18:00: A warm day, nearly over. A long history also. The people are pleased with themselves after their visit to the next world. And now they are reviewing their experiences. They slip out of their past identities and ask themselves what have we learnt?:
To disobey the laws - for if we are to act rightly we must be as free as gods, or as the characters in a folktale. Yes, we are now going to live without crime and without oppression - not under the laws but in well-informed and respectful silence. And laughter.
And as they break the mirrors of good and evil a new paragraph is written.
René David and John E C Brierley, Major Legal Systems in the World Today: an introduction to the comparative study of law, Stevens and Sons, London 1966, third edition 1985, page 549.In the African mind, ancestral custom is linked to a mythical order of the universe. To obey custom is to pay respect to one's ancestors whose remains were fused with the soil and whose spirits watch over the living. Violations of custom will release unknown but certainly unfavourable consequences in a world where forces natural and supernatural, man's behaviour and the movements of nature, are all linked.