Post on 13-Dec-2015
KINSHIP
What is kinship?
A system of social ties deriving from the recognition of genealogical relations
universally recognized and universally accorded social importance
Who do you consider your kin?
Who do you consider your kin?
How far do we extend biological relatedness?
Presidents Nixon and Carter were sixth cousins, sharing common ancestors in a Quaker farming couple named Morris who lived near colonial Philadelphia. Were they kin?
Dick Cheney and Barak Obama are eighth cousins.
They share a common ancestor in a 17th century immigrant from France.
How relatedness is determined is culturally specific
adoption Blood food eaten, suckling of milk etc.
There is something shared
Do our kin have to be related to us through blood (Consanguineally) or through marriage (Affinally)?
Who you marry Where you live How to raise children Which land to cultivate Who you work with Which property to inherit Who to turn to for help Who you look after and who looks after you Provides a sense of belonging and identity How to behave with respect to othersWho you worship (ancestors)
Why is Kinship Important to peopleIt determines
The difference between those who see themselves as related to one another and those who are not so related underlies differentially distributed rights, roles and statuses.
the difference makes a difference
Why is it of interest to anthropologists?
also has political, religious and economic aspects
actors’ models of kinship relations can be seen as their insights into the workings of society. i.e. a model and explanation of dynamics and relationships.
Kinship is important in understanding how societies are organised and how they work.
Kinship Symbols
(Triangle) (Circle)• Means Male Means Female
= (Equal sign)• Means Marriage
| (Vertical line)• Means ancestors or descendents
— (Horizontal line)• Means same generation relationship
Copyright © Pearson Education Canada 2004
Kinship Characteristics
female
male
deceased female
deceased male
female “ego” of the diagram
male “ego” of the diagram
Copyright © Pearson Education Canada 2004
Kinship Relationships
is married to
is cohabiting with
is divorced from
is separated from
adopted-in female
adopted-in male
is descended from
Is the sibling of
Genealogical Kin Types and Kin Terms.
Kin terms are the labels given in a particular culture to different kinds of relatives.
Biological kin type refers to the degree of actual genealogical relatedness.
Kin Types
English Kin Terms
Hawaiian Kin Terms
Sudanese Kin Terms
Rules that people in different cultures use to:
determine parenthood
identify ancestry
Descent Systems
assign people to social categories, groups, and roles on the basis of inherited status.
What is a descent group? A group of people who recognize lineal descent from a real or mythical ancestor - a criterion of membershipMembership needs to be clearly defined so one knows where one's loyalties lieA publicly recognised social entityTraced through one sex, everyone is unambiguously assigned to a groupObligations and roles keeps group togetherCitizenship derived from lineage membership and legal status depends on itPolitical power and religious power derived from it, cults of gods and ancestorsA strong effective base for social relations In tribal societies, the descent group, not the nuclear family, is the fundamental unit.
How is a descent group like a corporation?
Continues after the death of the members
New members are born into it
A perpetual existence that allows it to take corporate actions
Land owning
Organizing productive activities
Distributing goods and labour
Assigning status
Regulating relationships with other groups
People trace ancestry through either the mother's or father's line, but NOT both
About 60% of kinship systems are unilineal.
Generally clear cut and unambiguous social units.
People of same descent group live together, hold joint interests in property.
In many societies descent groups assume important corporate functions such as land holding
65 % of unilineal groups are patrilineal, and the rest are matrilineal.
Unilineal descent groups are exogamous, i.e. marriage must occur outside the descent group.
Unilineal descent
Most prevalent (65%) Established by tracing descent exclusively through males from a founding male ancestor.Both men and women are included but only male links are utilized to include successive generationsA woman's children are not included in her paternal group but her brother's are. Her children belong to her husband's group Property passed through father’s lineage tends toward male dominated power-structureoften associated with intensive agriculture and pastoralism - East and South Asia, Europe, and Middle East
Patrilineal Descent
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
Patrilineal descent Male ego
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
Patrilineal descent Female ego
Note that a woman's children are not included in her patrilineal group. © 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
For which of the following pairs of relatives are both individuals (highlighted in purple) members of Ego's patrilineage?
