The Effect of Co-residence of Sisters'Sons on African Corporate Patrilineal Descent Groups

Abstract

The relationship between mother's brother and sister's son in African societies has been described in many monographs, and has been treated extensively in articles by Radcliffe-Brown (I924) and Goody (I959:6I-88). This relationship is frequently characterized by sentimental and ritual ties. Often a man has what Goody called, residual in his mother's brother's patrilineage (I959:86). Included among these rights are limited access to that lineage's assets, and right to seek refuge with its members. The fact remains, however, that a sister's son is not a member of his mother's brother's patrilineage, and does not come under its genealogical charter-a charter which, as Laura Bohannan has pointed out, validates for a lineage member: ties of kinship and marriage, claims to a place to live and farm, help in court cases, conduct in matters of magic and rituals, and decisions against whom to fight and on what occasions (I952:306 and 308). Nor is a sister's son exempt from tendency of lineage to restrict to its own members the perpetual exercise of defined rights, duties, offices and social tasks vested in lineage