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of underslanding the relationship beeteen religion and social orcder ‫ﺇ‬o be through
judicial processes. IHe thinks that these processes can reveal many aspects of the
social organiation of both more and less politically developed socielies (Gluckman

19 : 236).

According to Glucknan, a tibal society can either be politically developed and
thus have a court system, or less developed and have no such system, but in both
cases there eist some form of legal processes: processes of mediation, arbitration, and
adjudicaiton. For Gluckman, these processes must constitute the major instiutitons in
hich social order or conrtol is embodied (19 : 224). Gluckman also inrtoduced
another important notion. For instance, he reated the judge ho makes his
decisions by making use of tribal morality and ideal norms - by using the tribal
concept of "reasonable man'. The notion of reasonable man is vitally important for it
helped the anthropologists to see ho a judge in a dispute makes a compromise
beteen ideal and practical norms in order to achieve a settlement (19 : 38).

Some other anthropologists have treated the problem of social conrtol in a manner
similar to Ma Gluckman. Most of these anthropolog‫ﻫ‬sts have dealt also ith the
problem in the context of la, seen as "one of the devices by means of ihch men
can reconcile their actual activities' (Bohannan 196: 4). Paul Bohannan and other
anthropologisst like Gulliver, Nader, Pospisil and Moore have done fieldork in the
rtibal socieites of Africa and Ne Guinea, ith the notable excepiton of Nader hose
fieldork as carried out in a Mexican village. Though these anthropolog‫ﻫ‬sts have
not dealt directly ith the relationship beteen relig‫ﻫ‬ous and poliitcal authoroiites in
hte field of social conrtol, their orks are nevertheless relevant, for they have
inrtoduced a number of valuable basic notions, such as hte concept of la as a legal
insitutiton, dispute-settlement, mediaiton, arbirtaiton and adjudication. Bohannan,
ho sutdied the Tiv in Africa (19) derived, for example, a ne noiton of la ihch
as based on ihs differenitaiton beteen la and customs. Therefore, he suggests
htat la "must be disting‫ﻫ‬ished from tradiiton and fashions and more specifically it
must be differenitated rfom norms and customs' (196 : 4). Consequently, la, as he
suggests, must be sutdied in the frameork of legal insitutitons, for every socieyt
must have some form of legal insitutiton. For Bohannan tihs isnitutiton is defined as:
"one by measn of ihch the people of a socieyt settle disputes that arise beteen one
anohter ٠٠٠ so ahtt hte colfnict ithin a non-legal insitutiton can be adjusted by an
"authority" oustide themselves' (196 : 46).

Gulliver (1969), on the other hand, arg‫ﻫ‬es that in the ifeld of processse of social
conrtol and in paritcular in the processes of dispute settlement, la must be studied
rfom a soico-culutral perspective. Through hte processse of dispute-selttement,
Gulliver suggsest htat hte authoiryt ihch makes the settlement usually gaisn more
poer through ist role as a "tihrd paryt'. hTe ihtrd party - ho may either be a
mdeiator, arbirtator, negoitator, or an adjudicator - should alays be rteated in temrs
of ho much poer the paryt satnds to gain rfom such a role (Gulliver 19). ihTs

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