Matrilineal Clan Research Articles

Effectiveness of Individual Intervention on the Level Self Esteem among Muthuvan Tribal Women in Adimali Gramapanchayath of Idukki District, Kerala

India is a country that is home to a large number of tribes. These tribes are spread across the country and are a diverse lot, with each tribe having its own unique culture and language. Tribes are groups of people that share ancestry and cultural traditions. They usually live in small communities, which often cooperate to protect their land and resources from outsiders. Each tribe has its own customs and traditions, and members are usually fiercely loyal to their family, friends, and community. They speak the same language, often have similar cultures, and are often very religious. Whenever people hear the word ‘Adivasi’ or ‘tribal’, they immediately start thinking about scantily clad people living in the forests and many other mainstream misconceptions come to their mind! Rarely do people know the right facts about Adivasis and tribals. In Malayalam, the word Muthuvan means those who carry something on their back. It is said that they carried their children and belongings on their back during their migration to the Western Ghats, hence they were called Muthuvan. The Muthuvan are distributed in Idukki districts and in the adjoining Western Ghats of the Palakkad and Thrissur districts. They speak a dialect of their own. The patois is a debased form of Tamil. They speak to others either in Malayalam or Tamil. The Muthuvan have six matrilineal clans (Koottams), viz. Melaekoottam, Kana koottam, Thushanikoottam, Kanyakoottam, Elli koottam and Puthanikoottam with hierarchical order. Each koottam is again divided into six lineages. The functions of these divisions are mainly for marriage alliance, to keep up the social status and to indicate descent and ancestry. The Muthuvan are mainly a landowning community. In some areas, government has allotted agricultural land for them, but not on ownership basis. Traditionally the Muthuvans are nomadic agriculturists, hunters and trappers. Their primary cultivations are coffee, ginger, sugarcane and paddy. The Muthuvan are tribal religionists. The present day Muthuvans claims that they are Hindus. This study focused on effectiveness of individual intervention on the level self esteem among Muthuvan Tribal women in AdimaliGramapanchayath of Idukki District, Kerala.

Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World by Bryan C. Rindfleisch

Reviewed by: Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World by Bryan C. Rindfleisch Christian Gonzales Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World. By Bryan C. Rindfleisch. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xvi, 194. Paper, $29.99, ISBN 978-1-64336-203-8; cloth, $89.99, ISBN 978-1-64336-202-1.) Bryan C. Rindfleisch's Brothers of Coweta: Kinship, Empire, and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Muscogee World examines the lives of two Muscogee brothers, Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee. He traces how they used their various leadership positions within the talwa (village) of Coweta to negotiate settler colonialism and empire in the eighteenth-century South. Rindfleisch argues that kinship was a foundational and immanent structure of the Muscogee world, and as a result, it was with family and clan interests consistently in view that Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee acted to confront colonialism and empire. Rindfleisch's narrative covers the period between the end of the Yamasee War in 1717 and the close of the American Revolution. The author contends that the story of Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee provides insight into the family dynamics of the eighteenth-century Muscogees and how such dynamics intersected with the broader currents gripping the South. The primary historiographical contributions of Brothers of Coweta are the assertions that Indigenous family and kin structures were complex and diverse and that family interests often revolved around the clan rather than the nuclear or extended family units. This book accomplishes the task it sets for itself. The first two chapters provide a good overview of the importance of family, particularly by relating what we know about Muscogee worldviews, kinship, and clan functions. They also provide a pertinent explanation as to why Coweta was well positioned to confront the forces of empire. Rindfleisch draws on the Muscogee Creation Stories and secondary literature to explain concepts like balance, to define structures like the matrilineal clan and huti (clan residence), and to delineate Muscogee gender roles. He also demonstrates that Coweta's location on the Creek Path was significant as it "further contributed to [Coweta's] influence in the deerskin trade and the Muscogee-British alliance" (p. 32). This foundation effectively sets the stage for the following chapters that trace Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee as they worked for the good of their clan by playing the French, British, and Spanish empires off against each other, toggling between alliance and war with the Cherokees, and sometimes working with, and at others against, rival clans in Coweta and other Muscogee talwas. Readers can readily perceive these tactics as driven by familial interests within the disruptive contexts of incessant Anglo-American and British demands for land and the chaos of the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. There are, however, potential points of confusion for readers. The book highlights the importance of the matrilineal clan yet focuses on two men. What roles did Muscogee women play as Escotchaby and Sempoyaffee worked on [End Page 543] behalf of their huti? Though Muscogee women's voices are extremely rare in the archive, possible contextualizations of the brothers' actions relative to those of their female kin would have been helpful. The framing of the relationship between kinship and the twinned forces of settler colonialism and empire could also prove problematic. Some might read the brothers' pursuit of familial interests as a narrow, quaint, and consequently insufficient response to the existential threat of colonialism. From this potential perspective, the Muscogees were unable to resist dispossession successfully for lack of mounting an adequate defense. Rindfleisch seems aware of this lurking problem as he writes in the conclusion that "the United States was a settler republic, hell-bent on dispossessing the Indigenous Peoples" (p. 119). However, more thorough characterization of settler colonialism as an implacable, genocidal, and juggernaut phenomenon in the eighteenth century is needed to foreclose readers' possible misinterpretations of the decolonial history Rindfleisch proffers. Overall, Rindfleisch has provided a useful and interesting story about one Muscogee family's navigation of colonialism and empire that students of Indigenous history will find helpful. Christian Gonzales University of Rhode Island Copyright © 2022 The Southern Historical Association

Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History Volume II, 1680–1781 ed. by Thomas E. Sheridan et al.

Reviewed by: Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History Volume II, 1680–1781 ed. by Thomas E. Sheridan et al. Rose Miron (bio) Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History Volume II, 1680–1781 edited by Thomas E. Sheridan, Stewart B. Koyiyumptewa, Anton Daughters, Dale S. Brenneman, T. J. Ferguson, Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, and Lee Wayne Lomayestewa University of Arizona Press, 2020 AS MANY WITHIN THE DISCIPLINE of history debate the extent to which tribal consultation is necessary and ethical, others are simply doing the work—showing us that collaboration is not only ethical but that it produces better results. Moquis and Kastiilam: Hopis, Spaniards, and the Trauma of History Volume II, 1680–1781 is an example of one such project. The volume is the second book within the Hopi History Project—a collaborative initiative between the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office and the University of Arizona that aims to reinterpret early Hopi history by prioritizing Hopi knowledge and sources. Using newly recorded Hopi oral histories as its starting point, the project revisits the documentary record produced by Spanish colonists to compare those accounts with Hopi traditional knowledge. Adding Hopi voices to the analysis of this period recaptures stories that have long been erased and sheds new light on a history that has virtually always been told from a European perspective. To accomplish this, the volume quite literally places Spanish documentary sources alongside Hopi knowledge and oral histories and directly interrogates the validity of various Spanish claims. Almost every historical text reprinted within this volume is prefaced by an introduction that provides context and calls attention to certain details that are either missing, incorrect, or could benefit from reinterpretation. For example, before inviting readers to examine excerpts from seventeenth-century Spanish leader don Diego de Vargas's journal and a letter he wrote to the king of Spain, the authors point to the stark embellishment present in Vargas's public account of his journey to Hopi pueblos, as well as his potential misunderstanding of one Hopi person's level of leadership based on his ignorance of matrilineal clan structures. Printed interviews with staff from the Hopi Cultural Preservation Office also shed light on issues that stretch across multiple sources, [End Page 183] illuminating the larger problems with the way Hopi history has been historically represented. This allows the collaborators to both "re-write, and re-right" history, directly addressing inaccuracies in the documentary record while also commenting directly on the process by which Hopi history has historically been constructed by primarily non-Hopi people and without Hopi voices (see Linda Tuhiwai Smith's 2012 book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, 2nd ed. [London: Zed], 29). In this vein, several sections of the book feature direct commentary on research methods that provide context for this project and advice for future collaborations. The authors comment generally on problems with the Spanish documentary record that Hopi perspectives can shed light on and emphasize the importance of Hopi people being able to confront historical trauma on their own terms, rather than whenever a non-Hopi writer decides they want to research it. Perhaps most effectively, the authors aptly highlight positionality not just as an academic term but as a Hopi value. Whether a story is being told from a Hopi or non-Hopi perspective, what narratives an individual is likely to know and what details they are likely to understand are directly impacted by their clan, lineage, and their relationships within a community. Ultimately, the editors make a strong case for all future research on Hopi history, and Native history more broadly, to include consultation with Hopi/Native people. Rather than being organized as a cohesive narrative or typical monograph, the volume is set up as a sourcebook that includes reprints of many Spanish historical texts, new oral histories and recorded conversations, and a new analysis of Hopi history from Hopi perspectives. It will be less appealing to those who are unfamiliar with Hopi history and are looking for a more generalized narrative account. Yet, for those studying and researching Hopi history specifically, or history in the Southwest more broadly, it is an essential guide. Anyone who consults the...

