| caption: |
chapter four - the village administration |
| note: |
footnotes indicated by boxes within square brackets |
| text: |
When a court meets to hear a case (sam-heki-ra, to discuss or argue a matter - the term is used both for a court hearing and for a council meeting) either party may speak first. In practice both appear to do so at once, and friends, relatives, witnesses and principals all speak at once and at one and the same time. To the observer a Nzemi public hearing appears to be pandemonium, but it is in fact a violent public argument between the parties and in its course all the relevant points of the case are sooner or later brought out and noted by the elders, who sit listening quietly and take no part in the discussion. By the time both sides have shouted themselves hoarse [5 [Record T86811] |
