THE STORY OF RAGA: A MAN'S ETHNOGRAPHY
ON HIS OWN SOCIETY (II) KIN RELATIONS
Masanori YOSHIOKA
INTRODUCTION
This is the second part of an English translation
of a hand-copied book
which was written in the“Raga" language
by the late Rev. David Tevimule in 1966.1)“Raga" is a language spoken by the
people of North Raga(northern part of Raga
or Pentecost Island) in Vanuatu. The work
consists of twenty chapters and concerns
various aspects of North Raga culture: its
origin myth, kin relations,initiation rite,
rank-taking system, chiefs, and customsconcerning
birth, marriage, and death. In this paper
I translate Chapters 6 and 7 in which Rev.
David Tevimule describes traditional kin
relations2) and explains the meaning of relationship
terms.
I
First of all, I summarize the materials concerning North Raga traditional social organization, relationship terminology and marriage system collected during myfield research there3).All of the people of North Raga are now Christian. After the arrival of Christianity the system was obliged to change in some aspects.Information from different people is sometimes confusing and in all,knowledge of the traditional system is now possessed only by a few people. One such knowledgeable person is the Rev.David Tevumule, who is said to be best versed in the traditional kinship and marriage system. My materials on such systems are mainly based on his information, which is, of course, supplemented by that from other knowledgeable people.
Social Organization
The population of North Raga is divided into exogamous matrilineal moieties named Tabi and Bule. Each moiety consists of numerous named matrilineal descent groups. These descent groups are classified into four larger groups in each moiety, which have no names. I call this kind of groupa cluster. Clusters are discriminated from each other by the fact that children of male members of each group are named distinctly (Yoshioka 1985:29, Table 2). This group functions as the most corporate group and as an exogamous unit in the alliance system. In addition to these three social groupings, there is the fourth grouping. Each moiety is divided into two groups by combining two clusters into one. I call this kind of group a division. A division is not a named group nor a corporate one, but functionsonly in connection with the marriage regulation. The North Raga social organization is summarized in Figure I.
Tabi(X) | Bule(Y) | ||
Anserehubwe a Agolomwele etc. A AAarai b Arevo etc. Atanbalo c Atavalvusi etc. B AmaAao d Avatgoho etc. | Atalai Labwa@o e etc. E AAavauru Avintena f etc. Atabulu Avatgalana g etc. D Anaronboe Ansina@i h etc. |
* Anserehubwe, Agolomwele.. :names of
the descent groups.
* X , Y :moieties. * A - D :divisions *
a - h :clusters
Figure I
It is necessary here to explain some North Raga concepts of kinship.
1)tavalu(na)4)means ‘a category' or ‘a party'. It sometimes
has the meaning of‘opposite'.In the context
of social organization, tavalui refers to a moiety.
2)vara(na) means ‘a category subordinate to tavaluna'. When it is used in the context of kinship
or social organization,it is exclusively
related to the matrilineality.It refers to
a matrilineal line, a matrilineal descendant,
or a matrilineal relation. People sometimes
translate it as a family. Moreover amatrilineal
descent group is referred to by vara. This term is also used to indicate the
cluster and the division, as well as,
in some cases, the moiety.
3)atalu(na) means ‘a side'. Ira ataluku, which literally means‘people of my side',is
basically used to mean‘my cluster member'.
It sometimes means‘my moiety member' especially in
front of the moiety members. When it is used
in an expression like“Inau atalun Vira Doro(I am a descendant of Vira Doro)",
it contains themeaning of bilateral descent.
4)atalavara(na) is used in the same way as ataluna. Atalavaraku has the same meaning as ira ataluku. Atalavaran Vira Doro has the same meaning as atalun Vira Doro.
5)hou(na) means ‘a line'. In the context of kinship,
it indicates bilateral descent. “Inau houhou Vira Doro" means “I am a bilateral descendant
of Vira Doro".
6)atalahou(na) is used in the same way as houhou.
7)hava(na) means “kin". Although one's hava mainly indicates his cluster member or his
moiety member, it also indicates a member
of the opposite moiety according to the context. Because
in North Raga kinship concept, every people
has some kinship relation with each other(See
‘Relationship Terminology').
