Contract and Neighbourly Exchange among the Birwa of Botswana1

Nicholas Mahoney

doi:10.1017/S0021855300008548

Contract and Neighbourly Exchange among the Birwa of Botswana1

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009

Nicholas Mahoney

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Schapera’s accounts of the Tswana provide one of the few instances of contract to be found in the “customary” law of African societies in colonial times. Not only were contracts a means used, even between closely related people, for making certain kinds of transactions, but also the Tswana courts were prepared to enforce executory contracts. In this paper I intend to discuss the significance of contracts among the Birwa of independent Botswana, in particular the way in which contracts are used to regulate certain kinds of productive exchanges between co-operating neighbours.

Type: Research Article
Information: Journal of African Law , Volume 21 , Issue 1: SPECIAL NUMBER IN HONOUR OF ISAAC SCHAPERA , Spring 1977 , pp. 40 - 65

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021855300008548 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1977

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² Schapera, I., A handbook of Tswana law and custom, 2nd ed., London, 1955Google Scholar; and “Contract in Tswana Law”, in Gluckman, M. (ed.), Ideas and procedures in African customary law, 1969, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar

^{page 43 note 1} In a survey of 279 households in Manyana village in the south of Botswana 266 were reported to have entered into some kind of ploughing exchange: D. Curtis, “The social organization of ploughing”, 1969, 4, Botswana Notes and Records, 67–80.

^{page 43 note 2} Cf. Schapera, 1969, op. cit.

^{page 43 note 3} See below.

^{page 46 note 1} Sahlins, M. D., Stone Age Economics, 1974, London, chapter 2.Google Scholar

^{page 46 note 2} Sahlins, op. cit., p. 76.

^{page 46 note 3} Op. cit., p. 79.

^{page 46 note 4} Op. cit., p. 89.

^{page 46 note 5} Op. cit., p. 78.

^{page 46 note 6} Op. cit., p. 95.

^{page 46 note 7} Op. cit., p. 101.

^{page 46 note 8} Op. cit., p. 78.

^{page 48 note 1} Pseudonyms are used throughout.—Author.

^{page 50 note 1} Sahlins, op. cit., pp. 193–4.

^{page 50 note 2} Gouldner, A., “The norm of reciprocity: a preliminary statement”, (1960) 25, American Sociological Review, No. 2, 161–178.Google Scholar

^{page 50 note 3} Sansom, B., “Traditional Economic Systems”, p. 150, Hammond-Tooke, W. D. (ed.), The Bantu-Speaking Peoples of Southern Africa, 2nd ed., London, 1974, chapter 5. Bloch has examined the moral underpinning of long-term co-operative relations among kinsmen (cf. Sahlins, op. cit., p. 191). I am suggesting here that kinship, putative or real, is not always a necessary or a sufficient basis for relationships characterized by long-term obligations of reciprocity.Google ScholarBloch, M., “The long term and the short term: the economic and political significance of the morality of kinship”, [in] Goody, J. (ed.), The character of kinship, Cambridge, 1973. PP. 75–87.Google Scholar

^{page 51 note 1} “”Basically as these gifts are not spontaneous so also they are not really disinterested. They are for the most part…made…to maintain a profitable alliance which it would be unwise to reject”: Mauss, M., The Gift, London, 1970, 71.Google Scholar

Cf. Sahlins, op. cit., p. 186: “If friends make gifts, gifts make friends”.

^{page 51 note 2} If the household is regarded as the “dominant production institution” of a society and no wider order of productive relations held to influence productive transactions, then it is logical to regard inter-household labour exchanges merely as a necessary response to the labour requirements of certain tasks (cf. M. P. Moore, “Co-operative labour in peasant agriculture”, 1975, Journal of Peasant Studies, 2: 270–91). Nash writes of a “tribal-like” Middle American Indian community:

“The peak work periods in the agricultural cycle require more labour than is available to the household units, which are also the economic units. So, within a locality or settlement there is a form of exchange: unpaid, co-operative farm labour”.

(Nash, M., p. 164, “Market and Indian peasant economies”, Shanin, T. (ed.), Peasants and Peasant Societies, 1971, Harmondsworth, pp.161–77.)Google Scholar

Among Birwa the neighbourhood set represents an order of productive relations wider than the household, and inter-household labour exchanges cannot be explained merely as the results of labour needs of routine, if large-scale, productive tasks.

^{page 51 note 3} Goody, J., p. 64, “The fission of domestic groups among the Lodagaba”, [in] Goody, J. (ed.), The developmental cycle in domestic groups, 1958, Cambridge, pp. 53–91.Google Scholar

^{page 51 note 4} S. R. Charsley, “The Silika: a co-operative labour institution”, 46, Africa, 1, pp. 34–47.

^{page 52 note 1} Cf. Blau, who writes: “The specific benefits exchanged are … primarily valued as symbols of the supportiveness and friendliness they express, and it is the exchange of the underlying mutual support that is the main concern of the participants”. (lau, P. M., Exchange and Power in Social Life, New York, 1964, p. 95.)Google Scholar

^{page 52 note 2} Sahlins, op. cit., pp. 193–4, 199; and see below.

^{page 52 note 3} Cf. Curtis, D., “Cash brewing in a rural economy”, (1973), Botswana Notes and Records, 5, 17–25.Google Scholar

^{page 53 note 1} Gouldner, op. cit., p. 176.

^{page 53 note 2} Blau, op. cit., p. 99.

^{page 53 note 3} Blau, op. cit., p. 98.

