East Papuan Kinship Systems: Bougainville

Contrary to common belief, there are reliable reports of Dravidian-Type kinship systems with prescriptive terms, Dravidian crossness and cross-cousin marriage in Papuan-speaking societies in Melanesia. This paper compares four Dravidian systems from South Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The Pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Oceania 2004-12, Vol.75 (2), p.109-124
Main Author: Hage, Per
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anthropology
Austronesian languages
Children
Cousin
Cousins
Cultural anthropology
Descent
Dravidian
Dravidian people
Ethnographic research
Ethnolinguistics
Ethnology
Extended family
Families
Family structure
Family. Family relations
Genealogy
Iroquois
Islands
Isolation
Kinship
Kinship networks
Kinship systems
Kinship terminology
Language
Languages
Linguistic anthropology
Linguistics
Marriage
Melanesia
Papua New Guinea
Papuan languages
Polynesian studies
Siblings
Social structure and social relations
Solomon Islands
South Bougainville
Survival
Terminology
Traditions
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Summary:Contrary to common belief, there are reliable reports of Dravidian-Type kinship systems with prescriptive terms, Dravidian crossness and cross-cousin marriage in Papuan-speaking societies in Melanesia. This paper compares four Dravidian systems from South Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. The Proto-South Bougainville kinship system was Dravidian-Kariera in type. It dates, uncertainly, to sometime before the Austronesian expansion into Melanesia around 1500 BC and sometime near or after the settlement of East Papua 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Dravidian kinship systems may have been common in East Papua surviving in Bougainville because of the island's relative size and isolation.
ISSN:0029-8077
1834-4461
DOI:10.1002/j.1834-4461.2004.tb02872.x