This book represents an attempt to describe and understand the struggle for power in a lowland community in the Philippines.

Among other things, it:

• establishes that politics is one of the many faci for a continuing power struggle waged by opposed personal alliance groups;
• shows how alliance groups are temporary and unstable coalitions dictated by common interest and mutual advantage; and
• brings out that kinship, while important, is not anywhere so crucial as it is commonly thought to be.