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An example
of the wide variety of kin arrangements
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| Canada
has immigrants from hundreds of societies of origin. This is one
of several factors contributing to a huge variety of family forms and functions
in Canada. |
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| To
demonstrate the variations in families, we look at the Akan society of
West Africa. See Canadian
Immigration (Ghana). |
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| The
word “family” is Latin in origin. It meant domestic slaves.
There is no equivalent word in Akan. Family is not a universal institution.
Social scientists once assumed that the nuclear family was at the central
element or building block of all kin systems. Not so in matrilineal
societies. In Akan society the nuclear family is not the building
block: there is no word; no practice. Akan society has two words
that are related. The word “abusua” is a corporate descent
group, while the word “fifo” (literally house people) means
a residential group. Akan people in Canada speaking English may talk
about their "family" back home. They mean their "abusua." |
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| What
is a corporate descent group? It is like a corporation. Membership
is by birth, and it has no affines (people related by marriage).
In a matrilineal society, that means all members of the group belong because
their mothers belong. Your spouse or your father can not belong to
the same abusua as you. |
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| See
Brian Schwimmer’s kinship and social organisation tutorial. |
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| The
group has maybe 100 to 200 members. It is not a communal organisation;
there is division of labour and inequality within it. The descent
group may own land, offices, houses, and gods. |
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| To
help you understand the structure, take a personal view. Your father
or spouse cannot belong, but your mother’s brother belongs. Your
mother’s mother’s mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter’s daughter’s
daughter’s son belongs. Your sister’s children belong. |
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| A
student asked if Akan matriliny was like that in the west coast First Nations
societies. West Coast First Nations are quite varied, with Tlingit
and Tsimshian in the North, Haida on the West, Wakashan south of that,
and Salish on the south coast. There is a range of mixtures from
North to South, from matrilineal to patrilineal. Technically, the
Akan have kin terms classed as "Iroquois" (as in southern Ontario from
Montreal to Windsor). See Govt
of BC, or Camosun
(BC First Nations). |
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| Matriliny
is not matriarchy. The suffix, “liny” refers to descent, while
the suffix “archy” means power. The Akan kin system is lineal,
and it is not automatically one which confers power on women. Instead,
we use the word “gynocracy” meaning that some power, wealth and
independence is allocated to women. See my paper, Covert
Gynocracy.” The women had status much more than those in western
societies and patriarchal patrilineal ones. In East Africa, for example,
women are submissive and oppressed in comparison to those in Akan societies.
Matriarchy would imply that women are automatically the recognized leaders;
that is found in no known and studied societies. |
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| Covert
means hidden. In Akan society the higher power, wealth and independence
of women is not so evident. Formal recognition (prestige) of office
is not common, except for a few female chiefs, elders and priestesses;
women find it useful to keep this power hidden. |
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| In
a chief’s court, where perhaps nine out of ten of the elders are men,
they may come to a difficult stage of their case, conflict resolution,
or deliberation. They will break and then each head back to his or
her matrilineal house (where the ancestral stools are kept) to "confer
with the ancestors." It turns out that they are conferring with the
older women in the matrilineage. |
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| The
matrilineal Akan spread and expanded, and took over earlier patrilineal
Guan areas. Matriliny, based upon ranked confederations of matrilineages,
is the basis for more effective
organisation
for war than is patriliny where the patrilineal corporate descent groups
had no mechanism for confederating. Confederations were structured
as in an army, with one lineage designated for each of four deployment
positions, forward, left right, and rear, plus interior affairs, and paramount.
Like a football team or hockey team, each have different but complementary
roles which make them stronger overall. |
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| A
high divorce rate is functional in all matrilineal societies. When
members do not direct all their attention and efforts to their spouses,
this supports strength of the abusua. Husbands and wives would
live together temporarily, as when they were in satellite villages
farming, or in cities and towns for employment or trade. Women had
power, wealth, and independence (esp. from fathers and husbands), so they
were not dependent upon staying in a nuclear family for financial security.
