POST5

 Relationships

Warao, Kerala, Aranda

    Over the course of this semester I looked at three cultures and their relationships, kinships and family relations. One of the Three cultures I choose are The Warao Indians are located in South America and inhabit the labyrinthine arms of the Orinoco Delta of Northeast Venezuela. My second culture was Kerala. They live in the southernmost state in the Indian subcontinent. The last culture is the Aranda live in the desert areas of central Australia.


While doing my research on the cultures there are some overlapping similarities and some differences among them concerning relationship and kinship relations.

    For example some similarities are the marriage practices they have. The Warao and the Aranda are more strict and structured, usually arranged on a promise system between families, and the Warao marry based on one or more common ancestors so it is endogamous meaning they marry to those within a specific social, ethinc or religious group.

There are some more differences I saw with the three cultures when comparing than the similarities.

 

Such as the Kerala and The Aranda with how they choose to show their decent.The kerala have a matrilineal descent and the the Aranda is ambilineal with a patrealenal bias favoring the male lineage. This causes a very different perspective to be seen in both the cultures in the way they view female and male families. To put into perspective the Kerala value women over men and price them over males and they oftentimes receive more in inheritance. While the Aranda view males as the head of the house and once a man marries a woman they are seen as his "property" and are allowed to do whatever they want with their wives. This type of behavior in relationships and marriages is only seen in unhealthy relationships in America


Then there is the Warao can be seen as unilinear where they do not differentiate the descent and look at both sides. I saw that this creates more of an equal standing in their households and marriages. In America the majority of people use unilineal descent as well as I.

However the Warao "have no corporate descent groups and no principle of unilineal descent."

Some more similarities lay in what they allow and prohibit in marriages such as the Aranda prohibit marriage between cross-cousins while Kerala prohibits the marriage  between the children of brothers (cousins). 

On the topic of mariages polygynous ones come about in default in Warao cultures when the sisters of his wife become widowed. While in Kerala "polygyny is rare, and polandry is traditionally forbidden." 

Citations


Gough, Kathleen. 1955. “Female Initiation Rites on the Malabar Coast.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland Vol. 85: 45–80. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=aw11-007.

Heinen, H. Dieter. 1973. Adaptive Changes in a Tribal Economy: A Case Study of the Winikina-Warao. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms. https://ehrafworldcultures.yale.edu/document?id=ss18-009.

Bing images 


Comments

  1. Jack KuhlmanDecember 14, 2021 at 4:05 PM

    I too did the the Aranda Culture for one of my selected cultures and I found them very interesting. In the end it turned out to be a great pick on my part and I am glad I picked them. As for your whole blog post, I thought it was strong and really got the point across. Your Citation page was well done and it seemed to check all the boxes needed to meet the requirements.

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