ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses the forms of exchange that enable a nuclear family to become a production unit in the context of shifting horticulture. The sociodemographic dynamic is echoed by what might be called an intravillage settlement dynamic: when a lone couple begins to have children, they rebuild their house on a slightly larger scale. The Yafar house, raara, is a square building, four to five metres on a side, extended by a front porch and usually built on top of a low man-made mound of earth. Building a new house is a collective undertaking in which the builder’s female kin are charged with gathering and transporting the sago-palm folioles for the roof and collecting and sometimes working the clay for the fireplaces; the rest is men’s work. The household can also be identified as a meaningful unit in the ritual sphere, even though other levels are also involved in delineating the social area addressed by the ceremony.
