Senoi - Kinship



Kin Groups and Descent. Nuclear families, which own the fields, are unstable but basic. Extended families and households, mutually hard to distinguish, are less important. The local group, usually a village but sometimes several villages, has corporate ties to a sakaq. As people move to a new sakaq freely, local groups often split or coalesce. Owners retain rights to trees after moving. Larger kin groups including kindreds (west Semai, jek ) and ramages (west Semai, guw ) spread through several sakaq and do not include affines. Ramages occur within major watersheds because of the easy travel on the river, with the groups taking their names from the rivers. Members sometimes cooperate in fish drives. Although ramages are seen as territorial, the west Semai talk of affiliation on the basis of descent from a common ancestor. Informal age grading is reflected in the kinship terminology, which has a special designation for an adolescent who has not yet settled down.

Kinship Terminology. There are differences among the six Senoi groups in the emphasis placed on lineality and generation in kinship terminology: Central Aslian distinguishes elder and younger siblings but not brother and sister; South Aslian distinguishes elder brothers from elder sisters; Semelai distinguishes nonlineal from lineal kin in the parents' generation. With some exceptions, Semai and Temiar use one term per generation for the six generations above and one below oneself. Kin terms also reflect informal age grades of neonate, child, adolescent boy/girl, old woman/man. Teknonymy is widely used and people are expected to use respectful teknonyms for mature and old people, at least so long as their children are young enough to need such protection.


User Contributions:

I am doing an essay on Semai Culture. I need to reference this site. So I need to know, who is the author and when was this published? I would greatly appreciate anyone that can help me get these answers.

Comment about this article, ask questions, or add new information about this topic: