214. on Certain Unconsidered Aspects of Double Descent Systems Author(s)- Edmund Leach

214. On Certain Unconsidered Aspects of Double Descent SystemsAuthor(s): Edmund LeachSource: Man, Vol. 62 (Sep., 1962), pp. 130-134Published by: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and IrelandStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2796878 .

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Nos. 2I3, 2I4 MAN SEPTEMBER, I962

smoke leaves a flavour that is at least endurable if not actually preferred, like a condiment. An alternative means of sterilization would be by the natural ultra-violet rays from the sun; but although this may be effective for querns in the open, it would be much less so for mortars used for damp or wet foodstuffs which probably leave a starchy deposit. On drying this would form a protective skin beneath which moulds and bacteria could remain and even flourish. Alternatively the mortars could be washed out using a native lye or soap-a moderately effective bacteri- cide, but also capable of leaving an unpleasant flavour, while the residue, very hard to remove, might then create conditions suitable for alkali-loving bacteria. Or perhaps the mortars were simply allowed to 'lie fallow' for an indefinite time; if this was so-and it seems as likely a suggestion as any other, then there are two possible courses. Either the disused mortar was eventually re- employed or it fell out of use permanently. Thus we are back to my original suggestion, for it is difficult to see how a reasonably hygienic-minded people could re-use the mortars, as during the period of their disuse the chances of their getting further contaminated by becoming the receptacles of refuse seem to outweigh those of their becoming 'sweeter.'Io One must also admit the possibility that any mortar might be chosen, cleansed in some way and utilized, but this does not explain their great profusion, nor why one may encroach upon another. 1 am inclined to think that they fell out of use permanently, and if this was so it would be interesting to know how long was the useful 'life' of a fixed stone mortar.

In expressing these thoughts, I am sadly aware of my ignorance of African domestic procedure. How for instance is the ubiquitous wooden mortar kept 'sweet'? In such a warm and often humid climate-ideal for bacterial and fungoid growth-some hygienic methods, however

simple, must be employed. No doubt someone who used his time in Africa better than I can answer these questions for me. Whether this problem is worthy of any serious study by field anthropologists-who alone can solve it by observing existing African societies that still use these artifacts-, I feel unable to judge; but perhaps some readers of MAN already have information that can throw more light upon it?

Notes

'Frank Willett, 'Investigations at Old Oyo, I956-57: An Interim Report,'J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, Vol. II, No. i (I960).

XA fact which we have proved by petrological examination of several samples.

3 A bibliography of Father Martin's work known to me is as follows: 'Los talleres de pulimentacion de piedra,' Parts I, 2, 3, La Guinea Espanlola, No. 1525 (October, 1959), No. 1526 (November, 1959), No. 1527 (December, I959); 'Las Haches de Cuello Fernan- dinas,' La Guinea Espanlola, April, I960 (the above four articles being in joint authorship with Dr. Armando Ligero); 'Tipologia de la Ceramica de Fernando Poo,' Estudios del Instituto Claretiano de Africanistas, No. i (Santa Isabel, Fernando Po, I960); 'Las Excava- ciones de Bolaopl y las cinco fases del neolltico de Fernando Poo,' Parts I, 2, La Guinea Espanlola, No. 1544 (May, I96I), No. 1545

(June, I96I). I am greatly indebted to Father Martin for his truly generous cooperation.

4 These are of the 'outils a gorge' type-the subject of my owni research.

5 This will be undertaken by the new laboratory at the University College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, as soon as this is in operation.

6 F. Willett, loc. cit. 7 I cannot speak for the East and the Americas. 8 Gerhard Bersu, 'Excavations at Little Woodbury, Wilts.,' Proc.

Prehist. Soc., Vol. VI (I940), p. 6i. 9 Revd. John Roscoe, The Baganda, London (Macmillan), I9II. 10 However, one ought perhaps to bear in mind that humic acids

resulting from the decomposition of the rubbish which they contain when not in use might themselves provide an effective sterilizing agent. Or it may be that this kind of rotting inhibits or even destroys the bacteria and fungi that might contaminate the mortar when in use with foodstuff.

