Premium
Ambilineal Descent Groups in the Northern Gilbert Islands 1
Author(s) -
LAMBERT BERND
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1966.68.3.02a00020
Subject(s) - descent (aeronautics) , estate , genealogy , group (periodic table) , trace (psycholinguistics) , inheritance (genetic algorithm) , history , social group , demography , sociology , geography , law , political science , philosophy , social science , biology , genetics , linguistics , chemistry , organic chemistry , meteorology , gene
Most discussions of the extension of the concept of “descent” to nonunilineal groups have assumed that the latter permitted a far greater latitude in choosing affiliations than unilineal groups did. In the society of Butaritari and Makin, the northernmost of the Gilbert Islands, the membership of a corporate descent group (ramage) consists of all persons who can trace descent, through either men or women, to the founder of the group and persons who can trace descent, through either men or women, to the founder of group and who have inherited rights to a portion of his estate. An individual is thus simultaneously a member of several ramages, but in the traditional society his most important rights and obligations were in the groups on whose house sites he could settle. The ramages thus tended to segment into (1) a localized core that actually controlled the estate and carried on most activities on behalf of the larger group, and (2) a periphery that would eventually disaffiliate. It is suggested that this differentiation of segments by location made social processes orderly in the absence of a unilineal principle.