ABSTRACT
THE first part of this book is an attempt to discover some of the means by which an lbo village achieves the practical ends of government. The question has both a scientific and a practical side. The social anthropologist has the problem of discovering how, with so little, apparently, in the way of authority or of familiar forms, public business gets done. And in the search a number of interesting social devices appear. The Government official has to ask himself how indigenous institutions can not only be found and defined but also adapted to the task of indirect rule.
