Essays on Patrilineal

Kinship represents a system of societal organization that describes putative or real family ties. The concept is a human attribute that deeply relies on cultural extensions. While it remains common among many social sciences, kinship is increasingly popular in cultural anthropology. This essay describes descent and alliance as two significant concepts in cultural anthropology of kinship. Both terms encompass the primary forms of human relatedness. On one hand, the term alliance refers to the social relatedness that individuals form through marriage. Marriage-based alliances point to the necessity of interdependence for families and lineages. These marriages exist as a form ...

1. Introduction This paper discusses the marriage and kinship patterns among the Ait Khebbbach tribe of south Eastern Morocco. Although the Ait Khebbach tribe is Berber, similar to all Berber-speaking tribes in Morocco, they have adopted Arab kinship patterns (Gélard 566). The Ait Kehbbach tribe was nomadic until recently and were famous for controlling the lucrative transsaharan route from Morocco to Mali (Gélard 566). The specific family discussed in this paper, the Al Hammad family, is not that of the author, but of a friend. The names have been changed to protect confidentiality. The family was chosen ...

Nayar is a caste in the Kerala region of southern India and is remarkably different from other tribes and sects in the region. The Nayars were a matrilineal sect that also practised polyandry. The sect in ancient times till the 13th century was chiefly a warrior clan that served the local feudal lords and kings. In the 14th century the community slowly turned matrilineal from partilineal. The chief subsistence of the Nayars was militaristic activies that slowly became emerging agricultural in nature. The impact of the ways of subsistence among the Nayars is not apparent and the real reasons for the change ...