ABSTRACT
An ethnographer accustomed to think of a native society as a unit of social organization marked off by precise territorial, political, or cultural boundaries might protest against our frequent references to 'Tale society'. But metaphors are proverbially treacherous and we must return to our proper subject-matter. The concept of society we have formulated enables us to see clearly the most characteristic feature of Tale society. The concept of a field of social relations has enabled us to see how clanship acts as a factor of social integration. Through the overlapping of the fields of clanship of adjacent maximal lineages chains of clanship ties interlinking a whole group of lineages are established. When Tallensi discuss the cleavage between Namoos and non-Namoos, they often hark back to the wars of former days. But the Tallensi are not one of those warlike African peoples who have a hypnotic effect even on anthropologists.