Manju The Composition of the Empire and the cultural anthropological nature of the Ch’ing’s ruling class: A case study of the Manju women

For more than a century, the trends in the study of Ch’ing history have been relatively uniform throughout the world. In particular, the anthropological characteristics of the ruling class of the Ch’ing Empire are defined as equivalent to the cultural characteristics of the social group of the ruled class. Through this article, the author hopes to show readers a brand-new concept of country and culture. That is, through the analysis of women, the uniqueness of the Manju Group and its national nature are discussed. From the linguistics point of view, the Manju circle speaks the Manchurian language. In terms of cultural attributes, JianZhou Jurchen belongs to the cultural category of Tunguska. Social life characteristics are completely different from Han Chinese, Mongol, Chinese Muslim, Tibetan and other cultural groups in the Empire. From the perspective of religious cultural anthropology, JianZhou Jurchen Group is a Shamanism believer. Furthermore, Eight Banner, a military organization that absorbed military-civilians of different races and cultural backgrounds through surrender and capture, was completely redefined as a JianZhou Jurchen-style civiliazation with a unified ideology during the imperial rule for more than two hundred years. Therefore, the author advocate that Manju people and their culture should not be confused with the cultural characteristics of other groups in the Ch’ing Empire, and should be clearly separated and studied. Key words: Manju (Manchu), Ch’ing (Qing), Jurchen, Tungus, JianZhou, women, Matrilineal Clan Society.

Marine shell ornaments and the political economy of gendered power in the Mariana Islands

Documentary accounts by Spanish visitors to the Mariana Islands during the seventeenth century describe the native Chamorro as a stratified society that was organized into ranked matrilineal clans. Such writers note that while men served as the titular heads of households, women exercised significant power in domestic contexts. The recent excavation of an ancient cemetery (ca. 730 BC to AD 1600/1700) and its grave-good assemblage at Naton Beach on Guam offers an opportunity to independently evaluate Spanish documentary accounts with the archaeological record. A distributional analysis of more than 1700 marine shell and shark tooth ornaments associated with more than 360 burials confirms that adult women were more frequently interred with grave-good ornaments in comparison to adult men. Moreover, women were also buried with a greater number of ornaments and greater diversity of ornament types. We conclude that this archaeological pattern corroborates Spanish documentary accounts of a society wherein women enjoyed significant power in their matrilineal clans for at least 2000 years.

Tlingit geographies of hope: Clan, corporation, and sustainable economies of place

The essay argues that geographies of hope for Tlingit communities in Southeast Alaska begin with a strong sense of place, both social and geographic. In Tlingit, the matrilineal clan—the repository of heritage, identity, and property—constitutes the collective, animate source of resilience, hope, and renewal. We examine the ways in which clans continue to operate as institutions of hope and destiny, especially through the memorial ku.éex’ or “potlatch,” a ritual of restoration and replacement. This ritual is thriving in the 21st century despite no external funding or recognition from the state. It is a wholly Tlingit institution built on socio-geographic values of sustainment of the matrilineal clan as an immortal being. What remains to be re-animated, however, is clan territory. Most Tlingit territory has been appropriated by the Tongass National Forest and Federal and Alaska state waters. Native corporations hold about 2% of the Southeast Alaska land base, and clans hold nothing except, in some cases, recognition of their historical association with particular historic sites and territories. The reinvigoration of cartography with Tlingit place names is a step toward furthering recognition of clans’ historical and contemporary ties to places in a tangible and hopeful way. Yet, culture needs a material base, and mere recognition of traditional toponyms will not be enough. Many clans seek a more substantive livelihood relationships with and custodial role over their territories, not only as sacred properties but as sources of sustainment, strength, and well-being. This requires new thinking on the part of indigenous economic institutions, like Alaska Native business corporations, along the lines of a traditional (Tlingit clan) “house,” an economic unit in the spirit of the original Greek term for economy, oikos (“house”). The integrated restoration of sociocultural, economic, and geographic sources of collective well-being will further enliven Tlingit geographies of hope.

“Our Hands and Hearts are Joined Together”: Friendship, Colonialism, and the Cherokee People in Early America

The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries proved transformative for Cherokee people. At the dawn of the eighteenth century, Cherokees lived in towns and nurtured strong regional affiliations that were overlaid with the sacred obligations associated with membership in one of seven matrilineal clans. But all this changed. The encroaching Anglo settler frontier from the east and pressure from the Spanish, the French, and hostile Native warriors from the north all prompted changes in how Cherokee people represented themselves to outsiders. This article draws on colonial archives, missionary records, ethnographic travel writing, and the written and oral traditions of the Cherokee people to explore the importance of friendship among Cherokees in the Native South. What did friendship mean to Cherokees? How did Cherokees represent friendship? And how was friendship performed (and those performances interpreted) in diplomatic, social, and cultural contexts? These questions frame this essay's analysis as it seeks to enrich our understanding of friendship in Cherokee history and to highlight what Cherokee Chiefs meant when they declared Our Hands and Hearts are Joined Together.

