Gifts and Commodities by Gregory C. A.; Strathern Marilyn;

Author:Gregory, C. A.; Strathern, Marilyn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780990505013
Publisher: HAU
Published: 2018-06-13T09:06:47+00:00

In this case a group is “reborn” every second generation, that is, it has a two-period self-replacement cycle. At the level of an individual family, this system of clan self-replacement effects the mode of classification of Figure 4.14. Thus a man (ego) and his grandfather belong to the same group, 1A, and men from this group can marry women from their own generation or two generations below who belong to group 1b.

The Kariara of Western Australia is an empirical example of this type (see Brown 1913). The four groups of this society, 1A Banaka, 2A Burung, 1B Palyeri, and 2B Karimera, belong to two moieties, A and B. Self-replacement of these groups was organized along lines identical to those discussed above. The classificatory kinship terms used by the Kariara, of which something has already been said in the last chapter, can be understood in terms of this model of self-replacement. Insofar as relations between individuals were concerned, they effected the classification shown in Figure 4.15.3 These terms describe some of the relationships by which ego (2A) classifies his kinsmen. The interesting point to note is that they have a four-generation replacement cycle: ego calls his father’s father and his son’s son by the same term, maeli. This means that the phratry groups 1A, 2A, 1B, and 2B, have to be reproduced twice in order to reproduce the maeli group once. Thus, these classificatory kinship terms can be analyzed from a sociocentric perspective as relations of reproduction of a four-generation group model. As relations of reproduction they are also simultaneously relations of exchange and can be depicted in matrix form as shown in Figure 4.16. This matrix extends the analysis of the last chapter by considering the relationship between transactors and the transacted, as well as the relationships among the transacted. It illustrates, in concrete terms, the meaning of the concept “reciprocal dependence of transactors” (e.g. kumbali) and the concept “inalienable objects of exchange” (mama = domination relation).

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