Dargins - Kinship



Kin Groups and Descent. The predominant form of household among the Dargins is the nuclear family, but traces of extended-family organization survived until the early twentieth century in the form of undivided large families. A set of families made up a tukhum, a group of patrilineally related families tracing their descent to a common ancestor and having ideological, and social (but not economic) unity. The tukhum was sometimes divided into similar lower-level patronymies ( zhins, ahlu ), which could grow into new tukhums. The tukhum was not exogamous, nor was it obligatorily endogamous.

Kinship Terminology. The Dargi kin system is of the Arabic type. The kin terms are father ( tutesh ), son ( ursi ), brother ( utsi ), mother, daughter, sister, grandchild, grandfather, grandmother, maternal uncle, and paternal uncle, with several degrees of relatedness: sibling, first cousin ( utsiq'ar ), second cousin, etc. Kinship within the tukhum traditionally extended to the twelfth generation along the father's line.


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