The group, thus sharing the same cake-offering, would in the natural course be moving continually downwards, generation by generation as the head of the family died, thereby causing the great-grandfather to pass from the receivers of the cake-offering to the receivers of the water libation, and admitting the great-grandson’s son into the number of Sapindas who shared the cake-offering. And at no time would more than four generations have a share in the same cake offered to the three nearest ancestors of the head of the family. (M64) The Samānodakas, or pourers of the water libation appear to have been similarly grouped. “Ignorance of birth and name” was in Wales considered to be equivalent to _beyond fifth cousins_. According to the Gwentian Code, “there is no proper name in kin further than that”—_i.e._ fifth cousins.(139) And this tallies exactly with the previous quotation from Manu limiting the water libation to three generations of ancestors beyond those to whom the cake is due, which, as has been seen, includes fifth cousins. And it must be borne in mind that fifth cousins are great-grandsons of the great-grandsons of their common ancestor, or two generations of groups of second cousins. (M65) It was extremely improbable that a man would see further than his great-grandchildren born to him before his death. And it might also occasionally occur in times of war or invasion that a man’s sons and grandsons might go out to serve as soldiers, leaving the old man and his young great-grandchildren at home. If the fighting members of the family were killed, the great-grandsons (who would be second cousins or nearer to each other) would have to inherit directly from their great-grandfather: and thus, especially in cases where the property was held undivided after the father’s death, we can easily see that second cousins (_i.e._ all who traced back to the common great-grandfather) might be looked upon as forming a natural limit to the immediate descendants in any one οἶκος, and as the furthest removed who could claim shares of the ancestral inheritance. After the death of the great-grandfather or head of the house, his descendants would probably wish to divide up the estate and start new houses of their own. The eldest son was generally named after his father’s father,(140) and would carry on the name of the eldest branch of his great-grandfather’s house, and would be responsible for the proper maintenance of the rites on that ancestor’s tomb. He would also be guardian of any brotherless woman or minor amongst his cousins, each of whom would be equally responsible to him and to each other for all the duties and privileges entailed upon blood-relationship. Thus seems naturally to spring up an inner group of blood-relations closely drawn together by ties which only indirectly reached other and outside members of the γένος.