THE BANTU OF KAVIRONDO 223
previous disputes, the two dissentient clans would break off their relations with one another and enter into a state of vendetta. This continued until the warriors of the aggrieved clan had taken a life equivalent in status or until several lives had been taken on both sides and the equilibrium had thus been restored. It was then the task of the elders in each clan to work for reconciliation by lamenting the deplorable consequences of the feud and by appealing to the former neighbourliness and the common ancestry of the two hostile clans in their talks with the young men of the tribe. If both clans were willing to terminate the avoidance a feast of reconciliation was arranged (okuhololizana) which entailed a common meal and sacrifice, and the former relations between the two clans were resumed again.
Thus the restoration of law and order, when infringed by a member of another clan, was ultimately achieved by a showdown of force between the two clans concerned. To render this effective, the clan had to have a high degree of solidarity within and at the same time had to be of sufficiently large size. As, however, owing to the nature of the bonds that make up clan solidarity, an increase in the number of clansmen beyond a certain point renders the occasions for co-operation between them too rare and too vague, there must have been an optimum size for a clan. This was reached when a fair balance existed between its external power, as expressed m the number of warriors, and its internal strength, as expressed by the degree and frequency of co-operation between its members. The need for this balance explains why young clans which were still small in number sought affiliation with larger clans in the form of ceremonially confirmed clan friendships and alliances and why, on the other Rand, large clans tended to split up into sub-clans which gradually become independent of one another.
As regards the restoration of breaches of the law the clans were thus sovereign groups, as there was no tribal judicial authority which could be appealed to in the case of inter-clan conflicts. The fact that numerous bonds of kinship and marriage existed between the members of all clans in the tribe and that strife between clans weakened tribal co-operation in warfare, served as an inducement for the elders of clans, not directly involved in a clan-feud, to intervene as arbiters, but there was no legally binding force behind such arbitration.