ABSTRACT
A system of relatively settled agriculture and the inheritance of rights of tillage by close agnatic kin leads after a number of generations to the formation of a group of compounds inhabited by males descended from a common patrilineal ancestor and constituting a unilineal descent group with specific genealogical connections. This is how the inhabitants see it, as they presume an increasing population. The simplest dwelling group consists of an elementary monogamous family, a man, his wife and their children. Although polygamy is the ideal norm of the LoWiili, the majority of men are monogamous at any one time; only 25% of married men in the sample summarized in Table 9 had more than one wife at the time of the census. The LoWiili live at the point at which the matrilineal and patrilineal systems of inheriting movable property meet.
