ABSTRACT
AS has been shown in Chapter I, the political organization of the Leŋge consists in the grouping of a certain number of sibs under each district chief or regulo (cf. Appendix II). Each sib has its own petty chief (hosana or ŋganakana), who has a good deal of authority over his own people, but is responsible to, and has the right of appeal to, the district chief, who in his turn is responsible to the Portuguese Government. The people can always appeal directly to the Portuguese Native Commissioner, who when judging individual cases in this way may call up the petty chief, as well as others, to give evidence and to state his point of view in the matter. Each sib is again divided into sub-sibs or lineages, each with its headman, who is generally a councillor (induna) of the petty chief, who may be in his turn an induna of the district chief in addition to the brother or sons of the latter, if these are old enough. The headman of each lineage will portion out land to be cultivated among his own people. The number of families in each lineage varies very much, some lineages tending to die out, while others are increasing as regards the number of families.
