Eskimo kinship or Inuit kinship is a category of kinship used to define

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

organization in

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. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work ''Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family'', the Eskimo system was one of six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and

Sudanese Sudanese or Sudanic may refer to: *pertaining to the country of Sudan **the people of Sudan, see Demographics of Sudan *pertaining to Sudan (region) **Sudanic languages **Sudanic race, subtype of the Africoid racial category See also *Sudanese Civ ...

). The system of English-language kinship terms falls into the Eskimo type.

Joint family

The

joint family An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family of parents and their children to include aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins or other relatives, all living nearby or in the same household. Particular forms include the stem a ...

system places no distinction between patrilineal and matrilineal relatives; instead, it focuses on differences in kinship distance (the closer the relative is, the more distinctions are made). The system emphasizes the

nuclear family A nuclear family, elementary family, cereal-packet family or conjugal family is a family group consisting of parents and their children (one or more), typically living in one home residence. It is in contrast to a single-parent family, the la ...

, identifying directly only the mother, father, brother, and sister. All other relatives are grouped together into categories. It uses both classificatory and descriptive terms, differentiating between gender, generation, lineal relatives (relatives in the direct line of descent), and collateral relatives (blood relatives not in the direct line of descent). The Eskimo system is defined by its "cognatic" or "bilateral" emphasis - no distinction is made between patrilineal and matrilineal relatives. Parental siblings are distinguished only by their sex (Aunt, Uncle). All children of these individuals are lumped together regardless of sex (Cousins). Unlike the Hawaiian system, Ego's parents are clearly distinguished from their siblings.

Occurrence

The Eskimo system is relatively common among the world's kinship systems, at about 10% of the world's societies.Nature of Kinship
/ref> It is now common in most Western societies (such as those of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

or Americas). In addition, it is found among a small number of food-foraging peoples such as the !Kung tribe of

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and the Eskimos (Inuit-Yupik) for whom it is named. The system is widely used in non-unilineal societies, where the dominant relatives are the immediate family. In most Western societies, the nuclear family represents an independent social and economic group, which has caused the emphasis on the immediate kinship. The tendency of families in Western societies to live apart also reinforces this.

Terminology

The term ''Eskimo'' is considered pejorative in Canada, and has been replaced there by the term ''Inuit''. The former remains in use in Alaska, though less so than in past decades, because the term includes both Inuit and non-Inuit Native Alaskans. In Canada, the term ''Inuit kinship'' is therefore widely used instead of ''Eskimo kinship''.

Citations

General and cited sources and external links

* William Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, Wadsworth Publishing, 2002.
The nature of kinship

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eskimo Kinship Inuit culture Kinship and descent Kinship terminology