Not surprisingly, Tshidi complained bitterly about the South African legal system, and some- times gave their protest a visible, if unsubtle, touch of poetic justice. In 1969, some young men named a tree behind the chief's kgotla, "the Bantu Commissioner's Office," and delighted in relieving themselves against it after public assemblies. More constructively, Tshidi tried, where possible, to have their disputes heard in the kgotla, even if the social consequences were