The Eighteenth-Century Wyandot: A Clan-Based Study, by John L. Steckley

The Eighteenth-Century Wyandot: A Clan-Based Study, by John L. Steckley. Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2014. 305 pp. $85.00 Cdn (cloth). While scholars and laypeople might remember the Wyandots, or Hurons, as New France's important allies in the seventeenth century, their story after 1649--when the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) defeated and dispersed them--is more obscure. Like a growing number of studies, however, John Steckley shows that the Wyandots not only survived their dispersal but rebuilt their communities in diaspora and thus have persisted to the present. In particular, Steckley argues that their matrilineal clan system kept the Wyandot strong and allowed them to weather the maelstrom of colonialism (p. 6). Using an innovative ethnohistorical and qualitative methodology, Steckley successfully explores the Wyandot clan system and, in the process, demonstrates how using indigenous, rather than Eurocentric, categories enhances our understanding of native peoples. At the heart of Steckley's work is a 1747 census of those Wyandots who had settled at Detroit (other Wyandots had moved east to Jeune-Lorette near Quebec and are not addressed in this study). Created by Pierre Potier and his Wyandot informants, the census provides the clan identity of a large segment of the community. Since the names of Wyandot individuals are clan-specific--that is, the clans the names of individuals and passed them down from generation to generation within the clan--Steckley is able to ascertain the clan identity not only of those listed in the census but also those who possessed the names before or after that time (p. 29). By systematically searching for these names in the documents, especially the records of the Wyandot mission, Steckley has built an impressive database of the Wyandot clans. Coupled with Steckley's expertise on the Wyandot language and culture, this methodology provides us an unparalleled picture of Wyandot political and social structure. Based on this data, Steckley argues that the clans served as most important constituent parts (p. 25) of Wyandot society (p. 6). Most importantly, in times of crisis the clans served as a stabilizing force; they simultaneously provided a common touchstone for Wyandot identity and allowed the Wyandots to experiment with different adaptive responses to the challenges they faced (p. 6). For example, when the Wyandots found themselves depopulated, displaced and in a precarious diplomatic position in the late seventeenth century, different clan leaders adopted possible strategies to deal with the problems confronting their people (see chapter three). Steckley also finds that different clans developed different relationships with outsiders (chapter four) and adopted different approaches to Christianity (chapter five). Clans also determined the Wyandot's political structure (chapter six) and the political and social roles of Wyandot women (chapter seven). Although this book will be useful to specialists on the Wyandots, scholars interested in indigenous history more generally can learn much from Steckley's methodology and findings. …

Low Mitochondrial DNA Diversity in an Ancient Population from China: Insight into Social Organization at the Fujia Site.

To gain insight into the social organization of a population associated with the Dawenkou period, we performed ancient DNA analysis of 18 individuals from human remains from the Fujia site in Shandong Province, China. Directly radiocarbon dated to 4800-4500 cal BP, the Fujia site is assumed to be associated with a transitional phase from matrilineal clans to patrilineal monogamous families. Our results reveal a low mitochondrial DNA diversity from the site and population. Combined with Y chromosome data, the pattern observed at the Fujia site is most consistent with a matrilineal community. The patterns also suggest that the bond of marriage was de-emphasized compared with the bonds of descent at Fujia.

A matrilineal Sufi shaykh in Sri Lanka

This article explores the influence of local concepts of matrilineal kinship and descent through women in the construction of a modern Sufi silsila (an authorized ‘chain’ of spiritual and genealogical ancestry) in Sri Lanka. Makkattar Vappa, a popular Sufi shaykh in the Tamil-speaking eastern region of the island, asserts hereditary maulana (sayyid) status as a member of the Prophet’s household descent group (ahlul bayt) by means of close genealogical linkages to a locally enshrined saint of Yemeni family ancestry traced through several women, including his mother, his father’s mother, and his wife. The kinship system here is Dravidian in structure, but with a matrilineal emphasis that is seen today in the administration of Hindu temples and Muslim mosques by matrilineal clan elders, and in the negotiation of matrilocal marriages based upon women’s pre-mortem acquisition of dowry property in the form of houses and paddy lands. The shaykh in question is himself the successor Kālifā of a Sufi order (tāriqā) based in Androth Island, Lakshadweep, a similarly matrilineal society located off the west coast of India. In his prior career, he was an art and drama teacher in a local government school, and his style of Sufi leadership continues to be pastoral and pedagogical in tone. This, together with a strong base of support from former students, has enabled him to escape the sort of stridently anti-Sufi violence that has erupted in Muslim communities elsewhere in the region. His awareness of anthropological research on matrilineal kinship and marriage patterns in this part of the island may have encouraged him to trace his sayyid silsila through both male and female genealogical connections.