ON CERTAIN UNCONSIDERED ASPECTS OF DOUBLE DESCENT SYSTEMS*

by

EDMUND LEACH, M.A., PH.D.

Faculty of Archcaology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge

214 For some years past social anthropologists at the 214University of Cambridge have made a

specialism of the study of unilineal descent and associated social institutions; see in particular Fortes (I953, I959),

Goody (I956, I959), Leach (I960, I96I). This discussion

has certainly not led to unanimity of opinion but it should not be supposed that it has lead nowhere at all. I believe that all three participants in the foregoing intra-depart- mental debate could subscribe to at least go per cent. of what follows without in any way compromising what they have written and stated elsewhere.

I must start on a note of protest. The term 'descent' was first given precise anthropological definition by W. H. R. Rivers about 40 years ago. He argued that we should use this word to denote recruitment to a descent group automatically by virtue of birth alone. He argued further that this notion of 'descent group' could only be useful if the

* This paper in somewhat modified form was delivered at the Tenth Pacific Science Congress, Hawaii, August, I96I, and was a contribution to the Symposium on Descent and Residential Group Structures (Convenor, Ward H. Goodenough, University of Pennsylvania; Chairman, George P. Murdock, University of Pittsburgh).

The text of the paper was prepared while the author was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford,

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groups in question were discrete and did not overlap; he therefore insisted that in practice a descent group should always be a unilineal descent group. If I am recruited at birth into a descent group to which my father already belongs and to which his father also belonged then this group will be discrete and unambiguous; and the same applies if I am recruited at birth into a descent group to which my mother belongs and to which her mother also belonged, but any other principle of recruitment by reference to filiation alone will produce a set of overlapping groups. Rivers was well aware that many societies exist in which there are overlapping sets of named kin groups recruited wholly or in part by reference to filiation (as distinct from unilineal descent) but he considered that it would only lead to confusion if such ambiguously bounded groups were called 'descent groups.'

Rivers's position implies that a sharp distinction must be made between the notion of 'filiation' or 'pedigree' by which an individual can establish a step-by-step relationship with any one of a great variety of ancestors-eg. my relationship to my father's mother's father's mother-and the notion of 'descent' which refers to the unambiguous permanent and involuntary membership of a sectional grouping within the total society.

In recent years, a number of distinguished anthropologists have explicitly deviated from Rivers's position. They have deviated in two different ways: (i) they have repudi- ated his advice to include within the category 'descent group' only such groups as are unambiguous and discrete; (ii) they have failed to adhere firmly to the convention that 'descent' refers to membership determined permanently and without option by the circumstances of birth. These two deviations from Rivers's orthodoxy are not identical. Thus there exist, in Timor, on the Sepik River and elsewhere, societies composed of discrete unilineal descent groups (in Rivers's sense) in which group recruitment is not determined by descent. This is possible because the unilineal descent groups in question consist of sets of names (or titles) associated together by ties of unilineal descent. The circumstances of an individual's birth do not commit him irrevocably to assume any particular descent group name or title.

Because of such practical facts as these, some anthropologists have been inclined to abandon Rivers's distinctions altogether. As an alternative they have prowled around in the ethnographical literature and unearthed a great variety of different kinds of grouping which employ a principle of 'recruitment by filiation' in some fashion or another, and to this whole agglomeration they have attached the label 'descent groups.' Having thus created a terminological chaos they have tried to unscramble the eggs again by resort to a tortuous taxonomy. The titles of the papers notified for this seminarI are sufficient evidence of the correctness of Rivers's view that any such broad use of the term ' descent' could only lead to confusion. We now have unilineal descent, non-unilineal descent, bilateral descent, ambilateral descent, multilinear descent, optional descent, double descent and even pseudo-double descent (whatever that means). I must protest most strongly. This is not the language of science but of gobbledygook.

