and wife, and father and children. Finally, the relationship between the husband and the wife’s matrilineal kinsmen forms the third class of personal ties corresponding to family. These three types of personal bonds are clearly distinguished in terminology, in the current linguistic usage, in custom, and in explicitly formulated ideas.
To the grouping into clans and sub-clans, there pertain the ties existing between clansmen and more especially between members of the same sub-clan, and on the other hand, the relationship between a man and members of different clans.
Membership in the same sub-clan is a kind of extended kinship.
The relationship to other clans is most important, where it assumes the form of special friendship called luba’i.
The grouping into village communities results in the very important feature of fellow membership in the same village community.
The distinction of rank associated with clanship, the division into village communities and districts, result, in the manner sketched out in Chapter II, in the subordination of commoners to chiefs.
Finally, the general fact of membership in the tribe creates the bonds which unite every tribesman with another and which in olden days allowed of a free though not unlimited intercourse, and therefore of commercial relations.
We have, therefore, eight types of personal relationship to distinguish. In the following table we see them enumerated with a short survey of their economic characteristics.
- Matrilineal kinship.—The underlying idea that this means identity of blood and of substance is by no means forcibly expressed on its economic side. The right of inheritance, the common participation in certain titles of ownership, and a limited right to use one another’s implements