Iroquois kinship

Last updated

Iroquois kinship (also known as bifurcate merging) is a kinship system named after the Haudenosaunee people, also known as the Iroquois, whose kinship system was the first one described to use this particular type of system. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family , the Iroquois system is one of the six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese). [1]

Contents

Kinship system

The system has both classificatory and descriptive terms. In addition to gender and generation, Iroquois kinship also distinguishes 'same-sex' and 'cross-sex' parental siblings: the brothers of Ego's (the subject from whose perspective the kinship is based) father, and the sisters of Ego's mother, are referred to by the same parental kinship terms used for Ego's Father and Mother. The sisters of Ego's father, and the brothers of Ego's mother, on the other hand, are referred to by non-parental kinship terms, commonly translated into English as "Aunt" and "Uncle".

The children of one's parents' same-sex siblings, i.e. parallel cousins, are referred to by sibling kinship terms. The children of Aunts or Uncles, i.e. cross cousins, are not considered siblings, and are referred to by kinship terms commonly translated into English as "cousin". In some systems, the kinship terms applied to cross-cousins are the same as those applied to brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, due to preferential marriage practices (see below).

Egocentric genealogical diagram of the Iroquois kinship system. Iriquois-kinship-chart.svg
Egocentric genealogical diagram of the Iroquois kinship system.

Marriage

Ego (the subject from whose perspective the kinship is based) is encouraged to marry his cross-cousins but discouraged or prohibited from marrying his parallel cousins. In many societies with Iroquois kinship terminologies, the preferred marriage partners include not only first cousins (mother's brother's children and father's sister's children), but more remote relatives who are also classified as cross-cousins by the logic of the kinship system. Preferential cross-cousin marriage can be useful in reaffirming alliances between unilineal lineages or clans.

Usage

The term Iroquois comes from the six Iroquois tribes of northeastern North America. Another aspect of their kinship was that the six tribes all had matrilineal systems, in which children were born into the mother's clan and gained status through it. Women controlled some property, and hereditary leadership passed through the maternal line. A woman's eldest brother was more important as a mentor to her children than their father, who was always of a different clan.

"Iroquois tradition had the lineage of the clan or tribe traced through the mother's side. However, the amount of power women held in the tribe decreased with time due to the American revolution." [2] (Lappas, Thomas).

Some groups in other countries also happen to be independently organized for kinship by the Iroquois system. It is commonly found in unilineal descent groups. These include:

  1. The Anishinaabe of North America, who include the Algonquin, Nipissing, Mississauga, Ojibwe, Saulteaux, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples. Many of these people were traditional neighbors to the Iroquois, but they spoke languages of the Algonquian family.

Other populations found to have the Iroquois system are

  1. Most of the Bantu-speaking cultures of Eastern and Southern sub-Saharan Africa — see Sesotho kinship for an example.
  2. Many Melanesian societies.

South India and Sri Lanka

Some communities in South India use the kinship tradition described above. [3]

Melanesia

Many of the cultures of Vanuatu use this type of kinship system. In Bislama (Vanuatu pidgin), paternal uncles and maternal aunts are referred to as smol papa "small father" and smol mama "small mother" respectively.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinship</span> Web of human social relationships

In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that the study of kinship is the study of what humans do with these basic facts of life – mating, gestation, parenthood, socialization, siblingship etc. Human society is unique, he argues, in that we are "working with the same raw material as exists in the animal world, but [we] can conceptualize and categorize it to serve social ends." These social ends include the socialization of children and the formation of basic economic, political and religious groups.

Inuit kinship is a category of kinship used to define family organization in anthropology. Identified by Lewis H. Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Inuit system was one of six major kinship systems. The system of English-language kinship terms falls into the Inuit type.

Hawaiian kinship, also referred to as the generational system, is a kinship terminology system used to define family within languages. Identified by Lewis H. Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Hawaiian system is one of the six major kinship systems.

Crow kinship is a kinship system used to define family. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Crow system is one of the six major kinship systems.

Ambilineality is a form of kinship affiliation of cognatic descent that relies on self-defined affiliation within a given social system, meaning individuals have the choice to be affiliated with their mother's or father's group. Common features of societies that practice ambilineality are a shared set of land, communal responsibilities, and collective ownership of some segments of wealth and debt in their societies. This system of descent is distinct from more common genealogical structures in that rather than determining affiliation and descent using the standard determinants of biological and genealogical relation, it instead relies heavily on voluntary affiliation with one's group, oftentimes being determined by factors including residence.

Omaha kinship is the system of terms and relationships used to define family in Omaha tribal culture. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Omaha system is one of the six major kinship systems which he identified internationally.

Sudanese kinship, also referred to as the descriptive system, is a kinship system used to define family. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Sudanese system is one of the six major kinship systems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cousin</span> Descendant of an ancestors sibling

A cousin is a relative that is the child of a parent's sibling; this is more specifically referred to as a first cousin.

