CHAPTER VII

THE KINSHIP SYSTEM AND MARRIAGE

HE concentration of attention upon the household group has been necessary in order to gain a thorough knowledge of kinship and affinal relations at the level of the co-residential household group, but we must be conscious of the fact that each village is a close-packed community living on a very small piece of land.  This means that households are not spatially isolated as in many peasant communities, where the household itself tends to be a locus of more extensive social intercourse (for example see Rees 1951).  Whilst there is a fair amount of reciprocal home visiting, particularly by women, there are other places and other occasions for social intercourse.

However, living together and growing up together are important foci for the ordering of kinship relations, and the importance of women as the nucleus of affective ties within the household is projected into the wider kinship system.  Radcliffe-Brown has said that ‘…we have to recognize that in many systems the structural unit consists of a woman and her children’.  ‘It is by the position of this structural unit in the total kinship structure that we can define the contrast between mother-right and father-right.  In true mother-right the unit group of mother and children is completely incorporated, jurally or legally, in the group of the woman’s brothers and sisters.  In true father-right the unit group is incorporated for jural purposes in a group consisting of brothers with their wives and children’ (Radcliffe-Brown 1950: 81).  In the system with which we are dealing, the structural unit clearly consists of a woman and her children, and the difficulty lies not so much in determining where this unit is embedded for jural purposes as in seeing where males fit in relation to it at any particular time.  It would perhaps be more correct to say that the significant structural unit is not so much a woman and her children as a woman, her daughters and their young children, for this would then high-light the fact that men do not exercise jural authority over their sisters and sisters’ children, nor does the unit of a woman and her children become attached to a male combination of father and sons, in the status of wife and children.  In short we are dealing with neither true mother-right nor father-right.  We have already established the fact that a woman with her children accepts the authority of a male or males during the crucial period of her life when she is bearing children, but that the tendency is for women to assert their autonomy in their status as mothers, deriving their authority from their control over their children even when they are adult.  There is no ‘matrilineal’ system involved, and the configuration of domestic groups varies according to the differential application of the principles of the autonomy of a short (no more than three generation) matri-line, and the autonomy of a co-residential elementary family with nominal control by the husband-father.  The latter is the ‘ideal type’ of the system, and it is by reference to it that the formal pattern of the kinship system is constructed.  The system is bilateral, or cognatic, and descent is normally recognized to a depth of three generations.  That is, to the extent of a contemporaneously-living three-generation group.  The significant lines of descent have been experienced by ego sometime during his lifetime.  If ego’s grandparents died before he was born, or whilst he was very young he will either know nothing of them or be very uncertain about them.  If he knew his grandparents then it is unlikely that he will know very much about their parents.

Whilst the kinship system is a shallow one, it has a fairly wide lateral extension, but it is not a symmetrical concentric system except in a very generalized way.  The lateral range of reckoning depends once again on experiential factors, and is related to an ascending and descending recognition of sibling groups.  In the descending generation from a sibling group special emphasis is laid on being ‘two sisters’ children’ and this is a commonly employed kinship term without any comparable designation for ‘two brothers’ children’, or a cross-cousin relationship.  These relationships are recognized, but the term ‘two sisters’ children’ derives from a very interesting feature of the system, which we have characterized as the focal position of women of the parental generation in the household group.  A woman is recognized to have authority over her daughter’s children, and can punish or reward them, utilize their services and so on, but she does not have parallel rights over her son’s children, for as the saying goes, ‘they are another woman’s children’, meaning that it is to their own mother that they have the primary tie, which brings them within the sphere of influence of some other matri-focal unit.  Since this is so, it is clear that two brothers’ children, or cross-cousins, do not come within the range of the same matri-focal unit of the maternal grandmother, but belong to different units.  It is this fact which gives the whole system a shift towards the female side in both ascending and descending lateral reckoning.  This state of affairs is very different from a matrilineal system where the primary emphasis is upon the brother-sister relationship and not the child-mother-grandmother relationship.  In a matrilineal system the legal bond is between brother and sister and mother’s brother and sister’s son, and it is difficult to imagine how the Guianese system could be derived from this any more than from any other system.  In modern Ashanti the change seems to be in the direction of a shift from the mother’s-brother—sister’s-son relationship to the father-son relationship with its main expression in a modification of the rules of transmission of property.  In British Guiana there is no comparable record of a shift of property rights, nor is there any retention of a matri-line of the Ashanti type (see Fortes 1949b and 1950).  The essential feature of the Guianese system is the minimal importance of men in any descent line, including the elementary family.  Of course this does not mean that relationships are not traced through men; they most certainly are, but the full range of possible ties through fathers is not exploited to the same extent as it is through mothers.

Let us now try to take all possible relationships from ego and examine each one and try to assess its significance.  With the reckoning of relationship in so many different lines it is practically impossible to schematize the system into a diagram and so this purely descriptive device has to be employed.

Ego’s own generation

In ego’s own generation the most important relatives are full siblings, or uterine siblings with different fathers.  Even within this group there is one major differentiation and other possible ones.  Sisters have a closer bond than do brothers, or brothers and sisters, and this is due primarily to their identification with the mother as women and mothers.  Sisters render each other mutual help with their children, and when the mother of two sisters is dead they take responsibility for each other’s children in the event of serious trouble or death.  As we might expect, the relationship of sisters is not uniformly one of co-operation, reciprocal help and amity.  There is a certain amount of competition and latent hostility between sisters which is co-existent with their cooperation.  Sisters quarrel with each other, and even fight, and cases crop up in court where two sisters living close to each other become involved in brawls and find themselves prosecuted for using obscene language or disturbing the peace.  Such cases are infrequent, and would hardly occur whilst the mother of the two sisters is alive, for then their relationship to each other is quite definitely conditioned by their common subordination to their mother.  In the folk-lore, one finds stories in the ‘Nancy’ (see Chapter III, note 1) story series which refer to a woman with two daughters, one of whom she likes and one whom she doesn’t like.  The two daughters are set to compete against each other in some way and the disliked one emerges as the better of the two.  The following is an example.

