| Female inheritance was rare and often contested by male agnates, many of them quite remote. |
| A meal, called pithapona, consisting of rice and margosa leaves, is partaken of by agnates only. |
| On the following day, all the old pots are thrown away, and the agnates eat rice cooked with margosa leaves. |
| A protagonist's supporters, mostly close agnates, are motivated to assist because of the desire to help a brother, that is through conventional motivation. |
| The agnates are in fact fully alive and conscious human beings who are kept isolated in an abandoned underground military bunker. |
| Men's social identity is almost entirely connected to the reputation of their agnatic Houses as well as the nature of their relations with agnates. |
