ABSTRACT
Dualism of the first level became meaningful only when realized in ritual, where the symbolic unity of the gendered moieties was opposed to the separation of men and women in ceremonial practice and the control of knowledge. Moieties and submoieties on the one hand and clans and line-ages on the other are of different natures, then, even though a man is always a member of both categories by virtue of patrilineal descent. The genealogies collected show a set of named patrilineal groups, ranging from ten or so individuals to over one hundred, and extending over a total of from five to eight generations. A distinction must be made between patrilineal units of the same moiety or submoiety helping in the ritual and the definitive transfer of an office upon the extinction of the lineage responsible for it. The transfer of ritual office thus depends all on one man and his patriline and only secondarily on a group or lineage.
