THE ROLE OF CHIEFS AND HEADMEN AMONG THE LUGBARA OF WEST NILE DISTRICT, UGANDA1
| Published date | 01 January 1956 |
| Date | 01 January 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1956.tb00512.x |
| Author | John Middleton |
32
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
required
them
and
providing
that
they
were
not
discriminatory. Since,
however, such
matters
as marriage, which
had
been codified
and
had
appeared
as rules under
the
Native Authority Ordinance, were by their very nature
discriminatory
and
had, therefore, died with
the
formation of an inter-racial
local council, special legislation was enacted to enable
the
liwalis to continue
exercising jurisdiction in
the
local courts in respect of prescribed
matters
of
local African customary law.
Regarding
the
composition of
the
Newala Local Council it is laid down in the
Instrument
that
the
District Commissioner shall be ex-officio chairman of the
council for a period of two years. It remains to by seen whether during
that
time the council can build up a staff
and
learn to conduct
its
affairs in such a
manner as to make it no longer necessary for it to depend on
the
specialized
administrative knowledge of
the
District Commissioner
and
on
the
assistance,
given through him, of
the
machinery of central government. The greatest
single factor which will render this
task
difficult is
the
great
dearth
of persons
possessing
the
necessary qualifications to operate
the
local government machine
unaided.
It
is also laid down in
the
Instrument
establishing
the
council
that
the five
liwalis shall be ex-officio members of
the
council. They too are in a position
peculiar to themselves in
that,
though appointed by
the
central government,
they
are members of a local council which pays their salaries. At
the
present
time this presents no special problem because their ability
and
prestige is such
that
the
position is unquestioned. At some time in
the
future, however, their
special
task
and
position
may
alter,
and
their position vis-a-vis council
may
have to be reviewed.
There has been no alteration in
the
function of
the
liwalis
and
the
District
Commissioner in respect of local court work. The local council is only responsi-
ble for
the
provision of
the
necessary funds, staff
and
buildings to enable the
local courts to operate.
Many problems
and
difficulties lie ahead of this recently born inter-racial
local council,
but
if
they
are tackled by
the
people of
the
district and by
the
central
and
local government staffs in
the
same enthusiastic manner which
was shown in bringing this council into being
they
should
not
prove insur-
mountable. Moreover, given
the
same enthusiasm, this particular form of local
government should operate efficiently in
the
interest of all communities since
it has
the
inestimable advantage of having been founded in a spirit of racial co-
operation from
the
very beginning.
THE
ROLE OF CHIEFS AND HEADMEN AMONG
THE
LUGBARA OF WEST
NILE
DISTRICT, UGANDA'
By
John Middleton
School of African Studies, University
of
Cape Town.
INthis
short
paper I discuss some aspects of
the
position of chiefs
and
head-
men in
the
West Nile District of
the
Northern Province of Uganda, an area
IField
work
among
the
Lugbara
of
Uganda
was
carried
out
for
most
of
the
period
from
December, 1949, to April, 1952,
with
assistance
from
the
Worshipful
Company
of
Goldsmiths
and
the
Colonial Social Science
Research
Council, London.
The
material
has
been
written
up
with
aid
from
the
Wenner-Gren
Foundation
for Anthropological Research,
New
York.
This
article
has
been
cut
down
from
an
original
paper
of
twice
its
length,
in
order
to
be
printed
in
this
Journal.
This
has
necessitated
the
omission of
certain
quantitative
and
illustrative
material.
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