^{page 55 note 1} The arrangements which have to be made to facilitate re-settlement between members of neighbourhood sets among Birwa differ from those in Kalanga neighbourhoods in the north-east of Botswana. Birwa have a much greater degree of choice and opportunities to move settlements over considerable distances. The fact that many Birwa can be members of two. or three different sets at the same time, at their fields, their livestock posts, and in the village is important here as is the fact that Birwa of Bobonong spend some of their year in a large central village giving them opportunities to establish and keep up relations with people some of whose settlements may be at the other end of the region to their own. (Cf. Werbner,. 1975, op. cit.)

^{page 56 note 1} Cf. Gluckman, M., Politics, Law and Ritual in Tribal Society, Oxford, 1965, chapter 2Google Scholar; Bohannan, P., “Africa’s Land”, [in] Dalton, G. (ed.), Tribal and Peasant Economies, New York, 1967, pp. 51–60; and G. Dalton, “Traditional production in primitive African economies”, [in] G. Dalton (ed.), op. cit., pp. 61–80.Google Scholar

^{page 56 note 2} Moore, S. F., “Descent and Legal Position”, [in] Nader, L. (ed.), Law in Culture and Society, 1969, Chicago, p. 396.Google Scholar

^{page 56 note 3} Cf. Gouldner, op. cit., p. 176.

^{page 56 note 4} Schapera, 1969, op. cit., p. 322.

^{page 56 note 5} Schapera, I., Native Land Tenure in the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Alice, 1943, p. 224.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 1} Maine, Sir Henry, Ancient Law, London, Everyman Edition, 1917, p. 99.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 2} Allott, A. N., Epstein, A. L. and Gluckman, M., “Introduction” to Gluckman, M. (ed.), Ideas and Procedures in African Customary Law, 1969, London, pp. 1–81.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 3} Op. cit., p. 19; cf. Schapera, 1969, op. cit., p. 319.

^{page 58 note 4} Gluckman, M., The Judicial Process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia, Manchester, 1967 (2nd ed.), p. 30; and see below.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 5} Op. cit., p. 77.

^{page 58 note 6} Op. cit., p. 76.

^{page 58 note 7} Epstein, A. L., Juridical Techniques and the Judicial Process, Manchester, 1954, p. 29.Google Scholar

^{page 58 note 8} Bohannan, P., Justice and Judgement among the Tiv, London, 1968, p. 111.Google Scholar

^{page 59 note 1} Allott, Epstein and Gluckman, op. cit., p. 76.

^{page 59 note 2} Y. P. Ghai, “Customary contracts and transactions in Kenya”, [in] Gluckman (ed.) op. cit., pp. 333–44, p. 334.

^{page 59 note 3} Ghai, op. cit., p. 343. Cf. Pospisil, L., Kapauku Papuans and their law New Haven, 1958, p. 208.Google Scholar

^{page 59 note 4} Cf. Allott, Epstein and Gluckman, op. cit., pp. 77–8, where they note the Tswana case but suggest that its exceptional standing may be due to the effects of colonialism and to “some misunderstanding” on Schapera’s part. After 1946 Lozi courts enforced executory contracts (Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 252).

^{page 59 note 5} Schapera, 1969, op. cit., pp. 327–8.

^{page 59 note 6} S. F. Moore, op. cit., p. 376.

^{page 59 note 7} 1967, op. cit., p. 28.

^{page 59 note 8} Bohannan, P. and Dalton, G. (eds.), “Introduction”, Markets in Africa, North Western University Press, 1962. Dalton, op. cit., p. 75; and Sahlins, op. di cit., p. 224.Google Scholar

^{page 60 note 1} I. M. Lewis, “Clanship and Contract in Northern Somaliland”, (1959), 29, Africa, 274–293.

^{page 60 note 2} Pospisil, L., Anthropology of law: a comparative theory, 1974, New Haven, p. 150.Google Scholar

^{page 60 note 3} Maine, op. cit., p. 183.

^{page 60 note 4} Op. cit., p. 179.

^{page 60 note 5} Op. cit., p. 183.

^{page 60 note 6} Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 28.

^{page 60 note 7} Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 32.

^{page 60 note 8} Gluckman, M., The Ideas in Barotse Jurisprudence, 1972 edition, Manchester, p. 176.Google Scholar

^{page 61 note 1} Gluckman, 1965, op. cit., p. 48, my emphasis. Cf. Dalton, op. cit., p. 71.

^{page 61 note 2} Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 30, my emphasis.

^{page 61 note 3} Allott, Epstein and Gluckman, op. cit., p. 71.

^{page 61 note 4} Gluckman, 1972, op. cit., pp. 173–4.

^{page 61 note 5} Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 441.

^{page 61 note 6} Gluckman, 1967, op. cit., p. 29.

^{page 61 note 7} Gluckman, 1972, op. cit., p. 199.

^{page 61 note 8} Op. cit., p. 173.

^{page 62 note 1} Sahlins, op. cit., p. 191.

^{page 62 note 2} Op. cit., p. 194–5.

^{page 62 note 3} Op. cit., p. 199.

^{page 62 note 4} 1969, op. cit., p. 322.

^{page 62 note 5} Cf. Curtis, 1972, op. cit., p. 73.

^{page 62 note 6} Pospisil, 1958, op. cit., pp. 210 and 229.

^{page 62 note 7} Op. cit., p. 212.

^{page 62 note 8} Op. cit., p. 221.

^{page 62 note 9} Gouldner, op. cit.

^{page 63 note 1} Cf. Curtis, 1972, op. cit.

^{page 64 note 1} Curtis, 1972, op. cit., p. 70.

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