Surely it is time that we anthropologists got away from our taxonomic obsessions? We should learn from the botanists that the pursuit of types and species for its own sake is a blind alley. What is all this proliferation of termi- nology in aid of? What, in heaven's name, are we trying to find out?

Our ultimate concern in all these discussions about the nature of descent and filiation is with the transmission of assets from one generation to another. In any particular cultural situation 'property' will include a great variety of things, not only material goods and rights in land but also rights in persons, in titles, in offices, in names, in rituals, in forms of magic, in techniques, in songs, in dances ... , and so on and so forth. But all such property-no matter what its variety-is owned only in two ways. Rights over property are either vested in perpetual corporations or in individuals. Individual property is a private matter, the owner acts as he chooses. Corporate property is more com- plicated, for the individuals who control such property may either be acting in a representative capacity-in which case the actors' behaviour is almost wholly predetermined by the rules of the corporation-or in a private capacity. In the latter case the rules merely specify the limits of what is permissible. The statement that 'an individual exercises private rights in corporate property' implies that he has wide freedom of choice as to how far he exercises the rights which are available to him. In particular, any act of representation is a voluntary and not a necessary consequence of his membership in the property-owning corporation.

The distinction which I have made between descent (in Rivers's sense) and filiation may be considered as a special case of this distinction between representative action (where choice is nmnimal) and individual action (where choice is maximal). The distinction may also be seen as a contrast in the miode of recruitment to a corporate body.

Any property-owning corporation necessarily includes within its constitution a principle of recruitment. 'Recruit- ment by descent,' that is to say automatic recruitment by virtue of status at birth, is unique in that all individual option is eliminated; it is, in this respect, quite distinct from any variety of recruitment in which the individual is free to exercise private choice. Where recruitment is by descent representative status is embodied in the principle of recruitment itself; in all other situations the rights and obligations of group membership can be exercised or neglected at will and are thus a species of private property.

Let me illustrate what I mean. My British nationality rests on the fact that my father was himself of British nationality and my father's father before that. I am in fact 'British by descent,' 'British by birth.' I had, and have, no option in the matter. If I travel abroad, I must travel with a British passport. This document gives me certain rights and also imposes certain obligations which may be summed up by saying that, whether I like it or not, whenever I travel abroad I am a representative member of the British Nation. With regard to those rights and duties of representation I have absolutely no choice.

But let us suppose that I own shares in the British

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No. 2I4 MAN SEPTEMBER, I962

American Tobacco Company. My membership of the Company is entirely optional. The extent to which I take an interest in the affairs of the Company and act or do not act as a representative of the Company is in no way predetermined by the circumstances of recruitment, that is, by the circumstances in which I acquired the shares in question. Any obligations which are entailed in my membership of the Company have been accepted volun- tarily and are my private property to dispose of at will.

Or consider a more immediately relevant ethnographical example. The Samoan kin groups aiga sa andfatelama have been classified by Davenport as 'non-unilineal descent groups' (Davenport, I959). In my view, if Davenport's facts are correct,2 then it is quite inappropriate to describe such groupings as 'descent groups' at all. The ethnographical situation is that each child at birth, by virtue of filiation, has a potential status as a member of any kin group to which either of his parents individually has asserted a claim. But the child only becomes an actual member of such a kin group much later in life as a result of fulfilling appropriate ritual acts of a voluntary optional kind-eg. contributing food to the wedding and funeral feasts of potential kinsmen. If the individual chooses to fulfil his 'duties' he becomes a fully effective kinsman; if he chooses to neglect his duties then kinship remains potential and ultimately collapses altogether.

