WEINRICH, A. K. H. 1971 Chiefs and Councils in Rhodesia: Transition from Patriarchal to BureaucraticPower. London, Heinemann, xix, 252 pp. £4,50.-< *Bearing a title similar to that of J. F.Holleman's pioneer survey of the 1981 Man-gwende local government crisis,1 Sr. MaryAquina's work examines the interaction be-tween chiefs, councils, government and peoplein nine pseudonymous Karanga communities.Her extensive fieldwork, conducted between1962 and 1988, coincided with the seminalpost-Mangwende period when the developmentof local responsibility in Rhodesian Africanareas was accelerated by the linked means ofcouncils and community development, a processexpected to reach its peak by the mid-1970s.2This book is divided into three main sections,preceded by a brief and occasionally inaccuratehistorical introduction. Although the reserveshad been gazetted for the sole occupation ofAfricans three years beforehand, it is untrue tosay that the 1923 Constitution 'had alreadymade provision for racially segregated areas'(p. 12) ; for, however little exercised, the rightof Africans to purchase land in what was re-garded as the 'white' area was not extinguisheduntil the Land Apportionment Act was promul-gated in 1931.3 Also, there is no direct docu-mentary evidence in the Native Affairs filesthat are open to support the author's conten-tion that, subsequent to the 1937 NativeCouncils Act, Native Commissioners 'imposed'councils on tribal communities (p. 18), Themajority of Native Boards consulted in 1938either refused to apply for higher status orelected to leave the matter over for furtherconsideration; like many of his colleagues, theN.C. Marandellas took pains to assure hisBoard that it was not the Government's wish toforce councils on the people.4The first section of Sr. Mary's book expandson the theme of chiefs' relations with govern-ment, and through the medium of several in-teresting case-studies, illustrates the variety ofresponses Š some viable, others leading to theeventual disintegration of the chiefs position Šmade by traditional leaders to governmentofficials. The author ably handles her materialand convincingly fits it into her theoreticalmodel (p. 77). Above all, she demonstrates thecomplexity of this key relationship in localpolitics and indicates that the choice of be-haviour pattern transcends the familiar op-tions of overt opposition, as in the classic caseof Munhuwepayi Mangwende,3 and completeco-operation with the government.This is followed by a detailed study of asuccession dispute in one community that lastedover two decades and at various stages involvedgovernment at all levels, neighbouring chiefs,some adjacent white farmers and the localM.P. The author is to be commended for herclear presentation and succinct analyses of thevarious steps in the dispute. Unlike manysocial anthropologists, she does not bury thereader under a welter of technicalities and shetakes the trouble to identify each of the par-ticipants whenever mentioned in the text bygenealogical title as well as by his fictitiousname. One minor criticism: since the readermust constantly refer to the skeleton genealogy(on p. Ill) while following the history of thisdispute, it is unfortunate that the table wasnot printed on a 'pull-out' page at the end ofthe book to obviate frequent turning-back.Sr. Mary's concluding topic, a study of theimplementation of community development inher selected communities, draws together thebook's principal themes and attempts a finalsynthesis. On one level, it is a severe indict-ment of the methods government and somechiefs have employed to introduce communitydevelopment ideas; the author adduces con-siderable evidence derived from African in-formants of indirect pressure upon communi-ties to accept this concept. Her treatment ofthis controversial subject raises a variety ofquestions, not the least of which is whetherthe government's use of chiefs, its recent de-cision to pay only 95 per cent of African prim-ary teachers' salaries and offers of variousfinancial inducements to Purchase Area farm-ers to form councils, while terminating fundingfrom the African Development Fund 'S Vote'fp. 183), may be reconciled with communitydevelopment as a purely voluntary concept de-signed to meet the community's 'felt needs'.On another level, this concluding surveyraises a further question, one that has beenthe subject of some controversy for the pasttwo decades in Africa as a whole: the desirabil-ity of maintaining and even