TakingSides.MarriageNetworksandDravidianKinshipin.pdf

Taking Sides. Marriage Networks and Dravidian Kinship in Lowland South America Michael Houseman (CNRS - Univ. Paris X) and Douglas R. White (UC Irvine)* Prepublication draft for Transformations of Kinship. pp. 214-243, in eds. Maurice Godelier, Thomas Trautmann and F.Tjon Sie Fat, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Dual organization is a unifying concept underlying seemingly dissimilar alliance structures. An appropriate place to explore this idea is lowland South America, where dual organization is common. This chapter concentrates on the patterning of actual marriage networks in this region, with a view to identifying the invariant properties of such networks and then reconsidering the relationship between marriage network structure and other, categorical or jural features of social organization: notably, kinship terminologies, descent principles, and marriage rules. As a means to this end, we develop the concept of matrimonial sidedness. In doing so, we derive new results concerning dual organization, which makes possible a new understanding of Dravidianate systems. This analysis makes use of published genealogical data concerning the Makuna (Arhem 1981), the Pakaa-Nova (Vila?a 1992), the Yanomam? (Chagnon 1974), the Trio (Rivière 1969), the Parakana (Fausto 1991), the Waimiri-Artroari (Silva 1993), the Guahibo (Metzger 1968), the Shavante (Maybury-Lewis 1967) and the Suya (Seeger 1981), as well as Hornborgs (1986/1988) comparative study of foty-eight lowland South American societies. Classificatory Rules and the Need for Alternative Models Following Dumont (1953), Trautmann (1981, 1992) defines Dravidian kinship as a structural type (hereafter Dravidianate), as a set of terminological distinctions implying a rule of bilateral cross-cousin marriage. At the same time, he is quick to point out that as a cultural type relating to a particular set of concrete cases, this system evinces substantial variation. In some instances, marriage with certain cross-