A. 7 and 12B. 13 and 18 C. 23 and 24 D. 30 and 33 E. 36 and 37
Patrilineal Kinship - Self Test
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
About 15% of culutres Established by tracing only through females from a founding female ancestorA Man's children are not included in his matrilineal group but his sister's areThis makes him important as an uncleProperty is inherited through female lineOften associated with horticulturalistsEg. Trobriand islanders and Hopi
MATRILINEAL DESCENT
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
Matrilineal Kin - Female Ego
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
© 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
Matrilineal Kin - Male Ego
Note that a man's children are not included in his matrilineal group.
Matrilineal Kinship - Self Test
Which of the relatives indicated in purple are in Ego's matrilineage?
A. 15 onlyB. 15 and 3 onlyC. 15, 3 and 23 onlyD. 15, 3, 23 and 29 onlyE. All of the above? © 1995 Brian Schwimmer, University of Manitoba
men trace their ancestry through male lines and women trace theirs through female lines.
parallel descent
Person related equally to both mother and fathers side.Kin links through males and females are perceived as being similar or equivalent.
Treat relatives on one side just like on other-symmetrical.
“aunt” applies to father’s sister and mother’s sister without distinguishing which side.
E.g. !Kung & N. AmericaIn North American bilateral kinship there is often matrilineal skewing: a preference for relatives on the mother's side.
Bilateral Descent
Everyone is different, sibs excepted
Changes as grow older
Does not function as a group except at weddings and funerals
Functions in relation to ego
Little generational depth
No leader
Does not hold property, organize work or administer justice i.e. does not function as a corporate group
Inheritance is allocated equally between siblings
Besides the recognition of consanguineal kin or blood relatives there are Affinal relatives or those related by way of marriage
What are the Features of a Bilateral Kindred?
Descent is traced equally from both parentsMarried couples live away from their parentsInheritance is allocated equally between siblingsDominant in foraging and industrial cultures
Ambilineal descent lineage traced through one parent or another, but
not both People choose the descent group that to belong to. Since each generation can choose which parent to
trace descent through, a family line may be patrilineal in one generation and matrilineal in the next.
choosing one side over the other often has to do with the relative importance of each family.
ambilineal descent is flexible in that it allows people to adjust to changing family situations.
E.g. when a man marries a woman from a politically or economically more important family, he may agree to let his children identify with their mother's family line to enhance their prospects and standing within the society.
Double descentlineage traced through both parents equally every individual is a member of his or her mother's matrilineage and father's patrilineage
As a result, everyone, except siblings potentially have a unique combination of unilineal family linesUsually groups take on complementary functions in relation to each other. For example, among the Yako of Nigeria, patrilineages are important for the allocation and inheritance of land, while matrilineal groups determine the ownership of movable property such as cattle.
Lineage- Individuals can trace
ties to an actual common ancestor Economic
significance• Property ownership• Labor sharing
A non-corporate descent group with each member claiming descent from a common ancestor without actually knowing the genealogical links
depends on symbols - animals, plants, tartans etc to provide social solidarity and a sense of identity
one is expected to give protection and hospitality to one's fellow clan members
acts more for ceremonial and political purposes
lacks residential unity of a lineage
may be matrilineal or patrilineal
does not hold tangible property corporately
What is a Clan?
PhratryAssumed/believed relationship between clansCeremonial and political importanceMay employ symbols to signify membership
MoietyA society that has two phratriesgroups have reciprocal responsibilities and privileges.The constantly reinforced social and economic exchanges between them results in economic equality and political stability.E.g. Tewa
The YanomamoLive in very dense jungle in Venezuela (15,000 in 1992) and northern Brazil (11,700 in 2000)
125 scattered villages of between 40 to 250 people 75-80 average
The Yanomami live in roundhouses - a large oval building made of poles and woven palm leaves, somewhat like a football stadium, with the centre open to the sky.
