Thursday, January 27, 2011

Kin dread

A Snow Day meant no class meetings today. Instead, I puzzled out how to convey (that is, after first somehow understanding) the complicated kinship rules of the Yolngu people who are our first object of study. These diagrams from Howard Morphy's 1984 Journey to the Crocodile’s Nest: An accompanying monograph to the film “Madarrpa Funeral at Gurka’wuy” help show the weave of patriliny and matriliny - a little!