To be pedantically accurate one might perhaps say that, in such situations, the potentiality of kin-group membership is based on an ideology of descent, but, since descent does not in itself specify who is or who is not a member of any particular group, it is here misleading to describe the operative corporations as 'descent groups.' For in such groups, not only is it the case that membership derives from choice rather than from descent, but the membership itself is at all times ambiguous. In a structure of this kind the potential groupings overlap, so that constantly each individual must ask himself: 'Is it more to my advantage to fulfil my obligations towards group A or my very similar obligations towards group B?' It is because this kind of ambiguity and choice does not automatically arise in true (that is, in unilineal) descent systems that Fortes and others have found it satisfactory to analyse unilineal descent systems as structures ofjural obligation. In contrast, the analysis of any kind of cognatic kinship structure invariably ends by throwing the emphasis upon mechan- isms of individual choice (cf. Murdock, I960).

So much for my preliminaries. For the remainder of this paper, the word 'descent' should be taken to mean 'unilineal descent.'

In a society with a simple unilineal descent (patrilineal or matrilineal) each individual is a member by birth of one exclusive segment of the total society and is linked by ties of filiation or of affinity (or perhaps both) with various other analogous segments. While Ego's freedom of action with respect to membership of his own descent group is very severely restricted, his freedom of action with regard to his affmal and filiatory links with other descent groups is ordinarily wide.3

For example, it has very frequently been asserted that in

patrilineal structures a man is likely to be on easy-going relations with his mother's kin while in matrilineal structures he is more likely to be on easy-going relations with his father's kin. This phenomenon can be viewed as an aspect of social structure (as by Fortes, loc. cit.), or as a consequence of psychological universals (as by Homans, I96I,

pp. 383f.), or in terms of the economy of social relationships. It might for example be argued that it is necessary for the individual to have a relaxed, freedom-of-choice, relationship with the complementary kin group in order that he may tolerate the rigidity of the obligations towards his own kin group.

This brings me at last to the title of my paper. Systems of double descent, properly so called, are ones

in which two unilineal descent systems coexist simultaneously. Each individual in the society is simultaneously a member of a patrilineal descent group by virture of descent from his father and his father's father and of matrilineal descent by virtue of descent from his mother and his mother's mother. Each framework is unambiguous: the individual's patrilineal kin and also his matrilineal kin are specified without choice from the moment of birth.

The question which I would ask is this: If in fact it is the case that complementary filiation serves certain necessary psychological ends, in that relations with the 'complementary' kin are relatively relaxed as compared with those involving own kin, what happens in a system of double unilineal descent? For at first glance it might appear that, in this kind of society, the individual is left with no choice at all, his relations being specified with equal exactitude on both the paternal and the maternal sides. This paradox has been with us for a long time, though it has not previously been stated in quite this form. The most recent examination of the evidence by Goody (I96I) attempts to get around the difficulty by terminological elaboration. Goody quite rightly puts stress on the fact that in systems of double descent the two descent groups to which each individual belongs are of quite different kinds and may be given very unequal degrees of emphasis. On these grounds he argues that Australian systems are to be considered 'patrilineal systems with complementary uterine groups' rather than 'full double descent systems.' I do not myself feel that such refinement of taxonomy, of itself, adds much to our under- standing, yet the point which I seek to make with regard to structural rigidity is certainly related to Goody's theme.

Radcliffe-Brown's early work on Australian kinship systems manages to convey the impression that the whole of an individual's social universe is divided up into a limited number of kin categories so that not only marriage but all social behaviour is governed by rigid prescriptive rules. The orthodox behaviour between any pair of kinsmen in an Australian system is exactly defined. This rigidity is linked with the generalization that 'although the social organization of Australian tribes is always based on patrilineal descent, there is always some recognition of matrilineal descent' (Radcliffe-Brown, I95I).

The rigidity of behavioural prescription was a point on which Radcliffe-Brown was himself somewhat evasive and on which his pupils often found themselves in difficulty.

