The men are gathered around a table smoking cigars before the meal because one of them is too told to participate and the other is somewhat isolated because of his “affinal” relation to the family hosting the meal, rather than “direct descent relation”. The way in which the politics are structured reveals the isolation of the elderly as well as those who are kin, but not blood-tied.
Lara, Ana-Maurine “How are we Related to One Another? ” (Lecture, Introduction to World Cultures, Eugene, OR, November 3, 2017).