The whole of North Raga is divided into
many named plots. The land-owing
unity is the descent group, each of which
possesses many plots, one of thesebeing recognized
as the group's place of origin and bearing
the name of the group itself. Its other plots
are scattered here and there in places not far
from this place of origin. People, whose
subsistence mainly depends on slash-and-burn
cultivation of taro and yam, are able to
cultivate any plots owned by any descent
groups in their own cluster.
A man should live on one of such plots of
his cluster after the death of his father,
although he is able to live on any plots
of this father's cluster (usually with his
father) during his father's lifetime. Since
the plots of the cluster are widely scattered
over the whole of North Raga5),thecluster is not localized. Moreover, it
should be noted that after the death of his
father, a man does not necessarily live with
his mother's brother. Hemay live on one of
many plots of his cluster, where his mother's
brother mayor may not live. Therefore such
a residence rule is avunculocal only in its
widest sense. Marital residence is virilocal.
Relationship Terminology
As known from the usage of the concept
of hava, which I have translated as kin,‘kin' does
not entail consanguinial relations. The consanguinial
kin is not terminologically differentiated
from fictive kin and every person of North
Raga is categorized by a certain‘kinship'
term. It is proper, in thissense, to use
‘relationship term' in place of ‘kinship
term'. I have listed relationship terms with
some of their genealogical specifications
in Figure II. These genealogical specifications
are extracted
1. ratahi(mua) MMM, M
2. tarabe(bena) MMMB, MB
3. aloa ZS(m.s.), ZD(m.s.)
4. tuaga(tuta, tuga) MMB, eB, eZ, MM
5. tua B(m.s.)
Z(w.s.)
6. tihi yB, yZ, SS(m.s.),
SD(m.s.)
7. hogosi Z(m.s.)
B(w.s.)
8. sibi(bena) MF, MFZS, MFZDS,
ZH, ZHZS, HB, HZS,
MFZ, MFSD, MFZDD,
ZHZ,ZHZD, HM
9. tama(tata) F, FZS, FZDS, ZDH
10.vwavwa FZ, FZD, FZDD, ZDHZ
11.mabi MMBWB, MBWB, WB,
MMBDS, MBDS, DS
MMBW, MBW, W, MMBDD,
MBDD, DD
12.nitu MMBS, WMB, MBS, S,
DDS
MMBD, WM, MBD, D,
DDD
13.ahoa H
14.tasala W
15.bwaliga WF, DH(m.s.)
16.habwe HZ, BW(w.s.)
17.bulena WB
18.huri FZH
*Terms in parentheses are only used in address.
*Terms such as aloa, tasala, bwaliga, and
bulena are used only by men.
*Terms such as ahoa and habwe are used only
by women.
*(m.s.) :Men's speaking.
*(w.s.) :Women's speaking.
Figure II
from genealogies which I collected during my field research. Taking accout of the reciprocal relationships between terms(shown in Figure III), we can logically identify more genealogical specifications of each term.
A is reciprocal to B ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ A B | self-reciprocal term ━━━━━━━━━━━━━ C | self-reciprocal term |
D | ||
ratahi --- nitu tama --- nitu vwavwa --- nitu tarabe --- aloa tuaga --- tihi sibi --- mabi | hogosi tua bwaliga habwe | bulena huri |
* Hogosi is used between different genders
while tua is used between people of the
same gender.
Figure III
Of eighteen terms listed in Figure II which
are used to refer to persons, all terms without
vwavwa are used with suffixed possesive particles
such as-ku(-Au), -mwa and -na which mean‘my', ‘your' and ‘his(her)'respectively.
TamaAu means ‘my father', ratahiku means ‘my mother', and taman ratahiku means ‘my mother's father'. These terms
are also used in address with such particles.
Terms in parentheses in Figure II are only
used in address and they are used without
possesive particles. Vwavwa is accompanied by a possesive particle such
as bilaku(my), bilamwa(your) and bilana(his or her).Bilak vwavwa means ‘my paternal aunt' and vwavwa bilan Tom means ‘Tom's paternal aunt'. Vwavwa is also used in address without the posessive
particles.(For a detailed description of
possesive particles, see Yoshioka 1987).
In daily life people sometimes use the
verbal definition of the relationship terms.
