ABSTRACT
More reasonable forms of primordial explanation exist however. Traditional ties are passed along to members of a defined group. These attachments of kinship and heritage are clearly part of many if not most people’s upbringing. However, the concept may be extended further to include a harder primordial boundary in which ties of blood, religion, custom and belief become ineffable and have a deeper psychological effect on members of the group. Notions of primordial ethnicity such as those developed by Clifford Geertz (1973) suggest that ethnic identity developed from certain ‘givens’ of social existence, including blood and kin connections, religion, language (even dialect), region and custom.