There were two girls, one bin name Bucky an one bin name Klajo.  Their mother na bin like Bucky—only Klajo she does like—so every time Bucky goes upstairs she does drive down Bucky and tell she fu go wash de dutty wares.  So one day she went at a river and dropped the silver spoon, an she went an say ‘Ma de silver spoon los’.  She say ‘you best go an caranker for it’.  She go, she go an fine de place an she meet two head a fight, an she turn to the head an say ‘Good afternoon me grandpuppa’, and the head say ‘Good afternoon me daughter’.  The head say ‘Go good an come back good’.  She go, she see two lion a fight an she turn to one an say ‘Good afternoon me grandpuppa’ and the lion say ‘Good afternoon me grandmother’.  She go again, she see two tiger fight.  She tell the tiger de same ting an the tiger tell she back.  And then she go an see an ole lady an she turn to this ole lady an say ‘Good afternoon grandmother’ and this lady say ‘Good afternoon me daughter’.  She say ‘How far you goin?’ She say, ‘I los me mother’s silver spoon an she tell me to go an caranker for it’.  And de lady call she in an she go in.  She say ‘Daughter, me got one grain rice, an you must cook it, an if you see a cat comin, you must give it this food an break it back with a stick’.  Dis gal tek it an cook it an gie it to the cat an then gie it water to drink.  An the cat return back and turn to this same ole lady comin.  ‘Me daughter please can look me head, it got pimpler’.  An the gal look the old lady head an tek out the pimpler.  She say—‘Me got one fowl-shit bed an one good bed.  Which one you goin sleep on ?’ The girl say it is the fowl-shit bed she does sleep pon. When day clean the old lady say she got two egg, one wha say ‘tek me’, and one wha say ‘na tek me’.  Take the one wha say ‘tek me’.  When she go to turn, she bus de egg, an she bus the silver spoon from the egg.  She bus, she bus she self pure gold ‘pon she skin.  She go, and when she tell she mother she foun the silver spoon, she mother chase out de nex’ gal, an tell she she mus go and caranker too.  When she go she see two head a fight an she say ‘Oh my lord, ah never see two head a fight yet’.  She go an she see two lion a fight an she say de same ting.  De lion say ‘Go bad, an come back bad to me’.  She go again an see two tiger a fight an she say de same words, an the tiger tell she ‘Go bad an come back bad to me’.  She go an she see the ole lady sit down an she ent tell the lady ‘good afternoon’, and the lady call she.  She say ‘Wha you a call me for?’ an she went over.  She say ‘Gal, me got one grain rice, an you must cook it, an if you see a cat comin you must give it this food to eat, an break it back with a stick’.  She say ‘One grain rice can’t cook’.  She say ‘Well a got this two grain rice, you mus cook it’.  She say ‘two grain rice can’t cook’, an she say ‘A got this half cup rice’ an she took it an cook, an the rice run all over the pot, trow away till it done cook.  An then she saw the cat, give it of that food, and broke the cat back.  Then the lady come in an draggin, an she say, ‘look me head got plenty pimpler’.  She say, ‘Who goin look you head for pimpler’ and she ent look.  The old lady say, ‘A got a good bed and a bad bed, which are you going sleep on ?’ She say ‘De good bed, na, the good bed.  Who goin sleep pon bad bed ?’ She sleep on it till nex mornin.  When day clean, the ole lady turn to she an say, ‘I got two egg in the pen.  One wha say “Tek me” an one wha say “na tek me”, an tek de one wha say “na tek me”.  An she tek de one wha say ‘na tek me’.  When she meet out, she bus, an she bus pure tar, an when she bus the nex’ one out jump lion an tiger an eat she up.  Story done.

This story illustrates many other points apart from the latent rivalry between sisters in relation to the mother, and serves particularly to point the moral that obedience, politeness and unselfishness are rewarded, whereas bad manners and covetousness are eventually punished.  The interesting terminological usages where the lion calls her his ‘grandmother’ and tiger and the old lady refer to her as ‘daughter’ are not repetitions of normal usages.  A young person would rarely refer to an older one as ‘grandpuppa’ or ‘grandmother’ as a polite form of address, though they might, and the older person would almost invariably address the younger as ‘child’ or ‘my child’.  However, in the story the terms of address are quite compatible with the type of relationship existing between kin under certain circumstances and it is interesting to find ‘grandmother’ actually used where ‘granddaughter’ might be more appropriate, for these two are terms denoting a relationship of equality.  This story is reproduced exactly as it was recorded from a 16-years-old girl who was telling it to a group of younger children.  Any discrepancies and lack of consistency were there as the story was told.

Between brothers there is rarely any such mutual assistance, though occasionally one does find brothers farming together, or assisting each other in time of need.  Between brother and sister there is a bond of friendship, but no real sense of mutual responsibility.  One rarely finds a young man interfering in his sister’s love affairs, or taking her side in any quarrel with one of her lovers.  Despite this, the sibling group is an important one, and all siblings have equivalent rights to inheritance of property, land often being passed undivided as ‘children’s property’.  This is discussed more fully elsewhere, where we show that the holding of undivided rights in property is often only a method of delaying the resolution of individual ownership for a while (Smith 1955: 73).  Quarrels may arise between siblings over property, but such quarrels are infrequent and of very limited severity.  They are very sharply contrasted with the quarrels which arise between the children of the wealthy shopkeepers over the inheritance.  Where a certain amount of land is held jointly by a sibling group, there may be the development of a greater solidarity within the group in the sense that the eldest brother will often allocate pieces of land to the children of the members of the group when they wish to start farming, or to build a house.  This is not common though, and few men are willing to accept the jurisdiction of their elder brothers in this way, preferring to accumulate their own collection of parcels of land, and allow whoever is using it to acquire ownership of the joint property.

Half-siblings by the same father but with different mothers normally belong to two quite different and often mutually antagonistic matri-focal units.  This naturally conditions their relationship to each other and only in a minority of cases do you find any close tie between half-siblings of different mothers.  A man’s ‘outside’ children do not rank equally with his legitimate children as far as a share in his property at his death is concerned.  Ideally they should be given something, but this is usually left to the widow or the surviving legitimate heirs.  A widow will often give preference to her own children, by different men, who have grown in the dead man’s household and this may cause a certain amount of friction.  However, the right of the widow to dispose of the property as she sees fit is unquestioned in the last resort.