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Radcliffe-Brown (I9I3) recognized that: 'In many Austral- ian tribes what we may call irregular marriages are in some instances permitted, that is, a man is permitted by the tribe to marry a women who by the tribal law is for- bidden him'-a thesis which, on the face of it, is self- contradictory (cf Lloyd Warner, I93 7, p. I05; Sharp, I934,

pp. 4I2-I8). But the possibility of irregularity having been admitted, its importance and incidence were minimized. Sharp was expressing a characteristic Radcliffe-Brownian viewpoint when he wrote: 'The extent to which kinship patterns, regulating emotions and behaviour, pervade all aspects of Yir-Yoront social life can hardly be exagger- ated ...' and '. . .A study of kinship usages indicates that the Yir-Yoront recognize 32 fundamental relationships.' The assumption is that each kinship category corresponds to a fundamental relationship within which behaviour is determined by rule. There are no areas of choice.

Yet at this time other pupils of the Master, who were less directly under his authority, were giving a very different picture. Stanner (I93 3, p. 3 97), McConnel (193 4, pp. 3 I0-

56) and Kaberry (I939, Chapter V) all stressed the extreme elasticity of the kinship systems which they had studied. Kaberry found that, generally speaking, over a third of all marriages were 'irregular' as judged by Radcliffe-Brown's criteria, while approximately 20 per cent. were definitely 'wrong.' We cannot of course be certain that this fluidity was not due to some recent breakdown of a much more rigid traditional system but the evidence is clear that, at the time when these observations were made, the individual Australian Aborigine was far less tightly bound by the customary rules of his society than Radcliffe-Brown's analysis suggested should have been the case. I suspect that the same would have been true no matter when the observations had been made.4

Let me put the argument another way in the form of a testable general hypothesis. I postulate that structural systems in which all avenues of social action are narrowly institutionalized are impossible. In all viable systems there must be an area wthere the individual is free to make choices so as to manipulate the system to his own advantage. In my view, therefore, an anthropological structural analysis which appears comprehensive, in that it narrowly defines all possible relationships, is wrong in some rather fundamental way. I hold that Radcliffe-Brown's Australian studies are wrong in this sense, despite the very striking way in which they illuminate otherwise incomprehensible bodies of data.

To return to the general theory of systems of double unilineal descent. In the extensive literature on this subject I cannot find any explicit discussion of the issue which I am raising here. How is it possible for double descent systems to function? Why are they not too rigid to be practical?

Even in Goody's elaborate taxonomy the Yako5 of West Africa appear as the type case of a 'full double descent system,' so let us consider the facts of this case. Among the Yako each individual belongs to a named patrilineal corporate group through his father and to a named matrilineal corporate group through his mother, but the kinds of property which form the estates of the patrilineal corpora-

tions are quite different from the kinds of property which form the estates of matrilineal corporations.

Roughly speaking, the principal assets of the patrilineal groups are fixed productive resources, such as land, houses and collective labour, while the principal assets of the matrilineal groups are rights over accumulated wealth, women and certain ritual and political offices (for details see Forde, I950, pp. 3 I0-I7). Now such a system does leave the individual an area of choice. In issues affecting land rights the individual can manipulate the system through his filiation to his mother's patrilineage and his affmal links with his wife's patrilineage, while in issues affecting ritual office he can similarly influence matters to his personal advantage by exploiting his ties of filiation with his father's matrilineage and his affinal ties with his wife's matrilineage. Far from being over-rigid, it seems probable that this sort of double descent system offers even wider areas of individual choice and initiative than does a comparable single descent system.

To go back to Radcliffe-Brown and the Australians. The reason why his analysis is suspect from my point of view is that the whole framework is in terms of one parameter only-that of kinship and marriage. Both the partilineal corporations (Radcliffe-Brown's 'localized hordes') and the dispersed matrilineal corporations are represented as having the same kinds of interest. Radcliffe- Brown writes as if the whole system existed in order that there should be precise rules as to who should marry whom.

This impression (which is obviously false) is the necessary consequence of treating a kinship system as 'a thing in itself,' which deserves the priority attention of the anthropologist.5

It is 30 years since Radcliffe-Brown's main work in this area was completed but we have not acquired wisdom in the interval. I suspect that in the course of this seminar a number of us are going to fall into precisely the kind of error which I am here attributing to Radcliffe-Brown.

