ABSTRACT
C. D. Forde describes Yako "patricians" as corporate, but by that he means only that each has rights to exclusive use of a dwelling area in the village and to administration of areas of farm land outside the village. A more probable candidate, at least in regard to Yako kepun and eponama, is something taken from the lexicon of local or residential groups. Where patrifiliation is a merely sufficient condition for inclusion in a group, membership is automatic by birth, but the groups are in principle open to recruitment from the outside and change of affiliation is possible. Even more remarkable, no attempts are made to obscure members' nonagnatic origins, and there are no jural disadvantages entailed by nonagnatic affiliation. Within a "lineage" or "clan" there is no differentiation of members according to mode of affiliation, either categorically or jurally. That is to say, the rights and duties entailed by membership are not contingent on the mode of affiliation.
