246 AFRICAN POLITICAL SYSTEMS
Therefore the tendaana allotted land to Mosuor and swore a covenant of eternal friendship with him and his descendants.
According to their lineal successors of to-day, the primordial tzndaanas 'emerged from the Earth' or 'descended from Heaven'. Namoos scoff at these myths as physiologically absurd, but recognize that they express a claim to priority of occupation. The myth of Mosuor and the myth of the primordial tzndaanas are complementary and are typical of the culture. Such myths conceptualize and postulate a beginning for the political and ceremonial relationships of chiefs and ttndaanas, which they invest with the sanctity of unchallengeable antiquity.
Mosuor's agnatic progeny spread toYam^bg andSie inTaleland and to Biuk on the frontier between the Tallensi and the Gorisi. Formally, the clan of Mosuorbiis (the children of Mosuor) constitutes a single maximal lineage distributed in these four territorially and politically independent units. The Tongo branch is senior to the others, as Mosuor's grave and the shrine (boyar) dedicated to him remain in its custody. Each of these branches includes several accessory lineages united to it by some genealogical fiction and linked by ties of clanship with other clans. Tongo is linked thus to the Talis nexus, the other three branches to clans in the vicinity of each.
All those clans which claim descent from immigrant Mamprusi are designated Namoos. They have the same distinctive ritual observances. Living in close juxtaposition with the Talis are several other genealogically independent Namoo clans, each a local unit. Some fall within the political orbit of Tongo; others lie outside it. Around Yamabg and Sie dwell heterogeneous clusters of clans, Namoos and non-Namoos in close juxtaposition, some interlinked by clanship ties, others completely independent genealogically. Namoos and non-Namoos frequently form constituent lineages of the same clan, holding complementary ritual offices divided by the same structural cleavages as separate the Talis and the Tongo Namoos, but inseparably joined by equally strong structural ties and common interests. Most of these groups of non-Namoos claim affinity with the Talis as the autochthonous inhabitants of the country, though they are genealogically distinct from them, on the ground of similar ritual observances and prerogatives connected with the Earth cult. They have a role in the political system analogous to that of the Talis, but