Kinship Organizations
Judy
4-11-2011
Aboriginals migrated from somewhere in Asia; they coexisted in harmony and lived in a balanced society with the land, animals, and everything living. The aboriginals were very primitive people. It’s very clear why they are this primitive. They believe that their ancestors made the earth. Their Kinship originates from the Dreaming, ‘The Dreaming’ referred to the Aboriginal people’s Ancestral Beings, past times and everything associated with them. The Dreaming strengthened all Aboriginal society especially the Kinship system. The relationship between kinship systems and the Dreamtime was such that the Aboriginal people developed their kinship systems from their Ancestral Beings who came from the Dreaming onto the land and formed everything and left them specific traditions and rules to be followed. It helped the Aboriginal people to know where they stood in regards to social relationships and their behavior towards every other person. The aboriginals were hunters and nomads.
For example per The Columbia Encyclopedia:
The aborigines have an intricate classification system that defines kinship relations and regulates marriages. The Karameros, for example, are divided into hordes, or local groups of about 30 people, which are divided into four classes, or sections. Membership in a section determines ritual and territorial claims. In half of the hordes the men are divided among the Karameros and Burung sections; in the other half they are divided among the Palyeri and Banaka sections. These sections are exogamous, and rules of marriage, descent, and residence determine how these sections interact: Karimera men must marry Palyeri women, and their children are Burung, and so on. Sons live in the same hordes as their fathers, so the composition of hordes alternates every generation. The complex system, by requiring each man to marry a woman from only one of the three possible sections, fosters a broad network of social relations and creates familial solidarity within the horde as a whole. Aborigines maintain elaborate systems of totemism (the belief that there is a genealogical relationship between people and species of plants or animals).
The Essay on Aboriginal Kinship Systems
Kinship is one of the main principles of a foraging culture’s social organization. The way they interact with each other relies on the relationship they have together. If one member wanted to marry another member of the society, they would not behave in the same manner as they would with a blood relative such as a mother or father. In foraging societies the nuclear family is the most important ...
They see the relationship between totemic plants and animals as a symbolic map of the relations between different people. (Encyclopedia.com)
Aborigines slated their kinship relationships and the way they were to behave according to their ancestors. They were sure not to marry relatives by dividing into hordes from other cultures of their kind. If they stepped out of line they were in fear that the souls of their ancestors would punish them.
In our society we still have the same kinship relationships as the foragers and horticultural societies. With all the government regulations and religious statures, I do not think it will ever change. So in reality cultures have not changed in thousands of years.
References
“Australian aborigines.” The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2008. Retrieved April 10, 2011 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-Australab.html