Matrilineal Kinship System

Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritance of property and titles. A matriline is a line of descent from a female ancestor to a descendant of either gender in which the individuals in all intervening generations are mothers. In a matrilineal descent system, individuals belong to the same descent group as their mothers. This is in contrast to the currently more popular pattern of patrilineal descent from which a family name is usually derived. The matriline of historical nobility was also called their enatic or uterine ancestry, corresponding to the patrilineal or "agnatic" ancestry.

Early human kinship

Scholars disagree on the nature of early human, that is, Homo sapiens, kinship. In the late 19th century, most scholars believed, influenced by Lewis H. Morgan's book ''Ancient Society'', that early kinship was matrilineal. Friedrich Engels''. This thesis that our first domestic institution was the matrilineal clan, not the family, became communist orthodoxy. However, by the 20th century most social anthropologists disagreed, although during the 1970s and 1980s, feminist scholars often revived it.

In recent years, evolutionary biologists, geneticists and palaeoanthropologists have found indirect genetic and other evidence of early matriliny. Some genetic data suggest that over millennia, female sub-Saharan African hunter-gatherers have lived with their maternal kin after marriage. Also, when sisters and their mothers help each other with childcare, the descent line tends to be matrilineal. Biological anthropologists now largely agree that cooperative childcare helped the large human brain and human psychology to evolve.

Matriliny is often tied to matrilocality, which shows significant nuance. Pastoralists and farmers often gravitate toward patrilocality. However, studies show that hunter-gatherer societies have a flexible philopatry or practice multilocality; matrilocality and patrilocality are not the only possibilities. Flexibility leads to a more egalitarian society, as both men and women can choose with whom to live. So, for example, among the pygmy Aka Peoples a young couple usually settles in the husband's camp after the birth of their first child. However, the husband can stay in the wife's community, where one of his brothers or sisters can join him. Kinship and residence in hunter-gatherer societies may thus be complex and multifaceted. Supporting this, a re-check of past data on hunter gatherers showed that about 40% of groups were bilocal, 22.9% matrilocal, and 25% patrilocal.

Matrilineal surname

''Matrilineal'' surnames (matrinames) are names transmitted from mother to daughter, in contrast to the more familiar ''patrilineal surnames'' (patrinames) transmitted from father to son, the pattern most common among family names today.Sykes, Bryan (2001). ''The Seven Daughters of Eve''. W.W. Norton. ; pp. 291–2. Bryan Sykes uses "matriname" and states that women adding their own matriname to men's patriname (or "surname" as Sykes calls it) would really help in future genealogy work and historical record searches. Sykes also states (p. 292) that a woman's matriname will be handed down with her mtDNA, the main topic of his book.

Cultural patterns

In some societies, membership was—and, in the following list, still is if shown in ''italics''—inherited matrilineally. Examples include many, if not most, Native North American groups: the Cherokee, Choctaw, '' Gitksan'', Haida, Hopi, Iroquois, Lenape, Navajo and Tlingit among others; the '' Cabécar'' and '' Bribri'' of Costa Rica; the ''Naso'' and ''Guna people'' of Panama; the '' Kogi'', ''Wayuu'' and Carib of South America; the ''Minangkabau'' people of West Sumatra, Indonesia and Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia; the ''Trobrianders'', ''Dobu'' and ''Nagovisi'' of Melanesia; the Nairs, some Thiyyas & Muslims of Kerala and the Mogaveeras, Billavas & the Bunts of Karnataka in south India; the '' Khasi'', '' Jaintia'' and ''Garo'' of Meghalaya in northeast India and Bangladesh; the '' Ngalops'' and ''Sharchops'' of Bhutan; the ''Mosuo'' of China; the '' Kayah'' of Southeast Asia; the Basques of Spain and France; the ''Akan'' including the '' Ashanti'', ''Bono'', ''Akwamu'', '' Fante'' of Ghana; most groups across the so-called " matrilineal belt" of south-central Africa; the Nubians of Southern Egypt & Sudan; the ''Tuareg'' of west and north Africa; and the '' Serer'' of Senegal, The Gambia and Mauritania. The title of the Rain Queen in South Africa is inherited via matrilineal primogeniture: dynastic descent is matrilineal, with only females eligible to inherit.

