I don't think it is inaccurate to say that a branch is a "container" for commits because a branch by definition points to a commit that has zero or more parent

I don't think it is inaccurate to say that a branch is a "container" for commits because a branch by definition points to a commit that has zero or more parent commits. Having to walk the commit ancestry to see if a commit is on a branch doesn't make it not true.