ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns relation between two persons who help each other in many situations, not merely in ritual ones. The friendship relation dzo or nakwoo holds between men or women respectively while the lover relation, bwa, holds between men and women. The closeness of the relation begins with their earliest memories since they have a privilege that is not extended even to their fathers; they may enter their mother's room in her absence. The relation is the same in both these relationships—between two men, two women or between a man and a woman except, of course, that the help given by naabim varies with the sex of the helper and the helped. Men and women are never friends with each other. Yet friendship implies, to Konkomba, more than the surface amity that exists between nabim and natotib. The simple relation of friendship is one that holds only between persons of approximately the same age.
