^{page 1 note 2} Bohannan, Paul J., Justice and Judgment among the Tiv, Oxford University Press, London, 1957Google Scholar ; Gluckman, Max, The Judicial Process among the Barotse of Northern Rhodesia, Manchester University Press, 1954Google Scholar ; Howell, P. P., A Handbook of Nuer Law, Oxford University Press, London, 1954.Google Scholar

^{page 2 note 1} Cf. Murdock, George P., Social Structure, Macmillan, New York, 1949, p. 74.Google Scholar

^{page 2 note 2} James L. Gibbs, Jr., ‘Poro Values and Courtroom Procedures in a Kpelle Chiefdom ’, South-western Journal of Anthropology (in press). A detailed analysis of Kpelle courtroom procedures and of procedures in the moot together with transcripts appears in: Gibbs, James L. Jr., Some Judicial Implications of Marital Instability among the Kpelle (unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 1960).Google Scholar

^{page 3 note 1} What follows is based on a detailed case study of moots in Panta Chiefdom and their contrast with courtroom hearings before the paramount chief of that chiefdom. Moots, being private, are less susceptible to the surveillance of the anthropologist than courtroom hearings, thus I have fewer transcripts of moots than of court cases. The analysis presented here is valid for Panta Chiefdom and also valid, I feel, for most of the Liberian Kpelle area, particularly the north-east where people are, by and large, traditional.

^{page 3 note 2} This simple distilled rum, bottled in Monrovia and retailing for twenty-five cents a bottle in 1958, is known in the Liberian Hinterland as ‘cane juice ’ and should not be confused with the imported varieties.

^{page 4 note 1} American currency is the official currency of Liberia and is used throughout the country.

^{page 5 note 1} Cf. Holleman, J. F., ‘An Anthropological Approach to Bantu Law (with special reference to Shona law) ’ in the Journal of the Rhodes-Uvingstone Institute, vol. x, 1950, pp. 27–41Google Scholar . Holleman feels that the use of tokens for effecting apologies—or marriages—shows the proclivity for reducing events of importance to something tangible.

^{page 6 note 1} Parsons, Talcott, The Social System, The Free Press, Glencoe, Ill., 1951, pp. 314–19.Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 2} Frank, Jerome D., ‘Group Methods in Psychotherapy ’, in Mental Health and Mental Disorder: A Sociological Approach, edited by Rose, Arnold, W. W. Norton Co., New York, pp. 524–35.Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 3} Klapman, J. W., Group Psychotherapy: Theory and Practice, Grune & Stratton, New York, 1959.Google Scholar

^{page 6 note 4} Opler, Marvin K., ‘Values in Group Psychotherapy ’, International Journal of Social Psychiatry, vol. iv, 1959, pp. 296–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 6 note 5} Frank, op. cit., p. 531.

^{page 6 note 6} Ibid.

^{page 7 note 1} Ibid.

^{page 7 note 2} Klapman, op. cit., p. 39.

^{page 7 note 3} Ibid., p. 15.

^{page 8 note 1} For expository purposes the four elements of therapy are described as if they always occur serially. They may, and do, occur simultaneously also. Thus, all four of the factors may be implicit in a single short behavioural sequence. Parsons (op. cit.) holds that these four elements are common not only to psychotherapy but to all measures of social control.

^{page 9 note 1} Parsons, op. cit., p. 314. Cf. loc. cit., chap. 10.

^{page 9 note 2} Cf. Parsons, op. cit., chap. 7. Parsons notes that in any social-control action the aim is to avoid the process of alienation, that ‘vicious-cycle’ phenomenon whereby each step taken to curb the nonconforming activity of the deviant has the effect of driving him further into his pattern of deviance Rather, the need is to ‘reach’ the deviant and bring him back to the point where he is susceptible to the usual everyday informal sanctions.

^{page 9 note 3} Beattie, J. H. M., ‘Informal Judicial Activity in Bunyoro’, Journal of African Administration, vol. ix 1957. pp. 188–95.Google Scholar

^{page 9 note 4} Disputes include matters such as a son seducing his father's wives, a grown son disobeying his father, or a husband or wife failing in his or her duties to a spouse. Disputes between unrelated persons involve matters like quarrelling, abuse, assault, false accusations, petty theft, adultery, and failure to settle debts. (Ibid., p. 190.)

^{page 9 note 5} Ibid., p. 194.

^{page 10 note 1} Beattie, op. cit., p. 194.

^{page 10 note 2} Ibid., p. 193.

^{page 10 note 3} Ibid., p. 195. Moreover, Beattie also recognizes the functional significance of the Nyoro moots, for he notes that: ‘It would be a serious error to represent them simply as clumsy, “amateur ” expedients for punishing wrong-doers or settling civil disputes at an informal, sub-official level.’ (Ibid.)

^{page 10 note 4} The type of examination of case materials that is required demands that field workers should not simply record cases that meet the ‘trouble case’ criterion (cf. Llewellyn, K. N. and Hoebel, E. A., The Cheyenne Way, Norman, Okla., University of Oklahoma Press, 1941Google Scholar ; and Hoebel, E. A., The Lav of Primitive Man, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1954)Google Scholar , but that cases should be recorded in some transcript-like form.

^{page 10 note 5} The present study has attempted to add to our understanding of informal dispute-settlement procedures in one African society by using an eclectic but organized collection of concepts from jurisprudence, ethno-law, and psychology. It is based on the detailed and systematic analysis of a few selected cases, rather than a mass of quantitative data. In further research a greater variety of cases handled by Kpelle moots should be subjected to the same analysis to test its merit more fully. It should prove useful in understanding dispute-settlement procedures in Africa and other parts of the world as well, for, since time immemorial, Freud's insights have undoubtedly been applied by man in many social-control mechanisms.