Markets are generally absent but as one moves from the southeast,centres of trade become more customary.Except under influence from the North, medium of exchange are not used nor is there much division of labour though this begins to appear in the west,where the ethnic groups of chad basin impinge on the people's of the western Sudan area,and where technological and economic specialization becomes noticeable.Islam dominates in terms of religion though not everywhere;along its southern boundary from the Nuba hills to the chad people have resisted Mosleum influence.There is also belief in the ancestral great gods and the rain maker.religion appears to become nore complex and more organized.As one moves from the south to north, political organization is fragmented.
There are no kingdoms.The people are subdivided into smaller ethnic groups with each almost possessing a people conscious of its separate ethnic individuality.The linguistic fragmentation is as striking as the ethnic differentiation.The various groups of Arabs who migrataed to the area never merged to form a political unit,and whatever unity they manifest have been imposed from without.
Social institution do have certain elements in common.descent is unilateral,that is to say on one side of the family or the other,with the familiar sub-Saharan African pattern of having rights and obligation to the families of both parents, without regard to the fact that one is legally descended, on one or the other side.Polygyny is practiced everywhere.Among the Kababish descent is on the father's side but the most favoured type oof marriage os that between the children of two brothers (parallel cousins).
