Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
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Page 177
a peak above a generally high level of intimacy, but an oasis in a desert of strangers. The visitor, instead of being dependent on the formal hospitality of the village headman, has peple of his own in the village. Inter-village kinship thus functions very differently from kinship within the village, and this difference overrides distinctions between kinds of kinship relationship. The day-to-day petty help between close neighbours is replaced by a less intimate but equally important mutual dependence for protection in a strange environment. The villagers love to hear news, to visit and entertain their kin from other villages, and this constant coming and going provides the occasion for innumerable exchanges of political and economic importance.