NOMADS OF THE LONG BOW — HOLMBERG 



81 



Some 2 years later I made a plane flight to Lago 

 Huachi on which some Siriono were camped, 

 among them Ngida and Yikina. The latter was 

 just beginning to show signs of adolescence after 

 more than 2 years of marriage. In another in- 

 stance, Kimbai-ndti (Little-man), a mature man 

 whose wife had died, married Edab6bo (Armpit), 

 a girl who had not yet reached adolescence. They 

 lived together for some months while I was at 

 Tibaera. 



MARRIAGE 



The preferred form of marriage is that between 

 a man and his mother's brother's daughter. 

 Marriage between a man and his father's sister's 

 daughter is forbidden. Preferential mating is 

 thus of the asymmetrical cross-cousin type. In 

 actual practice, however, the choice of a mate is 

 not limited to a first cross-cousin. If such a rela- 

 tive is not available for marriage, a second cross- 

 cousin, a first cross-cousin once removed, a clas- 

 sificatory cross-cousin, or a nonrelative may be 

 substituted. 



Of the 14 marriages which I analyzed in one of 

 the bands, 6 were between a man and his mother's 

 brother's daughter. The rest were either between 

 second cross-cousins, first cross-cousins once re- 

 moved, classificatory cross-cousins, or nonrela- 

 tives. Although marriage between a man and his 

 father's sister's daughter is forbidden, I did, how- 

 ever, find one instance of a secondary marriage 

 between a man and his father's sister's daughter's 

 daughter, i. e., his first cross-cousin once removed 

 through his father's sister. But marriages of this 

 kind are exceptional (secondary, etc.) rather than 

 the rule, as attested by the fact that almost 50 

 percent of them were between a man and his 

 mother's brother's daughter. The preference for 

 the latter type of marriage is also clearly reflected 

 in the kinship system. A man calls his mother's 

 brother's daughter "potential spouse," and a 

 woman calls her father's sister's son "potential 

 spouse," while a man calls his father's sister's 

 daughter by the same term that he calls his father's 

 sister, and a woman calls her mother's brother's 

 son by the same term that she calls her brother's 

 son. 



Except for the existence of such upsetting fac- 

 tors as polygyny, divorce, death, sororate, levirate, 

 etc., more marriages between preferred cross- 

 cousins would likely occur. Because of one or 



another of these factors, however, there seems to 

 be a tendency on the part of the adult men to 

 marry younger second wives who stand in a classi- 

 ficatory, rather than a real cross-cousin relation- 

 ship to them. Hence, when a young man reaches 

 marriageable age, he may find that his first cross- 

 cousin lias already been taken to wife, and he is 

 forced to marry a classificatory cross-cousin 

 instead of his rightful spouse. 



In addition to acquiring a wife by cross-cousin 

 marriage, a man may also obtain a first, second, 

 third, or fourth wife by means of the sororate or 

 the levirate both of which are practiced by the 

 Siriono. Of the four plural marriages in one of 

 the bands, three were between a man and two or 

 more sisters. In the fourth, the man had acquired 

 his second wife through the levirate. There is no 

 set rule, however, that a man who marries a 

 woman must also marry her sisters, or that a man 

 must marry the wife of a brother on the occasion 

 of the latter's death. If a man desires these 

 wives, however, he has first claim upon them, and 

 he usually takes advantage of his rights if the 

 woman is young or otherwise desirable. 



Generally speaking, there is a strong tendency 

 for brothers to marry sisters. Hence, the condi- 

 tion which earlier evolutionary writers referred 

 to as group marriage is commonly found among 

 the Siriono. 



There are no fixed rules of endogamy or exog- 

 amy. Bands are more endogamous than exog- 

 amous, however, because they rarely have rela- 

 tions with one another and because eligible mates 

 can usually be found within one's own band. 

 When bands do come in contact with one another, 

 exogamous marriages may occur. Sometimes, too, 

 when there are no available real or classificatory 

 cross-cousins or nonrelatives in the band, a man 

 may go in quest of a wife from another band. 

 But instances of this kind are rare for several 

 reasons. In the first place, to locate another band 

 involves great effort; it may mean as many as 8 or 

 10 days' journey on foot. In the second place, 

 if a man does run across another band, he has no 

 security of finding a wife there, since the men of 

 that band are likely to hoard their women for 

 themselves. In the third place, even though a 

 man has no real wife in his own band, he may 

 possess a number of potential wives and thus not 

 lack for sexual partners. Finally, because of the 

 rule of matrilocal residence, a man will think 



