Avunculocality and Incest: The Development of Unilateral Cross‐Cousin Marriage and Crow‐Omaha Kinship Systems

Terminological correlates of cross-cousin marriage

“…This indicates that any attempt to explain the causes of complete terminological systems cannot be supported solely by a demonstration that the proposed causes are sufficient to account for the cousin terminology, unless it can be shown that the factors accounting for the cousin terms also account for the entire terminology. Attempts have been made, however, to explain cousin terminology without taking this factor into consideration; among the most recent are those of the Lanes (1959) and Eyde and Postal (1961). Both these papers attempt to explain cousin terminology in terms of marriage practices and, in addition, Eyde and Postal try to develop a theory accounting for differential cross-cousin marriage.…”

Measuring the development of kinship terminologies: Scalogram and transformational accounts of Omaha-type systems

“…OR very nearly a century the development of Crow kinship terminology F has been a dominant theoretical concern of social anthropology (e.g. Morgan 1871; Kohler 1897; Rivers 1914Rivers , 1924Lowie 1917aLowie , 1928Lowie :265, 1930Lowie , 1932White 1939White , 1959Murdock 1949; Lane and Lane 1959; Eyde and Postal 1961;Moore 1963): Attempts to account for Crow systems have specified causal relationships between the terminology and preferential marriage systems, lineage organization, and residence rules. Crow terminology, i t has been suggested, is a result of variations in the above variables, operating individually, or in various combinations.…”

How Crow-Omaha Skewing Spreads

“…As to alliance, an influential early argument attributed skewing to a secondary intergenerational marriage rule, combined with both levirate and sororate: WBD/FZH for Omaha, MBW/HZS for Crow (Lesser 1929;Lowie 1934;Rivers 1914). By mid-century that was refuted (Leach 1951:30;Lévi-Strauss 1949:444-58;Murdock 1949:123), and skewing was instead associated with a primary marriage rule: "AXCM," asymmetric (matrilateral) X-c marriage, i.e., of MBD with FZS (Eyde and Postal 1961;Lane and Lane 1959;Leach 1951;Lévi-Strauss 1949:450-55).…”