Clan, language, and migration history has shaped genetic diversity in Haida and Tlingit populations from Southeast Alaska

The linguistically distinctive Haida and Tlingit tribes of Southeast Alaska are known for their rich material culture, complex social organization, and elaborate ritual practices. However, much less is known about these tribes from a population genetic perspective. For this reason, we analyzed mtDNA and Y-chromosome variation in Haida and Tlingit populations to elucidate several key issues pertaining to the history of this region. These included the genetic relationships of Haida and Tlingit to other indigenous groups in Alaska and Canada; the relationship between linguistic and genetic data for populations assigned to the Na-Dene linguistic family, specifically, the inclusion of Haida with Athapaskan, Eyak, and Tlingit in the language family; the possible influence of matrilineal clan structure on patterns of genetic variation in Haida and Tlingit populations; and the impact of European entry into the region on the genetic diversity of these indigenous communities. Our analysis indicates that, while sharing a "northern" genetic profile, the Haida and the Tlingit are genetically distinctive from each other. In addition, Tlingit groups themselves differ across their geographic range, in part due to interactions of Tlingit tribes with Athapaskan and Eyak groups to the north. The data also reveal a strong influence of maternal clan identity on mtDNA variation in these groups, as well as the significant influence of non-native males on Y-chromosome diversity. These results yield new details about the histories of the Haida and Tlingit tribes in this region.

Reconsidering Ivor Wilks’s “Big Bang” Theory of Akan History

GHANA STUDIES / Volume 14 ISSN 1536-5514 / E-ISSN 2333-7168© 2012 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System 11 RECONSIDERING IVOR WILKS’S “BIG BANG” THEORY OF AKAN HISTORY MARIANO PAVANELLO Introduction: The Akan “Big Bang” Theory In this article, I wish to discuss Ivor Wilks’s “big bang” theory of Akan history,1 particularly as it concerns the related hypothesis on the recent origin of matrilineal mmusua.2 Wilks assumes that, between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Akan of the forest were protagonists of an extraordinary transition from a foraging economy to an agrarian system, and that matriclans originated in the sixteenth century together with the matrilineal ideology itself.3 He presents his theory as follows:4 I advance [. . .] a “big bang” theory of Akan history. It comprises several theses. First, in the course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and in the forest country between the Ofin and the Pra, a foraging mode of production gave way to an agricultural one. [. . .] Second, that in the course of this transformation the forest people reorganized themselves in a way such that the bands appropriate to the older mode of production were replaced 1. The term Akan refers to a group of populations sharing a stock of cultural features and a common linguistic phylum settled between the Bandama river in Ivory Coast and the Volta river in Ghana (for the “Akan problem,” see Kiyaga-Mulindwa 1980; Pescheux 2003; Terray 1995; Wilks 1982, 1993c, 2005), even though it is not possible to consider such a group as ethnically homogeneous. 2. Plural of abusua, word used throughout the Akan area commonly translated as “family ” in the sense of the anthropological categories of matrilineal clan or lineage. 3. Wilks (1993b: 70) gives credit to tales, reported by Reindorf ([1895] 2007: 104– 105), and Rattray (1916: 41), that seem to place the origin of the matrilineal system at the beginning of the Akan political development in the Adanse area in the sixteenth century. 4. Wilks set forth his theory in various papers (1977, 1982, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c, 2005). 12 Ghana Studies • volume 14 • 2012 by the matriclans appropriate to the newer. [. . . ] But third, that the transformation also engendered the emergence of political structures of a new kind: the aman5 (Wilks 1993c: 94). [. . .] this represented a major transformation in the system of productive forces such that an economy with a primary dependence upon hunting and gathering gave way to one with a primary dependence upon the cultivation of food crops; that the social relations of production of the forest peoples were accordingly modified by the creation of the great exogamous matriclans [. . .] this socioeconomic revolution began, geographically, in the forest heartland of Amansie and Adanse,6 and chronologically, should probably be regarded as having reached its zenith in what is for the Asante the immediate protohistoric period (firi tetemu), the sixteenth century (Wilks 1993b: 71). The historical awareness about Africa may be summarized by the following passage from Paul Lovejoy: One characteristic [of Africa] was a social structure based on ethnicity and kinship. Although the antiquity of kin-based societies is not known, linguistic , cultural and economic evidence indicates that such structures were very old. [. . .] Thus, the coastal evidence for west-central Africa indicates the probable existence of a matrilineal belt of societies stretching across the continent to the Indian Ocean, just as it does today. Nothing in the 5. Plural of ɔman, a Twi term designating the political community, and particularly the state. 6. Wilks refers to the “highly auriferous area in the forest country between the Komoé and Volta rivers [that] may conveniently be referred to as the ‘Akan goldfields,’ because it is all but completely dominated by the Akan-speaking peoples” (Wilks 1993a: 4). This vast area of forestland, whose centre is the auriferous basin of the Ofin and the Pra rivers in SW Ghana, lies between 5° and 70° N lat., and 1° E and 3° W long., from the coastal line of the gulf of Guinea in the South, to the southern edge of the savannah in the North, roughly between Bonduku in Ivory Coast, and the Volta Lake in Ghana. Pavanello • Reconsidering Ivor Wilks’s...

