ABSTRACT

A ritual that assists in the consolidation of village unity may place that village in active opposition to rival villages in the same chiefdom, and so diminish the over-all cohesion. But ultimately a tendency towards restoring the dynamic equilibrium of the whole would seem to exist, and this tendency finds expression in certain critical ritual symbols and the values contained in them. It is now necessary to examine in some detail the social setting of the rituals performed for Kamahasanyi at Nswanamundong'u Village. Munkang'ala Chinseli was succeeded, as sometimes happens among Ndembu, by his son Mwashelinyama. The latter, who married his father's sister's daughter, thus ensuring that his children would belong to the Mukang'ala matrilineage, moved across the Lunga River into the Lunda-Kosa area of senior headman Kanyama. Mundong'u was mother's sister's daughter's son of Ibala, in other words, a classificatory sister's son who belonged to a different segment of the Mukang'ala matrilineage.