That does not mean they are governed by no rules: far from it. De Soto’s study found thousands of examples of documents being used by people on the ground to attest ownership, record loans, embody contracts and settle disputes. Handwritten papers, sometimes signed with thumbprints, are being drafted, witnessed, stamped, revised, filed and adjudicated all over the country. Just as Europeans did before the formal law gradually ‘nationalised’ their indigenous customs, Tanzanians are evolving a system of self-organised