No Difference between the Sexes in Fine-Scale Spatial Genetic Structure of Roe Deer

BackgroundData on spatial genetic patterns may provide information about the ecological and behavioural mechanisms underlying population structure. Indeed, social organization and dispersal patterns of species may be reflected by the pattern of genetic structure within a population.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe investigated the fine-scale spatial genetic structure of a roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) population in Trois-Fontaines (France) using 12 microsatellite loci. The roe deer is weakly polygynous and highly sedentary, and can form matrilineal clans. We show that relatedness among individuals was negatively correlated with geographic distance, indicating that spatially proximate individuals are also genetically close. More unusually for a large mammalian herbivore, the link between relatedness and distance did not differ between the sexes, which is consistent with the lack of sex-biased dispersal and the weakly polygynous mating system of roe deer.Conclusions/SignificanceOur results contrast with previous reports on highly polygynous species with male-biased dispersal, such as red deer, where local genetic structure was detected in females only. This divergence between species highlights the importance of socio-spatial organization in determining local genetic structure of vertebrate populations.

Traditional Micronesian societies: adaptation, integration, and political organization

Traditional Micronesian Societies explores the extraordinary successes of the ancient voyaging peoples who first settled the Central Pacific islands some two thousand years ago. They and their descendants devised social and cultural adaptations that have enabled them to survive-and thrive-under the most demanding environmental conditions. The dispersed matrilineal clans so typical of Micronesian societies ensure that every individual, every local family and lineage, and every community maintain close relations with the peoples of many other islands. When hurricanes and droughts or political struggles force a group to move, they are sure of being taken in by kin residing elsewhere. Out of this common theme, shared patterns of land tenure, political rule, philosophy, and even personal character have flowed. To describe and explain Micronesian societies, the author begins with an overview of the region, including a brief consideration of the scholarly debate about whether Micronesia actually exists as a genuine and meaningful region. This is followed by an account of how Micronesia was originally settled, how its peoples adapted to conditions there, and how several basic adaptations diffused throughout the islands. He then considers the fundamental matters of descent (ideas about how individuals and groups are bound together through ties of kinship) and descent groups and the closely interlinked subjects of households, families, land, and labor. Because women form the core of the clans, their roles are particularly respected and their contributions to social life honored. Socio-political life, art, religion, and values are discussed in detail. Finally, the author examines a number of exceptions to these common Micronesian patterns of social life.

The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741–1867 (review)

