Hawaiians - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. There were no corporate kin groups among Hawaiians at the time of contact. The chiefs could trace their genealogies back many generations through bilateral links, opportunistically linking themselves to particular ancestral lines as the political situation demanded. Commoners recognized shallow bilateral kindreds augmented by stipulated and fictive kin

Kinship Terminology. In the Hawaiian language no distinction is made between parents and parents' collateral kin. Same-sex siblings are ranked by relative age, but brother and sister are terminologically unranked.