Garia - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Kinship is traced cognatically, but patrikin and matrikin are distinguished in everyday conversation and there is a marked bias toward patriliny. Patrilineages are the cores of cognatic stocks, maintaining exclusive corporate rights of guardianship of the land belonging to the cognatic stocks. The kindred is not a defined local group and all political allegiances are expressed in terms of interpersonal ties rather than group membership. In general, the kinship system may be said to be highly flexible and individualistic.

Kinship Terminology. The system is basically of the Iroquois type, but father's sister and mother's brother's wife are equated with mother, and both father's sister's husband and mother's sister's husband have a special term and are treated almost as affines.