What characteristics of this Igbo legal process resemble other customary law systems that we have seen this semester? (2) What aspects of this process could we classify as participatory?
Consider this passage from The Igbo of Southeast Nigeria (Victor C. Uchendu, 1965):
The village assembly is concerned not only with deliberative and legislative functions; it also deals with judicial, administrative, and executive matters. There is no separation of powers involved. The village, whether its members are assembled after a funeral rite...or for some other purpose, is an all-purpose government machinery. The people who make the laws also interpret and execute them. When it meets, the village assembly must make new laws, try old cases, or delegate its executive powers....
The legal procedure followed does not involve rigid division between civil and criminal offenses. Rather, the Igbo make a distinction between those offenses which are nsc or alo -- are abomination -- and those which are not. The former include incest and homicide. Incest...requires ritual purification. [...] Otherwise adultery is a personal injury for which the adulterer might be assaulted or be asked to pay compensation....
Homicide is an offense against ala, the earth deity. If a villager is involved, the murderer is expected to hang himself, after which the omo okpo (daughters of the village) perform the rite of izafu uto ocho -- sweeping away the ashes of murder. [...] It is important to realize that the village has no power to impose capital punishment. In fact, no social group or institution has this power. Everything affecting the life of the villager is regulated by custom. The life of the individual is highly respected; it is protected by the earth goddess. The villagers can bring social pressure, but the murderer must hang himself.
The treatment of a thief varies with the nature of the theft, and whether it affects the villagers or outsiders. Stealing among kinsmen calls for a warning for the first offense... Otherwise the offender is tied up for days without food; if caught red-handed he is carried about the village with the stolen property conspicuously exhibited, while passers-by curse, ridicule, and spit on him. Stealing from outsiders is a more serious matter. The thief is held until a substantial ransom is paid by his relatives. [...] If the thief is not actually caught and the evidence against a suspect is not convincing, the suspect is made to swear an oath. If he is a notorious character, he is made to provide "oath helpers" (in Igbo idiom, people who support his back).
Answer these two questions: (1) What characteristics of this Igbo legal process resemble other customary law systems that we have seen this semester? (2) What aspects of this process could we classify as participatory?
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