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INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBLICATION NO. 15 



children she has only one term, yepe'lj}, which she 

 extends to the children of all men whom she calls 

 brother. She uses the same terms for the children 

 of cross cousins as the man. 



A man calls the children of his sons, daughters, 

 nephews, and nieces yeremumino. A woman, 

 however, calls the children of her sons, daughters, 

 nephews, and nieces yeremyariro. 



In the parental generation, excepting in-laws, 

 the terms for affinal relatives are the same for 

 both male and female ego. Although father's 

 brother's wife is designated by the referential term 

 aikamd, mother's sister, only descriptive terms are 

 used for father's sister's husband, yaiE iru, 

 mother's sister's husband, aikamd iru, and 

 mother's brother's wife, api ameriko. A man calls 

 his father-in-law irayuwE, and his mother-in-law 

 irayo. A woman, on the other hand, uses the 

 terms yemenup and yemeni in designating her 

 husband's father and mother. 



A man calls his brother's wife kyewiE', his 

 sister's husband niwarup, his wife's sister mimia- 

 rup, and his wife's brother itutit. The terms used 

 by a woman are different. She calls her husband's 

 brother kyeiwE, her husband's sister yeukei, her 

 sister's husband ird irai', and her brother's wife 

 yeukei. The term for wife is yameriko (my wife) 

 and the term for husband is yairu (my hubsand). 



A man calls his daughter-in-law yememurake, 

 and his son-in-law iratup or irairati. Although 

 a woman calls her son-in-law by the same term as 

 the man she uses yemenutatE to designate her 

 daughter-in-law. 



MARRIAGE REGULATIONS 



Customarily a Camayura will marry his yatu- 

 hdp, cross cousin, for this is the "good" or pre- 

 ferred type of marriage. The term yatuhdp, as 

 we have seen, is applied to both male and female 

 cross cousins, and neatly sets off, in one's own 

 generation, marriageable kin from brothers and 

 sisters. If a man is not able to marry his yatuhdp, 

 actual or classificatory, he can marry his niwai', 

 sister's daughter. In the case of a woman this 

 would be marriage with her api, mother's brother. 

 No marriage between a man and his father's sister 

 was recorded. 



Although residence among the Camayura is 

 patrilocal there is a short period of matrilocal 



residence after marriage during which the husband 

 performs his bride service. Tbis period is in 

 essence a kind of trial marriage during which the 

 capacity of the wife to bear children and the capac- 

 ity of the husband to support his wife are tested. 

 After the wife bears a child and the wife's parents 

 are satisfied with their son-in-law, the man usually 

 returns to his father's house with his wife and child. 



If a man's first wife is barren, dies, or is other- 

 wise unsatisfactory, he marries her sister. If he 

 also takes a second wife he would try to marry his 

 wife's sister. If for some reason a young woman 

 is not able to find a husband, her sister's husband is 

 obliged to marry her. In every case an actual 

 sister is sought, for a man wishes to have only one 

 father-in-law. Terminologically, of course, all 

 female cross cousins are sisters to one another. 

 In addition to the sorrorate and sorroral polygyny, 

 the Camayura also practice the levirate, for on the 

 death of a husband his wife passes to the care of 

 his brother. 



In practice there are may deviations from these 

 rules. At the present time there appears to be a 

 lack of marriageable women, perhaps due to 

 polygyny, barrenness, and the death of women in 

 childbirth. If a man is not able to marry a kins- 

 woman, he will obtain a wife from one of the 

 friendly tribes or with the help of his kinsmen he 

 will try to capture a woman from the Suya. 



The periodic lack of marriageable kin appears 

 to be a fairly common characteristic among the 

 numerically small tribal groups in the Xingu. 

 The Arawak-speaking Iwalapeti, who not long 

 ago had their own village, have been forced to dis- 

 band by marrying out. The Iwalapeti men, how- 

 ever, claim that once they have fulfilled their 

 bride service they will reunite and build their 

 own village, for they and their sisters now have 

 enough children to reconstitute a self-perpetuating 

 group. Other tribal groups like the Tsuva, 

 Naravute, and Custenau have, on the other hand, 

 been so reduced in members that they have had to 

 unite permanently with other tribes of their own 

 linguistic family. 



Temporary matrilocal residence also usually 

 applies only to first marriages. If a man marries 

 his wife's sister he does not have to repeat the 

 bride service. When a man obtains a wife from 

 a friendly tribe, the girl's father decides whether 

 bride service is necessary. Bride service, of course, 



