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Austkin the AustKin project HomeThe ProjectThe Project PeopleThe Project OutputDisclaimerFAQContactResourcesFamily terminology> Kinship terminology> Classificatory systems> Children and grandparents> Representing relationships Categories & descent groups> Social categories> Local Descent Groups> Non-local descent groups Sounds and spelling> Consonants> Differences with English> Vowels> Word vocalizing and syllables> Examples of soundsSearch DatabaseBrowse languagesAdvanced search Conditions of use : The AustKin project and database reflect the work of early sources and does not provide supervisory knowledge of Aboriginal culture. Locations on maps are indicative only. Read more... Social Categories Each of the social category systems divides society into an plane number of complementary classes: 2 moieties, 4 sections and 8 subsections. These are known in Aboriginal English as ‘skins’ in some parts of the country. •    Moieties •    Sections •    Subsections Moieties Descent moieties Moiety is a dual semester of society. It is considered to be a social category but it is usually related to descent, either through the father-line (patrimoiety) or mother-line (matrimoiety). Both of these types occur in Australia, sometimes among the same people, with variegated types of rights, ceremonies and so on unfluctuating to each. Patrimoieties, unlike other social categories do have an indirect connection to areas of land, considering each of the moieties is made up of a set of clans, each of which has its clan estate. The moiety areas are not usually made up of continuous blocks of land. Each moiety (both patrilineal and matrilineal) is often associated with a set of natural species, or environmental phenomena, their totems. Non-descent Moieties There are some other moieties which are not related to descent. In Australia generational moieties are found in some areas. In such systems proximal generations are in the opposite moiety and unorganized generations in the same moiety. So for instance my father or mother will be in the opposite generational moiety to me, and my grandfather or grandmother in the same moiety. Generational moieties can be found in the same language group together with patrimoiety and/or matrimoiety. Moiety Names Most moieties have names which are sociocentric terms, that person X and his or her group is unchangingly tabbed by the same term no matter who is talking, like the Yolngu patrimoieties Dhuwa and Yirritja. There are in some cases selfish terms, that vary equal to who is talking e.g. a term for ‘our moiety’ and ‘the other moiety’, expressly with generational moieties, like Western Desert nganantarrka (our bone) versus tyanamiltyan (their flesh). Sections Moieties of all the kinds mentioned are found in many places in the world  outside Australia. The other social categories, sections and subsections, are whimsically found outside Australia – sections in one small region of South America and subsections only in Australia. •    Structure of section systems •    Function of sections Structure of section systems A Section is a semester of society into four categories. It is neither matrilineal nor patrilineal  nor generational but has features of both types of descent and generational divisions combined.   Table 1 shows marriage and matrilineal descent in the General Queensland (GQ) system, which stretches wideness much of Queensland with only minor variation in terminology. Table 1: General Queensland Section Terminology TermsTerms KuparuMarryKurrkila mother/child ofmother/child of WunkuMarryPanpari One’s father has a variegated section from oneself, and one’s mother’s section differs from one’s own and one’s father’s. The fourth section is that of one’s spouse or potential spouse, which moreover includes one’s cross-cousin. The section system incorporatesUnorganizedGeneration Equivalence: one’s parallel grandparents (mother’s mother and father’s father) are in the same section as oneself; one’s cross-grandparents (mother’s father and father’s mother) are in the same section as one’s spouse and cross-cousin. A man’s children are in the same section as his father and a woman’s children are in the same section as her mother. In Table 1 (QG section system) you can see how a mother’s line and a father’s line toggle when and along between sections in each generation. If I am a Kuparu male my children will be Panpari and my son’s children Kuparu. The Kariera (western) section system Another well-known section system is that among the Kariera (Kariyarra) , in the Pilbara of northern Western Australia on the opposite side of the continent from the Queensland and New South Wales section systems. Radcliffe-Brown (1931:7) widow reports to the sections, a institute which continues to be used, as shown in Table 2 (spelling updated to recent understanding). Table 2: Kariera (Kariyarra) section system, W.A. Code Terms   Terms Code A Panaka marry Purungu B   mother/child of   mother/child of   C Karimarra marry Palyarri D Function of sections Not only these vital kin types but all relations fit into this scheme on the understructure of familiar extension rules which operate in classificatory systems. So, for instance, your mother’s mother’s mother’s sister’s son is in the same section as your mother’s mother considering your mother’s sister’s son (the last part of the kinship string above) is a parallel cousin, which is classified as a sibling. So an MMMZS is a kind of MMB who is a ‘skin brother’ considering he is in the same section as you. However an MMB would rarely be tabbed a ‘brother’ in the kinship