ABSTRACT
Few topics in the entire range of anthropological literature can have been so bedevilled by the problems of definition as that of primitive law. Indeed, so much of the discussion in this field has revolved around the terminological wrangles of jurists and anthropologists about the meaning of the term 'law' that it would seem at times as though the critical issues for debate were of a semantic rather than a sociological kind. Disputes in any society arise in an endless variety of ways and for a multiplicity of reasons. Among ourselves a court of law combines the functions of inquiry and adjudication, and imposes penalties or indicates the mode of redress, and only the actual enforcement is left to other agencies. Divination is essentially a mode of inquiry. In some communities it appears to be a purely revelatory process, dependent on the performance of the appropriate techniques, but not otherwise subject to human control.