I wonder if I have made myself sufficiently clear. Let me elaborate.

As regards the Australian material Radcliffe-Brown was certainly right in a way; but in my view he was also funda- mentally wrong in a way.

Except for very guarded remarks about 'irregular' marriages such as that which has been quoted above, he showed us no area in which the individual could work the system to his own advantage. All relationships appear to be fully defined from the start. Radcliffe-Browns' Australians are like algebraic electronic computers ticking away with no problem to solve. The simple-minded undergraduate who is faced with the complexity of Australian sub-sections and marriage classes and who asks: 'Yes, but why do they go to all that trouble ?' is asking the right question but we cannot give the right answer. If someone would do some Australian fieldwork and show convincingly how the matrilateral kinship ties, which Radcliffe-Brown analyses, are all linked up with trading operations while the patri- lateral ties determine and strictly limit rights over hunting territory, I should begin to feel that I understood what it was all about. There are indeed obvious indications that

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something of this sort must provide the raisoni d'etre for atypical and asymmetrical varieties of Australian kinship organization such as that of the Murngin (Warner, I937,

p. 95; Thomson, 1949), but, for the more general case, this kind of explanation has been kept well in the background.

Let me try to recapitulate and summarize my argument. The point of my paper is simply this. Contemporary anthropological analysis is very largely conducted in terms of simplified models abstraced from the observational data. This is necessarily the case and I would not have it otherwise. Model analyses reduce social systems to structures of relationships. This is all very well but we must not make the mistake of thinking that all kinship relationships are of a simple dyadic kind. This is a mistake which was frequently made by Radcliffe-Brown and has frequently been made by his successors.6

Against Radcliffe-Brown I argue that, while some structural relationships are dyadic-that is to say they are person-to-person relations, the nature of which is defined by the jural rules of the system-, there are other structural relations which resemble 'strategy relations' in the Theory of Games. These latter include a variety of degrees of freedom. Our models will mislead if they obscure this distinction.

This distinction is in fact made in the use which Cam- bridge anthropologists currently make of the terms 'descent' and 'filiation.' For us, 'descent' indicates a set of precisely designated relations; 'filiation' applies to relations in which option may be expressed. Since cognatic kinship systems invariably include a wide range of degrees of freedom in all their aspects I find it very unfortunate that most of the contributors to this Symposium propose to use the term 'descent' to describe such systems. At the other extreme the concept of 'double unilineal descent' is one which invites extreme caution. At the model level such a system might appear to be 'over-defined' and hence functionally unworkable; anyone who faces the analysis of an empirical case of double descent system should keep this problem in mind. Where in practice do we find freedom of choice? The probable answer is that in all double unilineal systems the two sets of unilineal corporations, the patrilineal and the matrilineal, represent entirely different and sharply contrasted functional interests-as in the Yak6 case-but this is a hypothesis which needs to be tested out against the empirical data.

5 Stanner, loc. cit., makes a similar point when he says that the study of the morphology of kinship systems is auxiliary to the main task of anthropology but that in discussions of double descent 'the auxiliary study comes close to being an end in itself.'

6 Eg. Sharp's remark, cited above, that 'the Yir-Yiront recognize 32 fundamental relationships.' Though few authors have attempted such a comprehensive catalogue many have written as if such a catalogue might be made. Examples are: Warner, I937, Chapter III; Eggan, I950, pp. 3I-42; Kuper, I950, pp. 9I-IIo; Fortes, I950,

pp. 265-84; Gough, I96I, pp. 344-57. The Fortes instance has direct bearing upon the argument of this paper. Fortes having made a formal catalogue of dyadic kin relationships in a Radcliffe-Brown manner is led to the conclusion that the jural obligations of the father/son relation are in conflict with the jural obligations of the mother's brother/sister's son relation. Most individuals, he concludes, 'try to solve the problem by segregating the respective fields of the conflicting kinship ties.'