Genetic evidence shows matriliny, and matrilocality, among Celts in Iron Age Britain. As other data indicate patriarchy in the Early Bronze Age, this may indicate a rare patriarchal to matrifocal transition. There is evidence of matrilineal royal descent, from maternal uncle to nephew, in early Iron Age (ca. 500 BCE) Celtics in continental Europe. There is evidence of matriliny in Pre-Islamic Arabia among a subclan of the Amarite tribal confederation of Ancient Saba; the wider society there was overwhelmingly patrilineal. Genetic data has also established matriliny and matrilocality of an elite among Ancestral Pueblo People, from 8th to 11th century AD, in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. The initial people of Micronesia practiced matrilocality, as seen in ancient DNA. Ancient DNA from a late neolithic site in Northern China (Fujia in Shandong Province), dated around 2700 BCE, showed both matrilocality and possibly a general preference for the maternal bloodline as opposed to affinal (marital) kin.

Clan names vs. surnames

Matrilineal groups are often made up of matrilineal clans, at times with ''descent groups'' or ''family groups'' each with a separate female ancestor. Sometimes the male ancestor, that is, the partner of the female ancestor where known, is mentioned as the ancestor though the clan is matrilineal. Surnames in these situations may follow several patterns. The clan name may be the surname, handed down matrilineally. The clan name may be tracked but not used in the personal names. This is true of the Minangkabau, for instance, who mostly use just one name. It is also true of the Akan, who do use two names, but do not inherit the second name, hence making it a surname but not a family name. The surname may also be the name of the descent group.

Care of children

While a mother normally takes care of her own children in all cultures, in some matrilineal cultures, particularly matrilocal ones, an "uncle-father," termed a ''social father'', will take care of, and be guardian to, his nieces and nephews instead of his sons. The biological father plays little role in child rearing.

Matriliny in specific ethnic groups

Africa

Akan

Some 20 million Akan live in Africa, particularly in Ghana and Ivory Coast. (See as well their subgroups, the Ashanti, also called Asante, Akyem, Bono, Fante, Akwamu.) Many but not all of the Akan still (2001) practice their traditional matrilineal customs, living in their traditional extended family households, as follows. The traditional Akan economic, political and social organization is based on maternal lineages, which are the basis of inheritance and succession. A lineage is defined as all those related by matrilineal descent from a particular ancestress. Several lineages are grouped into a ''political unit'' headed by a chief and a council of elders, each of whom is the elected head of a lineage – which itself may include multiple extended-family households. Public offices are thus vested in the lineage, as are land tenure and other lineage property. In other words, lineage property is inherited only by matrilineal kin.Busia, Kofi Abrefa (1970). ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 1970. William Benton, publisher, The University of Chicago. , Vol. 1, p. 477. (This Akan article was written by Kofi Abrefa Busia, formerly professor of Sociology and Culture of Africa at the University of Leiden, Netherlands.)

"The principles governing inheritance stress sex, generation and age – that is to say, men come before women and seniors before juniors." When a woman's brothers are available, a consideration of generational seniority stipulates that the line of brothers be exhausted before the right to inherit lineage property passes down to the next senior genealogical generation of sisters' sons. Finally, "it is when all possible male heirs have been exhausted that the females" may inherit.

Each lineage controls the lineage land farmed by its members, functions together in the veneration of its ancestors, supervises marriages of its members, and settles internal disputes among its members.

The political units above are likewise grouped into eight larger groups called ''abusua'' (similar to clans), named Aduana, Agona, Asakyiri, Asenie, Asona, Bretuo, Ekuona and Oyoko. The members of each ''abusua'' are united by their belief that they are all descended from the same ancient ancestress. Marriage between members of the same ''abusua'' is forbidden. One inherits or is a lifelong member of the lineage, the political unit, and the ''abusua'' of one's mother, regardless of one's gender and/or marriage. Note that members and their spouses thus belong to different ''abusuas'', mother and children living and working in one household and their husband/father living and working in a different household.

According to this sourceashanti.com.au (before 2010). http://ashanti.com.au/pb/wp_8078438f.html, "Ashanti Home Page: The Ashanti Family unit" Archived https://web.archive.org/web/20070626101235/http://www.ashanti.com.au/pb/wp_8078438f.html on 26 June 2007. of further information about the Akan, "A man is strongly related to his mother's brother (wɔfa) but only weakly related to his father's brother. This must be viewed in the context of a polygamous society in which the mother/child bond is likely to be much stronger than the father/child bond. As a result, in inheritance, a man's nephew (sister's son) will have priority over his own son. Uncle-nephew relationships therefore assume a dominant position."