The most important factor in shaping the sibling relationship is the fact of growing together in the same household.  This is the real social sibling tie, and children who have grown together in a household can all expect a share in the inheritance of the household head, and his wife or common-law wife.  It is often said that an illegitimate child who grows with his grandparents is in many ways better off than anyone.  He is likely to get a share in his grandparents’ property, in his own mother’s property, and has at least a chance of a share in his genitor’s property.  Living together means common allegiance to the same female of the ascending generation, but living in a household, whilst strengthening one’s ties to the members of that household does not sever completely the other ties of consanguinity, particularly within the village.  The tie to your own mother is always important to some extent even if you don’t live with her, and your siblings by the same mother are always your friends even if you live in different villages.

The sibling relationship shades over into the cousin relationship with very little break, particularly when ego is young.  We have already seen that two sisters’ children are particularly close because of their common attachment to their maternal grandmother, and this is the closest to the sibling relationship.  Other first cousins are always on easy and friendly terms and there is more intimacy between cousins of opposite sex, than there is between full siblings of opposite sex.  Marriage or sexual intercourse is prohibited within this degree of relationship, but marriage does take place occasionally, though the couple will have to leave the village at least for the wedding, and there will be a good deal of opposition from the older generation.  At the lateral range of second cousins within the same generation, the relationship will be of less importance than a neighbour relationship.  Whilst marriage or intercourse is formally forbidden between second cousins because they are felt to be ‘too close,’ it would not be impossible for such a marriage to take place within the village.  Beyond second cousins, kin relations merge into local relations and it is at the point of ‘cousin’ that the two are articulated.

The term ‘cousin’ as a form of address is used for anyone including strangers to the village, and this is the key to an understanding of its importance.  Whether the term ‘coz’ was derived from Elizabethan English or not is of secondary importance (see Henriques 1953: 137).  What is important is the fact that it designates the point at which local relations and kin relations become fused and cease to be differentiated, and hence it is a position of structural importance.

First ascending generation from ego

There is no need to recapitulate our remarks concerning intra-household relationships here, but something has to be said about the relations of parents to children who do not live with them.  This pattern of divided residence occurs most frequently in the case of fathers and their ‘illegitimate’ children.  A young woman who bears a child whilst living with her family of orientation without being married to, or living with, the father of the child, has complete rights over the child, or at least shares rights over the child with her parents, particularly her mother.  The father has no rights over the child, but he has a very definite obligation to support it and the courts will issue a maintenance order on reasonable evidence of paternity, rightly giving the benefit of the doubt to the mother.  Children of unmarried parents have to be registered like any other children, but the name of the father is almost invariably omitted from the official registration record.  However, the child takes the genitor’s name unless he has denied paternity and the courts have upheld his denial.  In practice most children do take the name of their genitor though they may have been known by their mother’s name when they were very small.  It is when they go to school that the matter becomes crystallized, for their names then have to be registered in the school records.  Sometimes mothers do not press the fathers of their children for maintenance, and fathers often contribute to the support of their children without being taken to court.  The derivation of the surname from the genitor is obviously an important social recognition of paternity and it serves to distinguish half-siblings even though they grow up together.

As soon as a child is old enough it is sent to visit its father, and some kind of relationship will be established.  The father will give small presents to his child, and although the child will normally be very shy and reserved under these circumstances, it is a well established custom for it to be able to go and ask for small gifts.  Of course if the father does not live in the same village, then the child may never know him at all.  A great deal depends on the father’s proximity and on the fact of his having ‘recognized’ his child.

Food taboos are commonly found in rural Guiana, and when such taboos occur, persons will say of the taboo food (which is usually skin-fish, goat, sheep or pumpkin), ‘it is me kinna’.  Eating the taboo food will allegedly result in severe rashes or leprosy.  In some areas it is asserted that one’s ‘kinna’ is inherited from one’s genitor, and although there was not total agreement on this by informants it does show that symbolic ways are found of expressing the importance of the relationship of a child to its genitor . [1]   Also, the fact that when a child grows up in the household of its mother’s spouse, this man not being its genitor, there is no suppression of the fact that it has a different father, must be regarded as highly significant.  Even in England when a child is adopted or acquires a pater who is not its genitor it often remains unaware of the facts of its birth.  In the situation with which we are dealing social fatherhood is itself not highly developed and it is instructive to find that it is hardly ever considered necessary to suppress the fact of actual biological fatherhood, but on the contrary it is from him that you acquire not only your name but also in many cases your ‘kinna’, or food taboos.

Aunts and uncles (i.e. brothers and sisters of mother and father), are important relatives, and are treated with the same deference afforded to one’s own parents.  Again it is necessary to stress the female bias and point out that mother’s sisters are usually the closest relatives, with mother’s brothers and father’s siblings ranking lower in order of importance to ego.  There is no fixed pattern of rights, duties and obligations towards aunts and uncles, but the tendency is for mother’s sisters to be closely identified with the mother, and ego often ranks as ‘house people’ in his mother’s sister’s house.  The spouses of mother’s and father’s siblings are also referred to as ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’.

Second ascending generation from ego

Terms of address and relationships to grandparents vary according to the context in which they operate.  This is to be seen most clearly in ego’s relation to his maternal grandmother where it sometimes happens that he will refer to her, and regard her, as a mother, using the term ‘Mama’ as a form of address (see Chapter VI).

The normal relationship between grandparents and grandchildren is one of affection and easy familiarity, though the maternal grandmother always tends to be a figure of authority to be respected.  A grandfather may function in the role of father to ego, just as a grandmother may act as mother, but the relationship is always much more vague and ill-defined in such cases.  Since the functions of fathers in relation to any children are very limited, the child does not need to adopt a set of specific responses to a particular male whom it calls ‘father’.

The relationships between ego and his paternal grandparents are usually limited to occasional courtesy visits and the giving of small presents.  A great deal depends upon the relationship between ego’s mother and his paternal grandparents.  If they live near by then it is quite likely that friendly relations will develop but there is rarely that close identification that is found with the maternal grandmother, unless of course ego grows in the household of his paternal grand parents as sometimes happens.

Relations with grandparents’ siblings and their descendants tend to come in the category of ‘distant relatives’ or ‘we are family’.  The terms ‘great-aunt’ and ‘great-uncle’ are sometimes used, and ‘cousin’ is a term used to cover both ascending and descending generation relatives, as well as those in ego’s own generation.  If pressed to be specific, persons will indicate relationship by the use of such phrases as ‘my mother is to call her aunt’ which show clearly that ego’s relationship to alter is a derivative of his parents’ relationship.  Such relationships lie outside the bounds of the close kinship unit, and are only stressed for special purposes which may arise.