Some of such definitions made by a man are
shown in Figure IV. The verbal definition
is always made by thinking of a concrete genealogical
relation. A man defines ratahin ratahiku as tuagaku because he calls his real mother's real
mother tuagaku. In this sense, the verbal definition of
relationship terms is based on the genealogical
relation.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
1. ratahin ratahiku =
tuagaku
2. taraben ratahiku
= tuagaku
3. taman ratahiku
= sibiku
4. ratahin tarabeku
= tuagaku
5. mabin tarabeku
= mabiku
6. nitun tarabeku
= nituku
7. ratahin sibiku
= sibiku
8. taraben sibiku
= sibiku
9. ratahin mabiku
= nituku
10. taraben mabiku
= nituku
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Figure IV
Although I have referred to the genealogical
relation, I should point out here that the
North Raga terminology as a system is not
based on one's genealogical relation but
one's affiliation to the social group, that
is, the cluster. The verbal definition mentioned
above is valid only within a scope of genealogy.The
table of relationship terms with their genealogicalspecifications
is also used to analyse the terminological
system only withinthe scope of genealogy.
Moreover, in the North Raga system there
is not always a one-to-one correspondence
between relationship terms and genealogical
relations. For example, a man who is ego's
FFBDS is referred toby the term tama if he belongs to the same cluster as ego's
father while he is referred to by the term
sibi if he belongs to the same cluster as ego's
mother's father(Yoshioka 1985:35). This is
shown in Figure V.
*‘f' and‘h' are clusters.
Figure V
The relationship between terms and clusters
is shown in Figure VI, which
ndicates that people in the opposite moiety
are categorized according to their affiliation
to the cluster. It should be added here that
all men who belong to the cluster‘e' have
bwaliga relation to all men who belongs to the cluster‘g'
while all men in the cluster‘f' have bwaliga relation to all men in the cluster‘h'.Therefore
ego's tama is bwaliga to ego's male sibi, and ego's male mabi or nitu in one cluster is bwaliga to ego's male mabi or nitu in the other cluster.
X Y
|
|
|
|
* This figure shows the case
in which ego belongs to the
cluster ‘a' and his real
mother married a man of the
cluster ‘e'.
* Letters of the alphabet
correspond to those in Figure I.
* mabi-nitu shows that mabi
and nitu are placed in
alternate generations in
the matriline.
Figure
VI
Although those who are in the same moiety
as ego are terminologically classified by
the principles of generation and sex regardless
of their affiliation to the cluster6)(see Figure VIII), men in the same cluster
as ego have bwaliga relation to men in one cluster of the other
division in thesame moiety. For example,
ego's tarabe in ego's cluster has bwaliga relationto ego's tarabe in one cluster of the opposite division.
In this case, the child of the former is
called nitu by ego while the child of the latter is
called mabi. Such a mechanism will be further explained
in the following.
Marriage System
I have already analyzed the marriage system
of North Raga in a previous paper, where
I showed that there are two kinds of alliance
system in North Raga (Yoshioka 1985). One
is the asymmetric system between clusters
which is based on the sister-exchange(Table
VII-I). The unit of the asymmetrical alliance
is a pair of clusters whose male members
are bwaliga to each other. The other is the symmetric
system between clusters which is based on
the daughter-exchange(Table VII-II). Men
who are bwaliga to each other exchange the daughter of each
other in marriage. The marriage regulation
underlined in the former system is expressed
by people as follows: a man should marry
his female mabi and a woman should marry her male sibi, while such a regulation underlined in the
latter system is expressed as follows: a
man in one division in a moiety should marry
a daughter of a man who belongs to the other
division in the same moiety.
* Letters of the alphabet correspond
to those in Figure I.
* Arrows indecate the direction
of the movement of women at
marriage.
Figure
VII
The North Raga marriage system in connection
with the relationship terminology is summarized
in Figure VIII. In it:(1)All tarabe, male tuaga, tua, male tihi and aloa in ego's cluster‘a' marry ego's female
mabi in the clusters ‘f' and‘h'.(2)All tarabe, male tuaga, tua, male tihi and aloa in cluster‘c' marry ego's female
nitu in ‘f' and ‘h'. Those men who have married
ego's female nitu are called bwaligaku. (3)All tarabe, male tuaga, tua, male tihi and aloa in cluster‘b' marry ego's vwavwa( cluster ‘e') in one of the alternate generations
and to ego's female sibi(cluster‘g') in one of the alternate generations.