Certain other aspects of the Akan culture are determined patrilineally rather than matrilineally. There are 12 patrilineal Ntoro (which means spirit) groups, and everyone belongs to their father's Ntoro group but not to his (matrilineal) family lineage and ''abusua''. Each patrilineal Ntoro group has its own surnames, taboos, ritual purifications, and etiquette.

A recent (2001) book provides this update on the Akan: Some families are changing from the above ''abusua'' structure to the nuclear family.de Witte (2001), p. 53. Housing, childcare, education, daily work, and elder care etc. are then handled by that individual family rather than by the ''abusua'' or clan, especially in the city. The above taboo on marriage within one's abusua is sometimes ignored, but "clan membership" is still important, with many people still living in the ''abusua'' framework presented above.

Guanches

The Berber inhabitants of Gran Canaria island had developed a matrilineal society by the time the Canary Islands and their people, called Guanches, were conquered by the Spanish.

Serer

The Serer people of Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania are patrilineal (''simanGol'' in Serer language) as well as matrilineal (''tim'' Dupire, Marguerite, "Sagesse sereer : Essais sur la pensée sereer ndut, KARTHALA Editions (1994). For ''tim'' and ''den yaay'' (see p. 116). The book also deals in depth about the Serer matriclans and means of succession through the matrilineal line. See also pages : 38, 95–99, 104, 119–20, 123, 160, 172–4

(Retrieved : 4 August 2012)). There are several Serer maternal clans, Serer matriclans and matriarchs. Some of these matriarchs include Fatim Beye (1335) and Ndoye Demba (1367) – matriarchs of the Joos matriclan which also became a dynasty in Waalo (Senegal). Some matriclans or maternal clans form part of Serer medieval and dynastic history, such as the Guelowars. The most revered clans tend to be rather ancient and form part of Serer ancient history. These proto-Serer clans hold great significance in Serer religion and mythology. Some of these proto-Serer matriclans include the ''Cegandum'' and ''Kagaw'', whose historical account is enshrined in Serer religion, mythology and traditions.

In Serer culture, inheritance is both matrilineal and patrilineal. It all depends on the asset being inherited – i.e. whether the asset is a paternal asset – requiring paternal inheritance (''kucarla'' ) or a maternal asset – requiring maternal inheritance (''den yaay'' or ''ƭeen yaay'' Becker, Charles: "Vestiges historiques, trémoins matériels du passé clans les pays sereer", Dakar (1993), CNRS – ORS TO M
Excerpt
(Retrieved : 4 August 2012)). The actual handling of these maternal assets (such as jewelry, land, livestock, equipment or furniture, etc.) is discussed in the subsection Role of the Tokoor of one of the above-listed main articles.

Tuareg

The Tuareg (Arabic:طوارق, sometimes spelled Touareg in French, or Twareg in English) are a large Berber ethnic confederation found across several nations in north Africa, including Niger, Mali and Algeria. The Tuareg are ''clan''-based,Haven, Cynthia (23 May 07). http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-tuareg-052307.html, "New exhibition highlights the 'artful' Tuareg of the Sahara," Stanford University. Archived https://archive.today/20121210143001/http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2007/pr-tuareg-052307.html on 10 December 2012. and are (still, in 2007) "largely matrilineal".Spain, Daphne (1992). ''Gendered Spaces''. University of North Carolina Press. ; p. 57. The Tuareg are Muslim, but mixed with a "heavy dose" of their pre-existing beliefs including matriliny.

Tuareg women enjoy high status within their society, compared with their Arab counterparts and with other Berber tribes: Tuareg social status is transmitted through women, with residence often matrilocal. Most women could read and write, while most men were illiterate, concerning themselves mainly with herding livestock and other male activities. The livestock and other movable property were owned by the women, whereas personal property is owned and inherited regardless of gender. In contrast to most other Muslim cultural groups, men wear veils but women do not. This custom is discussed in more detail in the Tuareg article's clothing section, which mentions it may be the protection needed against the blowing sand while traversing the Sahara desert.

