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...and neither did they have a consistent pattern of Dravidian prescriptiveness. From the perspective of a universal theory of kinship which assumes a 'patchy' retention of a Dravidian-like prototype (Allen 1989a, 1998), it is unexpected not to find any Dravidian-type kinship systems, so well known from Australia but also from many other regions of the world (Godelier et al. 1998), (2) in the Papuan societies of Melanesia.
The purpose of this paper is to compare four Dravidian-type kinship systems in Papuan-speaking societies of South Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. These systems, two of which were first reported in 1910, by R. Thurnwald, and in 1912, by Rausch, were overlooked in Scheffler's survey and have not entered into recent world-wide comparative studies of Dravidian kinship (Godelier et al. 1998). The Proto-South Bougainville kinship was Dravidian-Kariera in type. It dates, uncertainly, to sometime before the Austronesian expansion into Melanesia around 1500 BC and sometime near or after the settlement of East Papua 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. Dravidian kinship systems may have been common in East Papua, surviving in Bougainville because of the island's relative size and isolation.
DRAVIDIAN KINSHIP SYSTEMS
A Dravidian kinship system is defined by two properties consistent with a rule of bilateral cross-cousin marriage. The first property, which is lacking in an Iroquois system, is a pattern of prescriptive equations which include in the +1 level:
MB = FZH = EF [not equal to] F = FB = MZH
FZ = MBW = EM [not equal to] M = MZ [not equal to] FBW
in the (ego's) level:
MBD = FZD = W = WZ = BW [not equal to] Z = FBD = MZD
MBS =FZS = H = HB = ZH [not equal to] B = FBS = MZS
in the -1 level:
osGD = SW [not equal to] ssGD = D
osGS = DH [not equal to] ssGS = S
Kariera kinship systems are sometimes distinguished from Dravidian systems by the presence of alternate generation equations which imply the presence of four marriage classes (sections) (Dumont 1970). In the classic Australian case (Radcliffe-Brown 1930:31):
FF = [male] SC
FM = [female] SC
MF = [male] DC
MM = [female] DC
The second property of a Dravidian system, which also distinguishes it from an Iroquois system, is a distinctive pattern of cross-parallel classification of remote relatives (Lounsbury 1964; Scheffler 1971). In the case of second cousins the children of parents' opposite sex cross-cousins are parallel while the children of parents' same sex cross-cousins are cross. Intuitively, opposite sex cross-cousins are potential spouses and their children are therefore classified with ego's siblings and parallel cousins while same sex cross-cousins are potential in-laws and their children are classified with ego's cross-cousins (Trautmann 1981; Godelier et al. 1998). In Dravidian systems parents' same sex cross-cousins are classified with 'uncles' and 'aunts' while parents' opposite sex cross-cousins are classified 'fathers' and 'mothers.' The classification of parallel and cross relatives in Dravidian is just the reverse in Iroquois.
In Allen's (1986, 1989a, 1989b, 1998) universal theory of kinship evolution a tetradic proto-human terminology is defined by alternate generation equations, prescriptive equations and classificatory equations. The closest real-world approximation to a tetradic system is a Kariera four-section system as found in Australia. The dominant historical trend has been the loss of alternate generation, prescriptive and classificatory equations in an irreversible overlapping sequence. A Dravidian system is a formerly Kariera type system which has lost its alternate generation equations. Iroquois- and Crow-Omaha-type systems are those which have lost their prescriptive equations; cognatic and Hawaiian-type systems are those which have lost their classificatory equations. This sequence captures the typological changes in the South Bougainville and, it is conjectured, in the East Papuan kinship systems.
SOUTH BOUGAINVILLE KINSHIP SYSTEMS
It is generally agreed that the 800 or so Papuan languages predate the Oceanic (Oc) languages in Melanesia by as much as 50,000 years (Spriggs 1997). In Wurm's (1982) classification of the Papuan languages, the East Papuan Phylum consists of 25 languages divided into three families: Yele-Solomon Islands-New Britain, Bougainville and Reefs-Santa Cruz (Map 1). In Ross's (2001) recent classification based on an analysis of pronoun sets, the Reefs-Santa Cruz languages are not regarded as Papuan and the remaining 22 languages are divided into five separate families; Central Solomons, Yele-West New Britain, East New Britain, South Bougainville, North Bougainville--and three isolates--Kuot, Kol, Sulka, (New Ireland and New Britain Map 1, Table 1). Ross's classification implies greater diversification and hence greater antiquity for the languages in East Papua.
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
The island of Bougainville is about 80 miles long and 30 miles wide. There are two mountain ranges and a large alluvial plain--the Greater Buin Plain. 'Except where the mountains fall away steeply into the sea--as they do along the eastern and north coasts--a moat of swamp encircles the lower slopes and isolates the beaches from habitable inland areas' (Oliver 1955:4-5). The population of Bougainville in 1938 was about 35,000 (Oliver 1949).
Speakers of all four South Bougainville languages--Buin and Siuai (Motuna) ('plainsmen') and Nasioi and Nagovisi ('mountaineers')--had Dravidian or Kariera-type kinship systems. (3) In all four 'societies' descent was matrilineal, clans or moieties were exogamous, marriage was with the bilateral cross-cousin (sometimes with unilateral preferences) and residence was predominantly matrilocal. Clans were totemic named after plants and animals. The traditional settlement pattern was probably similar to that of Nagovisi: scattered pairs of intermarrying matrilineages (Nash 1971). All four kinship systems had, at one time in their history, alternate generation equations and grandparent- grandchild marriages were permitted.
Nasioi
A brief list of Nasioi kin terms is given in Rausch (1912). (4) The terms, with a (Ist pers.?) possessive prefix,...
NOTE: All illustrations and photos
have been removed from this article.
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