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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 2 



once he understood the words, in classifying 

 the people he knew in these categories. The 

 second major division is a relatively new one, 

 that between the cabildo or aces in charge of the 

 church mayordomias and their followers, and 

 those who oppose this group. The details of 

 this dispute will be given later. Other classi- 

 fications are essentially those of kinship and the 

 compadrazgo system. 



KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY AND 

 BEHAVIORS 



Spanish kinship terms are in common use in 

 Cheran, with very little difference from 

 standard Mexican usage. Many of the Taras- 

 can terms have been forgotten entirely. The 

 few Tarascan terms still remembered are rarely 

 used and no one person knows all these. The 

 terminology secured was obtained by getting 

 several genealogies. After these had been com- 

 pared and collated, Pedro Chavez spent several 

 weeks in casual inquiries, as a result of which 

 he added sevei'al Tarascan terms, most of which 

 are used with the same meaning as the more 

 commonly employed Spanish term. In the 

 charts of the terminology, both terms are given. 

 In a few instances, different terms are em- 

 ployed in the vocative and in indirect discourse. 

 In this case, the vocative term is indicated by 

 (X) . The Cheran Tarascans have very little 

 interest in kinship and the data are presented 

 with little confidence in their significance (figs. 

 12 (seep. 99), 13, 14, 1.5). 



K 



7j 



TEMALE BREAKING 



{OTMCR5 ^S MALr) 



her/TJiXna. 



Figure 13. — Cheran kinship, female speaking. This 

 chart shows only the differences from the terms 

 used by the male. For all relatives not shown the 

 female uses the male terms. 



The nomenclature as it exists today is abso- 

 lutely bilateral. There are also no distinctions 

 based on relative age. In the Tarascan terms 

 a few distinctions are made in the sibling group 

 based on the sex of the speaker. The brothers 

 of parents are occasionaly called papa; this was 

 once more common. No such practice was 

 recorded for the sisters of parents. The term 

 "abuelo"(a)-* is extended to the brothers and 



" The "o" ending is masculine, the **a'* feminine. 



sisters of grandparents, but the other grand- 

 parent terms appear to be confined to the actual 

 grandparents. Of some interest in the descend- 

 ing generation is the fact that ego's own grand- 

 children are called by the same terms as ego's 

 children in Spanish discourse, while the chil- 

 dren of nephews and nieces are called by the 

 Spanish grandchild terms. In Tarascan dis- 

 course, however, ego's grandchildren and the 

 grandchildren of ego's brothers and sisters are 

 all called by the same term regardless of sex. 



In the affinal terms, survival of a Tarascan 

 term for sister-in-law (woman speaking) may 

 be noted. Puzzling (and possibly incorrect) 

 is the reappearance of the term for brother 

 (man speaking) in the term for daughter-in- 

 law. The parents of a child's spouse are re- 

 ferred to as compadre and comadre; in this 

 connection it should be observed that they 

 actually become covipadres and comadres as a 

 part of the wedding ceremony, along with most 

 of the other close relatives of the spouse. The 

 terms pdli and mdli applied to brothers and 

 sisters of a child's spouse are simply terms of 

 respect or appreciation which may be applied 

 to one's own children or to a completely unre- 

 lated person. 



Two terms not appearing in the charts should 

 be mentioned. Taramba refers to the daughter- 

 in-law of a third person, that is, of neither the 

 person speaking nor the person addressed. 

 Similarly tarampiri refers to father-in-law 

 of a third person. In Spanish discourse, first 

 cousins (children of parents' brothers and 

 sisters) are sometimes referred to as primo(a) 

 hermano(a). 



In addressing or speaking of any person be- 

 yond the range of the charts, usually the terms 

 tio(a) and primo(a) would be used, depending 

 upon age. All persons with whom kinship 

 obligations are recognized would be so called, 

 even though neither person could remember 

 the degree of relationship or trace the connec- 

 tion. In general, an individual regards the 

 cousins of his uncles and aunts as pretty remote 

 relatives, although he will call them tio(a) and 

 their children primo(a) and usually will be 

 able to trace the relationship. It would be 

 unlikely for the children of such distantly 

 related cousins to maintain the kinship address, 

 even though of the same family name. How- 



