Kinship, religious association, party traditions and proximity, these four influences are important in the order named in helping to form society. Among the people whom we are considering the fact of kinship is the first determining cause of social relations. In fact it is so important that the farther we get away from a city the more does it tend to become the sole basis of friendly association. In the villages kinship overshadows all other considerations. In the desert there is practically no other bond in which is the possibility of society. The law of hospitality is really an invention of necessity, the guest becoming by a fiction a temporary kinsman.[168] ----- ----- As men come to live more closely together they are compelled to heed other considerations than blood relationship, and so in the village, while kinship dominates everything, yet there must be some regard to other claims. One might live in a village a long time without realizing the fact, but a little inquiry would elicit it, that any happy social group of people is almost certain to be a group of kindred. The village will have as many distinct sections, or, as we should say, wards, as there are tribes. One does not discover much that is comparable to society existing between members of different divisions of the village. Religious association counts for something, however, in making society for the villager, though this is less the case than in the cities. The celebration of feasts, pilgrimages and ecstasies gives the Moslem not only society but a deal of entertainment. The Christian population finds an important social center in the church, and in the festivals and celebrations of the church much of its pleasantest entertainment. Party traditions, such as those which have divided the villages of Palestine into Yemen and Ḳays, have besides their divisive effect a social significance in an interest which is engendered between the villagers the country over belonging to the same party. As the old enmities die out this broader social spirit may persist and even offer a basis for wider interests. Proximity might seem at first thought to offer only added occasion for hostility between those whose family or religious differences keep them apart, and so, no doubt, it often does have this effect. But it was noticeable that, when a squabble arose between Christians living in el-Bîreh and others in Râm Allâh, the Bîreh Moslems threw themselves into the question in favor of the Bîreh Christians, and the united Bîreh populace came over in a rage to take vengeance on the Râm Allâh people. It was not that Bîreh Moslems welcomed an opportunity to fight Christians even to the extent of assisting other Christians, but it was a pure case of neighborliness with the nearer neighbor. Ordinarily Râm Allâh and el-Bîreh are neighborly enough, both being of the Ḳays faction.