Often members of the home town would return home, especially for funerals
and for Easter. The common pattern was for husband and wife to go
and stay in their separate ancestral, matrilineal homes for the duration
of the visit, even if they lived together in their away residence.
This is where a common practice was observed and noted in the literature,
children going from Momma’s house to Daddy’s house every late afternoon
carrying supper on
their heads. |
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| When
a man had two or more wives, they would each stay in their separate lineage
houses (a man could not marry two women from the same lineage, except that
female twins became wives of chiefs). The man would inform which wife had
a turn to spend the night with him. Although permitted, polygyny
was and is quite rare, because most men could not afford to keep more than
one wife. If a wife died, it was the responsibility of her matrilineage
to provide a replacement. The relationship of marriage was the symbol
of the confederation of the matrilineal oman structure. Each matrilineage
was considered a wife of the chief’s lineage. When a chief died,
and a new one was elected by the lineage, he inherited all assets and liabilities,
including all the wives. For many of them this did not involve conjugal
duties, but was a form of old age security. In the town of Obo, where
I did my PhD research, the chief had over thirty “structural” wives,
but in practice lived with only one wife, the woman he had married before
he was selected as chief. |
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| Swiss
missionaries
came to the Gold Coast in the mid 1800s. They introduced much more
than the theology and ritual of Christianity. They sought nothing
less than the complete transformation of Akan society into a system imitating
that of their Swiss origins. |
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| Their
support for the ideal of a nuclear family implied that women should be
obedient to their husbands, stay at home to do domestic chores and raise
their children while their husbands went out to work, and to abolish chieftaincy,
matrilineages, ancestors, gods and the other institutions which supported
these ancient notions. |
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| Christian
social structure, where it was adopted, contributed to a decline in women’s
status. |
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| Husband
and wife residing together in the same residence, neolocal residence, is
not a central element (building block) or Akan social structure.
It does happen, and is correlated with whether the couple is in the home
town or away. The system developed in the long past, when away meant
living in the satellite villages to farm. When the couple returned
to the home town, they would each go to stay in their separate lineage
houses. With urbanization, and Akan people going to find work in
the city, in the country towns, or overseas, the same pattern has been
adapted. Husbands and wives live neolocally while away, but are likely
to live duolocally
when in the home town, temporarily for funerals, festivals and Easter,
and permanently for retirement, especially if one of them succeeds to a
stool office. |
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| This
pattern
of duolocal residence in the home town and neolocal residence while away
produces a household pattern that has been interpreted as social change
that is more apparent than real, as if urban households represent the westernized
pattern. |
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| The
verb “to marry” is used differently in the Akan language than it is
used in English. The relationship can be temporarily discontinued if there
is an annoyance between spouses, and the verb reflects this. |
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| Senior
women have huge power in running
abusua (lineage) affairs.
Much of this is not public. It is covert. Elders (9/10 male)
in a chief’s court may break during a case to “consult the ancestors.”
They each go off to their separate lineage houses, perhaps to have a meal.
They consult the old women in the abusua (matrilineage) house.
The facts are known to those old women, who keep better track of descent
lines, and they influence the decision made in the chief’s court by advising
the elders during that break. |
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| Separation
and divorce high frequency
–– especially
after the child bearing and child raising years. This is seen as
a needed element in maintaining the abusua (lineage). A high
divorce rate is common among most matrilineal societies around the world. |
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| Immigrants
to Canada have their feet in two cultures. This has particular significance
for Akan migrants to Canada. As with most immigrants, Akan people
in Canada retain their links to home, especially to their abusua.
Since neolocal residence is part of their original matrilineal social structure,
they look like they have assimilated, and adopted the mainstream Canadian
model of neolocal residence. |
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| As
increasing numbers of immigrants come to Canada from societies with different
structures and functions than mainstream Canada, our society is becoming
increasingly heterogeneous. Students now contemplating professional
careers, for which they are now studying criminology, social work, early
childhood education, and any other which may require interventions or communications
with people from many cultures, it is useful to look at the Akan system
for an idea of just how different a family pattern may be while sometimes
appearing to be more similar than it is. |
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