Kinship and Context among the Ngarinyin

Rumsey, Alan

doi:10.1002/j.1834-4461.1981.tb01448.x

Cited by 25 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Advocates of extensionist theory may argue that the close-distant dichotomy has already been well dealt with in the surmise that 'fathers' must inevitably extend from 'a father', the biological father, and so on, and that the dichotomy is structurally implied in Indigenous terminology to begin with. One only has to draw attention to Rumsey's (1981) Ngarinyin example of 'mothers' who end up representing anything but the biological mother-in fact, one could say, the social antithesis of the biological mother (i.e. those who provide the key to those one is able to marry).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Turner, 'this system may be seen as a compromise between the need for continually extending alliances over a wide range through obtaining wives from groups with no previous relationship to one's own local group, and the need for stability and solidarity within a restricted circle of groups-in the interest of survival'. Rumsey's (1981) 'Kinship and Context among the Ngarinyin' Rumsey's (1981) study of the kinship system of the Ngarinyin of the Kimberley region of Western Australia proceeded from a different perspective, with ostensibly different concerns; nevertheless, it has significant relevance for the close-distant dichotomy. In the Ngarinyin system, there is 'the tendency for all persons within a single agnatic line to be called by the same kinterm'.…”

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Close–Distant: An Essential Dichotomy in Australian Kinship

Jefferies¹

2018

Skin, Kin and Clan: The Dynamics of Social Categories in Indigenous Australia

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This chapter looks at the evidence for the close-distant dichotomy in the kinship systems of Australian Aboriginal societies. The closedistant dichotomy operates on two levels. It is the distinction familiar to Westerners from their own culture between close and distant relatives: those we have frequent contact with as opposed to those we know about but rarely, or never, see. In Aboriginal societies, there is a further distinction: those with whom we share our quotidian existence, and those who live at some physical distance, with whom we feel a social and cultural commonality, but also a decided sense of difference. This chapter gathers a substantial body of evidence to indicate that distance, both physical and genealogical, is a conception intrinsic to the Indigenous understanding of the function and purpose of kinship systems. Having done so, it explores the implications of the close-distant dichotomy for the understanding of pre-European Aboriginal societies in general-in other words: if the dichotomy is a key factor in how Indigenes structure their society, what does it say about the limits and integrity of the societies that employ that kinship system? SKIN, KIN AND CLAN 364

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: )mentioning

confidence: 99%

Close–Distant: An Essential Dichotomy in Australian Kinship

Jefferies¹

2018

Skin, Kin and Clan: The Dynamics of Social Categories in Indigenous Australia

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Given the special canons of relevance imposed by the Land Rights Act and by the established judicial procedures for applying it, we should not be surprised if what is most relevant there turns out to be far less so in everyday social action. But, as we now appreciate more fully than did Radcliffe-Brown, all such ways of making social relationships, whether of the 'group' or 'network' variety, are contextually relative, and none results in groupings which endure across all social contexts (Hiatt 1982, Rumsey 1981. What has endured, and still endures, are not 'groups', so much as ways of grouping.…”

Section: Anthropological Forummentioning

confidence: 94%