The Family and Principles of Kinship Structure in Australia

INTRODUCTION. The social life of the primitive Australian aborigines has been a fascinating field of scientific interest and theoretical speculation for several generations of European and American sociologists and social anthropologists. Knowledge of the native family and kinship systems and their associated esoteric totemic rites, for example, stimulated such social theorists as Emile Durkheim and Lewis H. Morgan. Until recently, despite splendid earlier work done by such investigators as Fison, Howitt, Spencer and Gillen, we were not in a position to write in general, definitive terms about Australian social organization, or to use our knowledge of the Australian family to help us with general sociological problems. Because of the great amount of social research done in Australia in the last twenty-five years, particularly the last ten, we are now in a position to do so. The present article is an attempt to present some of the results of these investigations. Special emphasis will be given the several typical forms of kinship found in Australia and the principles underlying the organization of the immediate family and larger kinship structures. A somewhat different method of kinship analysis, which applies not only to Australian but to any other systems, will be used in an effort to remove the strangeness and complexity from the minds of those readers who have not specialized in this field of family research. The Biological and Sociological Kindred. The raw materials of all Australian systems are (i) the physiological relations between certain individuals and certain anatomical traits found in the individuals who are physically related, and (2) the social recognition of the relations and traits, as well as recognition of certain added social elements. The physiological relations recognized' are: a copulating pair, offspring of this pair, and the offspring of the pair in relation to each other (siblings). The anatomical traits are the sex of these several individuals found in the physiological relations

Genealogy · Kinship · Sociology · Anthropology · Australian History and Society · Education Systems and Policy · History · Rural development and sustainability

• A Simplified Model of Kariera Kinship

  Open Access•A Kimball Romney, Philip J Epling•American Anthropologist•1958

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