The Tlingit Indians in Russian America, 1741-1867. By Andrei V. Grinev. Translated by Richard L. Bland and Katerina G. Solovjova. (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2005. Pp. 386. Illustrations. Maps. Tables. Cloth, $24.95.)Reviewed by Lucien J. FraryFor more than two centuries the lifestyle and culture of the Tlingit, who occupy the rugged mainland and fjord-ridden archipelago of the southeastern Alaskan panhandle, have attracted attention from folklorists, ethnologists, and historians. Dense forests, turbulent rivers, and abundant marine and plant resources helped create a flourishing society, the origin of which can be traced to the first millennium of the Common Era.Driven by the quest for furs, Russian adventurers began exploring the wild coasts of Alaska in the waning decades of the eighteenth century. The Russian-American Company (RAC) led the charge by regulating settlements and exchanging merchandise. In 1788, Russians reached Yakutat Bay, thus inaugurating a long-lasting relationship with the Tlingit. The establishment of a fort at Sitka (Novo-Arkhangel'sk) in 1799 led to the first violent encounters; the pugnacious Tlingit were initially successful in defeating the Russians. The Tlingit maintained their independence in subsequent decades, even as their interest in European products increased. In contrast to the experience of other Native Americans, the Tlingit were able to prosper, thanks, in part, to the administrative and organizational activities of the RAC.The pioneering efforts of Frederica De Laguna (who has published a stream of works in recent years, including the three-volume Under Mount Saint Elias) marked a turning point in the study of Tlingit culture. Bland and Solovjova's translation of Andrei V. Grinev's monograph (originally published in Novosibirsk in 1991) is a welcome addition to the literature on Native Americans. What makes the study admirable is Grinev's weaving of ethnographic and historical sources into a critical synthesis touching upon nearly every aspect of Tlingit life during the Russian- Ameri can period.Grinev's introduction assesses De Laguna's work and other major studies dealing with the Tlingit, underscoring the significance of Russian archives for Native American history. The core of the book is divided into three sections: the Tlingit before European contact, Tlingit life during the Russian- American period, and the influence of European contact on Tlingit culture.Before the arrival of Europeans the Tlingit never formed a single ethnosocial organism (although various clans maintained ties due to common language, customs, and territory). The name - tlinkit - meaning human, helped distinguish them from other indigenous peoples. The fundamental unit of Tlingit society consists of matrilineal clans of two exogamous moieties. Tribes were often formed through the unification of several clans that inhabited neighboring territories and intermarried. Marriage was almost always with a member of the father's clan, and polygamy was a rather common occurrence, especially among the aristocracy. Grinev shows how the fluid, heterogeneous Tlingit society was divided into elites, commoners, slaves, shamans, and other units based on wealth, talent, and status.Well before European contact, the Tlingit maintained a highly developed economy based on fishing and handicrafts and engaged in intertribal trade. An interesting aspect of Tlingit economy was the potlatch. Often lasting several days, the potlatch included dancing, joking, costume display, and (most importantly) the lavish bestowal of gifts among the guests by the host. Grinev's discussion of the potlatch sheds light on many topics, from gender roles and wealth distribution, to social mores and spiritual life (70-73, 219-21).As Russian explorers soon discovered, the Tlingit were warlike and lived by the law of blood feud. …

Living through the Generations: Continuity and Change in Navajo Women's Lives

Navajo women's lives reflect the numerous historical changes that have transformed the Navajo way.? At the same time, in their behavior, beliefs, and values, women preserve the legacy of Navajo culture passed down through the generations. By comparing and contrasting three generations of Navajo womengrandmothers, mid-life mothers, and young mothers'similarities and differences emerge in patterns of education, work, family life, and childbearing. Women's roles as mothers and grandmothers are central to their respected position in Navajo society. Mothers bestow membership in matrilineal clans at birth and follow the example of the beloved deity Changing Woman. As guardians of cultural traditions, grandmothers actively plan and participate in ceremonies such as the Kinaalda, the puberty ceremony, for their granddaughters.Drawing on ethnographic interviews with 77 women in Crownpoint, New Mexico, and surrounding chapters in the Eastern Navajo Agency, Joanne McCloskey examines the cultural traditions evident in Navajo women's lives. Navajo women balance the demands of Western society with the desire to preserve Navajo culture for themselves and their families.

Sovasova and the Problem of Sameness: Converging Interpretive Frameworks for Making Sense of HIV and AIDS in the Trobriand Islands

ABSTRACT This article considers how different models of sexuality and disease converge and interact to co‐produce understandings of HIV and AIDS, and the implications of inter‐cultural communication for effective HIV prevention in diverse settings. In the Trobriands Islands of Papua New Guinea, the phenomenon of sovasova, or chronic illness that manifests when members of the same matrilineal clan have sexual relations, is a persuasive and problematic form of cultural knowledge that directly influences comprehensions of HIV and AIDS. As a social proscription, sovasova underscores cultural ideations about the importance of social exchange and the corporeal mixing of difference in sexual relationships. Trobrianders recognize clear signs and symptoms that herald the onset of sovasova, which are similar to descriptions of AIDS‐related illness—weight loss, nausea, and malaise. Affected people use various herbal and magical treatments to effectively manage sovasova, and people can avoid the sickness altogether by simply not having sex with a fellow clan member. The cultural resources available for treatment allow people to regard transgression as a safe possibility, albeit socially undesirable. The broad comparisons that Trobrianders draw between sovasova and AIDS create tensions as people contemplate HIV prevention based on the cultural model of sexual disorder and the valued capacity and efficacy of sexuality in maintaining relations of difference.

Cover, food, competitorsandindividual densities within bushbuckTragelaphus scriptus female clan home ranges

We examined factors predicting female densities within the common home ranges of related females (“clans”) in bushbuckTragelaphus scriptus Pallas, 1776. In this species, each female forms an individual home range, but the home ranges of matrilineal clan members strongly overlap. We found female densities to increase in areas with high canopy cover. Moreover, individual home range sizes tended to decrease with increasing cover. Food plant availability and intruder pressure by two heterospecific competitors did not significantly affect female densities. Apparently, canopy cover is the major limited resource in this species. A possible explanation is that both adult bushbuck and — even more markedly — fawns hide from predators in dense vegetation, in particular in thicket clumps and coalescences. The study shows an effect of habitat properties (eg sufficient canopy cover) on a within-population level in bushbuck, where female densities differ even among proximate clan areas.

Micronesia's Breadfruit Revolution and the evolution of a Culture Area

AbstractMicronesia was initially settled from at least three quite separate points of origin and comprises multiple cultural and linguistic stocks. It nevertheless manifests a striking uniformity in its sociopolitical organization. I argue that these shared aspects of Micronesian societies diffused out of the Eastern Caroline Islands as a consequence of a prehistoric sociocultural efflorescence driven at least in part by the hybridization of two entirely different breadfruit species. The characteristic form of Micronesia's dispersed conical clans was spread throughout the entire region, carried along with the economic successes conferred by productive new breadfruit varieties. Botanical, linguistic, archaeological and ethnological data are marshaled to substantiate this argument.

Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial Africa: Southern Gabon, ca. 1850-1940 (review)

Reviewed by: Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial Africa: Southern Gabon, ca. 1850–1940 Derek R. Peterson Colonial Rule and Crisis in Equatorial Africa: Southern Gabon, ca. 1850–1940. By Christopher Gray. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2002. The cultural and political history of late nineteenth and early twentieth century Africa is being composed as a history of colonial encounters. Sandra Greene’s recently published Sacred Sites and the Colonial Encounter: A History of Meaning and Memory in Ghana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002) explores how the landscaping of colonialism reworked Anlo people’s conceptions of sacred space. Sean Hawkins’ Writing and Colonialism in Northern Ghana: The Encounter between the LoDagaa and “the World on Paper” (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002) illuminates how colonial courts and British anthropology reduced the negotiable LoDagaa “world of experience” to a set of rules on paper. Christopher Gray’s study partakes of this academic discourse on the colonial encounter. In the second half of the nineteenth century, says Gray, “two very different cognitive maps confronted each other in Southern Gabon” (2). The diverse people who lived south of the Ogooué river practiced a social definition of territory: their political order rested on the control over people, not on the control over geographic space. French colonialism sought to anchor people, as members of ethnic groups, to specific tracts of land, the better to govern them. In the early twentieth century, the precolonial order was destroyed, as French colonists used censuses, maps, labor camps, and roads to rearrange people according to an administrative logic. But elements of the precolonial cognitive system survived, says Gray, making the legacies of colonial territoriality decidedly ambiguous. The strength of Gray’s book is his sensitive analysis of precolonial social order. The standard approach is to treat pre-colonial history schematically, as a static backdrop against which the effects of colonialism can be studied. Gray, in contrast, illuminates the flexible, dynamic nature of precolonial territoriality. While patrilocal villages were the basic unit of residence, matrilineal clans drew people from disparate regions together as descendants of a common female ancestor. Political communities, therefore, were socially defined: they revolved around kinship rather than residence. Districts were the largest political units that people recognized. Organized around trading routes, rivers, or ecological zones, districts were flexible alliances of villages and clans, brought together by intermarriage and sharing a commitment to self-defense. Gray is emphatic that nothing about this precolonial social order revolved around ethnicity. Speakers of different languages lived alongside one another, intermarried, and formed kinship alliances. In the latter half of the book, Gray documents how this social definition of territory was replaced by a territorial definition of society. Paul Du Chaillu, Savorgnan de Brazza, and other European explorers crisscrossed the region in the late nineteenth century, mapping rivers, streams, and mountains. Smallpox followed in their wake, killing tens of thousands of people. But more than demographic disaster, European exploration brought modern conceptions of territory to bear on the people of this region. Gray follows Mary Louise Pratt in noting how explorers appropriated space through their maps, emptying territory of its prior, unwritten significance. The Ogooué River, for example, was not known as a geographic feature before Europeans mapped it. Local people named rapids and pools, or categorized portions of the river as “upstream” or “downstream.” European observers, in contrast, applied concrete names to geographic features that their maps revealed. Colonial censuses similarly appropriated and transformed space. When French officials began counting people in the early twentieth century, they categorized them as members of ethnic groups, as “Eshira,” “Mitsogo,” or “Bapunu.” These ethnic categories were fabrications, products of the French imagination. But they took on real life, as administrators used invented categories to organize and govern people. Road building played a particularly important role in the colonial reorganization of social order. When the state first began to build roads in the 1910s, work gangs were organized on an ethnic basis, giving social form to fictional identities on paper. By the 1920s and 30s, the colonial army was routing people out of their rural homes to live in artificial villages beside new roads. Bound to the land, people could be taxed, policed...