Throughout our discussion of kinship ties we have had to refer again and again to the importance of the unit comprising a woman, her daughters and their children.  Although we have stressed the fact that this unit rarely becomes completely differentiated as a functional whole, we have to regard it as an important focus of social relations.  If we view the total kinship system as a network of ties extending over the whole village community it will be an irregular network with gaps here and there, but within it one will be able to discern a regular motif where the ties of a woman, her daughters and their children are more closely knit than any other relationships.  The closeness of these bonds, which are really constituted by virtue of the fact of motherhood, obtrude time and again as determinants of the form taken by household groups.  Men are less closely bound up with any kin groups than are women, but it is of course a matter of degree, and not an assertion that they are not tied into the kinship system.  What we have been saying so far about kinship refers particularly to August Town, though the general principles apply equally to Perseverance and Better Hope.  In Better Hope there is a slight shrinkage of the range of kinship ties, whilst in Perseverance men are relatively more integrated into the pattern.

TERMINOLOGY

The analysis of kinship terminology becomes quite complicated when one comes to consider a situation where there is a comparative lack of precision in the patterning of kinship relations, and where terms which are familiar to the investigator are used in ways which differ to some degree from the accepted usage of the same words in this country.  We have already touched upon the main relationships which are recognized, and indicated briefly the terms of address and reference associated with them, but a consideration of actual usage will throw more light on the situation.

The widespread use of ‘fond names’ or nick-names is rarely recorded in the West Indies, but it is important and should not be overlooked.  Almost every villager is endowed with a fond name by which he or she is often better known than by their real name a fact which can cause considerable confusion to persons carrying out surveys or censuses, or even in cases where individuals have to be traced for more important purposes.  Many of these names seem to be African in origin, whilst others are more topical, or may be simple distortions of the real name.  In many cases the fond name is a compound of a kinship term and the person’s christian name.  The use of fond names as terms of address quite clearly implies a certain latitude in the relationship, and a fond name could only be used by persons standing in certain relationships to the person being addressed.  Schneider suggests that the use of kinship terms as a form of address imposes on the situation a kind of constraint imposing conformity to the social definition of the relationship, since the kinship term stands for the way in which each person should behave towards the other (Schneider 1953: 228).  He goes on to say that the employment of a personal name as a form of address, permits the relationship wider latitude.  However this may be, observation makes it clear that the use of fond names may express either friendliness and a sense of equality, or disrespect, depending on who uses the name, and sometimes on which name is used, since one individual may possess several.  Kinship terms are most frequently used in addressing persons of ascending generations.  ‘Ma’, ‘Mama’, ‘Mother’, ‘Pa’, ‘Papa’, ‘Daddy’ or ‘Father’ are the most common specific kinship terms used in address, for these are the kinship relations with the greatest degree of social specificity.  Children do not use ‘fond-names’ in addressing their parents.  In the ‘fond-names’ themselves we find older persons acquiring names which are compounds such as ‘Uncle Rocca’, ‘Auntie Big’, ‘Papa Dick’, ‘Nana’, etc., which are essentially respect terms generalized as ‘fond-names’ and used by the whole village.  Such terms label their bearers as being of an older generation and do not express specified kinship relations.  One of the most interesting examples of ‘distorted’ kinship terminology is found in situations where there is a co-residential group consisting of a woman, her daughter and her daughter’s children.  We have already dealt with the relationships involved in a group of this kind, and mentioned that the tendency is for the children to call the maternal grandmother ‘Mama’ (see Chapter VI).  The child’s own mother can never be regarded as a full sibling in a case like this, and the conflict is resolved by the child adopting a reference term such as ‘sister’ or ‘auntie’ or sometimes just using the mother’s christian name, but not her ‘fond-name’.  The use of the term ‘sister’ is interesting because it is not normally used as a term of address between siblings, unless they are widely separated in age, when a younger sibling may then use it.  The use of these terms is a very clear indication of the position of the biological mother in this triadic relationship, and shows that there is no question of her assuming absolute equality with her child, despite its assimilation to a filial relationship to the maternal grandmother.

In a referential context, exact kinship terms may be used more frequently, but it is interesting to note that latent hostilities between proximal generations may be expressed by the use of the mother’s or father’s ‘fond-name’ in certain situations where this might be unthinkable as a term of address.  Between husband and wife, adherence to formal terms, both in address and reference, is the rule, for this is the one relationship which requires constant reaffirmation owing to the tensions inherent in it.  We said earlier, in citing Schneider, that the use of personal names allows a greater latitude in behaviour than the use of formal terms which tend to define relationships more precisely, but the corollary of this is that where the relationships are extremely well defined, there can be permitted a greater latitude in behaviour and it is not so essential to use specific terms of address which will define the situation.  Thus in a household group, siblings or quasi-siblings never use the terms ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in address, and rarely in reference.

THE FUNCTION OF KINSHIP TIES

A discussion of the kinship system should properly be left until we have considered the political aspects of village structure and the system of social stratification, for whilst it is possible to discuss kinship as an extension from the nuclear relationships of the elementary family, it is necessary to bear in mind the fact that the degree to which kinship and affinal ties are ramified to provide a system of social categorization will depend to a large extent on the nature of the economic and political system.  We may anticipate a later discussion by stating that the main lines of differentiation in the total social system are those of ‘colour’ and ‘class’, and that the major part of the population of our villages is ‘black’ (low status) and ‘lower-class’.  In this sense each village is primarily a local solidary sub-group with a minimum of internal status differentiation amongst its Negro inhabitants.  This is an inadequate statement of the position, but it will do for the time being.  This being the case, taken in conjunction with the fact that in the economic system it is the ability to earn cash wages which is the most important single consideration, it becomes clear that kinship only performs the function of providing a basis for status ascription in a very limited sense.  Of course being born a Negro is in itself a derivative of a kinship tie, but the kinship unit which is significant from this point of view is the whole Negro section of the population of the country which forms an almost completely endogamous group.  The word ‘almost’ is important for it is a feature of the ‘middle-class’ kinship system that marrying across the colour lines is a mechanism of upward social mobility and colour status is exchangeable with achieved status within this social stratum, at least to some extent.  It is beyond the scope of this study to deal with this aspect of the matter but it has been reported in some detail for Trinidad (see Braithwaite 1953) and Jamaica (see Henriques 1953).

