THE TALLENSI 247
are distinguished from them by differences in the date and form of their respective Harvest Festivals.
The Tails and their congeners, claiming to be the autochthonous 'owners of the land', and the Namoos, presumed to be of varied immigrant origin, are territorially mingled, genealogically intertwined, and bound together by ineluctable ritual ties. But they are also separated by profound cleavages of equal import for their respective functions in the political system.
V. Limiting Factors: Kinship, Local Contiguity and the Economic
System
Clanship, the most significant tie determining mutual assistance in war, did not operate automatically. Even segments of a single clan sometimes refused to help another segment if it was thought to have incurred just reprisals. Clanship also interposes genealogical barriers between units. For the individual, cognatic and affinal kinship ties breach the barriers. Great importance is attached to cognatic relationship, particularly to uterine (soog) kinship. But political relationships, like war, cut across these ties. Kinship, though it limits the insulation of lineage and clan and restricts the extent to which conflict can develop between such units, is marginal to the political system. This is obvious nowadays in the political intrigues which rend the country. Kinship ties between adherents of rival factions do not mitigate their political hostility. Conversely, however, the political rivalry of their clans does not deter individuals from the intercourse and reciprocities that kinship entails.1
Local contiguity also establishes ties and cleavages. The economic system, the lineage structure, and ritual ideology all put a premium on local cohesion as a factor of community solidarity. Where adjacent clans are genealogically distinct, they usually have ceremonial or community ties. The balance of ties and cleavages produces a state of tension liable to explode into conflict if one group infringes the rights of the other. Peace and non-provocation are stressed as the ideal relationships between neighbours. In this respect, contiguity imposes, constraints similar to those of
1 The web of kinship spreads so widely, both spatially and genealogically, that a native can travel as much as twenty miles, across 'tribal* frontiers, working his way from settlement to settlement through the hospitality and good offices of kinsfolk in each.