Premium
Crow‐type skewing In Akan kinship vocabulary and Its absence In Minangkabau
Author(s) -
THOMAS LYNN L.
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1525/ae.1980.7.3.02a00110
Subject(s) - kinship , indonesian , residence , vocabulary , norm (philosophy) , genealogy , sociology , inheritance (genetic algorithm) , fictive kinship , anthropology , linguistics , history , law , demography , political science , biology , philosophy , biochemistry , gene
Akan societies of West Africa have unskewed kinship terminologies quite similar to those of the Sumatran Minangkabau, and they also have kinterm systems with Crow‐type skewing. Minangkabau has no skewing. Parallel examinations of kinship‐related institutions in Akan and Minangkabau provide grounds for a (necessarily partial) accounting of the kin terminological differences. The hypothesized greater emphasis in Akan norms on individualized property holding, inheritance and succession, and the Akan avunculocal residence norm, may have provided conceptual bases for the Akan skewing rule. The hypothesized greater emphasis in Minangkabau norms on corporate lineage property holding, and the Minangkabau uxorimatrilocal residence norm, may be significant correlates of the absence of a skewing rule in Minangkabau. [kinship, West Africa, social organization, language and culture, Sumatran, Indonesian societies]