Of course, for any individual the initial ascribed status is a kinship status as a member of a particular family, or more significantly as the child of a particular woman.  However, the absence of significant ranking as between families means that the primary status determinants for any individual spring from the position of his family of orientation as a village family and as part of the Negro group.  At this level, membership of these groups is a status determinant which completely over-rides the membership of a particular family or household group.

Where political control is largely imposed from above, or vested in the persons arbitrarily chosen by the Local Government Board, there is no inheritance of positions of importance.  In August Town it would seem that the office of overseer was tending to become hereditary, as the position of headman may have been in the past.  However, even during the course of one year’s field-work two overseers were discharged at the suggestion of the Board because of their alleged inefficiency.  Church offices too are usually filled by teachers or persons who have proved their competence at conducting meetings, keeping minutes, etc., in the ‘proper’ way, and are not passed on from father to son, mother to daughter, etc.  They tend however to be kept within the group that constitutes the village, particularly in the case of August Town Congregational Church.

If kinship is not utilized as the basis for segmentation and the transmission of political office, what then is it used for, and how? The lateral range of kinship recognition is fairly wide, and August Town is often spoken of as being ‘all one family’.  However, this is merely a recognition that any person can trace a multitude of ties to other members of the village, particularly since village endogamy is the rule, but there is no provision for a systematic ordering of all local relationships on a kinship basis in the sense that everyone is placed in a kinship category of some kind.  The term ‘we are family’ can be used to cover any type of relationship within the range of kinship recognition.

Kinship in its aspect of lateral extension then comes to be a mechanism of integration of the solidary sub-group.  If anything, it works to inhibit internal rank differentiation by binding a large number of cognates into an extensive network of kinship ties which are conceived as relations of equality as implied in the term ‘we are family to each other’.  The order of kinship ties at this level are very little different from the ties springing from territorial co-residential patterns, and the term ‘all August Town is one family’ illustrates the coincidence of the two orders of relationships.  Kinship ties do cross the boundaries of the village because of the fact that village endogamy is not complete, but they extend for the most part into communities of a similar kind, having the same general position in the total social system.

WITCHCRAFT BELIEFS

At this point a brief reference to a widely held belief is introduced since it throws some light on the kind of relationships we have been discussing.

The witchcraft beliefs of the coastal Negro population concentrate on the conception of the ‘old hag’ who can magically shed her skin at night, and fly forth in the form of a ball of fire to suck the blood of her victims.  Although the term ‘old hag’ implies femininity, in fact witches may be of either sex, and the terms ‘suck man’ or ‘suck woman’ (meaning to suck blood) are frequently used.  The victim gradually weakens through loss of blood and dies, and it is particularly children or pregnant women who are liable to attack.  The quality of being ‘old hag’ is referred to as having ‘fire’ and may be acquired in several ways, the most common of which is having the ‘fire’ passed on in the form of a trinket or coin which the person is asked to ‘keep’ for someone else who is already a witch.  Alternatively the ‘fire’ may be acquired by a person who has attempted to get riches by means of obeah (black magic), and whose plans have gone awry, being given ‘fire’ instead.  In short the acquisition of ‘fire’ is usually involuntary, and it is handed on as soon as possible to someone who is close to you, and probably a member of your own family.

People who ‘suck’ can be detected by their downcast furtive glances and their red-rimmed eyes, as well as by more formal means such as their inability to walk across a white chalk line drawn across the road, or to pick silver money out of a pail of water.  If salt is sprinkled on the skin of a person who has gone out ‘to suck’ then when he returns he will be unable to get back into it and will cry ‘skin, skin, you no know me? Skin, skin you no know me?’ The defence against attacks by ‘old hag’ consists in placing a manicole broom [2] or a knife blade over the door of the house, or in making a chalk mark which the ‘old hag’ cannot cross.  One house had this sign chalked on the door and it was reputed to be to keep away ‘old hag’.

It is not intended to discuss the origins or distribution of these beliefs though it may be noted that they are substantially the same as those reported for other parts of the West Indies (see Trevor 1950: 115–21), and bear marked resemblances to the Obayifo beliefs of the Ashanti (see Rattray 1916:48).

The persons generally reputed to ‘suck’ have no over-riding common characteristic in real life.  They may be men or women, young or old, ugly or normal, but they may quite well be ‘peculiar’ in a series of apparently unconnected ways.  A man or woman who is secretive and unfriendly, or ill-tempered and ill-mannered may be singled out.  A person who is mean and selfish or who is suspected of making a lot of money which he keeps secret and does not spend in entertaining others; a person who lives alone and has few friends; or a person who is a stranger to the village.  All these may be singled out for accusation.  Accusations are rarely made publicly, for a person so accused can take his accusers to court and claim damages for slander, but there have been occasions when a person has been attacked by a body of accusers and severely beaten, though not, to my knowledge, in any of the three villages studied.  The accusations usually take the form of gossip which is generated by his tendency to deviance from the normal ways of behaving as a member of the village community. [3]   In this respect witchcraft accusations may be no more than a means of making explicit the social disapproval of persons who repeatedly and continuously show signs of deviance.  The rumours alleging witchcraft do not normally interfere with a person’s continued membership of the group for they rarely result in any action being taken against the offender and their very vagueness is an indication of the fact that witchcraft is not a ‘problem’ in these villages.  The fact that witches normally attack children and pregnant women, may be related to the high infant mortality rate and malnutrition on the one hand, and the perils involved in pregnancy and childbirth on the other.

The whole complex of witchcraft beliefs forms an interesting contrast to that reported for the Nupe by Nadel (Nadel 1954: 163–206).  He argues that the fact that all witches are women and that these female witches attack men, dominate them and threaten their authority, is bound up with the economic position of women as the controllers of the market complex.  There is a similarity in the position of women in British Guiana in that they enjoy positions of economic independence and power, particularly when their sons are old enough to work and send them money, and at this stage of their lives they very definitely threaten men’s authority, particularly in household affairs.  However, the witchcraft beliefs do not follow the same pattern at all.  It would be ridiculous to suggest that the name ‘old hag’ constitutes a female symbol for all witches regardless of sex, and in any case the majority of victims are children and pregnant women.  We cannot therefore arrive at such neat conclusions for the British Guiana case, and we do not have a sufficiently large series of actual cases to sort out the basically significant factors in what appears to be a rather heterogeneous complex.  The most we can do is to offer a very tentative hypothesis which may be useful as a guide to further research, but no more.

