Jane Furse, 25 August 1999

Dear reader,

 Another letter from the field! I have just finished a research report on my second South African case study and would, once again, like to inform you of some of the main findings in it. If you are interested in reading the whole 30-page report you can find in on http://home.mweb.co.za/b./b.oomen .

As I moved from Hoepakranz, the lush small traditional village tucked away in the Leolo mountains, to Mamone, a much larger and rapidly developing rural area stretched out over de Sekhukhune plains, my research question remained the same: What is the position of traditional authority in the new South Africa, in particular concerning local government, dispute resolution and land tenure? This time around, however, I have tried to take a more focused approach - spurred by your comments as well as the sheer size of the area. Instead of diligently mapping out all structures of law and administration, I have concentrated on the traditional authority. Also, as this is a study of law and administration in the local sphere, I have concentrated on the relation between external influences (like laws and policies) and internal dynamics in determining the position of traditional authority.

Methodologically speaking, Mamone presented a challenge entirely different from Hoepakranz. Research in Hoepakranz was about leisurely strolling from homestead to homestead, being warned by the bell on the mountain if there was a community meeting. Mamone, with its 40.000 inhabitants and 13 settlements, meant driving around from meeting to meeting, chasing after councillors with cell-phones, being confronted with expensive development projects and corruption to match. Selecting respondents for the questionnaire proved more of a challenge, and we had to rely on statistical data to choose a roughly representative sample of 121 people. Although I live in Mamone and have been visiting the Mamone traditional authority since December, it was only in the period May - July that we concentrated exclusively on the area.

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If there is one word to sum up the dynamics surrounding traditional authority in Mamone it must be "retraditionalization". During a lavish and well-attended coronation in December the queenmother ended 19 years of conflict-ridden interregnum by draping the royal leopardskin - purchased by migrants at KwaZulu Muti a few weeks earlier - around the shoulders of her son: the young Billy Sekwati Mampuru III. The brassband played, praise-singers sang, the sjambok-wielding vigilante organisation Mapogo gave the chief one of their whips and the insurance of protection, the government handed over a certificate and stamp and the royal family underscored the new king's responsibilities in speech after speech: "you are now like a garbage-heap and must expect the rubbish of the whole community to land upon you".

The advent of a new chief sparked a process of redebating the value of traditional institutions and renegotiating traditional rule that seemed a researcher's walhalla. Let me give a few examples. Firstly, the Mamone Bapedi are rallying themselves to claim paramountcy of all the Bapedi. On the back of the glossy program handed out at the coronation - sponsored by the mining company that employs many Mamone locals - the organizers had conveniently printed a genealogy linking, through selective presentation of historic facts, young Billy directly to the great Thulare who ruled all the Pedi's in the 19^th century. This claim is spurred by the government resolve to not only pay the Zulu king Zwelithini a yearly salary of r 300.000 (plm $ 50.000) but to also recognize paramounts within other ethnic communities. As part of this reclaiming of cultural identity, the traditional authority is also asking back the bones of Billy's greatgrandfather, who was hanged by the Boers, and considering opening a museum.

Another example of the retraditionalization process is the revamping of the kgôrô, the traditional court. Anyone who arrives in Mamone village on a Wednesday morning and sees the old men gathered on treetrunks around the thorntree might be forgiven for thinking this is an age-old ritual. Actually, the kgôrô has only taken over the function of settling disputes from the Tribal Council - a structure put in place by Apartheid laws - in January this year. It has proved instrumental in the quest of the traditional authority to restore law and order within its territory. Sometimes in the most brutal manner, like when a self-appointed headman who had allocated land illegally was beaten up, tied to the thorn tree and smeared with vaseline to be doubly attractive to the red ants. Although there are other instances of corporal punishment in the kgôrô, this case is often recited by the traditional authority to get people to pay tribal levies or otherwise honour the chief. The courtcase opened by the headman is also used to debate the autonomy of the traditional authority vis-à-vis the state.

Whilst the kgôrô looks at customary laws in a 'problem-cases' approach, holding material and procedural customs against the light of change as they surface in individual cases, another faction tries to come to a general restatement of Mamone customary law. The Commission on the Tribal Constitution has embarked on in an extensive consultative process in order to write a document with all the tribal laws and customs on topics ranging from governance to culture and development. The members of the Commission combine multiple identities: being teachers as well as members of the royal family and active in the local ANC. They feel that: "we now have a new chief and we want to draw up a constitution with which he can rule us".

