Custom and common sense
The Zulu Royal succession dispute of the 1940s
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2138908 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Antony Costa (University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1997 |
| Volume | 56 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 19-42 |
| Publication date | 1997-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-0184 • E-ISSN: 1469-2872 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00020189708707858 |
| OpenAlex | W1530049942 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 31 |
In the early 1940s two rivals vied for the kingship of the Zulus. Concerned by the possibility of civil war, the Native Affairs Department intervened. A Board of Enquiry was appointed to hear evidence and determine the legitimate successor in accordance with the Natal Code of Native Laws. ‘Customary law’ was to be ascertained and applied. In making its finding, however, the Board went against the codified rules of succession, following the time honoured, but unmentionable, dictates of political power. Codified customary law was not the straitjacket it is often held to be, as native administrators were able to fashion their own version of justice as they adjudicated, legislated and generally intervened in local communities in ways that were designed more to keep the peace than to accord with custom
Economic Justice · Monarchy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Spanish Civil War · Successor cardinal · African history and culture studies · African studies and sociopolitical issues · Law · South African History and Culture
Cutting down trees
The roots of segregation
Control And Crisis In Colonial Kenya The Dialectic Of Domination
Social facts and fabrications
Law in Colonial Africa
Law, custom, and social order
The Invention of Tradition Revisited
A History of Natal
Crime, Justice, and Underdevelopment
Making Words Visible
Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth-Century Africa
Writing South African Legal History
N.J. Van Warmelo and the ethnological section a memoir
Resistance and Ideology in Settler Societies
Rules and processes, the cultural logic of dispute in an African context
Return to the Malungwana Drift-Max Gluckman, the Zulu Nation and the Common Society
Codification of Customary Law
A New Social Constructionism for Sociolegal Studies
Chiefship in a South African homeland
The Judges and judicial choice
In Search of Narrative Mastery
Law and Colonialism
A Zulu King Speaks. Statements Made by Cetshwayo kaMpande on the History and Customs of His People
Betrayed Trust
Studies in African Native Law
African Political Systems
The Predicament of Culture
To Bind the Nation
Peasants and politics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |