les chefs des Koena apparaissent comme le produit de deux principes différents mais complémentaires, l'un se rapportant à la descendance du fondateur de la dynastie, l'autre à la parenté avec le chef suprême du moment. Il en résulte un système mixte dont les ambiguités facilitent la résolution des conflits politiques latents à l'intérieur de la structure de la parenté et de l'ordre légal.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , July 1965 , pp. 241 - 251
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1965

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References

page 241 note 1 The traditional political system has been isolated for the purposes of this analysis. The lack of territorial and jurisdictional correspondence between the colonial administration and that of the chiefs makes such analytical isolation relatively easy and acceptable.

page 241 note 2 The distinction between Principal and Ward Chiefs will not be observed here. It should be remarked that the term ‘ward’ is also generically used, to indicate any area of chiefly jurisdiction at no matter what level of the political hierarchy. The context will resolve any latent ambiguity. (Wards are units of political and administrative authority, not of land use or ownership.)

page 241 note 3 The position is more complex than this brief description suggests, there being many more levels in the hierarchy than three; these facts are not, however, relevant to the discussion.

page 241 note 4 Professor Edward Batson, Director of the 1956 Social Survey of Basutoland, has in a private commmunication informed me that the population of male heads of households described as ‘Kwena’ in the 1956 Social Survey was 30 per cent.

page 241 note 5 The designation of all the Principal Chiefs as Sons of Moshoeshoe is not fully accurate. The exceptions do not, however, affect the validity of the present thesis. Of the twenty-two Principal Chiefdoms, seventeen are ruled by Sons of Moshoeshoe, all of them from his first house. In so far as non-Koena groups (Taung, Khoakhoa, Tlokoa, &c.) are exceptions, they are discussed below. See also p. 250, n. 1.

page 242 note 1 All the Principal Chiefs, being descended in the male line from brothers, are (in a wide sense) brothers in terms of the Sotho classificatory kinship system.

page 243 note 1 Strictly speaking, a wholly retrospective, non-repetitive system would recognize only senior sons, the heir's brothers and uncles being merely non-hereditary officers, i.e. they would form a bureaucracy.

It should be noted here that the diagrams are purely schematic and do not attempt to reflect the complexity of actual relationships.

page 244 note 1 This was true as recently as V. Sheddick, Land Tenure in Basutoland, H.M.S.O., 1954, p. 29.

page 244 note 2 In the past, court fines and matsema labour were important sources of wealth.

page 244 note 3 The placing system is well and concisely described in G. I. Jones, Basutoland Medicine Murder, H.M.S.O., 1951, ss. 108–15.

page 245 note 1 The principle is sometimes called ‘forward-looking’ but is less misleadingly thought of as ‘round-about-looking’, i.e. circumspective.

page 245 note 2 The descent of the Paramount Chiefs is as follows: Moshoeshoe I, d. 1870; his senior son Letsie I 1870–91; his senior son Lerotholi 1891–1905; his senior son Letsie II 1905–13. Letsie II died with (for the present purpose) no male issue and was succeeded by his brother Griffith, 1913–39, who was succeeded by his senior son Seeiso 1939–40. Seeiso's senior widow, ʼMantsebo, who had no male issue, ruled as Regent until the accession of Moshoeshoe II (C. Bereng Seeiso) in 1960. Born in 1938, he is the senior son of Seeiso's second house.

page 247 note 1 Cf. lower court judgements in Lethola v. do., J.C. 32/52, and Tseole v. do., J.C. 39/62.

page 247 note 2 Bereng Griffith v. ʼMantsebo Griffith 1926–53 H.C.T.L.R. 50 at p. 74.

page 247 note 3 ‘The first born male child of the first wife married….’

page 248 note 1 Strictly speaking, it has recently been the High Commissioner's approval that provided the legal ground for chiefly status but this technicality may be ignored.

page 248 note 2 The accession of Griffith in 1913 was effected at the expense of the posthumous son of his pre-decessor and brother Letsie II. This can be seen as favouring the ‘circumspective’ principle, in so far as it asserted the fact of propinquity to the first cardinal line as the criterion of seniority; alternatively, it could be and sometimes is regarded simply as a modification of the law governing posthumous children, and nothing more. (‘Posthumous’ here means ‘posthumously conceived’.)

page 249 note 1 Cf. p. 243, n. 1, above.

page 249 note 2 Thus, ‘chieftainship’ exists conceptually and linguistically as a separate item from ‘chiefs’. Cf. Mahase J.C. 59/52, with reference to ‘a man who has no respect for the chieftainship (borena) set above him’; and chiefs who disliked the 1944 proposals for centralizing the court revenues, fearing that the change would impoverish them, complained that ‘Moshoeshoe is being starved’ (Moshoeshoe o tla lapa), v. Explanatory Memorandum, Basuto National Treasury, s. 49.

page 250 note 1 The circumspective principle also underlay the incorporation and subordination, by means of placings, of the non-Koena groups. Here the pre-ponderance of political power over lineage authority is particularly apparent, though it was tempered by intermarriage and also by the granting of subordinate autonomy to certain tribal groups where this was desirable or inevitable. Cf. p. 244, note 3 and text.

page 250 note 2 Traditionally, the courts were in the hands of chiefs, and little or no distinction was drawn between judicial acts (recognizing pre-existing rights) and administrative acts (creating new rights or modifying former ones). It would be a matter for a further study to determine whether this ambiguity in the sphere of the courts was in any way structurally related to the other ambiguities that have been examined here.