Ndima, Dial. The Law of Commoners and Kings: Narratives of a Rural Transkei Magistrate (UNISA: University of South Africa Press and Boston: Brill, 2004), $31.00, 129 pp. ISBN: 1-86888-286-1 (paper).

The Law of Commoners and Kings: Narratives of a Rural Transkei Magistrate by Dial Ndima, a Black African, provides a methodical perspective on the legal system in the Transkei region of South Africa during its period of putative independence (1976–94). Ndima served several rural communities in his native Transkei region. He provides a chronicle of his life experiences in the republic, focusing on 1980–94. The author’s overall goal is to determine the basis on which African people can make a specific claim to the validity and appropriateness of their own culture, under the domination of Roman-Dutch law. Ndima shows how Roman-Dutch law has shaped and, in some instances, threatened the integrity of traditional law, and the right of people to maintain cultural autonomy.