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What is a phratry?

What is a phratry? Here are some definitions.

Noun
  1. (Ancient Greece) A clan or kinship group consisting of a number of families claiming descent from a common ancestor and having certain collective functions and responsibilities. [from 17th c.]
  2. (anthropology, dated) A former kinship division consisting of two or more distinct clans with separate identities but considered to be a single unit.
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In other words, the phratry is like a species of which the clans are varieties.
With patrilineal descent they tend to occupy the tribal territory in such a way that each phratry becomes a local group.
It was the basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of tribes.
The feast of Apatouria involves the induction of infants, youths and wives into the phratry, or clan of families.
Apparently, among the Kamilaroi, members of the same phratry may intermarry, avoiding unions in their own totems.
What, then, would be the marriageable status of the two kins which bare the phratry names?

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