in which I lived. He was a member of the Senani group living side by
side with the Kari at the head of the Tabo River. Two of his younger
brothers died within the space of a few months as the result of what
he believed were sorcery attacks and fearing for his own life he left
his natal group with his wife and a third brother and his wife. He was
himself ZS of the Kari and his wife was also of that
miit.However
he l e f t the area alt ogether. The party walked f o r some f i v e or six days, in areas with which none of them were f a m i l i a r , u n t i l they came to the settlement of the Senani near the confluence o f the Aki and Tabo r i v e r s . The brothers did not know anyone in the settlement since Yikendreb, t h e i r c l a s s i f i c a t o r y FF and the leader of the lowland
Senani whom they remembered v i s i t i n g t h e i r fa t h e r on occasions and who joined Kari raids on the Atbalmin, had by that time died. What
is remarkable about the case is not tha t the brothers were welcomed in to the group, which would probably have happened to anyone, but th a t they should journey so f a r in the conviction tha t they would be safe among the lowland Senani - even though they were strangers to them - because they shared t h e i r bone.
Descent, then, is important in Mianmin social l i f e in providing a means f o r conceptualising re la t i o n s o f various kinds. But i t s r o le , in the formation of categories which give some form to the processes of social l i f e , is d i f f e r e n t from the i n s t i t u t i o n a l one descent plays in the p o l i t i c a l l i f e of many peoples. Descent thematises Mianmin l i f e as a means o f f i x i n g social i d e n t i t y and defining cer tai n
features o f re la ti o n s h ip s both w i th i n and beyond group boundaries. The a l l o c a t i o n of r i g h t s in land and group membership are not regulated by descent since the kind of regulation which impels anthropologists to use such terms as ' j u r a l ' does not e x i s t in Mianmin society. Groups compete f o r personnel and under these conditions descent, and the values the idea encapsulates, are used to give expression to the
immediate and in ta n g ib le features of s o c i a l i t y which underlie patterns of a f f i l i a t i o n . In t h i s ro le descent functions in a markedly d i f f e r e n t manner from the way i t does when used as a j i i r a l p r i n c i p l e . In the
l a t t e r case descent provides a s tr u c tu ra l framework which acts as skeleton f o r the p o l i t i c a l body whereas among the Mianmin i t is a v i r t u a l p r i n c i p l e rathe r than a formal one.
The inchoate nature of descent in Mianmin thought and behaviour is brought out more c l e a r l y when the ideological framework outlined in t h i s section is seen in the context of various p r in c i p l e s and stra teg ies which operate in determining who li v e s with whom, who marries whom and also who f i g h t s with whom.
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