Studies in African Native Law

"This is a book to stir, bother, instruct, and somewhat dismay a lawyer. The book opens up all of jurisprudence and, as is observable, much of emotion. It is a clean job, done by a man who wants clarity in the law, who has a conscience even in advocacy, and who has the kind of essential insight into problems which fertilizes. Here is a book for lawyers, for sociologists and for ethnologists. For lawyers especially, here are familiar problems curiously illuminated in an unfamiliar setting. They wake you up to what the law is about."—Karl N. Llewellyn

"A fine contribution not only to legal scholarship but to the intelligent development of race relations."—Edmund N. Cahn

This book offers a firsthand examination of legal practice in colonial Africa during the first half of the twentieth century. The author evaluates the place of tribal law in the legal system of South Africa and the complex problems that arise from the conflicting laws of merging cultures. Some of the questions he asks are: What is the relation of tribal law to the common law of the country, especially on the same subject? Can tribal law be developed to keep pace with the changing conditions of tribal society? What is the future of tribal law in South Africa? These questions have sociological implications that reach far beyond the African continent and the waning colonial period during which they were posed.