Each family has its own cooking fire.
There are no walls to separate the families, only poles.
The people sleep around their fires in hammocks, strung from those poles.
Each man clears his ground, the headman has the largest garden because he must produce large quantities of food to give away at feasts.
The gardens take several months to years to become fully productive and are productive for several years before the soil is exhausted.
Older gardens are abandoned and new ones started - hard work and time consuming
Horticulturists
Grow plantains, bananas, sweet potatoes sweet manioc (a root crop which is boiled and refined into a flour) taro, (root crops), palm trees and maize or corn.
Most moves are stimulated by warfarethe threat of raids from neighbouring villages force them to move New garden sites are selected for political reasons
They conceive of themselves as being fierce and actively conduct warfare
This is reflected in their mythology, values, settlement patterns political behaviour and marriage patterns.
Yanomamo war party screwing up their courage for a raid on a neighboring village
The essence of political life is to develop stable alliances with neighbouring villages to create a network that potentially allows a local group to rely for long periods of time on the gardens of neighbouring villages
Moving gardens to a new area is hard work, and because they take some time before they are productive they form alliances with neighbouring villages They have to rely on their protection.
These alliances established along kinship basis
Lineages are patrilineal and exogamous
i.e. males and females belong to the lineage of their fathers and must marry people who belong to a different lineage.
Women are very ill-treated and are considered as objects or property and are pawns to be disposed of by their kinsmen.
The “Fertility Goddess" Yanomamo girl
celebrating her passage to womanhood
Ideal marriage is sister exchange
A man is under an obligation to reciprocate a woman to a kinship group from which he has taken one.
Because of this, kinship groups become interdependent socially and form pairs of women-exchanging groups.
Men in lineage A exchanges sisters with the men in lineage B
In the 2nd generation a man in lineage A marries his mother’s brother’s daughter (who is also his father’s sister’s daughter) (I.e. his cross cousin)
Males of lineage X call males of lineage Y brother-in-law and are eligible to marry their sisters whom they call wife, even though they may not marry them.
A man must marry a woman of a category called wife, this is called a prescriptive marriage rule.
Within each generation the males of one lineage call each other brother and all the women sister.
This is the ideal what actually happens is far more complicated
Ties between partilineally related kinsmen are weaker than that between men of different lineages because the men are drawn into intimate relationships with the kinship groups from which they obtain their wives, and because of the principle of reciprocity, are obligated to reciprocateIn other words the obligations to exchange women can link members of affinaly related groups to each other more intimately than ties of blood between males of the same lineage.
The relationship between a man and his brother of the same age is generally poor because they are competitors
Villages split when the population has about 150 people because internal feuds and fighting make peace difficult to maintain. Splitting of a village often results over womenWhen villages split they usually do so along lineage lines.The most bitter fighting takes place between members of different villages who are related to each other.
In each village you find local descent groups exchanging wives Each descent group arranges marriages often for political reasons A small village may require alliances with larger ones for purposes of defence. the men of the smaller village may promise to give women to members of the larger villages Women are promised at a very early age, even before birth
A man has a considerably more say about the disposition of his daughter when he is young and his sons are also youngWhen they grow older they can overrule their father and insist or that their sister be given to a man from some lineage that is likely to reciprocate.
The members of a militarily vulnerable village will breach the marriage prescription in order to establish political alliances with neighbouring groups by ceding women to them
They may not get women in return
The Yanomamo also practice female infanticide, because they desire a male first.
They also practice polygyny. The more powerful men may have more than one wife.
The result of this is that there is a shortage of marriageable women especially in villages where one lineage dominates.
To compensate for this the men conduct raids on other villages to abduct women to marry.Which then results in the need to form alliances