Cattle theft in Musoma 1958-59

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Periodical article

Title:	Cattle theft in Musoma 1958-59
Author:	Tanner, R.E.S.
Year:	1966
Periodical:	Tanzania Notes and Records
Volume:	65
Pages:	31-42
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Tanzania
Subjects:	theft cattle
Abstract:	Cattle theft is regarded by the Bantu tribes in the Musoma District of Tanzania as endemic to the area and a serious offence, alle the more dangorous because of its frequency. The colonial Government has been actively concerned with preventing inter-tribal raids and retaliations, but it paid much less attention tot the recovery of the stolen cattle and the arrest of the thieves - except in the case of mass raids. The majority of the thefts involved small numbers of cattle, which latterly merited little action by a bureaucratic system weithing their economic rather than social value. Cattle tribe becoming increasingly frequent within each tribe in the district was attributed to the loss of power of raditional leaders and weakening of traditional methods of crime control. The increase went unnoticed by the colonial Central Government. This was due to the people's lack of confidence in the ability of the police to do anything about cattle thefts, so that many cases were never reported. This study was made to find out the characteristics of this common crime, to explain its frequency and the attempts to control it in terms of administrative, political, econimic and social factors. Map; tables.