ABSTRACT
The name of the Ashiret describes at once the people and the land they occupy. The marriage to father's brother's daughter serves to simplify and concentrate the inheritance of cattle, implements other items of 'capital' equipment within the economic working unit of the group household and to avoid friction over the inheritance of tenancy rights. The large tribes are divided into sections, and in different tribes we find many sections with the same names. An ashiret may consist of one or more patrilineal clans called taifa, the fundamental difference between the two being that whereas aahirtt is essentially descriptive of a political group, taifa is descriptive of a kinship group. Tira is a type of kinship group fairly frequently encountered by anthropologists. While the author sketches out the superficial political structure of the community the real nature of the relationship between the various Aghas and their followers can only be understood in terms of kinship.
