Residence

Residence was more nearly uxorilocal than virilocal, and although patrilateral cousin (both cross and parallel) marriage was fairly common, so was matrilateral cousin marriage. Marriage to unrelated individuals, mainly of the

same tribe and almost always of the same confederation, accounted for more than half of all marriages. In fact, informants say, marriage with people from the same mtaa was more common than any other sort, and such marriages could be with cousins on either side or with neighbors who had no traceable kin relationship. As a thoughtful and intelligent informant put it, "The mtaa was like a group of relatives. The neighbors could be related on either side or maybe they weren't obviously related, but they had been marrying each other for generations, so they were all related."

The mtaa is still socially important as the main basis for the young people's groups of friends (still completely separated according to sex), the visiting and mutual assistance groups of women, and the men's barazas .^[11] There are signs of the weakening of the neighborhoods of some Swahili families living outside Old Town and an ever-increasing number of houses in the old neighborhoods being taken over by members of other ethnic groups (see Swartz 1983:36–37), but as of the mid-1980s, they remain the most vital element in community life beyond that based in close ties of kinship.

Like the mbari, the tribe has not been an active group since the 1960s. Few people, and none I have met who are under 35 or so, know to what "tribe" they belong. The confederations of tribes remain symbolically important, however, and although they carry out no social activity, I have not talked to a single community member who is unaware of what confederation he or she belongs to. There is no general Swahili term that can be translated as "confederation" or "section," but it is the most frequently heard wide-scope identifier for community members, so that one hears that someone is "a Three Tribes member" or "a Nine Tribes member" on the rare occasions when broad social placement is at issue.