In the Americas the lineage compound was unavailable — enslaved people were separated from kin deliberately — and the ilé, the initiatory house, replaced it. Initiation creates a permanent fictive kinship: the initiating priest is padrino or madrina, godparent, for life; the initiate is ahijado; fellow initiates of the same godparent are ritual siblings. Obligations run in both directions and are substantial, involving money, labour, deference and attendance. A house has a lineage of its own, traced through the succession of godparents, and rivalries between houses have the texture of family disputes. This structure has since travelled back: the diaspora model of initiatory kinship has influenced practice in Nigeria itself, particularly in urban settings where compound organisation has weakened. It is a case of an institution improvised under conditions of atrocity becoming a durable and exportable form.