“In your country dead men own houses? Dead men live in houses?”
“No. Living in a house has nothing to do with owning a house. A man owns a house; it is his house; other people live in that house, and they pay him money to be allowed to live in his house.”
“We do not understand. In your country do men of the same tribe pay one another money for houses?”
“Yes.”
There was always a pause after I had spoken, while they pondered.
“Ah!” they said. “In your country a man can build a house all by himself. You have one man who makes all the houses for the village, and the others divide with him the money they earn outside the tribe.”
“No,” I said. “In my country many men must work to build a house.” And I tried to think how best to go on.
“But it is so here,” they said. “Many men of the tribe build a house, and then the house is a house of the tribe.”
“But it is different in my country,” I insisted. “In my country the house does not belong to the tribe. It belongs to the man who owns the land on which it is built, and he pays money to the men who build it for him, and then it is his house. Even if he lives somewhere else, it is still his house. Now in the case of this woman, the house would belong to her husband, and when he died he would give her the house, and then it would be her house. It would belong to her. The tribe would not own the house, but she would pay money to the tribe from time to time, because she had the house.”
(“Don’t tell me you’re going to explain taxation, too!” chortled the joyous Frances. “For the love of Michael, do this yourself, then!” said I.)