SOCIAL TYPES

erm means 'living in the same shade.' These groups are
admittedly not united to the tribe by kinship." They do not,
indeed, even claim descent from the common ancestor, and the
nature of the tie that binds them to the tribe is best expressed
111 the picturesque phrase which describes them as Neki aur
badimen shank, " partners for better or worse " ; in other words,
active participators in any blood-feud that the tribe may
have on their hands. Yet such is the influence of the idea
of kinship upon which the tribe is based that the alien origin
of the Hamsayah is admitted with reluctance, and although
lor matrimonial purposes they are looked upon as inferior, the
tendency is continually to merge the fact of common vendetta in
the fiction of common blood. These are the two leading prin-
ciples which go to the making of an Afghan tribe. There are also
"^-Mr. Hughes-Buller explains—"two other ties which unite the
smaller groups : common pasture, or, more important still,
common land and water, and common inheritance. The area
occupied by each section can be pretty easily localized, and a
group which separates itself permanently from the parent stock
and makes its way to a remote locality, where it either sets up
for itself or joins some other tribe, ceases to have any part
or portion with the parent stock. Here the test question is :
' Has the individual or group on separating from the parent
stock, departed only temporarily or permanently?' For,
among a population largely composed of graziers, there must
be constant fission, groups leaving the locality of the majority
for other places as pasture or water are required for the flocks.
Where the change is only temporary, groups retain as a
matter of course their union with the group to which they
belong. There are others, however, who wish to sever their
connection with the parent group permanently, and, once
this has been done, the idea of participation in the common
good and ill of the parent stock disappears. Common
inheritance can, in the nature of things, only be shared by
the more minute groups, and this, in the absence of blood-
feud, is the bond of unity in the family or Kahol. And this
leads me to explain that all the four principles which I have
mentioned do not affect every group equally. Thus, the
smaller groups or Kahols, which in most cases correspond
with the family, are united by kinship and common inheritance,
but within the family group there can be no blood-feud.
F°r blood-feud can only be carried on when help is given
from outside, and no one will help the murderer within the
r pi. 5