In the central area, local descent groups are fully autonomous, though still linked by ritual.

Because people can have claims in several different descent groups, land rights have some degree of flexibility.

Also, each such descent group might have its own family name or surname, as one possible cultural pattern.

This, however, does not mean that she is the wife of all the men of the descent group at the same time.

None the less the fact remains that the presence of descent groups tells us nothing directly about domestic organization.

Only some of these rituals are performed by the descent group as a whole.

The Hawaiian system is usually associated with ambilineal descent groups.

Confessional status had become the basis for an exclusive descent group.

The core members of the Samoan descent group can live together in the same compound.

A descent group is a social group whose members talk about common ancestry.