(4) All tarabe, male tuaga, tua, male tihi and aloa in cluster ‘d' marry ego's vwavwa in cluster ‘e' of the other alternate
generations and ego's female sibi in cluster ‘g' of the other alternate generations.Those
men who have married ego's vwavwa are called huriku.(5)All of the male members in ego's cluster
refer to ego's mabi and nitu as mabi and nitu respectively. But for tama, vwavwa, and sibi, a different situation exists. Those in
ego's alternate generations refer to ego's
tama, vwavwa and sibi by the same terms as ego while those in
the opposite alternate generations refer
to ego's tama and vwavwa as sibi and ego's sibi as tama or vwavwa.(6) Men in the clusters‘a' and ‘c',‘b'
and ‘d',‘e' and ‘g', ‘f'and ‘h' are
bwaliga to each other. Those whom the former in
the pair call mabi are called nitu by the latter.
Moiety X Moiety Y
* Letters of the alphabet corespond
to those of Figure I.
* Central lines in the boxes divide
alternate generations.
* ------ means marriage between
male member of the moiety X
and female member of the
moiety Y.
Figure VIII
The relation between wife-giver and wife-taker
is shown in Figure IX.All male members of
ego's cluster marry ego's female mabi while female members in the same alternate
generations as ego in ego's cluster marry
ego's sibi and those in the other alternate generations
marry ego's tama.
Mabi-Nitu's
Ego's Sibi's
Cluster
Cluster Cluster
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mabi-Nitu's Cluster
Tama's Cluster
WIFE-GIVER
EGO WIFE-TAKER
* The arrows indicate the direction
of the movenent of women at marriage.
* - - - - - divide alternate
generations.
Figure IX
II
In this section I briefly comment on the
kinship and marriage system in today's situation.
As already said, the traditional system has
changed in some aspects and some knowledge
about it has been lost.
Even now it is a common recognition that
the moiety is exogamous, and it is easy to
find a man who knows that each moiety is
divided into two divisions. But people are
confused about how many clusters there are
in each moiety. One of the reasons for such
confusion may be that although in the traditional
system children of male members of each cluster
were distinctly named,adopting Christian
names caused the naming system to change.
Now only some persons have such names as
their personal names. Moreover, many people
do not know all the names of the descent
groups in their own cluster. The relation
between descent groups and cluster is explained
in the myth. But the details of such a myth
have been forgotten.
Among the factors which caused confusion
in the social grouping, the most influential
one is the change in the marriage system.
Although the moiety exogamy is rigidly obserbed
even now, it happens that a man marries to
his vwavwa, his sibi and even his nitu. The vwavwa marriage is most prevalent among these ‘incorrect
marriages', while nitu marriages are very few. Such marriages cause
confusion in the terminological system because
thelatter's structure depends on the mabi marriage. When the terminological system
is confused, the system of social grouping
becomes confused because the latter has the
harmonious relation with the former in the
traditional sysytem. For example, traditionally
all male members of one's father's clusterwere
one's tama but the vwavwa marriage has made it possible to find his
nitu and mabi in that cluster(Figure X).
* T = tama, V = vwavwa, M = mabi, N = nitu
* When ego marries correctly, he refers to
persons in his
father's cluster by the terms in parentheses.
Figure X
Even now people insist that ego in Figure
VIII should marry a daughter of a man of
division ‘B'. When ego marries a daughter
of a man of cluster‘c',no confusion occurs,
but when he marries a daughter of a man of
the other cluster in division ‘B', a vwavwa marriage and a sibi marriage occur. Traditionally ego's bwaliga is a man who has married his nitu. But if ego marries his vwavwa, he becomes bwaliga of the latter's father and reciprocally
he refers to him as bwaliga, who had been his huri. Because of vwavwa marriage, ego's bwaliga may become the same person as ego's huri, whoshould belong to a diffent cluster from
that of ego's bwaliga. In today's situation, these two clusters
become amalgamented.
