ABSTRACT

In the life of each individual in Suye there is a series of important events marking his various changes of status in the community. After birth, the chief events of a man’s life are entering school, entering the barracks, entering married life, becoming a house head, reaching old age, and dying. For a woman the list varies somewhat from this: she does not go to the barracks nor does she usually become a house head, and she has one experience not shared by her husband, that of giving birth to a child. Practically all these events call for a gathering of the buraku and also of the relatives to drink and to celebrate, thus recognizing the individual’s change of status in his buraku and in his kin group. The parties follow the pattern already outlined, and the different occasions call for various types of gift exchange as described below.