Two main facts are significant.  The first is that witchcraft of this kind only operates within the local territorial unit, and the second is that the main object of attack is the mother and child, i.e. the ‘motherhood’ complex.  It would be compatible with the structural fact that the village is taken as the widest effective ‘kinship’ unit in a symbolic sense, that witchcraft would operate within this range, but the fact that the mother-child unit is singled out for attack cannot be simply correlated with inter-sex hostilities as in the case of Nupe.  The two main threats to the mother-child relationship come from the dominance of the mother’s mother on the one hand, and from the dominance of the husband-father on the other.  If it is true that the status of ‘mother’ is an important and desirable one in the social system, then it is not surprising that young women should experience anxiety concerning their performance of the role, and particularly when they are so likely to have to surrender a good deal of their authority to their own mothers.  Inter-generational conflict between women is almost completely suppressed in real life situations, and its main focus would centre around the relationship of both women to the children of the younger one.

If this is the ‘type case’ of an ‘old hag’ attack it is certainly not the only one, and there seems to be a definite tendency for the belief to become generalized so that it can be made to fit almost any anxiety situation.  Thus in some villages, particularly on the West Coast of Demerara, one hears of men being attacked by ‘old hag’ and in these cases the situation is almost completely reversed and would more nearly fit the Nupe pattern.  However, men’s antagonism to women is expressed in a number of other ways which are more nearly on a fully conscious level.  Men are perpetually complaining about the way women exploit you if given half a chance.  It is said that a wife or common-law wife will steal all your things and give them to her mother.  John Campbell complained that his wife left him only a few months after they were married, taking all the furniture and household effects with her back to her mother.  On top of this she went to the police and falsely accused him of hitting her with a hammer, thereby trying to get him jailed.  Later when he became ill, he consulted an obeah-man who told him that his wife and her mother were working obeah against him, and to this cause he also attributes his failure to be selected for the American farm labour scheme.

Thus the belief in ‘old hag’ once established (and its form is almost certainly derived from West Africa) can spill over into all kinds of situations, especially since it is not highly institutionalized as in some other societies.

MARRIAGE AND MATING

So far we have considered marriage and common-law marriage only in their relation to domestic structure and the growth processes of the household group.  Within the limits of our frame of reference we have been able to treat them as being equivalent in so far as they both result in a man and woman living together within one household, and performing their mutually reciprocal rôles as spouses.  Even within this frame of reference we have had to simplify our descriptions somewhat in order to make our exposition clear, but it now remains to take up the question of the differences between the two types of union at this level of organization—i.e. of the domestic unit itself.  In addition we shall examine marriage and common-law marriage within the context of the village as a unit, and also from the point of view of their respective functions in the social system of British Guiana as a whole.  It is important to realize at the outset that there are these three perspectives from which we can view the question of mating, and the kind of answers we can expect to our questions will be related to our frame of reference.  Before embarking on this scheme of analysis, a description of the preliminaries to, and the ritual associated with, marriage, will be given, and it should be borne in mind that our analytic referents are implicit in the descriptions to a very large extent.

Marriage is an important occasion no matter when it occurs, for it marks the passage of a couple into a legally and religiously sanctioned union, which is in conformity with the ideal values of the whole society.  This is equally true even if the couple have lived together previously, though one does find cases where couples who have lived together for many years get married quietly in their own homes or in Georgetown.  During the course of the field-work there was no opportunity to observe the wedding of a couple who were transforming a long-established common-law union into a legal marriage, but from the statements of informants it is clear that such weddings are often celebrated with a good deal of ceremony, particularly if the couple have plenty of close relatives in the village.

Courtship and Engagement

The first category of marriages to be considered are those contracted between young men and women, particularly before either of them have had any children.  This applies more to the girl than to the man, for a childless girl is much more likely to have a marriage contracted for her than a girl who already has even one child.  In such cases courtship follows a quite definite pattern, and here one often finds the girl’s father taking a prominent part.  A young man looking for a wife will usually go back to his own part of the country to find one, even if he is working at the bauxite mines, or even farther afield in some other part of the West Indies.  In one case a young man who was working in Curaçao wrote to his parents asking them to find a suitable girl for him to marry, and the parents ‘courted’ a girl on his behalf; he returned, married her and took her back with him to Curaçao.  In another case the father of a young girl was approached by a friend of his from another village a little way up the coast, who said that he would like his son to marry the girl.  The girl’s father consulted his wife and they agreed to let the girl decide.  However, her father made it quite clear that if she didn’t do as he wished she could expect little help in the future, so she finally agreed, and by all accounts the young couple have been very happily married for a considerable number of years now.

Although such arranged marriages do occur, it is more usual for a young man to meet a girl and take a liking to her, after which he will also write to her parents.  These letters are usually characterized by exaggerated statements of the young man’s assets and his ability to provide for the girl, as well as his statements of how much he loves her.  If the girl likes the young man and her parents agree to the match a formal engagement will be arranged.  It should be noted that a man intending to marry a girl who has already borne him a child will not go through the procedure of ‘writing’ for a girl, nor of ‘engaging’ her.  The following is a description of an engagement party attended in one of the villages:—

The young couple involved met at McKenzie City, where the young man was working, and where the girl had been staying with a relative.  The girl’s father was dead and so the engagement party was held in the house of her mother’s brother.  The young man was from another village about six miles away, and he had brought with him a party of relatives and friends from his own village.  The most important of these was the woman with whom he had grown—his aunt.  In all there were about thirty people present in this small, two-roomed house, and the formal part of the proceedings began with a speech from one of the more voluble village men, who was related to the girl through his grandparents and her great-grandparents.  He spoke a great deal about love and devotion and the binding obligation of engagement, which he compared to the wedding vows.  He was followed by the boy’s aunt who spoke with more brevity and realism, stressing the fact that the young couple must not take this as an excuse for relaxing their behaviour, but must wait patiently for the next stage, which they did not intend to rush.  She stressed how fortunate it was that the couple were both from the same district, and how gratifying it was that they had returned home to pledge their troth.  The couple had been sitting side by side at the head of the table during the speeches, and the young man’s aunt now produced a gold ring engraved with the girl’s initials, and a gold bracelet and placed them in a saucer prior to placing them on the girl.  The couple kissed and the girl then rose and walked around the room to show the engagement presents to every person present.  Food was now brought out and placed on the table, and the man who had spoken first, who was acting as a sort of master of ceremonies, declared the table ‘open’.  Rum and wine were served throughout the whole proceedings, Many of the young men present had comments to make on the number of gifts with which the young man had ‘engaged’ the girl.  They boasted that they would never engage a girl with less than a ring, a bracelet, a gold necklace and a brooch, the ring and bracelet being the absolute minimum one could offer.

