Critical Thinking – Kinship Organization of San Tribe The kinship organization of the San people is a multifamily grouping. They are made up of small mobile bands. These bands are “typically composed of a group of related nuclear families” or a few extend families. (Nowak & Laird, 2010, 3.7) They are a foraging society and all food is shared among each other. “San communities comprise up to about 25 men, women and children.” (Siyabona Africa, 2011, para 7) Everything they do in these small communities helps the survival of the entire family.
In foraging cultures continuous movement and the sharing of food and water are part of what builds kinship ties. These kinship ties build a greater sense of obligation to each other (Nowak & Laird, 2010). One example of generalized reciprocal culture lived by the San is their sharing and pooling together of food gathered for the day with all members of the Band. This sharing helps to ensure the survival of the camp. For example, a hunter’s family will not
The Batik people are a foraging culture. They are reliant on the land and their success is dependent on the values instilled in the camp. These camps made up of “three to six nuclear family members. The nuclear family is the most common type of family in foraging societies. A nuclear family is composed of a mother and father and their children.
The women care for their children and forge for vegetation and men hunt and provide other skills. The San society have bilateral descent which means they consider themselves related to both sides of their families which is important because in extreme situations such as a drought, the San people are able to find relatives that can provide water. The kinship of the San people are very important in every aspect of their lives. The Women of the San tribe are very important in their society because they help provide food and care for the children, this allows them to have a say in important decision in the community. In the Sans community the women get married before maturity, and the groom can not consummate his marriage until the bride has fully matured physically and mentally, during this time the groom lives with the bride family and provide brideservice, which means the groom contributes meat to the bride's family band.
Life is simple on requiring a few hours of work a day to sustain them. Many weapons and tools are developed crudely but effectively from surrounding resources. Marriage is an important function in Yanomamo society, it is used to create alliances between families and groups as well as provide units to create children in. Because marriages often hold political and social ties many of them are arranged by older members of the family, however marriages can also come in the form of conquest of other villages, taking wives from prisoners. It is common for men to hold multiple wives and encouraged to marry cousins.
Kinship Organization in the San Society The San society is a foraging society. Family, marriage and kinship, gender, and age are the key principles of social organization in foraging societies. People are related to each other either as consanguine, sharing a common ancestor, or as affine (what we call in–laws) through marriage. The way people are related is important in determining how they behave toward each other (Nowak & Laird, Sec. 3.7, 2010).
This honor of the tribe is primary. It can be maintained or lost by an individual woman through her actions and behaviors. “This is not only their sexual honor but also includes her ability to manage the household, cook tasty meals, obedience, cheerfulness, hard work, and the loving upbringing of her children (Lancaster 1981)”. From about the age of two, little boys will have the ability to wander about the camp and will often spend a lot of time in their father’s tent. The young boys of the tribe will
In Rwandan culture, being a good girl—clean, well mannered and virtuous—was important to maintain personal status and family reputation. The expectations of society were mirrored in her home, although her parents also expected her to study and expand her horizons. Her parents were both trained as educators. In addition to being educators, her family subsidized their income by farming. They grew and harvested beans, coffee and bananas on their property near Lake Kivu.
Social organization, economic organization, and their beliefs and values all coincide and work together to create harmony within the band societies. Social organization is very important to foraging societies like the Mbuti who are a part of band societies, which are small mobile groups of people who travel to various environments as a means of survival. Descent and marriage are the key principles to the existence of the Mbuti, because it helps keep unity between the different families that live amongst each other. The nuclear family bloodline, which are composed of a mother, father, and their offspring, is most commonly used amongst foragers like Mbuti. Patrilineal is the descent that comes from ones ancestry through male procreation, and patrilocal is when young married couples lives with the husband’s parents and raise their children.
At one time you would see families all together on the weekend, neighbors having a community picnic, and nobody was concerned with who would split the bill. Today, we are truly corporate America, and everything is about the bottom line. Many of the services we have now came about from helping others, now we charge for them. Not often does someone come home with a new item and say look what we got today, now we almost always