312 TRIBAL ORGANISATION 



important chieftains, or large native settlements. 

 Thus, in dealing with the Wa-Sena, it must not 

 be supposed that these people are the members of 

 a tribal organisation owing allegiance through so 

 many satraps or headmen to an over-ruling para- 

 mount chief. It was so at one time, no doubt, 

 but this system has now passed away, and although 

 the headman, or responsible householder, or what- 

 ever we may please to call him, is still vested with 

 slight authority in the village, this is wholly 

 derived from the local European district official, 

 who has the power, should there be grounds for 

 his doing so, to depose the village headman at 

 will. In the prazoes a similar system prevails, the 

 proprietor of the area leased possessing much the 

 same authority over the natives resident thereon as 

 the district official in crown or chartered territory ; 

 by this system, therefore, the paramount chiefs of 

 Zambezia are the responsible officials detailed for 

 its administration directly or indirectly by the 

 crown. In this way the dispensing of justice, 

 which is the most important attribute of the 

 representative of authority, is, by the present 

 arrangement, vested in the individual upon whom 

 the present native generation has come to look as 

 its paramount head, just as much as the earlier 

 tribesman regarded his chief as thefons et origo of 

 law and order. The law administered is, naturally, 

 Portuguese law, but, so far as has been found 

 practicable, questions are settled in accordance 

 with long-existing usage, where this does not 

 conflict with the well-recognised general principles 

 of right and wrong. Thus the negro at once 



