THE BANTU OF KAVIRONDO 205
or successive events justified his action. It appears that diviners and dream prophets whose advice was supposed to be the outcome of supernatural inspiration had more influence over their tribesmen than ordinary people.
(2) The Continuity of Law and Custom. Law and custom which in their totality make up tribal culture are not merely an inventory of rules of conduct, but a coherent system of relationships between individuals and groups. These relationships do not merely entail the observance of certain actions and the avoidance of others, but ideologies and values, mental and emotional attitudes as well. Thus 'family law1, in the fuller sense of the word, comprises the totality of relationships, as expressed in actions and attitudes, that knit the members of the family together into a social unit, while the formulated 'laws'—such as regulate paternal authority, the rights and duties of husband and wife, inheritance and succession, &c.—demarcate the main lines and limits only along and within which these relationships work. The maintenance of law and custom is thus equivalent to the maintenance of effective relationships.1
The continuity in time or perpetuation of these relationships tends to be disrupted by two factors inherent in the conditions of social life. One of these is that most relationships and the institutions of which they form part operate, not continuously, but at certain occasions only. Between these occasions there may be long intervals during which the relationship remains latent. This is the more so the wider the group between the members of which a particular relationship exists. Clan solidarity, for instance, comes into operation only when challenged by the murder of a clan member or some similar occasion, but the specific type of relationship between the members of the clan on which this solidarity is based has to be permanently maintained, so that the law of solidarity may come into action whenever the need for its realization arises.
The other potentially disruptive factor is the coming and going of the generations. Matrimony, parenthood, kindred, clanship, &c., are permanent relationship patterns or institutions, but they
1 cf. B. Malinowski, Introduction to H. I. Hogbin's Lam and Order in Polynesia, pp. xrx-xxxv. The theoretical approach in this present study of the political organization of the 'Bantu Kavirondo' has been greatly stimulated by this and other writings of Malinowski (e.g. Crime and Custom in Savage Society), even where this is not particularly acknowledged.