The Kinship in Ambrym Island

In this part, I review the literature in which that many scholars discussed the kinship in Ambrym. In 1915, W. H. R Rivers (1915:229-233) assumed the Ambrym island was the patrilineal society that influenced the original matrilineal society by interaction and transmission, but not the whole evidence was found to prove this hypothesis. Exactly, there were records on narrate, in the ritual and the hierarchy. Main participants just went to the patrilateral village and the closet tie was concerned with the father’s relative. Though Rivers founded the society of Ambrym was organized on the definition of patrilineal basis, he thought the trace of matrilineal society was reflected in some ceremonies, for example, the Wor ceremony, the ceremonial stone was made by the boy’s mather’s brother, the dance was performed by the boy’s mother and the ceremony was connected to the boy’s mother’s father after death; the Pakvi ceremony, the mother’s brother held boys to operate the incision, and food in the ceremony was made by matrilateral people; the Lengfa ceremony, the women had the right to wear ornaments and took a leading part in the ceremony. Thus, Rivers raised the probability of dual society in Ambyrm for the latter scholars to discuss.

39

Besides, Rivers obtained the important discovery of the six matrimonial classes, which divided the community. In the 1927, Deacon (1927: 326) inducted Rivers’ marriage theory in Melanesia:

(1) Marriage with the wife of the father's father.

(2) Marriage with the brother's daughter's daughter.

(3) Marriage with the mother's brother's widow or wife

And then he criticized (1), (2) were hypothetical and used in English sense, and (3) exactly existed, but only as the inheritance of the mother’s brother’s widow, not in the classificatory sense. Deacon thought the category was in the alternate generation with the rule of the patrilineal descent in Ambrym, and in the system, a man and his father’s father were in one class, the women to marry was to a given class. He did the fieldwork in the Ranon village (the north Ambrym) and the Balap village (the south-east Ambrym) to collect the pedigree and the linguistic materials, and then found the marriage with FZDD and the MBZZ existed in Ambrym, which strengthened the marriage regulation he held. He interpreted as:

The population is divided into three " tribes," called " bwelem " at Balap, and

"bwulim " at Ranon. Descent in the bwelem is patrilineal: a man, his father, his father's father, son, son's son, and the children of all these, belong to his own bwelem, similarly all classificatory fathers, fathers' sisters, brothers and sisters in this district. Each bwelem, however, is divided into two sides, or " lines " such that a man, his father's father, his son's son (and sisters of all these) belong to his "

line," while his father, his son, and his son's son's son belong to his father's " line,"

all in the same bwelem.This two-line structure causes the father's father to be called "brother," etc. The three bwelem are referred to by a man as (1) "My bwelem." (2) "My mother's bwelem." (3) " My mother's mother's bwelem.

According to the rule, the MMM belonged to one man own the line, bwelem, and

40

therefore this was called as “sister”. Then Deacon (1927: 329) made the graph and mentioned that:

Diagram 3.1 The group of kinship by Bernard Deacon in1927

if a woman of A married a man of C, her daughter in C would marry a man of B, her daughter's daughter in B would marry a man of A again, a man of her M.M.F.'s " line And his informant illustrated the complicated graph to clarify the relationship, as:

Diagram 3.2 The order of kinship group by Bernard Deacon in 1927

The long strokes represented men, short strokes were women, and the long lines with arrow were bwelem. The informant emphasized that marriage went round the bwelem in clockwise and counter-clockwise. Because E took a, A, as brother, would take E’s sister, e’, and e’ was

41

duly married to A, vice versa.

It is similar in the north Ambrym. In this principle, while a man, his father, his children, his father’s father and his son’s children all belonged to the same bwulim, only alternate generations belonged to the same wor of that bwulim. Besides, Deacon also tried to use a new aspect to interpret the matrilineal and patrilineal descent. And he (1927:333-334) said:

The community is further divided into two batatun with matrilineal descent, and each batatun is composed of one wor from each of the three bwulim…The batatun and bwulim seem to be more or less equally important groupings in the native mind, so that descent is really both patrilineal and matrilineal equally.

Then B. Seligman (1927:355) criticized that Deacon’s problem was the unnamed classes because if the patriline and matrimoieties were named under the relationship term, any particular woman would be potential spouse. He purposed the idea, sets of the agnatic and uterine kin. One’s own bwulim can be clearly classified into one’s agnatic kin and one’s own batatun into one’s uterine kin. So, it can prevent from the possibility of insect marriage.

