article

Introducing the sororate to a northern Saskatchewan Chipewyan village

Ethnology14 • Published In 1975 • Pages: 71-82

By: Sharp, Henry S..

Abstract
Lacking evidence to the contrary, anthropologists have assumed that essentially all Chipewyan groups had the same kinship system. Recent studies have shown that this is not necessarily true. This source describes variations in kinship terminology between two Chipewyan groups, one, a settled population at Black Lake village near the eastern end of Lake Athabasca in northern Saskatchewan, and the other, an immigrant group from Brochet, who had settled among them. The differences in the kinship terminology between these groups are primarily semantic rather than phonetic; in other words the same term used by both groups had different meanings. This permitted members of the two groups to think they were talking about the same category even when there were not, and to have different ideas about the same structural category (p. 73).
Subjects
Cultural participation
Kinship terminology
Kin relationships
Kinship regulation of sex
Extramarital sex relations
culture
Chipewyans
HRAF PubDate
2000
Region
North America
Sub Region
Arctic and Subarctic
Document Type
article
Evaluation
Creator Type
Ethnologist
Document Rating
5: Excellent Primary Data
Analyst
John Beierle ; 1989-1991
Field Date
1970-1973
Coverage Date
1969-1970s
Coverage Place
Black Lake, northwestern Saskatchewan, Canada
Notes
[by] Henry Stephen Sharp
Includes bibliographical references (p. 82)
LCCN
64005713
LCSH
Chipewyan Indians