So it was natural to refer to the nation of Israel, for example, as a family--as the household of God and the children of Abraham, along with many other phrases that conveyed blood kinship among those of Israel.

One possible answer to what Quentin's "fooling" may "mean" is that Faulkner can safely call an Italian girl his sister, and years later, claim blood kinship to Italians, all the while fictively assimilating their American kin to blacks, whom he cannot acknowledge as relatives because of the obvious personal and social scandal this would have engendered for him within his own community.

Ville characterizes the network types as economic cooperative, social integrative and blood kinship.