Patrick Kaplanian: À propos des Na de Chine
The originality of the Na society lies in two points. The first one, which has attracted most scholarly attention, is the absence of fathers and husbands: children live with their mothers and maternal uncles and are raised by them. The existence of such society undermined Lévi-Strauss’s theory of marriage alliance. Although some researchers have sought to relativize the originality of this social phenomenon, the author argues that the prohibition of incest is not always the corollary of exchange. The second point is the way in which the household is perpetuated: unlike in most societies, a woman who has been integrated to the group through “marriage by bride” continue to belonging to their original lineage. After her death, however, the family changes its lineage affiliation, but the ancestors remain the same.
[China, Na, Moso, incest, exchange, lineage, virilocal marriage]
