1. The term "Swahili" as used here applies only to the members of this group who are part of the Mombasa community. My findings are based solely on work in Mombasa, and it is my clear impression that there are substantial differences among the Swahili community in that city and those elsewhere on the coast and on offshore islands. This is so, I believe, despite important similarities among the different communities and the presence among Mombasans of a generally shared understanding of being similar to those of other communities. There is no doubt that there is a Swahili ethnic group, but there is a good deal of disagreement about its boundaries (Eastman 1971; Salim 1973:46-52; Arens 1975; Swartz 1978).

2. There are indications that Keesing has abandoned his "building blocks" model (see Keesing 1982, 1985). The comments here are directed to the position stated in Keesing 1970.

3. See Swartz and Jordan (1976:88-112) for my initial statement of the position that is substantially elaborated and modified here. With a few modifications, I use the same basic approach here to "status" and "role" as culturally constituted means for the distribution of culture. My first formulation of social structure and how it functions as an influence on behavior that is independent of culture's direct effect (ibid., 89-95) has been greatly expanded (see chaps. 9 and 10), but the original position presented in Swartz and Jordan is part of the overall view here.

2. There are indications that Keesing has abandoned his "building blocks" model (see Keesing 1982, 1985). The comments here are directed to the position stated in Keesing 1970.

3. See Swartz and Jordan (1976:88-112) for my initial statement of the position that is substantially elaborated and modified here. With a few modifications, I use the same basic approach here to "status" and "role" as culturally constituted means for the distribution of culture. My first formulation of social structure and how it functions as an influence on behavior that is independent of culture's direct effect (ibid., 89-95) has been greatly expanded (see chaps. 9 and 10), but the original position presented in Swartz and Jordan is part of the overall view here.

4. This is a point that has occupied students of social structure for a long time. In a 1953 paper, Fortes notes, "The concept of the 'person' as an assemblage of statuses has been the starting point for some interesting enquiries. A generalization of long standing is that a married person always has two mutually antagonistic kinship statuses, that of spouse and parent in one family context and that of child and sibling

in another" (1953:37-38). The concern with what I call "salience understandings" is also seen in Fortes's statement.

5. It is, of course, not relationship terms alone that serve to promote such conformity. For example, in Turner's (1968:214-216) analysis of the Ndembu girls' initiation ritual, nkang'a , he shows that certain objects, such as the white beads called kasenzi , are symbolically powerful. They evoke evoke understandings about the proper nature of social life ("status expectations," as they would be called here) in compelling ways that promote conformity. Thus, the beads stand for the desirability of fertility, motherhood, and good relations with affines.

6. The use of "role" is quite different from Goodenough's use of the same term to apply to an inclusive set of understandings (in my sense) applying to a broad status category (1965:16) or Keesing's use of "role" in a way that is closer to my use of "status'' (1970:424). It is, however, closer to its basic source, Linton's original use of role as "when [the status occupant] puts the rights and duties [of his status] into effect, he is performing a role" (1936:114), and to those who follow Linton's usage (e.g., Parsons 1964 [1951]:25).

7. Roles are necessarily identified by the names of the statuses of the participants in a relationship, so we speak, for example, of the "fisherman-fisherman" role and of the "fisherman-customer" role.

8. Social structure is always a product of culture in that its elements are the shared understandings that compose statuses. It may sometimes be, of course, that these shared understandings are themselves the product of other forces such as those of production, consumption, or reproduction. Even in these cases, culture is the proximal source of social structure.