Foreword to the English edition

Acknowledgments

Introduction — The Hidden Criterion

I. Puzzling Generations: or, How the System Really Worked

Chapter 1 — Making a way through life

Chapter 2 — Mastering the succession of generations

II. Multivocal Generations: Weaving Kinship and Politics

Chapter 3 — Family, residence and territory

Chapter 4 — Composite kinship

Chapter 5 — Alliance, filiation and generation system: from one gaaru to another

III. Ritual as Means of Government

Chapter 6 — The state of warrior

Chapter 7 — Sets and powers of women

Chapter 8 — The Fathers of the country, the mûgwe and the blacksmith

Chapter 9 — Mbwaa, or the drama of suspended time

IV. Confronting Modernity: Ritual Rivalries and Demographic Issues

Chapter 10 — The colonial intrusion and the crisis of authority

Chapter 11 — A change of demographic regime

Conclusion

Appendixes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

Illustrations

Illustrations credits