The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Study Guide Anthropology 304: Family, Kin and Community

Witherspoon, Gary 1975. Navajo Kinship and Marriage, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The terms in ALL CAPS that are used in the study guide are ones that you should be able to define and use.

1. How are Navajo family relations related to the Navajo economy?

• a. p. 68, Attachment to place
• b. p. 77, 50% neolocal residence among young related to jobs off reservation and school.
• c. p. 87, Importance of sheep and family link. Where one's sheep are is a sign of loyalty to family. p. 86, "Women are sheep-mined"
• d. p. 92, Importance of sharing even at the cost of draining one's own resources.
• e. p. 97. Navajo economic theory--wealth enhanced by cooperation..
• f. p. 96 Welfare of each individual is dependent on that of everyone else.

2. Why are M-D relations more solid than M-S?

3. p. 12, Kinship beliefs and attitudes are embodied in symbols: What are these symbols for the Navajo? For You?

Land, Mother Earth, Sun, Sheep, Corn Pollen, menstrual blood, Changing Woman, The Color Red

On p. 19, Witherspoon asserts that Changing Woman is "conjured up" by the Navajo imagination. Do the words "conjured up" seem ethnocentric?

4. What is the relationship between Grandparents and Grandchildren?

5. Discuss the following quote from p. 13-14: "To summarize, kinship as a cultural system is a set of concepts, beliefs, and attitudes about solidarity which are embedded in symbols found in culturally defined reproductive processes. These symbols are imbued with powerful meaning that can generally be described as intense, diffuse, and enduring solidarity."

Chapter 2: "Mother and Child and the Nature of Kinship"

6. p. 15, Witherspoon argues that for the Navajo, the Mother-Child relationship is the most intense, most diffuse, and most enduring solidarity. What are some of the symbols that imbue this relationship with power?

• a. Changing Woman = Sun and gives Birth to the Dine.
• b.She is also symbolized as Earth and Earth Woman, whose changes of season, cycles of birth and death and rebirth are the bases of Changing Woman.
• c. Earth Mother bonds all living things together as kindred.
• d. Her life and fertility are symbolized by earth, corn pollen, yellow corn and red menstrual blood.

7. How is the Mother-Child bond a symbol of Kinship as a whole?

p. 22, "Just as a mother is one who gives life to her children through birth, and sustains their life by providing them with loving care, assistance, protection, and sustenance, kinsmen are those who sustain each other's life by helping one another, protecting one another, and by giving or sharing of food and other items of subsistence. Where this kind of solidarity exists, kinship exists; where it does not exist, there is no kinship."

Chapter 3 "Marriage and the Nature of Affinity"

8. How are KINSHIP and AFFINITY distinguished by the Navajo concepts of family and kinship?

KINSHIP	is distinct from	AFFINITY
Sharing & Giving		Exchange & Reciprocity
Incest Taboo		Marriage

9. Discuss whether or not BRIDEWEALTH is an example of exchanging economic power for reproductive power (p. 24).

10. Affinal solidarity exists not only between the Husband & Wife but also between their kin. Discuss the similarities between affinity and friendship and the difference--i.e., friendship does not imply solidarity between kin groups.

What are the implications for family values and practices of affinal kin solidarity?

11. How are SORORAL POLYGYNY & SORORATE related to the concept of affinal solidarity?

Chapter 4 "Father and Child"

12. Define COMPLEMENTARY FILIATION (universally bilateral) (Fortes stresses kinship over affinity). How is this related to unilineal descent groups?

13. "Is the relationship between F and Ch affinity or kinship?

(Answer: Affinity)

• a. closeness of F-Ch bond related to closeness of H-W bond.
• b. High divorce rate--father remarries elsewhere---children have no claim on him or his property.
• c. Often address F with an in-law term (male in-law of a proximate generation)

(Answer: Kinship)

• a. F may address Ch as "my child"
• b. F sometimes takes children after a divorce.
• c. F's rel. to children one of affection, discipline, instruction and economic assistance.

Chapter 5 "The Descent System"

Ego Relationship to Selected Descent Categories p. 45:

FF's Clan			MF's Clan
"My Paternal			"My Maternal
Grandfathers"			Grandfathers"
	Father's Clan	Mother's Clan
	"My Fathers"	"My Mothers"
	/	/
	/	My Clan	My Spouse's Clan
	/	"My Mothers"	"My Spouses"
	/	/
	Children Born of Men	/
	of My Father's Clan	Children Born of Men
	"My Siblings"	of My Clan
		"My Children"

14. What is the significance of these categories? None of the descent categories forms a social group. Rather, their meanings are related to exogamy, hospitality and ceremony.

Chapter 7 "Kinship and Affinal Solidarity as Symbolized in the Enemyway"

15. Difference between Kinship Solidarity and non-Kinship Solidarity:

• a. Kinship solidarity is like the M-Ch bond--Mother loves you and takes care of you no matter what you are and how you act.
• b. Non-kinship solidarity is like the H-W bond. If you are a bum, she will throw you out.

16. What is the significance of the Enemyway ceremony for relationships between kin groups?

Enemyway ceremony unites two kin groups who have few connections, but would like to work on more. Associated with patient's kin and stick receiver's kin.

17. Explain Witherspoon's summary on p. 64 of what he thinks characterizes Navajo kinship as a cultural system.

(Note that the first half of his book is about Kinship as a Cultural System and the 2nd half is about Kinship as a Social System.

• a. What is this distinction about?
• b. Is Witherspoon's distinction between kinship as a cultural system and kinship as a social system similar to Gillis' distinction between the "families we live by" and "families we live with"?
• c. Is it similar to the distinction between "family structure and values" and "family practices"?

Chapter 9 "Residence in the Subsistence Residential Unit"

18. "Subsistence Unit" is that group which has its herds together.

19. Often the Navajo are described as having matrilocal residence. While it is true that matrilocality is more common, many people reside patrilocally.

p. 78 Discuss the implications for Navajo families of the data in Table on Residence Patterns.

• a. Two Residence Rules:
  • i. Navajo may live anywhere her/his M lives. ii.
  • A Navajo may live anywhere his/her spouse lives.
• b. What happen if the H/W dies in matrilocal case?
  • i. levirate encouraged, no change in residence
  • ii. sororate encouraged, no change in residence.
  • iii. if W dies and no remarriage within the clan or if they are divorced, the husband leaves and the children (and W) stay.
• c. If patrilocal?
  • i. If divorce, Usually the W and children return to her M.
  • ii. levirate, no change in residence
  • iii. Unless she has become the head woman, then she stays and he goes.
  • iv. If W dies, children stay and use maternal kin terms to their paternal kin.
• d. Neolocal?
  • A more recent pattern

20. p. 92 Discuss the importance of sharing resources, especially food, and what difference this makes. Security v. possibility of a wealthier lifestyle. The drain on resources might encourage some to leave the reservation, but they do so at a risk.

Carol Stack in her book, All Our Kin, makes this same point about low-income African American families in Illinois.

21. p.95, Why does Witherspoon say the Navajo are highly individualistic? Do you agree? What difference does "individualism" make in family practice?

• a. Less coercion of children
• b. unwillingness to speak on behalf of another. e.g. Outsiders might assume that they know little of each other in families because they seem not to know each other's preferences.

22. How can this individualism be understood as related to communalism?

• a. For the Navajo individualism and communalism are complementary, not contradictory.
• b. The welfare of the individual is tied to the welfare of the group, especially the subsistence group
• c. Their economic theory is that through cooperation the goods will be increased for everyone.---not a zero-sum game
• d. Individual ownership of the sheep, but the work is communal.

23. p. 96 What does the Navajo "Golden Rule"--"One should treat everyone as a kinsmen." mean?

Why is it that the worst think you can say about someone is that he acts as if he had no kinsmen?

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