MONEY BREAKS BLOOD TIES - CHIEFS COURTS AND THE TRANSITION FROM LINEAGE DEBT TO COMMERCIAL DEBT IN SIPOLILO DISTRICT

In Sipolilo District, the penetration of capitalist social relations w as first felt through interactions with storekeepers. The Native Commi ssioner's court, and shortly thereafter the Chiefs' courts, assisted t he spread of the concept of commercial debt, and deeply affected the f orm and structure of roora marriages. The article starts with the dram atic surge in commercial debt cases, and the subsequent equally dramat ic increase in non-commercial debt cases (largely in matrimonial dispu tes), in the Native Commissioner's court in the 1950s. By tracing deve lopments in civil disputes, the dynamics of the district's moral econo my are illuminated. The reasons for the increase in each field of law are examined. It is argued that the surge in nan-commercial cases echo ed the upsurge in commercial debt cases. This echo was not confined to the economic sphere, but spread to the spheres of law and social norm s. The article concludes that the struggle to control the courts was o f importance to wider social relations within the colonial state.