[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

KINSHIP ORGANIZATION IN SOUTH-WEST 53
however, owing to the very rapid depopulation of this south-
western region, it is not uncommon to ï¬Ånd the survivors of
several clans living together in the same village.
Each of these local clans has its own totem, its sacred place
wherein the clan ritual is performed and where clan objects
of ceremonial importance are stored, some natural object which
it has the power of increasing by ritual means or over which it
has control, its own clan magician and gong rhythm. The
ceremonial aspect of the clan organization will be discussed later ;
here we are concerned primarily with its social aspect.
There are, or were not many years ago, altogether some
thirty to forty clans in each of the districts Seniang and Wilemp,
and there is a record of twenty clan villages in Mewun,
but there is no evidence that all the clans are included in it, and
it is quite possible that it is inC0mpl8t€.1 The extent of the
locality occupied by a single clan varies. Some clans inhabit
only one village, others may occupy as many as ten, but from
three to six is an average number in Seniang and Wilemp. Oi
these villages, one is always regarded as the " parent ", the
social and ceremonial centre of the clan; the others are “ off-
spring " villages, resulting from an increase in the population oi
the -"_parent ". 'A list of these clans and villages will.be found
on p_.. 65‘ Owing to the depopulation of the districts to the
south of Senjang only a fragmentary list of their villages could
be obtained, but it is certain that their organization was the
sarne as that of their northern neighbours. In Mew‘-un the only
villages which are deï¬Ånitely stated to belong to the same clan
are Melpmes and Loktemismokh and Lokhtou and Evog.
,Though the “ offspring " villages may be founded at a con-
siderable .distjance from the " parent ‘I’ village, yet for the most
part the social solidarity between all the villages oi a single
clan is fairly strong. They all turn to the nembrmbr/eon or sacred
place of the “ parent â€ù village as their religious centre, and to
the clan magician as their ritual leader ; intermarriage between
the villages of a single clan is strictly prohibited and the use
of kinship ten-ns is extended to include all members of the clan,
not only those of the speaker's own village. There is one exception
‘ Thus Ta-au,“0pmovet., and Alon mentioned in the list on p. 63, and there-
fore presumably parent villages of diï¬Åerent clans, are omitted.—C. H. W.