In Market side East there is an idealized eldest descent-line, but the legendary ancestral spirit runs away from it: from Arta to Madera to Anake. This collateral divergence of the line of powerful influence (sakti) is explained by a repertory of legend about the long dead and by selective recall of the lives of recently deceased outstanding leaders. Moreover a particular ancestor, such as Madera, can be ritually
accentuated by his direct descendants in order to challenge the dominance of the larger originating group by corroding its solidarity. A persistent tension in Balinese social life, heightened by the kind of lore here reviewed, is that any legendary protagonist who perpetuated a whole ancestor-group might eventually be reconstrued by his direct line as a sacred founder in his own right. In fact one might interpret
that general Indonesian cultural emphasis on the founders of lines as compromising any descent principle from the very start. In the legends of Balinese social organization, it is as valued to initiate a new line as to perpetuate the old one. The incorporated houses of superior ancestor-groups are traced not to primeval first- humans, but to opportunistic, hiroic clearers of locates who establish a source- temple for ail who participate in its sanctity, however vague the actual descent-line grows.

Theoretically all Balinese could live within strong ancestor-group organizations; actually they do not. In this context charismatic individuals, regardless of birth position, take on greater social significance; yet this fact does riot preclude persistence of higher regard for senior descent-lines in groups following upper caste cus-