KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY

• Why do we assign names to our relatives the way we do? Why do we refer to our father's brother and our mother's brother as "uncle?" All societies have a classifacatory system of determining kinship terminology. The terms used to define the relationship between individuals is a reflection of descent, residence rules and general social organization. There are four basic types of kinship terminology. They are
• Lineal Used by the Inuit, Eskimo
• Generational Used in Hawaiian culture
• Bifurcate Merging Used by the Iroquois, Omaha, Crow
• Bifurcate Collateral Used by the Sudanese

RULES OF DESCENT

• Within our family, who are the individuals that belong to our kin group? Who is directly related to us and who are not? Every culture has rules of descent that determine the nature of affiliation between two people. There are three common types of descent. They are
• Patrilineal Descent System tracing descent through the men only
• Matrilineal Descent System tracing descent through women only
• Bilateral Descent System tracing descent through both men and women