Kinship System
See also: Australian Aboriginal kinshipYolŋu groups are connected by a complex kinship system (gurruṯu). This system governs fundamental aspects of Yolŋu life, including responsibilities for ceremony and marriage rules.
Yolŋu life is divided into two moieties: Dhuwa and Yirritja. Each of these is represented by people of a number of different groups, each of which have their own lands, languages, totems and philosophies.
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Skin name Clan groups Dhuwa Gumatj, Gupapuyŋu, Wangurri, Ritharrngu, Mangalili,
Munyuku, Maḏarrpa, Warramiri, Dhalwaŋu, Liyalanmirri, Mäḻarra, Gamalaŋga, Gorryindi.Yirritja Rirratjiŋu, Gälpu, Djambarrpuyŋu, Golumala, Marrakulu,
Marraŋu, Djapu, Ḏatiwuy, Ŋaymil, Djarrwark.
A Yirritja person must always marry a Dhuwa person and vice versa. If a man or woman is Dhuwa, their mother will be Yirritja.
Kinship relations are also mapped onto the lands owned by the Yolngu through their hereditary estates – so almost everything is either Yirritja or Dhuwa – every fish, stone, river, etc., belongs to one or the other moiety. A few items are wakinŋu (without moiety).
Read more about this topic: Yolngu People
Famous quotes containing the words kinship and/or system:
“The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.”
—Edgar Lee Masters (1869–1950)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
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