Ka'wiari - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The Ka'wiari are composed of clans of shallow genealogical depth. Each clan is made up of one or several patrilineages whose members recognize one another by their filiation with a living or recently deceased ancestor. The lineage is made up of nuclear families, which function as the basic units of production. The Ka'wiari include themselves in a phratry that includes the Bara, sometimes the Tukano proper, and the Yuruti, whom they call "brothers." They consider the Yukuna uterine relatives ("mother's children"). This set of groups forms an exogamic unit. Among their allies, the Ka'wiari distinguish segments of the Taiwano and the Barasana as long-term affines. Together, this set of consanguineal relatives, uterine relatives, customary allies, and actual allies constitutes the kinship universe. Filiation is patrilineal. Among phratric relatives, kinship terms differentiate the Bara as "older brothers" and the Yuruti and Tukano as "younger brothers." Clans relate to each other through their respective ancestors as "older brothers" and "younger brothers" and according to their identification with certain bodily parts and segments of the ancestral Anaconda (head, body, intestines, tail), which gives them the right to exercise certain specialized functions.

Kinship Terminology. Ka'wiari kinship terminology is of the Dravidian type. Genealogical depth does not exceed five generations—Ego's generation and those of two ascending and two descending generations. Sex is marked by relevant suffixes. There are variations in kin terms of address and reference, and individualized terms are used by each sex for certain categories of relatives. Terminologically consanguineal kin are differentiated according to the order of birth (anterior or posterior), but this is not the case with affines. Terminologically consanguineal kin in Ego's generation are divided into older and younger. Besides differentiating between cross cousins and parallel cousins, a terminological distinction is also made between certain uterine kin called "mother's children," who are children of potential wives and who have married or will marry members of groups different from Ego's.