The büyükler are not heads of lineages, nor are they simply village elders. They are the senior members of segments of lineages. Whether or not a man would receive an invitation independently of a senior and important father's brother's son would depend less on the solidarity of the lineage to which they both belonged, than on his own personal seniority and importance. The invitation goes to the senior man, but he may delegate it to an agnate if he wishes. Household heads who have no agnates were invited in person, with the exception of one or two very poor and junior men. Thus, practically speaking, the guests at the feast represented agnatically the whole village.
In Elbashï a similar informal self-selected body of elders for important deliberations certainly exists. But in a larger less homogeneous community they do not constitute a more or less stable group of wedding guests.
Village lineages often inhabit clusters of houses. A successful household normally expands by building on rooms for married sons, and in due course the old house is divided by partitions; in the next generation the new households will seek to expand again. When the population is growing, this system leads to congestion, and people move away from the centre, sometimes breaking away from their close agnates. Sometimes the whole agnatic group will move to a new site, leaving more space between their houses, and the whole process starts again. The village thinks of lineages as belonging to certain parts of the