Nasioi - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. Basic to Nasioi social organization was the dispersed matrilineal clan ( muu' ). Such clans were ideally exogamous. Since Nasioi paid little attention to genealogy in Western terms, clan membership provided people with a fixed place in the social system as well as a basis for making land claims. Entire clans did not operate as corporate units, but localized segments did carry out important social activities as ad hoc groups.

Kinship Terminology. Traditional Nasioi terminology was a variant of the Iroquois system, in which siblings were equated with parallel cousins and terminologically distinguished from cross cousins. Other equations were father with father's brother and mother's sister's husband, and mother with mother's sister and father's brother's wife. Distinctive "aunt" and "uncle" terms were applied to father's sister and mother's brother's wife and to mother's brother and father's sister's husband, respectively.