Mejbrat - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Mejbrat stress horizontal relationships over lineal ones in reckoning relatedness. The primary kin ties are those established through one's mother's brother, sister's son, and through siblingship. However, these relationships are subject to a certain amount of manipulation. The consanguineal family, consisting of a male, his mother, mother's brother, and mother's brother's daughter (or, conversely, a female, her father, father's sister, and Father's sister's son), appears to be the most significant unit of relationship and organization. There appears to be a Crosscutting pair of moietal divisions, the first based on geographical separation ("shore" people versus "hill" people) and the Second determined according to ancestral association with one or another of the regional spirits ( dema ). These crosscutting divisions establish wife-giving and wife-taking groups.

Kinship Terminology. "Proper" kinship terminology is largely Iroquoian, although informal usage tends toward the Hawaiian. Generational terms can be characterized as bifurcate-merging.