ABSTRACT
A distinction must be made between new customs accepted by the tribe and new laws and orders affecting the tribe. Under the Penal Code, for example, murderers must be dealt with in a certain way, and executed if convicted. Early in the experiment, the anthropologist was asked to give a full account of the political organization of the tribe. This request was supplemented later by more specific questions: these were either requests for immediate information, or indications of the necessity for expansion on certain points. The political organization evolved was continuously changing, and there is no reason for considering one period superior to another. The institutions of the tribe which are taken as the normal are those which existed in the years of Mkwawa's reign, just before the first German expedition in 1891. It is as administrator that the change is greater, and a new analysis of his administrative duties is necessary.