I have not yet spoken of the chief himself. This is deliberate, as the chief here only seems to be one actor in a larger traditional authority consisting of - often competing - factions. The soft-spoken 32-year old born-again Christian, who spent his whole life outside the area, himself complains of this powerlessness, and the fact that he can "trust nobody". In an seemingly strategic act, his first steps in the 'retraditionalization' process have not been in Mamone village - the seat of the traditional authority - but in the so-called satellite villages. These villages were pasted onto the Mamone traditional authority as part of the bantustan policies, under which - for instance - a community needed a chief in order to buy land and would turn to king Sekwati. As the Mamone chieftaincy was torn apart by succession struggles, these villages have become accustomed to a great deal of autonomy over the past decades. The new king, in visits to these villages irreverently called "Billy's Roadshow" by the locals, tries to convince them of the importance of respecting traditional leadership and - of course - paying tribal levies.

The success that "Billy's Roadshow" has differs. The Mamone traditional authority consists of different spheres, with different levels of urbanization and politicization, influences that often impact negatively on the support for traditional leadership. Many of the people living in the township hustle and bustle of Jane Furse, for instance, hardly consider themselves subject to a chief. Generally, 73 % of the people interviewed say that they "support traditional leadership" (as compared to 94 % in Hoepakranz) but 39 % sees no role for the institution in the new South Africa. Supporters of the institution once again point at its importance for identity: "all our customs and traditions are enshrined in bogôši and it is a way of keeping the community together". Opponents give reasons like: "they are ripping our parents left and right. Remember that our mothers should work at mošate while our fathers are taxed". Interesting is the conditionality that often comes with the support for the traditional authority here: a chief can be paid, but only if he delivers development.

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In this delivering of development, the traditional authority competes with many other structures, most notably the elected local government. As land is the most important resource in this competition, I will first say a few words about land use in the Mamone traditional authority.

Mamone lies mainly on tribal and trust land, with the chief legally entitled to act as a trustee for both. Over time a system has developed in which the chief delegates this function to headmen. This system - operating in a context of legal insecurity and conflicts over authority - has a number of flaws. Different headmen, firstly, wield different criteria in controlling access to land. Although there are some similarities - like strangers always having to pay an extra r 400 ($ 66) for a plot whilst locals don't - some headmen don't allocate to women, others bar single men and some just give land to the highest bidder. This has resulted in vastly different prices for the legally insecure title of "permission to occupy". Also, the long-standing fight over the throne has duplicated itself at the local level, where the public often doesn't know to which of the many self-appointed headmen to turn for a plot of land.

This legal and factual insecurity is also found in the proclamation of land for development. In these cases the developers often demand a so-called Tribal Resolution. Although the law speaks of "a decision taken at a properly constituted meeting where a majority of the tribe is present or represented", proclaiming land has generally been a secretive process in Mamone, with only the TLC, the Tribal Council and the developers involved. The community at large doesn't know how much money the tribe received for 'signing away' land for a hospital, a housing project and a shopping centre and many people complain about the - uncompensated - loss of their ploughing fields.

Notions like that of a Tribal Resolution rest on the erroneous assumption that a tribe is a homogeneous entity which can unproblematically be represented. The inacurracy of this is demonstrated by the case of the Eenzaam Housing Project in which the youth of one of the satellite villages, flanked by the local government, wants low-cost houses. It is opposed by the village elders with the cooperation of the Mamone traditional authority. Proponents of the project claim to have a Tribal Resolution - "at that meeting someone stood up and signed on behalf of the tribe" whilst the traditional authority says that it knows nothing of it.

Land is the most important resource underlying Mamone's dealings with the elected local government (TLC). But there are others. Like the law: the traditional authority still has the legal right to carry out a variety of local government functions and does still do things ranging from protection of the environment to population registration. It is also financially much better endowed than the elected government, with a large tribal office and a handsomely paid chief. Part of the Mamone traditional authority's strength also lies in the weakness of its counterpart: although most respondents hold the TLC responsible for nearly all local government functions (unlike was the case in Hoepakranz) they are particularly unimpressed by its performance. 87 % of the people think that the TLC has done badly/neutrally and writes things like "I don't think we have elected these guys to drive around in Mercedes Benz' with nonsense girlfriends and not delivering to us".

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The format of this letter and the fact that I do not want to take too much of your time means that I have only brushed on some of the themes that arose from my second case study. For others, like the kind of cases that are taken to the revived traditional court, I have to refer you to the homepage.

Nevertheless, a tentative answer to the question what determines the position of traditional authority - external or internal influences - can be given. As we have seen the most dominant theme in Mamone at present is a process of retraditionalization. Whilst this process is largely internally driven its manifestations - from claiming paramountcy to asserting control over land - are to a certain extent determined by present laws and policies. Once again, the intrinsical support for traditional leadership that is not always recognized by academics and policy-makers looms large. As I write in my research report, traditional leadership should be seen as an institution somewhere between "a crumbling remnant of the past buttressed from the outside by laws and policies or, alternatively, a separate sphere resting easily on its own foundations and merits". Adding strength to the traditional authority in this case is the relative malfunctioning of the elected local government.

Once again, I hope that you do not mind being confronted with such unripe research results and would be grateful for any assistance in interpreting them or for tips on comparative literature!