Book
Navajo kinship and marriage
University of Chicago Press • Chicago • Published In 1975 • Pages:
By: Witherspoon, Gary.
Abstract
This source, based on the author's fieldwork and experience on the Navajo reservation, is a survey of social organization in the Rough Rock-Black Mountain area. The work is theoretically oriented towards demonstrating how actual patterns 'of' behavior differ from the ideal patterns 'for' behavior (p. x). Part I, for example, discusses the ideas and conceptual framework which guide and order Navajo behavior, but which are distinct from it. In Part II, Witherspoon presents actual patterns of social organization and behavior and attempts to illustrate how these patterns become more understandable when the underlying rules, ideas, and conceptual framework are understood. The concluding section deals with the 'Social Universe of the Navajo,' an attempt to explain and interpret kinship and social organization from the Navajo's standpoint. The researcher will find much information here on kinship and kin groups, family relationships, marriage, residence patterns and subsistence. Throughout the source the important role of the subsistence residential unit (a form of the extended family) in various economic and kin related activities is stressed.
- HRAF PubDate
- 2004
- Region
- North America
- Sub Region
- Southwest and Basin
- Document Type
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator Type
- Ethnologist
- Document Rating
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- Analyst
- John Beierle ; 1985
- Field Date
- ca. 1962-1970
- Coverage Date
- ca. 1920s-1968
- Coverage Place
- southwestern United States ( general Navajo area); and Rough Rock-Black Mountain region, Arizona, United States
- Notes
- Gary Witherspoon
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 131-134) and index
- LCCN
- 74021340
- LCSH
- Navajo Indians