Kin Diagram Exercise 
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[ Contact Me ]		 KIN DIAGRAMMING EXERCISE (60 points total)

Your assignment:

1. (20 points) Create a kin diagram of a family (feel free to base it on your own family, another family you know, or a historical family--or create an entirely fictional family) for an individual ("ego"), including at least: 

ego (the person who is at the center of the diagram)

a mother and father (and step-parents or birthparents, if you choose), 

a brother and sister (and step-siblings or other birth siblings), 

maternal and paternal grandparents, 

a partner, a daughter and a son, 

mother's brother, mother's brother's partner and daughter and son

mother's sister, mother's sister's partner and daughter and son

father's brother, father's brother's partner and daughter and son

father's sister, father's sister's partner and daughter and son

You CAN include additional family members, as well (and you will probably have to make up some family members if you are basing this on a real family).  Use circles to represent females, triangles to represent males, and be sure to identify all individuals by name (made up names, real names, or pseudonyms if you are basing your diagram on a family you know).

2. Using the above diagram as your reference point, answer the following questions:

a. Clan membership in Pohnpei is matrilineal. Who would belong to ego's matriline, if ego lived in Pohnpei? (15 points)

b. Trobriander chiefly families are both matrilineal and AVUNCULOCAL.  Tell me who ego's brother would inherit from and live with upon reaching puberty. (5 points)

c. Remember that I mentioned that the Yanomamo kin system is what anthropologists identify as the IROQUOIS CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM?  Yanomamo call mother and mother’s sister(s) naya, and father and father’s brother(s) haya.  Sisters and female parallel cousins are called amiwa, while brothers and male parallel cousins are termed eiwa. For the purposes of this assignment, identify who ego would call naya, haya, amiwa, and  eiwa. (15 points)

d. The Yanomamo are PATRILINEAL and practice BILATERAL CROSS COUSIN MARRIAGE  (which also implies LINEAGE EXOGAMY). A woman calls her male cross cousins, who are her preferred marriage partners, heroya, which also means husband. She calls her female cross cousins natohiya, which also means sister in law.  Tell me who ego's sister's heroya and natohiya would be, if she were Yanomamo. (5 points)

Refer back to the examples I have already given you, and to the following webpages, if you want further examples of kin diagrams:

Kinship and Social Organization: An Interactive Tutorial

A Kinship Glossary

Kinship and Marriage: An Introduction