In 1899, the settler government in Southern Rhodesia promulgated the Witchcraft Suppression Act. This Act achieved two main goals, amongst many, that were intended and unintended; the Act suppressed African cultures, belief systems and the unwritten moral and legal frameworks as practised by African people. Secondly, the introduction of the Act marked the beginning of a system of legal dualism in Rhodesia. The customary law and constitutional law applied to blacks, while only the constitutional law applied to whites. This racialization of the legal system has remained a permanent feature of Zimbabwean law. The aim of this paper is to explore the moral unwritten law embodied in the belief of ngozi among most Africans in Zimbabwe. The paper draws its evidence from a Shona novel in which the conflict between the constitutional law and the indigenous law is sharply dramatized. Tobias H Goredema's Gwara Reropa (The Path of Blood) (1992), reveals the internal philosophy that informs the moral law of the ngozi myth, and also highlights the internal contradictions of this aspect of Zimbabwe's customary law. The paper then argues that although the ngozi myth is built on a system of unwritten cultural beliefs, and customs, its legal standing in the Zimbabwean customary is contested. One aspect explored here is that the ngozi law is meant to operate as deterrent to crimes such as murder. However, the complex nature of the ngozi law is such that in seeking to prevent murders, sometimes its moral and legal assumptions and modes of redress and restorative justice are premised on the violation of individual human rights, especially if understood through the lenses of modern constitutional law.

The introduction of the Witchcraft Suppression Act (hereafter referred to as the Act) in 1899 by the Rhodesian settler government had two main consequences in the lives of African people. The Act subverted the "moral economy" (Scott, 1976) of blacks embedded in their traditions, cultures, symbols and concepts of justice and injustice as expressed through African oral forms of expression and philosophies. Secondly, the promulgation of the Act, also paved the way for the introduction of legal dualism in Rhodesia. Lord Grey wrote in 1897 that the hostility towards African culture was shared by white missionaries for whom Christian evangelism in Rhodesia could only survive after the successful attack on Africans' concepts of indigenous law:

"… Father Biehler is so convinced of the hopelessness of regenerating the Mashona's, whom he regards as the most hopeless of mankind, that he states that the only chance for the future of the race is to exterminate the whole people, both male and female, over the age of 14!" This pessimistic conclusion, Grey continued, "I find hard to accept." (Vambe, 2004, 1)

White district administrators who claimed a wide range of knowledge of the African natives were in support of legal dualism. Constitutional law or the law of the courts would apply to the whites, whereas customary law and constitutional law applied to Africans. Stewart and fellow researchers write that in Rhodesia,

Commonwealth Literature Journal, Tobias H Goredema, Gwara Reropa, Ngozi Myth, Indigenous Law of Zimbabwe, Moral Economy, Constitutional Law, Colonial Modernity, Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association, ZINATHA, Criminal Procedure Handbook, Ngozi Moral Law, African Traditions, African Culture, Social Crimes.