fostering the chiefas an active participant in local politics. Anearlier generation of commentators, dealingwith West African local government, outlinedthe arguments for and against their inclusion.101It was maintained on the one hand that tra-ditional leaders had a steadying effect6 andmoreover assisted in making councils accept-able to those whose values were still rooted inthe past. On the other, it was pointed out thatthey might lose prestige if out-voted by youngerelected members.7 Sr. Mary's account, likeHolleman's, shows that Rhodesia has aligneditself with the first school of thought. Her workamply illustrates the growing tendency of the1960s to involve traditional leaders more closelywith local development programmes, parallelingtheir increasing participation in national affairs.At the local level, district administration hasgiven rise to a plethora of representative insti-tutions in tribal trust lands, of which the mostsignificant are councils, community boards andthe chief's traditional councils (dare). Theauthor's attention is focussed on the first ofthese, and its relations with the third; apartfrom citing R. G. S. Simmonds's article on thework of community boards in Mangwende,8she says very little about the second. Herbook gives the impression that traditional ele-ments have, with official backing, gained con-trol of several councils. Passmore's CommunityDevelopment Survey (1968) however indicatesthat Victoria Province is atypical of Rhodesiaas a whole in that an unusually high proportionof community boards there are of the daretype, i.e., more than 50 per cent of their mem-bership also belongs to the traditional council.9While a direct comparison with Sr. Mary's bookis not possible since they are writing aboutdifferent institutions, it may be advanced that,the composition of councils in Victoria is alsoatypical. The 'Shoko' case-study (pp. 191-200)describes what seems to be an extreme state ofaffairs, the overt subordination of council tothe local dare.The recent amendment to the AfricanCouncils Act (No. 57 of 1971, sect. 17(2)),giving the vice-president (the chief) authority'to direct a council to defer its deliberations onany matter for consultation between the councilhimself and other such bodies or persons as hemay indicate'10 would suggest that in many areascouncils had freed themselves from the tra-ditionalists, though at the expense of wideningthe gap between progressives and conservativesto the point where government felt obliged tointervene and amend the Act. Such an in-terpretation would certainly go far to validateSr. Mary's central thesis that Government's sup-port of chiefs merely 'hardens the radical op-position between those who look back to thepast and those who look forward to the future'in. 236).REFERENCESAll the documentary sources cited are in the National Archives, Salisbury.1. HOLLEMAN, J. F. 1968 Chief, Council and Commissioner. London, O.U.P. This book is discussed inSTEELE, M. G, 1970 Some Problems of Government in Rhodesia. Rhodesian History, 1, 83-6.2. RHODESIA 1972 Report of the Secretary for Internal Affairs for the year 1971. Salisbury, GovernmentPrinter, Cmd.R.R. 32, p. 28.3. Earlier constitutional safeguards for the right of Africans to purchase land on an equal footing with Euro-peans outside the reserves were repeated in the Southern Rhodesia Constitution Letters Patent, section43, The Statute Law of Southern Rhodesia . . . 1923, [Salisbury] Government Printer, 1924, p. 25.4. See generally NATIVE AFFAIRS, Native Boards. 1931-1939, S 1542/N2; in particular, see IBID., N.C.Marandellas to C.N.C., 2. vi. 1938.5. HOLLEMAN, Chief, Council and Commissioner, chapters 3-6.6. FOWLER, W. 1953 Some Observations on the Western Region Local Government Law. Journal ofAfrican Administration, 5, 119-23.7. WRAITH, R. E. 1964 Local Government in West Africa. New York, Praeger, pp. 38-9. The AfricanCouncils Amendment Act (No. 57 of 1971; section 17(1)) resolved this problem in Rhodesia by deprivingthe chiefs of their right to vote at Council meetings.8. SIMMONDS, R. G. S. 1969 Self-help in the Mangwende Chieftainship. NADA, 10, 9-13.9. PASSMGRE, G. C. 1968 The Community Development Survey, 1968. Salisbury, University College ofRhodesia, Department of Political Science (mimeo), paras. 126-46, especially 129, Table XI.10. See also the Minister's comments on this amendment, RHODESIA 1971 Parliamentary Debates, House ofAssembly, 80, c.644, 7 September.University of RhodesiaM. C. STEELE102