Notes

IThe Symposium on Descent and Residential Group Structures, Tenth Pacific Science Congress.

z Freeman (I96I and also in an unpublished London University diploma thesis) has disputed the facts themselves.

3 This point has been made by Fortes on a number of occasions, though indirectly. His various writings on the subject of 'complementary filiation' have this implication-among others (Fortes, 1953, I959).

4 Cf Stanner's recent statement: 'In the particular case of the sub-sections oftheliorth-west coast two brothers, of identical parents, may be put into different sub-sections because of marked difference of physical appearance, or a person's sub-section may be changed in order to facilitate a marriage which is terminologically incorrect' (Stannur in Goddy, I96I, p. 2I),

References

Davenport, W., 'Nonunilinear Descent and Descelnt Groups,' Amer. Anthrop., Vol. LXI (i959), pp. 557-72.

Eggan, Fred, Social Organization of the Western Pueblos, Chicago, I950.

Forde, Daryll, 'Double Descent among the Yak6,' in Radcliffe- Brown and Forde, i950.

Fortes, M., 'Kinship and Marriage among the Ashanti,' in Radcliffe- Brown and Forde, i950.

--, 'The Structure of Unilineal Descent Groups,' Amer. Anthrop. Vol. LV (I953), pp. I7-4I.

--, 'Descent, Filiation alnd Affinity: A Rejoinder to Dr. Leach,' MAN, I959, 309, 33I.

Freeman, J. D., review of Sahlins, Social Stratification in Polynesia, MAN, I96I, i8o.

Goody, J. R., The Social Organization of the LoWiili, London, I956. , 'The Mother's Brother and Sister's Son in West Africa,' J. R. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. LXXXIX (i959), pp. 6I-88. , 'The Classification of Double Descent Systems,' Current Anthrop., Vol. 11 (I96I), pp. 3-26.

Gough, Kathleen, chapter on 'Central Kerala Nayar' in D. M. Schneider and Kathleen Gough, editors, Matrilineal Kinship, Berkeley, I96I.

Homans, G. C., Social Behaviour: Its Elementary Forms, New York, I96I.

Kaberry, Phyllis, Aboriginal Women: Sacred and Profane, London, I939.

Kuper, Hilda, 'Kinship among the Swazi,' in Radcliffe-Brown and Forde, i950.

Leach, E. R., letter, 'Descent, Filiation and Affinity,' MAN, I960, 6. -, Rethinking Anthropology, London, I96I.

McConnel, Ursula, 'The Wik-Munkan and Allied Tribes of the Cape York Peninsula, N.Q.: Part III, Kinship and Marriage,' Oceania, Vol. IV (I934), pp. 3I0-67.

Murdock, G. P., Introduction to G. P. Murdock, editor, Social Structure in South East Asia, Chicago, I960.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., 'Three Tribes of Western Australia,' J. R. Anthrop. Inst., Vol. XLIII (I9I3). , 'Murngin Social Organization,' Amer. Anthrop., Vol. LIII (I95I), pp. 37-55.

Radcliffe-Brown, A. R., and Daryll Forde, editors, African Systems of Kinship and Marriage, London, I960.

Rivers, W. H. R., Social Organization, London, 1924.

Sharp, Lauriston, 'The Social Organization of the Yir-Yiront Tribe, Cape York Peninsula: Part I, Kinship and the Family,' Oceania, Vol. IV (I934).

Stanner, W. E. H., 'The Daly River Tribes: A Report of Field Work in North Australia,' Oceania, Vol. III (I933). , Comment on Goody (I96I), in Current Anthrop., Vol. II (I96I), pp. 20f.

Thomson, Donald F., Economic Structure and the Ceremonial Exchange Cycle in Arnhem Land, Melbourne, I949.

Warner, W, Lloyd, A1 Black Civilization, New York, I957.

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Documents

214. on Certain Unconsidered Aspects of Double Descent Systems Author(s)- Edmund Leach