The ‘land complaints’ files of the Transkei magistrates from the mid 20th century provide an under-recognised and important source regarding living customary law in South Africa. Land complaints were treated as ‘purely administrative’ rather than legal matters and hence not subject to appeals outside the Native Affairs Department, creating disincentives and obstacles to bringing claims grounded in living practice into fora where they might challenge official regulations and be ‘ascertained’ as customary law. Nevertheless, these sources reveal disputes, norms and practices that have not been recognised in official customary law, the administrative regulations governing land in the region or the post-apartheid jurisprudence on living customary law. I examine cases from the culturally conservative district of Bizana, in the north-eastern coastal Transkei, to highlight four issues: first, unmarried men could claim, acquire and maintain land rights; second, land would not revert to the headman for reallocation if its owner died or left the area; third, lending and sale of land took place, often without the approval of the headman; fourth, location boundaries were inconsistently followed as landholding cut across the boundaries used by administrators.

二十世纪中叶特兰斯凯（Transkei）地方法官的“土地申诉”档案提供了关于南非生活习惯法的未被充分认识的重要信息。土地投诉被视为“纯行政”而非法律事务，因此不受民政事务部的上诉，这给人们以实际生活为根据的诉求提出质疑和障碍，使他们可能质疑官方法规，并被“确定”为障碍。习惯法。然而，这些资料揭示了官方习惯法，有关该地区土地的行政法规或种族隔离后的生活习惯法判例中尚未承认的争端，规范和做法。我研究了比沙那文化保守地区的案例，在东北沿海特兰斯凯（Transkei）地区，我们要强调以下四个问题：首先，未婚男子可以要求，获得和维护土地权；第二，如果土地所有者死亡或离开该地区，土地将不会归还给负责人。第三，土地的出借和出售通常是在未获得负责人批准的情况下进行的。第四，随着土地所有权跨越了管理员使用的边界，土地的边界也不一致。