The terminological system itself is undergoing
change.In my first research in this area
in 1974 I never heard the word ‘tawean',
which is Pidgin English. But during my second
reserch there from 1981 to 1982 I often heard
this word used by the younger generation.
Tawean means‘brother-in-law'. A wife's brother
as well as a sister's husband are referred
to by tawean. This usage has resulted in
the confusion of mabi and sibi. Some persons said that mabi and sibi are the same and that it is correct for
a man to marry his sibi.
The intrinsic character of the traditional
terminological system has also contributed
to the present confusion. In the traditional
system the genealogical relationship should
not be extended to the classificatory relationship
(by which I mean here the relationship outside
genealolgy).As already seen, one's genealogical
tarabe has a completely differnt role from the
classificatory tarabe. The marriage with a daughter of one's classificatory
tarabe in a certain cluster is correct while the
marriage with daughters of his tarabe in the other clusters is not correct. But
if a man gives importance to the genealogical
relations and extends it to the classificatory
relation, he may insist that I marry correctly
even if hemarries a daughter of his classificatory
tarabe in his division.
III
In the text of Father David the traditional
kin relations are described.I supplement
it here by pointing out the characteristic
relationship among kin in today's situation.
Tarabe in ego's cluster(for example ego's mother's
brother)is the propertygiver to ego because
the inheritance rule is matrilineal. But
he is not an authorized person and the jural
authority over a man or a woman in marriage
is vested not in his or her tarabe but in tama(real father or classificatoryfather if he
is dead). In North Raga there is no tentioned
relationship between tarabe in ego's cluster and ego such as reported
in the other matrilineal societies. There
is also no tentioned relationship between
ego and the other kin in ego's moiety without
huri. Huri is the husband of vwavwa. Huri should be an authorized person to ego because
it is said that when one's huri came near him, he ran away. Now such a custom
has been lost.
Tentioned relationship is found between
ego and sibi. Some restrictions are placed on ego's
behavior toward his or her sibi. This is described in Father David's text.
Conversely, ego's mabi should observe some restrictionsin front
of ego. When ego marries one of his female
mabi, ego calls her brothers bulena(Figure XI). It is not necessary for ego
to assist his bulena while bulena should assist ego on any occasion.
*‘d' calls ‘a',‘b', and‘c'
bulena while they call d' sibi.
*‘e' calls ‘a',‘b', and‘c'
mabi and they call‘e' sibi.
Figure XI
It is said that members of the same moiety
should help each other. Especially,men who
call each other bwaliga should do so. Bwaliga should give assistance to each other on
any occasion such as ceremonial exchanges,
building of a new house, or making a new
yam field and so on. Even if it happens that
tarabe in ego's cluster marries incorrectly ego's
female nitu, such a tarabe is treated as ego's bwaliga and should behave as ego's bwaliga.
Joking behavior or funny talk is called
vwauvwau. Vwauvwau is permitted between a woman and her husband's
classificatory father(tama) or father's sister(vwavwa),or between a man and his classificatory
father. See Figure XII. Suppose ‘d' gets
angry with‘e'on some occasion. ‘e' tells
him that she is leaving home. But actually
she hides in some place near the house. ‘d'
searches for her here and there and at last
finds her near the house. In such a case,
‘e' can talk with ‘a' and ‘b' about it
and they can laughat‘d'. In other words,
those who can laugh at a man by talking about
a happening between him and his wife which
disgraces him are only his tama and vwavwa, besides his wife. It is also said that
‘b' can talk with ‘d' about‘c''s funny
episode such as the above. It is also said
that ‘a' can take the hand of ‘e' and let
it touch the hips of the former. When ‘a'
does so,she will make bwaraitoa to‘d' on the occasion of‘d''s rank-taking
ceremony.
Figure
XII
Bwaraitoa has the same meaning as vwauvwau and people say that these two are the same.
But it seems that bwaraitoa is used often on a ceremonial occasion while
vwauvwau is used in everyday life. Bwaraitoa is observed on three occasions at least.
The first is when a child is born. In this
case, a child's classificatory tama and vwavwa steal some property of the child's real
tama and sometimes the former put a taboo on
the latter's cultivation or other things.
