ANTH 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Marsupial, Etoro People, Dowry
4 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Kinship systems: socially recognized networks of relationships through which individuals are related to one another by ties of descent, marriage, and nurturance. Nurturance= ideas of shared substance/ contract-based relationship: bodily substance-blood, milk, genes, spiritual substance- soul, spirit, love, other substances- food. Fictive: not related by marriage or birth: adoption, uncle joey . These determine rights and obligations on the basis of culturally recognized relationships. Central principle of descent: based on parent-child links to transmit group identity and incorporate new people. Two major strategies for determining descent: bilateral descent, unilineal descent. Descent group is formed by people who believe they are just as closely related to father"s side as they are to their mother"s side: most common strategy in us. A person"s significant kin come through either one"s mother or father: patrilineal- father-child links, matrilineal- mother-child links. Divided into 20 clans: people in a clan are matrilineally related through a common ancestor, cannot marry within a clan- considered incest.
