Kinship and Cannibalism

Cannibalism, kuru and anthropology.

This essay discusses the image and practice of cannibalism in a wide range of studies. It also presents the anthropological research on kuru which led to the proposal that cannibalism had enabled transmission of the infectious agent, as well as doubts about the hypothesis, and the assertion by some that cannibalism as a socially approved custom did not exist. The figure of the cannibal as an ic...

Kinship Expressions and Terms

All languages have expressions that can be glossed ‘father,’ ‘wife,’ ‘brother-in-law,’ etc., covering consanguineal, spousal, and affinal categories. However, from the beginning of serious cross-cultural study, it has been apparent that societies differ in the kinship categories used. To facilitate comparison, an ‘etic grid’ is necessary; namely, an open-ended universe of kin-types, such as ‘fa...

Kinship, Class, and Community

This review presents studies in various world regions. Each uses network analysis software designed explicitly for kinship studies with explicit network measures of cohesion. It presents evidence of fundamental differences in the forms of marital cohesion that show profoundly variable effects over a wide range of social phenomena, regional scales, and diverse cultures. Social cohesion is the ba...

Homicide and Kinship

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your perso...

African Family and Kinship