ABSTRACT
It is not possible to distinguish here between tradition or law as fixed impositions and custom as flexible and owned by the people. Customs (ngitalyo) are frequently rigid, and are often subject, though not in Karamoja, to colonial codification as 'customary law' (Gluckman 1969). Karamojong law is not written; it is not lex, but a body of oral tradition founded on moral consensus. Custom itself does not predetermine the solution to every case, but customary procedure entails a jury of elders to decide difficult cases where the dictates of custom fall short. If a man acts, even violently, to assert his moral rights, he is acting properly, and will not be condemned by society, although the same acts in an immoral cause will be censured. Traditional law is therefore internal and plastic to the culture, seldom an objective 'given' to be obeyed. Such law and its application, like morality, are frequently open to negotiation.