Gradually, Paton and Guiart, found Deacon’s mistake was the term batatun in fact meant

‘’sibling set’’ rather than matrimoiety. (Paton 1954; Guiart 1956:314). Besides, Guiart (1951:52) announced bwulim was a highly poly-semantic term in which “patriline” or

“patrilineage” was one of those definitions. And he didn’t find any evidence to show the lineages were gathered into three “phratries”, and no indication about systematic exchange of women in marriage in particular lineage or villages. All obviously denied the report Deacon wrote.⁶

H. W. Scheffler (1970) thought the contradiction still existed. He found the north Ambrym

6 Some essays deny the Deacon’s fieldwork material about the exchange of marriage, but I still observe the obvious category for Ambrymese’s kinship. The category of kinship is practiced to many ceremonies, for example, marriage and funeral. So, the basic category of kinship can be still believed.

42

men didn’t surely marry a woman from his MM or FM village or lineage, but sometimes proper potential wife belonged to those groups. So, the marriage rule in the 1970 still was not clear.

Through many deliberative examinations and investigations, the maternal society almost cannot be found in Ambrym Island. As H. W. Scheffler (1970:56) described:

I have no idea what these terms really mean but it is certain that they are not moiety names, for there are no matrimoieties anywhere on Ambrym.

On the other hand, Paton (1954) reported wor meant a ‘’group’’ or ‘’set’’ of every sort.

Then, H. W. Scheffler’s informant stated the set of agnates of alternate generation was a wor batatun, ‘’a set of siblings’’, the islander used batatun to indicate metaphorically a sibling and wor also existed in the alternate generation.

Because Deancon (1927:333) stated that a man and his father belonged to different batatun, while he, his mother, and his mother’s mother belonged to the same batatun, Scheffler sought the verification for his informant, but acquired the emphatic refutation due to that one’s M and MM were not classified as “siblings”, not one’s batatun in any sense, but MMM was classified as “sister” by the rule of classificatory. That led to H. W. Scheffler ‘s criticism: “anthropologists took too many hypotheses on kinship in Ambrym.” (H. W.

Scheffler 1970:56)

So, H. W. Scheffler reinterpreted the rule of the marriage and kinship’s bwulim. He (1970:58) described:

A similar rule posits a structural equivalence between agnatic kin of al-ternate generations, e.g., a man's FF and B, such that FF may be designated "brother" as well as "grandparent," the latter being the "proper" designation, and the former an optional alternate. Conversely, a man's SS also is like his B and may be called

"brother" as well as "grandchild." Similarly, a man's S (as a linking kinsman) is

43

structurally equivalent to his F, and so a man's SW is like his FW or "mother."

Conversely, a woman's HF is like her HS or her own "child.

and continued to claim:

Yet another rule of the system is one structurally equating uterine kin who are three (not two) generations removed from one another. By this rule anyone's MMM is equivalent to a Z; conversely, a woman's DDD is equivalent to her Z; and these kinswomen are properly classified as "sister." But the same rule also governs a number of alternate classifications of more closely related types of kin. For example, a man's ZD is properly his yaleng, "man's sister's child," but when this kinswoman is married her status as the "sister" of ego's mother's mother may be verbally realized for ego himself. Thus ego may call his ZD tutu, "grandparent," which is what he may call any "sibling" of a "grandparent." Similarly, a man's MMB, properly his

"grandparent," may be regarded as structurally equivalent to ego's ZS, who is a uterine kinsman three generations removed from ego's MMB.

It almost systematically depicted the rule in the classificatory of kinship and term, and then he amended the kin term in the previous reference. Thus, I reorganize these in the list as the following:

Table 3.1 North Ambrym Kinship Term

Term Foci Gloss Comment tutu FF, MF, grandparent Deacon’s tivyug is the dependent FM,MM. (suffix-taking) noun form, properly tuvtu- or tubtuyu

mabeyung SS, SD, grandchild Deacon's mavyug.

DS,DD

tata F. father Deacon's teta.

44

raheng M. mother tung S,D. child

mesong MB. mother's brother Deacon's mosyug.

yaleng m.ZD man's sister's child Deacon's yeleg.

itning FZ father's sister

talang m.B,f.Z. same-sex sibling Deacon's talig.

iyunyeng m.Z. man's opposite- Deacon's ivwunyeg.

sex sibling

meneng-re f.B. woman's opposite- sex sibling

mayiu *WB, man's potential Not recorded by Deacon.

m.Z*H. brother-in-law

mayiu vehen *WZ, man's potential Not recorded by Deacon.

m.B*W. sister-in-law

mukuen *HB, woman's potential Not recorded by Deacon.

f.Z*H. brother-in-law

veyung m.ZH,WB. man's brother-in- Deacon's viag.

Law

revyeng f.BW,HZ. woman's sister- Deacon's revyeg.

in-law

wunyung HF,WF, parent-in-law HM,WM.

tarit W. wife Respectful form; Deacon's mwe- neg vehen = "my woman."

faim H. husband Respectful form; Deacon's mwe-

45

neg vanten = "my man."

H. W. Scheffler /original, re-manuscript the form Essentially, the Ambrymese have taken several principles of kin classification, which are considerably important in the kinship system of neighboring people, and strengthens, combines them in one system.(Scheffler 1970: 64-65)