208 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
between gift and countergift, and as the occasions at which the gifts become due are usually such that the recipient can make good use of them, they are not merely means of strengthening a relationship, but they are also ends in themselves. The persons between whom such mutual gift obligations exist are primarily the closer relatives within the paternal kin-group, maternal uncle and nephew, wife's brother and sister's husband, and circumcision friends.
Common feasts, finally, serve to maintain the feeling of unity within the clan and age-group and the bonds that exist between two clans. The obligation to give such feasts rests primarily with the old men of the clan, who are expected to kill an ox for the benefit of their clansmen and for chosen representatives of other clans whenever they are in a position to do so. If they neglect this duty persistently, they lose standing among their clansmen and, in extreme cases, are publicly ridiculed by young men, who, on certain occasions, climb the roofs of the huts and shout remarks of abuse or who sing songs of mockery and derision at beer-feasts and dances which quickly spread through the country. The animal slaughtered for a common feast is known as the 'ox of splitting', and the purpose of the feast is explicitly stated to be a demonstration of the clan's strength and unity. The killing of the ox and the distribution of the meat do not take place at the homestead of the person who has supplied the animal, but on the public place, the oluhia. Each clansman may attend and, although strangers and especially children who happen to pass by are all §iven a share, the bulk of the meat is divided among the clansmen and those persons from other clans who have been told to come or to whom the meat is sent in recognition of previous hospitality enjoyed at their place. While the maternal kin and the in-law relations of the owner of the ox receive the largest share among the non-clansmen, it is significant that the distribution of meat is not restricted to relatives, but extended to the old and influential men of neighbouring clans* They represent their respective groups and in turn distribute the meat received among their own clansmen, who jealously watch that they receive their share in due course. On some occasions the animal slaughtered for a clan feast is not taken from the herd of an individual clansman, but from the spoils of war or from the compensation received by a group of clansmen on behalf of the whole clan for the death or injury of a clan member. In the case of the circumcision feast, the ox that i* killed and distributed among all