82 The Elementary Structures of Kinship One is therefore drawn infallibly towards biological considerations, since it is only from a biological, certainly not a social, point of view that mother hood, sisterhood or daughterhood are properties of the individuals con- sidered. However, from a social viewpoint, these terms cannot be regarded defining isolated individuals, but relationships between these individuals: and everyone else. Motherhood is not only a mother's relationship to her children, but her relationship to other members of the group, not as a mother, but as a sister, wife, cousin or simply a stranger as far as kinship is concerned. It is the same for all family relationships, which are defined not only by the individuals they involve, but also by all those they exclude. This is true to the extent that observers have often been struck by the impossibility for natives of conceiving a neutral relationship or more exactl ly, no relation ship. We have the feeling-which, moreover, is illusory -that the absence of definite kinship gives rise to such a state in our consciousness. But the supposition that this might be the case in primitive thought does not stand up to examination. Every family relationship defines a certain group of rights and duties, while the lack of family relationship does not define anything; it defines enmity If you wish to live among the Nuer you must do so on their terms, which means that you must treat them as a kind of kinsman and they will then treat you as a kind of kinsman. Rights, privileges and obligations are determined by kinship Either a man is a kinsman, actually or by fiction or he is a person to whom you have no reciprocal obligations and whom you treat as a potential enemy. The australian aboriginal group is defined in exactly the same terms When a stranger comes to a camp that he has never visited before, he does not enter the camp, but remains at some distance. a few of the older men,after a while, approach him, and the first thing they proceed to do is to find out who the stranger is. The commonest question that is put to him is"Who is your maeli (father's father)?" The discussion proceeds on genealogical lines until all parties are satisfied of the exact relation of the stranger to each of the natives present in the camp When this point reached, the stranger can be admitted to the camp, and the different men and women are pointed out to him and their relation to him defined If I am a blackfellow and meet another blackfellow that other must be either my relative or my enemy. If he is my enemy I shall take the first opportunity of killing him, for fear he will kill me. This, before the white man came, was the aboriginal view of one's duty towards one's neigh Through their striking parallelism, these two examples merely confirm a universal situation 1 Evans-Pritchard, 1940, p. 183. 2 RadclifTe-Brown, 1913, p. 151
The Principles of Kinship 'Throughout a considerable period, and in a large number of societies, men met in a curious frame of mind, with exaggerated fear and an equally exaggerated generosity which appear stupid in no one's eyes but our own In all the societies which immediately preceded our own and which still surround us, and even in many usages of popular morality, there is no middle path. There is either complete trust or complete mistrust. One lays casual hospitality to one's daughter or one's property, ng away, from down one's arms, renounces magic, and gives everythi There is no barbarism or, properly speaking, even archaism in thi attitude. It merely represents the systematization, pushed to the limit, of characteristics inherent in social relationships No relationship can be arbitrarily isolated from all other relat i It is likewise impossible to remain on this or that side of the world of relation- ships. The social environment should not be conceived of as an empty frame- g work within which beings and things can be linked, or simply juxtaposed.It i is inseparable from the things which people it. Together they constitute a field of gravitation in which the weights and distances form a co-ordinated whole, and in which a change in any element produces a change in the total equilibrium of the system. We have given a partial illustration at least of this principle in our analysis of cross-cousin marriage. However, it can be seen how its field of application must be extended to all the rules of kinship and above all, to that universal and fundamental rule, the prohibition of incest. Every kinship system(and no human society is without one) has a total character, and it is because of this that the mother, sister, and daughter are perpetually coupled, as it were, with elements of the system which, in relation to them, are neither son, nor brother, nor father, because the latter are themselves coupled with other women, or other classes of women,or feminine elements defined by a relationship of a different order. Because marriage is exchange, because marriage is the archetype of exchange, the analysis of exchange can help in the understanding of the solidarity which unites the gift and the counter-gift, and one marriage with other marriages It is true that Seligman disputes that the woman is the sole or predominant instrument of the alliance. She cites the institution of blood brotherhood as expressed by the henamo relationship among the natives of New Guinea. 2 The establishment of blood-brotherhood does indeed create a bond of lliance between individuals, but by making them brothers it entails a prohibition on marriage with the sister. It is far from our mind to claim that the exchange or gift of women is the only way to establish an alliance in primitive societies. We have shown elsewhere how, among certain native groups of Brazil, the community could be expressed by the terms for brother- in-law'and 'brother. The brother-in-law is ally, collaborator and friend it is the term given to adult males belonging to the band with which an 1 Mauss,1925,p.138. 2 B Z Seligman, 1935, pp. 75-93