Informants state that the usual procedure is for the presents to be circulated amongst the guests on the saucer before the presentation, and the guests place money in the saucer as a gift to the young couple.  It is also customary for the young man to provide rum, whilst the girl’s family provide the food.  Engagement parties are always held in the home of the girl or her close kinsfolk.

A ceremony such as the one described above is a well defined procedure, and it can be expected that marriage will follow in the not too distant future, usually in less than a year.  It is essential that both sets of kin participate in a ceremony of this kind and the fact that the match has reached this stage is a good indication that the wedding will go through without any trouble.  It is interesting to note that the woman spokesman laid stress upon the fact that the couple were both from the same district, for this is a constantly recurrent theme, and in August Town at least, the preferred marriage is between two persons from the same village.

Not every young couple will go through the procedure of engagement, particularly if they and their parents are very poor, and it has already been noted that this is an unlikely procedure if the couple already have a child.  Preparations for a wedding begin months in advance, for there are a large number of items to be assembled before the actual event.  The family of the bride have to bear the greatest financial burden of the ceremonies involved, but the bridegroom has also to prepare a home for his future wife, which involves finding furniture of some kind as well as a house.  In Perseverance many people said that a young man would first provide a home for a girl and then start thinking of marriage as he accumulated a little more money.  So far as August Town is concerned it is extremely rare for a childless girl to go and live in a common-law union with a man, and she would consider this more shameful than having a child without being married.

It is difficult to assess exactly how the expenses of a wedding ceremony are divided up, but certainly the bridegroom has to buy the wedding ring, provide rum, buy himself a new suit and pay all the church fees.  The bride’s parents have to provide her wedding dress, and see that she has an adequate complement of bridesmaids and flower girls.  A description of the various ceremonies will give a better indication of the expenses likely to be involved.

Que-que dances

The Que-que dance appears to be primarily a Berbice custom, and it is held on the night, or several successive nights, prior to the church ceremony (pronounced Kweh-Kweh).  Although one does find Que-que being held in other parts of the colony, the general lack of any kind of ritual and the fact that the dances are usually just accompaniments to popular songs or ‘shanties’, suggests that the Berbicians’ contention that it has spread outside Berbice in the last few years is probably true.

An old man living in Stanleytown, near New Amsterdam, claimed to have special knowledge of the origin of Que-que dancing.  He was estimated to be about 95 years old at the time of the study, and although I was unable to interview him personally before he died, a reliable informant obtained the following information.  The old man was born at a village which is just a few miles from August Town, and he claims that Que-que dancing is a ‘direct’ Ibo custom which was kept up even during slavery times.  In those days it was reserved as a special ceremony to be performed only when an undoubted virgin girl was to be married, preferably to a young man who was also known to be virtuous. [4]   The biggest Que-ques were kept for the daughters of headmen or ‘drivers’, individuals who apparently had a great deal of authority, although slaves themselves, and commanded a good deal of respect in the slave community on the plantations.  For a week before the marriage the girl had to stay inside the bedroom of her parents’ house and must not be seen or go outside at all.  The dance would be performed every night for a week or even two weeks before the marriage, and on the last night the ceremony known as ‘buying the bride’ could be attended only by the members of the two families, and no strangers should be present.  This, explained the old man, was a very ‘sacred’ thing, and to be witnessed by the family members only.  On the last night there would be feasting, but no rum-drinking.  He was particularly insistent that rum-drinking has degraded the whole ceremony, and contended that in the past only pure clear rain water was drunk.  The dance itself was the same kind of circle dance that survives today (which will be described presently) but it was formerly called ‘Mayan’ or to ‘mash mayan’.

On the morning after the consummation of the marriage, the bridegroom came out of the bedroom and sang ‘If you don’t believe, come in come see’, whereupon the members of both families would enter to inspect the blood on the sheet of the marriage bed, and present the new bride with gifts.  On this day when they saw the new bride the visitors were enjoined to preserve sexual abstinence.  During the first night of the marriage, guards would be posted around the house to prevent the young couple from being disturbed.

This was the only story concerning the history of Que-que dancing which it was possible to obtain and it is presented for what it is worth.  Old ‘Zwacky’ who told the story is dead now, and it is doubtful whether there is anyone else left alive who could dispute or corroborate it.

A contemporary Que-que dance has a definite form, but it is capable of a good deal of modification in individual cases, though the idea of keeping up a celebration on the night before the wedding is still strictly adhered to by most people in August Town, and it does form an important and integral part of the whole cycle of marriage celebrations.

It has been stated previously that the ideal marriage is between two persons from the same village, and the families of both the bride and the bridegroom are expected to hold a Que-que so that there will be two households in which the celebrations are taking place.  One room in the house is cleared of all furniture except a few chairs or benches around the walls and at about 10 p.m., when the company has begun to assemble, the dancing starts inside the house.  A circle of people, mostly older women, but quite often including one or two middle-aged men, begin to dance around following each other in a slow stamping dance.  The opening song which is always sung is as follows, and we will suppose that this is a Que-que being held in the home of a bride called ‘Clarice’ whose father, the head of the household, is known as ‘Buddy Willie’. [5]

Goo night eh, Goo night eh,

Awe come fu tell you goo night, eh.

Goo night Buddy Willie, Goo night Buddy Willie,

Awe come fu tell you goo night eh.

Six an ten dem walk a dam,

Dem a talk poor Clarice name, eh.

Goo night Buddy Willie, me come fu tell you goo night eh.

Normally one person stands in the middle of the circle and sings the words whilst the rest of the people respond with the chorus lines, which are lines one and two in the above song.  The tone of the opening song quite definitely implies that the group of dancers are going to dance Que-que for the girl and her family, and the reference to the people who ‘walk a dam’ (meaning the paths on top of the drainage dams) talking the bride’s name, is to emphasize that this group are going to defend her reputation in the singing.