Americas

Bororo

The Bororo people of Brazil and Bolivia live in matrilineal clans, with husbands moving to live with their wives' extended families.

Bribri

The clan system of the Bribri people of Costa Rica and Panama is matrilineal; that is, a child's clan is determined by the clan his or her mother belongs to. Only women can inherit land.

Cabécar

The social organization of the Cabécar people of Costa Rica is predicated on matrilineal clans in which the mother is the head of household. Each matrilineal clan controls marriage possibilities, regulates land tenure, and determines property inheritance for its members.

Guna

In the traditional culture of the Guna people of Panama and Colombia, families are matrilinear and matrilocal, with the groom moving to become part of the bride's family. The groom also takes the last name of the bride.

Hopi

The Hopi (in what is now the Hopi Reservation in northeastern Arizona), according to Alice Schlegel, had as its "gender ideology ... one of female superiority, and it operated within a social actuality of sexual equality." According to LeBow (based on Schlegel's work), in the Hopi, "gender roles ... are egalitarian .... nd ither sex is inferior." LeBow concluded that Hopi women "participate fully in ... political decision-making." According to Schlegel, "the Hopi no longer live as they are described here"Schlegel, Alice, ''Hopi Gender Ideology of Female Superiority'', ''op. cit.'', p. 44 n. 1. and "the attitude of female superiority is fading". Schlegel said the Hopi "were and still are matrilinial"Schlegel, Alice, ''Hopi Gender Ideology of Female Superiority'', ''op. cit.'', p. 45. and "the household ... was matrilocal".

Schlegel explains why there was female superiority as that the Hopi believed in "life as the highest good ... iththe female principle ... activated in women and in Mother Earth ... as its source" and that the Hopi "were not in a state of continual war with equally matched neighbors"Schlegel, Alice, ''Hopi Gender Ideology of Female Superiority'', ''op. cit.'', p. 49. and "had no standing army" so that "the Hopi lacked the spur to masculine superiority" and, within that, as that women were central to institutions of clan and household and predominated "within the economic and social systems (in contrast to male predominance within the political and ceremonial systems)", the Clan Mother, for example, being empowered to overturn land distribution by men if she felt it was unfair,Schlegel, Alice, ''Hopi Gender Ideology of Female Superiority'', ''op. cit.'', p. 50. since there was no "countervailing ... strongly centralized, male-centered political structure".

Iroquois

The Iroquois Confederacy or League, combining five to six Native American Haudenosaunee nations or tribes before the U.S. became a nation, operated by The Great Binding Law of Peace, a constitution by which women retained matrilineal-rights and participated in the League's political decision-making, including deciding whether to proceed to war, through what may have been a matriarchy or "gyneocracy". The dates of this constitution's operation are unknown: the League was formed in approximately 1000–1450, but the constitution was oral until written in about 1880.Jacobs, Renée, ''Iroquois Great Law of Peace and the United States Constitution'', in ''American Indian Law Review'', ''op. cit.'', p. 498 & n. 6. The League still exists.

Other Iroquoian-speaking peoples such as the Wyandot and the Meherrin, that were never part of the Iroquois League, nevertheless have traditionally possessed a matrilineal family structure.

Kogi

The Kogi people of northern Colombia practice bilateral inheritance, with certain rights, names or associations descending matrilineally.

Lenape

Occupied for 10,000 years by Native Americans, the land that is present-day New Jersey was overseen by clans of the Lenape, who farmed, fished, and hunted upon it. The pattern of their culture was that of a matrilineal agricultural and mobile hunting society that was sustained with fixed, but not permanent, settlements in their ''matrilineal clan'' territories. Leadership by men was inherited through the maternal line, and the women elders held the power to remove leaders of whom they disapproved.

Villages were established and relocated as the clans farmed new sections of the land when soil fertility lessened and when they moved among their fishing and hunting grounds by seasons. The area was claimed as a part of the Dutch New Netherland province dating from 1614, where active trading in furs took advantage of the natural pass west, but the Lenape prevented permanent settlement beyond what is now Jersey City.

"Early Europeans who first wrote about these Indians found matrilineal social organization to be unfamiliar and perplexing. As a result, the early records are full of 'clues' about early Lenape society, but were usually written by observers who did not fully understand what they were seeing."

