Suchergebnisse

How hungry Kwara?ae cannibals are to divide a slain relative poses a non‐trivial formal problem for the savage mind. Here a mathematical model is proposed for the rigorous segmentation of a corpus—keeping in mind the highest ethnoscience standards of ethnographic rigor, psychological reality, methodological precision, explicitness, productivity, elegance, replicability, incomprehensibility, and irrelevance.

Fosterage is one important possible outcome when parental death disrupts the family developmental cycle among the Kwaio of the Solomon Islands. A model of alternative sequences of possible events and decision‐making principles, portrayed with flow diagrams, is outlined. The significance of fosterage in generating Kwaio social alignments is examined, and the implications of this approach for the study of social structure are discussed.

Parallels between Kwaio (Solomon Islands) social structure and the system of ancestral cults and shrines are drawn. Kwaio distinguish between, and make important use of, agnatic descent, cognatic descent, and cognatic kinship, and each is reflected in ritual. Comparisons are drawn between Kwaio social structure, ancestors, and shrines, and those of the Tallensi. Remarkable similarities emerge. It is suggested that many facets of "complementary filiation," and other features of Tallensi social structure, may reflect a secondary principle of cognatic descent.