ABSTRACT
As amongst the Jie, the extended family in Turkanaland is based upon a shallow agnatic descent group whose senior males usually have a common grandfather; but occasionally the founder-ancestor is a great-grandfather and not infrequently only a father. The wives of the male members are specially included, whilst sisters and daughters leave at marriage. Unlike Jie, however, the Turkana extended family is neither a residential nor an economic and pastoral grouping. Over the years members move in different nomadic courses and not even the conventional wet- and dry-season pastures are the same for most of them. At times, some of them may be fairly near together, at other times they are likely to be many miles apart, scarcely cognizant of each other's movements and activities. Not only does membership of the extended family afford little restriction upon the pastoral organization of the Turkana, but, as we shall see later, the type of intra-family relations that exist serve largely to keep close agnates geographically apart from each other by reason of the social and psychological tensions that are so often involved, and because geographical separation emphasizes legal independence. It is a common occurrence that on such occasions as marriage or funerals, close agnates come from their own homesteads as much as thirty or forty miles away.