Mandan

The Mandan people of the northern Great Plains of the United States historically lived in matrilineal extended family lodges.

Naso

The Naso (Teribe or Térraba) people of Panama and Costa Rica describe themselves as a matriarchal community, although their monarchy has traditionally been inherited in the male line.

Navajo

The Navajo people of the American southwest are a matrilineal society in which kinship, children, livestock and family histories are passed down through the female. In marriage the groom moved to live with the brides family. Children also came from their mother's clan living in hogans of the females family.

Tanana Athabaskan

The Tanana Athabaskan people, the original inhabitants of the Tanana River basin in Alaska and Canada, traditionally lived in matrilineal semi-nomadic bands.

Tsenacommacah (Powhatan Confederacy)

The Powhatan and other tribes of the Tsenacommacah, also known as the Powhatan Confederacy, practiced a version of male-preference matrilineal seniority, favoring brothers over sisters in the current generation (but allowing sisters to inherit if no brothers remained), but passing to the next generation through the eldest female line. In ''A Map of Virginia'' John Smith of Jamestown explains:

His /nowiki>Chief Powhatan's">Chief_Powhatan.html" ;"title="/nowiki>Chief Powhatan">/nowiki>Chief Powhatan'skingdome descendeth not to his sonnes nor children: but first to his brethren, whereof he hath 3 namely Opitchapan, Opechancanough, and Catataugh; and after their decease to his sisters. First to the eldest sister, then to the rest: and after them to the heires male and female of the eldest sister; but never to the heires of the males.

Upper Kuskokwim

The Upper Kuskokwim people are the original inhabitants of the Upper Kuskokwim River basin. They speak an Athabaskan language more closely related to Tanana than to the language of the Lower Kuskokkwim River basin. They were traditionally hunter-gatherers who lived in matrilineal semi-nomadic bands.

Wayuu

The Wayuu people of Colombia and Venezuela live in matrilineal clans, with paternal relationships in the background.

Asia

China

Originally, Chinese surnames were derived matrilineally,linguistics.berkeley.edu (2004). http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rosemary/55-2004-names.pdf, "Naming practices". A PDF file with a section on "Chinese naming practices (Mak et al., 2003)". although by the time of the Shang dynasty (1600 to 1046 BCE) they had become patrilineal.

Archaeological data supports the theory that during the Neolithic period (7000 to 2000 BCE) in China, Chinese matrilineal clans evolved into the usual patrilineal families by passing through a transitional patrilineal clan phase. Evidence includes some "richly furnished" tombs for young women in the early Neolithic Yangshao culture, whose multiple other collective burials imply a matrilineal clan culture. Toward the late Neolithic period, when burials were apparently of couples, "a reflection of patriarchy", an increasing elaboration of presumed chiefs' burials is reported.

Relatively isolated ethnic minorities such as the Mosuo (Na) in southwestern China are highly matrilineal.

India

Of communities recognized in the national Constitution as Scheduled Tribes, "some ... rematriarchal and matrilineal" "and thus have been known to be more egalitarian." Some Hindu communities in Southwest India practiced matriliny, especially the Nair (or ''Nayar''), Tiyyas and some Namboothiri Brahmins in the state of Kerala, and the Bunts and Billava in the state of Karnataka. The system of inheritance was known as Marumakkathayam in the ''Nair'' community or Aliyasantana in the ''Bunt'' and the ''Billava'' community, and both communities were subdivided into clans. This system was exceptional in the sense that it was one of the few traditional systems in India that gave women some liberty and the right to property.

In the matrilineal system of Kerala, southern India, the family lived together in a tharavadu which was composed of a mother, her brothers and younger sisters, and her children in a system called as Marumakkathayam. The oldest male member was known as the Karnavar and was the head of the household, managing the family estate. Lineage was traced through the mother, and the children belonged to the mother's family. The surname would be from the maternal side and all family property was jointly owned. In the event of a partition, the shares of the children were clubbed with that of the mother. The Karnavar's property was inherited by his sisters' sons rather than his own sons. Almost all the kingdoms in Kerala practised this system, with the Karnavar of the family becoming the king. The Arakkal kingdom of Kerala followed a similar matrilineal system of descent: the eldest member of the family, whether male or female, became its head and ruler. (For further information see the articles on Nair, Ambalavasi, Bunts and Billava). Amitav Ghosh

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases