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 little lives of earth and form,
Of finding food, and keeping warm,
Are not like ours, and yet
A kinship lingers nonetheless....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“UG [universal grammar] may be regarded as a characterization of the genetically determined language faculty. One may think of this faculty as a ‘language acquisition device,’ an innate component of the human mind that yields a particular language through interaction with present experience, a device that converts experience into a system of knowledge attained: knowledge of one or another language.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)