¹ The material used for this paper was obtained mainly in the course of field work carried on intermittently during the years 1929–43 among several “tribes” (chiefdoms) of what is now the Republic of Botswana. As I do not know what (if any) changes may have occurred since then in the language, I use the past tense throughout to indicate that what is said here dates back to a period of more than 40 years ago.

It should be added that, following the lead of Professor D. T. Cole (see text referred to in footnote 10, below, xxix-xxxv), I have adopted the conjunctive system of word-division, in preference to the old disjunctive system commonly used by other writers (and by myself previously); the latter is retained here only when it occurs in sources that need to be thus distinguished.

² Brown, J. T., Setswana Dictionary, 1925, 3rd ed., 1973, 207, 209.Google Scholar

³ References to sources quoted are given in the following forms:

“Malete 27.1938” (etc.) = unreported record of case No. 27 of 1938, tried in the court of the Malete chief (etc.);

“MM 40, Ngwato” (etc.) = Ngwato text (etc.) published in my anthology Mekgwa le Melao ya Botswana, 1938.

“Min 1.4.1912” (etc.) = Minutes of Ngwaketse Tribal Assemblies, 1 April, 1912 (etc.); cf. I. Schapera Ed., The Political Annals of a Tswana Tribe: Minutes of Ngwaketse Public Assemblies 1910–1917, 1947. Tswana text published separately, 1948. University of Cape Town: Communications from die School of African Studies, n.s. No. 18. (Minutes, 1928–34: unpublished.)

⁴ Roberts, Simon, Order and Dispute, 1979, 147.Google Scholar

⁵ Schapera, I., A Handbook of Tswana Law and Custom, 1938, 36.Google Scholar

⁶ Comaroff, John L. and Roberts, Simon, Rules and Processes, 1981, 10.Google Scholar

⁷ Roberts, , 1979, 147.Google Scholar

⁸ Vinogradoff, P., Common Sense in Law, 1913; 3rd ed., 1959, 15–17.Google Scholar

⁹ Comaroff, and Roberts, , 1981, 9.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Cole, D. T., An Introduction to Tswana Grammar, 1955, 102.Google Scholar

¹¹ Schapera, , 1938, 36.Google Scholar

¹² Comaroff, and Roberts, , 1981, 71.Google Scholar

¹³ For detailed descriptions of Tswana legislative methods and procedures, see, Schapera, I., Tribal Legislation among the Tswana of the Bechuanaland Protectorate, 1943Google Scholar; Tribal Innovators: Tswana Chiefs and Social Change 1795–1940, 1970.Google Scholar

¹⁴ An informant from Saulspoort said that the custom originated there, towards the end of the nineteenth century, when people wanting to slaughter cattle for a wedding feast used to borrow a gun for that purpose from the local headman, whom they dien thanked by sending him die kind of gift mentioned.

¹⁵ On the other hand, such a phrase as mekgwa yagakgosi Gasdlsiwe, if used at all, could only mean “the personal habits (or peculiarities) of Chief Gaseitsiwe”.

¹⁶ In 1947 a “committee of headmen”, appointed by die Kwena chief Kgari, drafted a list of 46 Mekgwa le Melaoya Sekwena, “Kwena customs and laws”. Judging from its style and arrangement, the list was obviously based on the well-known Southern Sodio compilation known as “The Laws of Lerotholi”. Because it was produced after the period of my fieldwork among the Kwena, I have used the list (which I found in the Government archives at Gaborone) merely as an occasional source of linguistic data.

¹⁷ Schapera, , 1938, 35.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Comaroff, and Roberts, , 1981, 71–72.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Schapera, , 1938, 46–47.Google Scholar

²⁰ Comaroff, and Roberts, , 1981, 71, 72.Google Scholar