It is said that in the past an endeavour would be made to hold the two Que-ques in two houses close together, so that songs could be used in a kind of battle between the two families, each side criticizing the other and boasting of its own virtues.  This does not appear to be a very important aspect of the Que-que today, though there are certainly songs which defend the good name of the bride-to-be.  Practically all the songs have a highly erotic content, and a Que-que is an occasion for free reference to sex, and the more scandalous the songs are the more they are enjoyed.  The liberal quantities of rum which the head of the household is supposed to provide help to eliminate any restraint, and if the singers feel that they are not being given sufficient rum they can raise a song specially designed to ‘shame’ the host into giving them more.

Some of the songs contain words which people no longer understand, but they are still preserved in the songs.  The following is an example:—

Weero, weero, weero, bambara

Na me one a weero bambara (Chorus lines)

Tek me han an a knock me Kumboro,

Bo Boy Brown dem a whorin family.

So dem seh me a whorin family

Weero, weero, weero, bambara.

Awe weero today, an awe weero tommorow

Awe weero a front side, weero a back side.

No one seems to know what ‘weero bambara’ means but the very words themselves evoke a spontaneous enthusiasm for the dance and they are sung with great vigour.  That Bambara is the name of a West African tribe is a fact completely unknown in the village.

Favourite songs are those referring to the female genitalia or boasting of the sexual prowess and aggressiveness of men.  One or two songs emphasize the economic value of a woman’s sexual attractiveness as in the chorus line ‘Its me livin gal, its me livin’.  One song which is frequently sung has reference to ‘nation’, meaning tribal or racial group and the words are as follows:—

Nation, a weh you nation

Nation, a weh dem deh.  (Chorus line)

Nation, a wha kine a nation ?

Nation, a Kissi Nation.

Nation, come shout me you nation.

Nation, me go beat you nation.

Nation, a briga* nation

Nation, a Fula nation

Nation, a royal nation

Nation, come meet wid me nation.

  *Briga means fussy or particular

The dancing and singing go on without break for quite long periods and then another person will take over the lead, and the dancers may have a short rest.  Young childless women very rarely take part in the dancing and singing, but there are always boys and young men joining the circle and they are periodically driven out by an older man or woman.

Outside the house in the yard, there may be a local string band playing dance music for the younger people who prefer calypsoes and jive to Que-que, and there will always be groups of men sitting around talking and drinking rum.  Older informants say that in the past there would be African drumming and dancing and the Cromanti, or the Congo, would have their own drumbeats and dances.  This has died out completely now in August Town, but in a few villages in other parts of the country Congo dancing and drumming is still held as a pre-marriage ceremony.

At about midnight to one o’clock, a party of people from the bridegroom’s Que-que house come over to the house of the bride’s Que-que, and the bridegroom comes with them.  They come singing and dancing into the yard, and up the steps into the house.  Meanwhile the bride has been hidden, usually in the bedroom, under a sheet.  The groom’s party sing, ‘Search am, go find am,’ over and over again, dancing through the house looking for the bride.  Eventually they find her, and she is brought out resisting with a cloth covering her head and face.  She is placed on a chair which is held aloft by a group of young men, and then ‘the auction’ begins.  In the very few Que-ques I have seen where this little ceremony took place, there did not seem to be any special person who would act as auctioneer.  The men in the room began making bids for the bride, bidding small amounts of money, cigarettes, fowls or rum.  The groom always won, usually offering one bottle of rum, and the bride was then carried back into the bedroom.  The groom was then seized and held up on the chair, and the family of the bride allowed to buy him.  It would appear that this latter part of the ceremony is not so important, for there doesn’t seem to be any fixed ritual connected with buying the groom, and I have never seen the bride’s family go over to the groom’s house to ‘buy’ him.  One gets the impression that this extra bit of ceremony involving the ‘buying’ of the groom has been fitted in to show the equality of the claims of both families.  After this ceremony the Que-que begins to break up, and if there is rum and food left, the visitors who have come a long way for the wedding next day, plus a few special friends, will be fed and go on drinking and talking.  By three or four o’clock in the morning everyone will be asleep, and soon the women of the household and the bride herself will have to be up preparing for the wedding ceremonies.

We have said that the Que-que dances are held by the families of both the bride’s and groom’s families, but in fact what happens is that there are sometimes more than two Que-ques held, depending on the relationship between the parents of the bride or bridegroom or the persons with whom the bride or bridegroom grew up.

John Rodney and Virginia Watson became engaged about a year ago and he has a regular job on a sugar estate.  The wedding had been arranged, and then postponed in order to allow everyone involved to accumulate enough money.  John is the son of Wilma Jeffries and Frank Rodney, and his father and mother had never lived together, he himself having grown with his mother.  However, his father had always contributed to his support when he was small, and decided to keep a Que-que for his son’s wedding.  His mother also kept a Que-que in her own house.  Virginia was in a similar position.  Her father and mother had never lived together and Virginia herself had been reared by her maternal grandmother, having been left with her when her own mother married.  In this case Que-ques were kept both by Virginia’s maternal grandmother and by her father, her own mother being present at the former Que-que house.

It is quite clear that in this case, the number of Que-ques held and the persons by whom they were held was a reflection of the various kinship ties involved, and of the relations between the household heads in their own right, and all felt constrained to play a part in the marriage of the couple.  This aspect of the Que-que, namely where, and by whom it is kept is of interest and importance from the point of view of kinship relations and of the claims and obligations which arise from close family ties and intra-household relations.  The content of the Que-que ritual and the Que-que songs, and their meaning, is a different order of problem which cannot be dealt with at length here.  When a couple who have been living together for many years get married, Que-que is still kept, but in this case it is likely that the parents of the bride and groom will be dead.  In this case the couple will keep Que-que in their own house, and some of the siblings of the pair may also hold a Que-que in their house or houses.  If we were to think of Que-que as being a ritual connected only with the transfer of status of the bride and groom from that of son and daughter, to that of man and wife, this would be inexplicable, but we shall see later that Que-que has other functions when viewed from a different frame of reference, and in this context it will become clear why elderly couples who have lived together for a long time should also keep up this ritual.

The wedding

Weddings are always celebrated in church, and the banns are published in the normal way on three successive Sundays preceding the wedding.  The actual church ceremony receives the least amount of social emphasis and is attended only by the principal participants, (bride, bridegroom, best man, the person who is giving away the bride, the maid or matron of honour, the bridesmaids, page-boys and flower girls), plus some of the closest