In discussing consanguineal kinship in anthropology, a parallel cousin or ortho-cousin is a cousin from a parent's same-sex sibling, while a cross-cousin is from a parent's opposite-sex sibling. Thus, a parallel cousin is the child of the father's brother or of the mother's sister, while a cross-cousin is the child of the mother's brother or of the father's sister. Where there are unilineal descent groups in a society, one's parallel cousins on one or both sides will belong to one's own descent group, while cross-cousins will not.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese kinship</span> System of family relationships in China

The Chinese kinship system is among the most complicated of all the world's kinship systems. It maintains a specific designation for almost every member's kin based on their generation, lineage, relative age, and gender. The traditional system was agnatic, based on patriarchal power, patrilocal residence, and descent through the male line. Although there has been much change in China over the last century, especially after 1949, there has also been substantial continuity.

Alliance theory, also known as the general theory of exchanges, is a structuralist method of studying kinship relations. It finds its origins in Claude Lévi-Strauss's Elementary Structures of Kinship (1949) and is in opposition to the functionalist theory of Radcliffe-Brown. Alliance theory has oriented most anthropological French works until the 1980s; its influences were felt in various fields, including psychoanalysis, philosophy and political philosophy.

Kinship terminology is the system used in languages to refer to the persons to whom an individual is related through kinship. Different societies classify kinship relations differently and therefore use different systems of kinship terminology; for example, some languages distinguish between consanguine and affinal uncles, whereas others have only one word to refer to both a father and his brothers. Kinship terminologies include the terms of address used in different languages or communities for different relatives and the terms of reference used to identify the relationship of these relatives to ego or to each other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sister exchange</span> Type of marriage

Sister exchange is a type of marriage agreement where two sets of siblings marry each other. In order to get married, a man needs to persuade his sister to marry the bride's brother. It is practised as a primary method of organising marriages in 3% of the world's societies: in Australia, Melanesia, Amazonia and Sub-Saharan Africa; and can replace other methods in 1.4% of the societies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Family</span> Group of related people

Family is a group of people related either by consanguinity or affinity. It forms the basis for social order. The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Ideally, families offer predictability, structure, and safety as members mature and learn to participate in the community. Historically, most human societies use family as the primary purpose of attachment, nurturance, and socialization.

Irish kinship is a system of kinship terminology which shows a bifurcate collateral pattern. This system is used by a minority of people living in the Gaeltacht regions of Ireland. Irish kinship terminology varies from English kinship as it focuses on gender and generation, with less emphasis on differentiating lineal vs. collateral.

An uncle is usually defined as a male relative who is a sibling of a parent or married to a sibling of a parent, as well as the parent of the cousins. Uncles who are related by birth are second-degree relatives. The female counterpart of an uncle is an aunt, and the reciprocal relationship is that of a nephew or niece. The word comes from Latin: avunculus, the diminutive of avus (grandfather), and is a family relationship within an extended or immediate family. The gender-neutral term pibling, a shortened form of parent's sibling, may refer to either an aunt or an uncle.

<i>Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family</i> 1871 anthropology book by Lewis Henry Morgan

Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family is an 1871 book written by Lewis Henry Morgan and published by the Smithsonian Institution. It is considered foundational for the discipline of anthropology and particularly for the study of human kinship. It was the culmination of decades of research into the variety of kinship terminologies in the world conducted partly through fieldwork and partly through a global survey of kinship terminologies in the languages and cultures of the world.

The Burmese kinship system is a fairly complex system used to define family in the Burmese language. In the Burmese kinship system:

Sesotho – the language of the Basotho ethnic group of South Africa and Lesotho – has a complex system of kinship terms which may be classified to fall under the Iroquois kinship pattern. The complex terminology rules are necessitated in part by the traditional promotion of certain forms of cousin marriage among the Bantu peoples of sub-Saharan Africa. Most of the terms used have common reconstructed Proto-Bantu roots.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yakoyaner</span> Clan Mother of the Mohawk nation

The Yakoyaner (also spelt iakoiane) is a Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk) term for the Haudenosaunee clan mother. The Yakoyaner are typically senior women responsible for overseeing the clan's political, economic, and social stability. The Yakoyaner, also known as a clan mother, holds weight over their community and family and aids in guiding the clan's chief in matters of governance, diplomacy, and community affairs.

References

  1. ↑ Schwimmer, Brian. "Systematic Kinship Terminologies" . Retrieved 24 December 2016.
  2. ↑ Lappas, Thomas (2017). ""For God and Home and Native Land": The Haudenosaunee and the Women's Christian Temperance Union, 1884–1921". Journal of Women's History. 29 (2): 62–85. doi:10.1353/jowh.2017.0021. ISSN   1527-2036. S2CID   149225721.
  3. ↑ The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.