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“I don’t know what term properly applies to this type of group. Family doesn’t cover it. Even extended family feels too small. Tribe, however, is too big. I’m inclined to hijack the term clan from anthropology, although even that is not quite right, because the type of group I’m talking about was not a formal entity, had no organization, no name, no recognized chief, and no exact boundaries. It was more like a loose network of extended families tied together by a mutual sense of having descended from a great someone in the past-- or a string of great someones.” -- Tamim Ansary, West of Kabul, East of New York
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“Instead of television, we had genealogy. The leaders, the white-headed ones, spent endless hours with one aother or with us youngsters, tracing connections. So-and-so marrried so-and-so, and then their progeny got worted into thee other branches through marriage, so actually your cousin Saliq is your second cousin through Sweet Daddy-- and so on. It might not sound exciting, but remember that genealogy was the warp and family stories the woof of the fabric that made us one entity.”-- Tamim Ansary. West of Kabul, East of New York.
& Their Times
