Ethnographics Gallery University of Kent

Turkish Village

Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.

Paul Stirling
CHAPTER EIGHT

KINSHIP

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Page 164


brother's son, and the two other household heads were desended from his great-grandfather. Some said these belonged to S Lineage, but Haci Osman said he thought he was agnatically related to G. In his case, there was little emphasis on the lineage, which was weak in manpower; but a less precisely defined group of people, mainly his sister's sons, frequented his guest room and depended on his patronage. Through these followers he was a man of great influence.

Two other effective lineages were explicitly descended from Immigrants.

K Lineage, Eight Households.

All great-grandchildren of one man, divided into a group of three and a group of five. Close ties were recognised; they shared a common guest room, and were-close neighbours. One other household head, an orphaned son, brought up in his mother's father's household, was sister's son to one of the households, but kept himself apart. Though socially close to each other, this lineage did not, while I was in the village, have any enemies.

M Lineage, Four Households.

This, another immigrant lineage, was by contrast militant. All were descended from the grandfather of the senior living member, an old man. The lineage contained two large and prosperous households, and was at feud with V Lineage.

Two other groups in the village acknowledge some common agnatic ancestry, but showed no sign of mutual interest.

R Lineage , Nine Households.

Three separate groups of households, whose heads in each case were close agnates, one of four, one of three and one of two households, all gave one particular name four or five generations back in their genealogies. They took no special interest in each other at all.

P Lineage, Ten Households.

One group of three households and another of five claimed a common link, and two other men, brothers, were said also to spring from the same agnatic origin. They none of them showed interest in each other, beyond their own immediate agnates.

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