The Impact of Kin Ship Systems on the Generat Ion of Ho U Se-types Ra Jmoh an Sherry

A matrilineal descent system practiced In and around the city of Calicut In southern India has had far-reaching Implications for the structure of the local built environment. The tarawad system, practiced by the Moplah Muslim, Hindu Nayar and Nambudrl Brahmin communities, has created a residential pattern of clan houses, also called tarawads, that sometimes contain as many as one hundred residents. Although the traditional tara wad system Is currently being eroded by the institution ofthe nuclear family as an Independent economic unit, the persistence of the tarawad as a social Institution has been facilitated for centuries by rules prescribing the transfer of property within descent groups. The maintenance of a pool offamily property and the ability to fairly distribute living space within the tarawad house on occasions of marriage by female members of the tarawad were keys to the survival ofthe family structure. Corporate ownership of property in that structure provided physical evidence of the social bond between members of the kin -group. The tarawad system, as traditionally practiced, had a number of specific implications for the structuring of residential space. Key among these, for reasons of separation between individual household domains, was a distinction between public, semi­ public and private space. Because rituals traditionally contained a comunal component, each tarawad house also contained a ritual core. The paper proceeds from an analysis of features of the tarawad system which have implications for the structuring of the residential unit to an examination offour specific tarawad houses. These are presented as representative prototyes based on field research. Three of the four houses are from the Muslim Moplah community in central Calicut. The fourth belongs to a Hindu Nayar tarawad on the outskirts of the city, and is presented as a comparison to show how the tarawad house structure evolved differently in a different cultural group that subscribed to the same kinship system .