ABSTRACT
I f a student were to study a Sonjo village by means of visual observation alone and without asking the people any questions, he would be forced to conclude that individual households possess a high degree of economic and social independence. He would find the beehive huts as evenly spaced as the rough terrain of the village permitted. With only a few exceptions, no obvious clustering of houses would reveal the presence of organized groups larger than the occupants of a single house. The exceptions, of which there are three or four in a village, would consist of two or three houses joined or surrounded by a fence and sharing a small courtyard with a common entrance. The observer would later find out that these compound homesteads belonged to polygynous men, but had no other special significance. Not all polygynous families are housed in compounds, and this particular arrangement is regarded as nothing but the personal preference of a few men.