The second is the marriage ceremony. In this
case, the vwavwa of the bridegroom acts funny with his ratahi;for
example, the former sprinkles water or mud
on the latter. These vwavwa are given red mats called bwana7) (a kind of traditional money) by the parent
of the bridegroom. The third is the rank-taking
ceremony. In this ceremony, a man needs many
pigs,which are given by some men at the ceremony(8). When the man who is given pigs dances on
the ceremonial ground in order to receive
such pigs, his classificatory tama or vwavwa dances jokingly following him. This is bwaraitoa in this case. After that the man's wife or
his mother should give red mats or small
red mats called bari9) to those who did bwaraitoa10).
In North Raga, generaly speaking, the wife-taker
is in a superior position to the wife-giver,taking
account of the following facts:that the wife-takers
of ego'scluster are ego's sibi and tama; that one should observe many restrictions
in front of his sibi; that one's tama has jural authority over him;and that one's
tama or vwavwa has the right to laugh at him and make funof
him. As already said, tama and sibi of male members in ego's alternate generations
in ego's cluster are called sibi and tama respectively by male members in the opposite
alternate generations, and tama and sibi of the latter are called sibi and tama respectively by the former. The general relationship
between wife-taker and wife-giver is summurized
as shown in Figure XIII.
Figure XIII
IV
In this paper, I present Father David's
Raga text with an English translation. His
original text is not spoken one but written
one and it seems to contain many writing
and spelling mistakes. I made many correctionswith
the collaboration with Mr. Richard Leona,who
is a native speaker of the Raga language
and who was my collaborator in the work of
this translation. Although in my earlier
paper titled“The story of Raga (I)"
I presented the original writing with corrected
writing, in this paper I present only a corrected
version of the text. Colons and periods in
this text are not always in the original.
They are sometimes omitted, or exchanged,
or supplemented in order to clarify the relationship
between the original and its translation.
I have also omitted the original parentheses
in the text to avoid a complexity.
Some words in the parentheses in the translation
are supplemented by me to clarify the meaning
of the original sentence. When the Raga word
is used in the translation, I show its English
translation in a bracket or explain its
meaning in a footnote. As for the footnotes,
those in the text are common with those of
its translation.
Notes
1)In “The story of Raga(I)", I treated
the first two sections of Chapter 6 of
the original as sections 8 and 9 of Chapter
5. Therefore section 1 of Chapter 6 in this
paper is originally section 3 of Chapter
6.
2)I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. P.E.
Davenport of Shinshu University who read
an earlier version of this paper and improved
my English.
3)I was engaged in field research in North
Raga in 1974, from 1981 to 1982, and again
in 1985.
4)na is a possesive particle of the third person
singular.
5)In the case of the cluster‘a' which contains
many descent groups such as Anserehubwe,
Agolomwele, Lolkoi and so on, the plots of
Anserehubwe are scattered in the northernmost
part, the plots of Agolomwele in the north-east
part, and those of Lolkoi in the central
part, and so on.
6)Ego's SW belongs to the same moiety as
ego.But she is categorized as mabi. For the discussion of this, see Yoshioka
1985.
7)See footnote 23 in the text.
8)This is a part of the ceremonial exchange
done in the series of the Bolololi ceremony.
For detail description, see Yoshioka 1983a,1983b,
and 1986.
9)See footnote 21 in the text.
10)I will present a detail description of
bwaraitoa in the following parts of this paper.
References
Yoshioka,M
1983a Bororori I - Hokubu Raga ni okeru buta ni matsuwaru gishiki -. (Bolololi I - A Ceremony Centering Around Pigs in North Raga -.)Annual Review of Social Anthropology 9:167-190.
1983b Bororori II - Hokubu Raga ni okeru
riidaashippu -. (Bolololi II -Leadership
in North Raga -.) Japanese Journal of Ethnology 48:63-90.
1985 The Marriage System of North Raga,
Vanuatu. Man and Culture in Oceania 1:27-54.
1986 A Report on Bolololi: Rank-taking Ceremony in North Raga, Vanuatu.(Unpublished. A report dedicated to the Vanuatu Cultural Centre.)
1987 The Story of Raga: A Man's Ethnography on his Own Society(I) The Origin Myth. Journal of the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Shinshu University 21:1-66.