Iroquois kinship facts for kids
Iroquois kinship is a way of organizing family relationships. It's also called bifurcate merging. This system is named after the Haudenosaunee people, who live in North America. Their family system was one of the first to be studied and described this way.
A researcher named Lewis H. Morgan first wrote about the Iroquois system in 1871. It is one of six main ways societies organize kinship around the world.
Contents
Understanding Iroquois Kinship
This family system uses both general and specific terms for relatives. It looks at gender and generation, but also if a parent's sibling is the same sex as the parent or the opposite sex.
For example, your father's brothers and your mother's sisters are called by the same terms as your own Father and Mother. It's like having "other fathers" and "other mothers."
However, your father's sisters (your aunts) and your mother's brothers (your uncles) are called by different terms. These terms are usually translated as "Aunt" and "Uncle" in English.
The children of your "other fathers" (your father's brothers) or "other mothers" (your mother's sisters) are seen as your brothers and sisters. These are called parallel cousins.
But the children of your "Aunts" (father's sisters) or "Uncles" (mother's brothers) are not considered siblings. They are called "cousins." These are known as cross cousins. In some cultures, the words for these cousins are the same as the words for brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law.
Marriage Customs
In societies with Iroquois kinship, people are often encouraged to marry their cross-cousins. However, marrying parallel cousins is usually not allowed.
This means you might marry the child of your mother's brother or your father's sister. This practice can help strengthen connections between different family groups or clans.
Where Iroquois Kinship is Used
The name "Iroquois" comes from the six Iroquois tribes of northeastern North America. A key part of their kinship system was that it was matrilineal. This means children belonged to their mother's clan and gained their social standing through her family.
Women in these tribes had control over some property. Leadership roles were also passed down through the mother's side of the family. For children, their mother's eldest brother was often a more important guide than their own father. This is because the father always belonged to a different clan.
Over time, the role of women in the tribe changed, especially after events like the American Revolution.
Many other groups around the world also use the Iroquois kinship system. It is often found in societies where family lines are traced through only one parent (called unilineal descent). Some examples include:
- The Anishinaabe people of North America. This group includes the Algonquin, Nipissing, Mississauga, Ojibwe, Saulteaux, Odawa and Potawatomi peoples. Many of them lived near the Iroquois, but they spoke different languages.
- Most of the Bantu-speaking cultures in Eastern and Southern Africa. An example is the Sesotho kinship system.
- Many societies in Melanesia.
South India and Sri Lanka
Some communities in South India also follow this type of kinship tradition.
Melanesia
Many cultures in Vanuatu use the Iroquois kinship system. In Bislama, which is a local language, paternal uncles are called smol papa (meaning "small father"). Maternal aunts are called smol mama (meaning "small mother").
See also
In Spanish: Sistema iroqués de parentesco para niños
