secondly, the women say with reference to its observable characteristics that the milk tree stands for human breast milk and also for the breasts that supply it. They relate this meaning to the fact that Nkang'a is performed when a girl's breasts begin to the ripen. not after her first men-struation, which is the subject of another and less elaborete ritual. The mail theme of Nkang'a is in-deed the tie of nurturing between mother and child, not bond of birth.