The Sibling Principle in Oronao' Residence

Abstract

Oronao' residence groups are organized in terms of a sibling principle. Although not elaborated in native ideology, the principle appears in the concept of sibling group and associated concepts of residential space and in residential behavior. A comparison with Siriono, Apinaye, and Kalapalo domestic groups suggest a similar sibling-based residential organization without explicit native social thought. Understanding the sibling principle in South America requires a consciousness, which is apparently that of many South American peoples, in which the sibling relationship is fundamental and prior to the relationship of filiation. (Oronao', lowland South America, sibling principles, residence, domestic group organization) The notion that patrilineal lineages predominate in the lowland region of South America (Oberg 1955:477-84; Steward and Faron 1959:300) has been largely replaced by an understanding that the field of social relations in the area is ordered more by lateral (Hornborg 1988) than by lineal principles. The demise of the lineage as characteristic of the region was signaled by Jackson's (1975:319-20) critique of imputing lineage organization in the absence of lineage features in the native scheme of classification and by Murphy's (1979) argument that several societies for which lineage organizations had been ethnographically reported actually lacked lineage ideology and therefore had no lineages. At about the same time, the presence of a sibling principle was advanced in the working papers of The Sibling Relationship in Lowland South America (Kensinger 1985), where several authors described a sibling bond as a metaphor for social relations. The importance of siblingship in lowland South American societies was also demonstrated in several ethnopraphies (e.g., Basso 1973; Kaplan 1975; C. Hugh-Jones 1979; S. Hugh-Jones 1979; Arhem 1981; Jackson 1983; Crocker and Crocker 1994). Shapiro (1985:4) succinctly summarizes the theoretical change in them terms: As South Americanists, we may find it appropriate to invert Radcliffe-Brown's original formulation of the relationship between siblingship and descent, in which the significance of the sibling tie followed from the principle of unilineal descent, and see descent, where it appears, as being oriented around the bond between siblings. In ethnographic reports where a sibling principle appears as an element of native thought, it has been described mainly as a concept with behavioral implications. This is well illustrated in Pollock's (1985) fine analysis of the Culina, who in some senses construe members of their own localized (endogamous) group to be siblings (wemekute). The concept is a metaphor for village solidarity and the appropriateness of sharing food and possesions at the village level, but it is not the basis of group formation, since villages are generally much larger than sets of siblings. In the case of the Oronao', however, siblingship shows up in residential behavior and in the organization of residence groups. Male siblings remain together in postmarital residential propinquity. Yet the Oronao' do not raise the sibling basis of domestic group organization to the level of ideology; that is, there is little publicizing of collective experience (Hastrup 1995:193) concerning siblings and residence. Thus, Oronao' siblingship does not appear as a metaphorical or conceptual order, but as on-the-ground residential behavior. THE PROBLEM A claim for sibling-based residence without sibling ideology presents an analytic problem analogous to the condition that led to the critique of lineage predominance in the region. Is it reasonable to suggest the Oronao' are organized in sibling-based residence groups in the absence of an explicit sibling ideology or explicit talk about siblings in residence? Yes, Oronao' residence groups are indeed organized in terms of a sibling principle, and Oronao' residential behavior is informed by concepts with residence implications but without residence intentionality. …