terminology. This is where skinship and kinship part company. To undeniability somebody by a section term one does not have to be worldly-wise to trace a full genealogical path between yourself and the other person. It often works the other way around: as a shortcut, a kinship relationship is nominated between you and a person with a skin (section) name and that provides you with a ready-made set of relations in the other person’s group and others. So typically a person may be designated as a classificatory fictive ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ of a person with whom he or she is closely associated, and the rest follows. Or if there is a plan for you to marry someone in a group which, for instance, does not have sections, then that intended spouse from the stranger group would be prescribed to the spouse/cross-cousin section. If the marriage of the parents is of the first preferred, or ‘straight’, type, then there will be no question well-nigh work of a section term to the children. However, if the marriage is not of this type, then work based on the father will be variegated from that based on the mother. Various principles and strategies will be deployed in variegated groups to settle this question. The function of sections in determining correct marriage partners is important and that is why they were tabbed ‘(Marriage) Classes’ by early anthropologists. However, the functions are much broader than this: with a section name one can be fitted into families of unveiled strangers and undeniability them by kinship terms without necessarily knowing their genealogical connections to oneself, or indeed having any. Thus, many non-Aboriginal people as well as Aborigines from areas without sections or subsections can be prescribed ‘skin’ names by Aboriginal people and be incorporated in this way. The section and subsection systems therefore contribute to broadening the telescopic of ‘Universal Kinship Categorisation’, whereby everyone can undeniability everyone else by a kinship term. The telescopic of section systems does not terminate in regions when variegated terms are used. Users of the system are usually entirely familiar with the ‘Pragmatic Equivalence’ rules between variegated terminologies over a wide area. The sweep of the section system is thus much wider than a single ‘society’ or language group and operates in a highly extended inter-communal space. Gamilaraay people, for instance,  were enlightened of the General Queensland system to their north, and vice versa. They knew which terms were equivalent to which in the other region, who they tabbed ‘mother’, for example, and who they could and could not marry, despite the difference in terms used. Subsections Structure of subsections A subsection system has twice as many component units as a section system: eight insteaqd of four. As an example, here is the Warlpiri system. In this system there are masculine and feminine fors of each subsection (labelled m and f). Table 3. Warlpiri subsections CodeTermsCodeTerms A1mA1fJapanangkaNapanangkaMarryB1mB1fJupurrurlaNapurrurla A2mA2fJungarrayiNungarrayiMarryB2mB2fJangalaNangala C1mC1fJakamarraNakamarraMarryD1mD1fJapaljarriNapaljarri C2mC2fJampijinpaNampijinpaMarryD2mD2fJapangardiNapangardi The two halves of the matching section system  are in a relationship of  mother’s mother- woman’s daughter’s child to each other in a subsection system. These two halves of the notional sections are given the section codes A-B-C-D, plus 1 and 2 to distinguish the subsections: A1- A2…etc The Warlpiri subsections and a number of others have masculine and feminine prefixes (ja- and na- or similar respectively). This is not a foible of all subsection systems however. The origin and distribution of subsections Subsections are found in the north inside part of Australia, wideness the savanna whup of the Northern Territory, the southern Kimberley or WA and part of Western Queensland. Sections are found on both sides of this distribution. Generally either sections or subsections are found in a language group, not both at once. This distribution results from subsections welling from an tie-up of two section systems in the centre of the current distribution of subsections near to Katherine, NT, perhaps 1000-2000 years ago. From there they spread out in all directions by cultural diffusion, replacing sections in some regions. One of the components that unsalaried to the foundation of the subsection system was the western section system, as illustrated for Kariera (Kariyarra) in Table 2. For instance the subsection terms A1 panangka; C1 kamarra and D1 paljarri are related to the section terms A panaka; C karimarra; and D palyarri, respectively. The Function of subsections The function of subsections is similar to that of sections, to indulge people to proffer a version of the kinship systems to people who cannot be traced by genealogy and thus to make cooperation and sharing easier. Subsections, like sections, moreover designate the ‘straight’ partner in marriages. In most subsection systems this preferred spouse is a second cousin like a mother’s mother’s brother’s daughter’s daughter for a man. This differs from sections where a first cross-cousin (mother’s brother’s child or father’s sister’s child) is the preferred partner. This does not midpoint that people marry the very cousin but someone classified as the same by the kinship or ‘skin’ system.   Previous page: Social categories and local descent groups Next page: Local descent groupsWell-nigh∴ DisclaimerThe AustKin project was made possible through funding from the Australian Research Council with contributions from EHESS