The links and connections between State and traditional legal systems in Angola and Mozambique have not been widely studied, although they constitute matters of great momentum. for state building in each of these countries. The papers collected here are an attempt to fill in some of that gap, by charting many of the main issues - touching upon matters both theoretical and empirical - raised by often uneasy and highly contested modes of articulation. From different, albeit complementary, angles, all papers focus on some of the legal and political problems encountered and the negotiations as well as the solutions generated for the management of what in many cases amounts to potentially threatening forms of pluralism.