Turkish Village
Copyright 1965, 1994 Paul Stirling. All rights reserved.
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Page 155
woman who is likely to share a household with one at some point and remain a neighbour throughout married life, anddünür , child's spouse's parents. All three terms are in common use in the villages where they refer to relations important in village society (p. 172).
Details apart, the kinship structure and the terminology are not a close fit. The village is presented by a larger society with ready-made kinship terminology, the main feature of which is that it is readily adaptable to a wide range of possible social systems, and has only a general negative relation to the social structure. Some details have clearly been adapted to fit particular aspects of village society; others seem to have no explanation of this sort. To put the matter another way: if we had nothing but a record of the kinship terminology of this society, how much could we safely deduce about the kinship system? Very little.
Rights and Duties of Agnates
Agnates have a duty which separates them sharply from all other kin. They must stand together in disputes. If a man quarrels, his agnates must support him. If he is attacked, they must defend him. If he is killed, they must avenge him. By defining loyalties in serious cases, this duty divides the villages into fairly clear cut and potentially hostile agnatic groups.
These groups are fundamental to the village political structure, and are the basis of the feuding system. Both of these topics will be treated more fully in chapter eleven.
Agnates of course share the general duties of kin to each other; indeed these are normally stronger between agnates than among others, and services rendered are less precisely evaluated and less meticulously reciprocated.
In the winter, almost all village men meet together to gossip in a number of guest rooms. In the summer more casual groups form out of doors during the evenings. I shall analyse these groups later (p. 240). Their core is usually agnatic, and the guet rooms are often identified with a particular lineage.
In a crisis, it is the duty first and foremost of agnates to help out. In Sakaltutan, one old man lived in the lower quarter in
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