However, when the third mode of interpretation, contextual analysis, is applied, the interpretations of informants are contradicted by the way people actually behave with reference to the milk tree. It becomes that the milk tree represents of social differentiation and even opposition between the components of a society which ideally it is supposed to symbolize as a harmonious whole. The first relevant context we shall examine is the role of the milk tree in series of action situations within the framework of the girl's puberty ritual. Symbols, as I have said, produce action, and dominant symbols tend to become focuses in interaction. Group mobilize around them, worship before them,perform, other symbolic activities near them, and add other symbolic objects to them, often to make composite shrines.Usually these group of participants themselves stand for important components of the secular social system, whether these components consist of corporate groups,such as families and lineages, or of mere categories of persons possessing similar characteristics, such as old men, women,children,hunters, or widows. In each kind of Ndembu ritual a different group or category becomes the focal social element. In Nkang'a this focal element is the unity of Ndembu women. It is women who dance around the milk tree and initiate the recumbent novice by making her the hub of their whirling circle.Not only is the milk tree the "flag of the Ndembu"; more specifically,in the early phases of Nkang'a, it is the "flag" of Ndembu women.In this situation it dose more than focus the exclusiveness of women of women; it mobilizes them in opposition to the men. For the women sing song taunting the men and for a time will not let men dance in their circle.Therefore, if we are to take account of the operational aspect of the mlik tree symbol, including not only what Ndembu say about it but also what they do with it in its"meaning", we must allow that it distinguished women as a social category and indicates their solidarity