Clan

and descent. Even if lineage details remain unknown or non-specific, clan members may claim descent from a founding individual or apical ancestor who serves as a symbol of the clan's unity.
Many societies' exogamy rules are on a clan basis, where all members of one's own clan, or the clans of both parents or even grandparents, are excluded from marriage as incest.
Clan members may identify with a coat of arms or other symbol. Some kinship-based groups may also have a symbol of origin, whereby the clan shares a "stipulated" common ancestor serving as a symbol of the clan's unity. Traditional anthropological thought (as for example in the work of Gerardus van der Leeuw) classified non-human examples of such "ancestors" (frequently animals) as totems.