In a kinship society, life is centered on the extended family: in other words, the “clan,” the lineage, the tribe—a group that often includes many people who aren’t actually related. Kinship networks are highly functional organisms: most of the functions provided by states in the modern world—protection from harm, credit, dispute resolution, eldercare, social insurance—are instead provided by the kinship network.
African societies, as a broad pattern, have extraordinarily intense kinship ties.