ABSTRACT
Perhaps the most extraordinary feature of Tale parents' relations with their children is the recognition, in custom and belief, of the latent antagonism behind their mutual identification and comradeship, their devotion and co-operation. The avoidances of first-born children are not the only customary expression of the tension between the generations. A man and his oldest child do not eat together. Eventually, when the son's older children are reaching adolescence, the opposition between his father and himself culminates in his formal separation from his parental family. Tallensi explain the rivalry between father and son by means of the mystical concept of the Yin or personal Destiny. The cleavage between father and first son obviously plays an important part in the cycle of development of the joint family and lineage. The ambivalence in the relations of parents and children is more dramatically expressed in the ancestor cult than in any other aspect of Tale culture.
