ABSTRACT
Kinship structure in 1964 were still the single most important social institutions for most Tio of the Mbe neighbourhood. Changes within the social structure have been a gradual blurring of matrilineage and kindred. Only the new Mbe showed how succeeding kings could still attract people. The structure of the villages and especially of Mbe can still be wholly understood by the former criteria. As for the two biggest villages outside Mbe, making up three wards, all the leaders came from Ngabe or accompanied the migration of the 1920s. The plain of Mbe was fast becoming a rural backwater, losing its best elements to the city and expecting mostly older people to return from it. After the gradual abandoning of maize the men at Mbe spent more time hunting. They began to use steel cable traps with improved results and sold the antelope meat and even more buffalo meat to the city.
