ABSTRACT
The statement that extra-clan kinship ties are relationships between individuals, or between individuals and corporate groups has to be qualified. This description represents native thought and behaviour more accurately than generalizations about the classificatory extensions of the primary relationship. A person describes his or her mother's brother as his or her ah?b (pl. ah?bnam), and is described as ah?? (pl. ah?s) irrespective of sex. There is, significantly, no term for mother's brother's wife. An incidental point of interest emerges from a consideration of the kinship terminology used in this context. It appears, and observation shows this to be a fact, that the spouses of matrilateral and sororal kin do not come into the picture directly. From the point of view of the total social structure, the most important function of extra-clan kinship is to make a number of breaches for the individual in the rigid genealogical boundary of the maximal lineage and clan.
