Man Vol. 18, Number 1, March 1983, pgs. 185-190

Perhaps Tale ancestors can at this stage best be left to rest (or exerciseauthority) in peace. But Calhoun's brief comments about my comparison (Keesing1970a) between Kwaio and Tallensi conceptualisations of descent and kinship,which he finds a 'forced and unsociological analogy' (Calhoun 1980: 309), callfor clarification. I do not doubt, nor did I then question that there arestriking differences between Kwaio and Tallensi in the structure of descentgroups. Nor did I suggest that whether connexions are matrilateral orpatrilineal [in the Tallensi system] 'is ... a matter of indifference' (Calhoun1980: 310). Indeed it is only a 'matter of indifference' in a limited range ofcontexts in Kwaio society. My argument had to do with the conceptualsystem of which descent groups are a realisation: that is, with thecultural categories in terms of which Kwaio and Tallensi define socialrelationships. Since Calhoun persistently misinterprets my argument, andunderstands me to be arguing against 'the importance of the differentiationbetween agnatic and nonagnatic kin', a reiteration of my point seems inorder.

Following Scheffler (1966), I noted three types of descent construct thatappeared to be culturally recognised among both Kwaio and Tallensi: an agnaticdescent structure; a cognatic descent structure, in which male and femalefilial links equally count in establishing a chain

My argument does not presuppose that all members of category B are attributedundifferentiated status by virtue of their being cognatic descendants,apparently the basis of Calhoun's misunderstanding. Let me illustrate with theKwaio. Kwaio say that all cognatic descendants of an ancestororioritana (lit. 'return from') that ancestor. They comprise thecategory of people who, for instance, have rights to property created by thatancestor¹. However, these rights are not equal and undifferentiated; and onebasis for differentiation if whether descendants are agnates (futa aniwane, lit. 'born of men') or nonagnates (futa ani geni, lit. 'bornof women'); they have different status in many contexts of ritual, land rightsand descent group politics.

I infer that Tallensi make similar distinctions. I do not doubt that Taleindividuals related to ancestors through ba dogam (which Fortes glossesas 'paternal parentage') have a qualitatively different status, with bothspecial jural and moral implications, from those related to these ancestors byma dcsam ('maternal parentage'; Fortes 1949: 30). I suggested that theconnexion of Tale individuals to their ancestors (not simply their'mothers' brothers') through non-agnatic links, and the collectiveparticipation of nonagnatic descendants (Fortes's 'extra-clan kinsfolk') insacrifices to lineage ancestors, appeared to imply a Tallensi conceptualisationof these relationships in terms of descent, not simply of filiation(i.e., cognatic kinship). Fortes (1945: 150) himself slips into such a usagewhen he observes that a Tallensi sacrifice is a 'sacrament in which all thedescendants of lineage ancestors, through both men and women, participate'.

If Tallensi conceptualise a category of nonagnatic descendants (a category C),then they would seem to have to conceptualise as well a total category ofcognatic descendants (a category B). The logic is obvious, since category C isresidually and negatively defined. In order to conceptualise people asdescending non-agnatically, you need an inclusive concept of 'descending' - asimplied by Fortes's 'all the descendants of lineage ancestors, through both menand women'. Tallensi would seem to (have to) invoke precisely such aninclusive conception of cognatic descent to define the total congregationentitled to take part in a sacrifice to lineage ancestors. Since Taleancestors clearly take an interest in nonagnatic as well as agnatic

Fortes, and Calhoun following him, conceptualise relations to agnaticancestors in terms of descent, and relations to nonagnatic ancestors in termsof cognatic kinship. Note the conceptual confusions that result rom attemptingto deal with what is ancestor-focused (and hence descent in Scheffler's (1966)and my sense) as if it were ego-focused, a matter of cognatic kinship. First,the term 'nonagnate' is recurrently used by Calhoun as if it referred tokinship, where it can only appropriately refer (as 'agnate' can) todescent status. Second, Fortes and Calhoun recurrently contrast'agnatic' (or 'patrilineal') with 'matrilateral'. Yet 'matrilateral'serves as a label for nonagnatic relationships only if we continually changethe ego who is our point of reference. For a Tale man's nonagnatic ancestorsinclude many that are not matrilateral (in relation to him): his FM'slineage ancestors; his FFM's lineage ancestors. They may have been'matrilateral' ancestors to somebody (his F, his FF)- but arepatrilateral to him. The literature on 'complementary filiation' issimilarly flawed with references to 'matrilateral' and 'mother's brothers' -even though a close reading of Fortes makes clear that what he speaks of as'mother's brothers' include members of 'grandparent' lineage, some of whom arepatrilateral from ego's point of view (see Keesing 1970a: 766). These problemsdisappear when we conceptualise descent categories - agnatic, cognatic,nonagnatic - with reference to the ancestors that are their focus.

Much that Fortes describes as Tallensi complementary filiation in factreflects nonagnatic descent status vis-à-vis the ancestors of anagnatic lineage. The nonagnates who attend a Tale sacrifice comprise an arrayof C's (that is, B's who are not A's), defined by their common descent statusvis-à-vis the ancestors receiving sacrifice, not an array ofindividuals separately enacting ties of ('complementary') filiation to their'mothers' brothers':

Extra-clan kinsfolk from far and wide are present. I have counted as many asthirty, ranging from the full sister's son of the new lineage head to a distant'sister's son', whose matrilateral ties with the clan went back to the foundingancestor of his maximal lineage (Fortes 1949: 150).

What the thirty nonagnatic participants has in common was their descentstatus vis-à-vis the ancestors receiving sacrifice, not a commonkinship relationship to members of the sacrificing lineage. Fortes wasprevented from viewing the thirty agnates as sharing a common descent

Fortes's theoretical preconceptions were reinforced by Tale idioms in which themother's brother-sister's son relationship serves as a prototype of 'allmatrilateral-sororal kinship ties' (1949: 283) - that is, what I am callingrelations of nonagnatic descent, as well as cognatic kinship. Tale also talkidiomatically about nonagnatic descent as if it were matrilateral (madcsam is lit. 'mother begetting'). But such idioms do not obscure theconceptualisation of chains of successive filial links - descent in Scheffler'sand my sense:

when a person says of another ..., speaking of lineages, ti d)yabame -'we (my lineage) have begotten (born) ... their lineage', what is meant is thatthe latter can trace a line of descent to the ... former's lineage. Aman refers to a sister's son (aheng) or to a classificatory aheJ inthese terms (Fortes 1949: 19, my emphasis).

Nonagnatic descendants need not comprise an undifferentiated category (a pointon which my 1970a paper was insufficiently explicit). Kwaio and Tallensinonagnatic descendants related through a chain of all-male filial links, exceptfor the last or penultimate link (the children or grandchildren of femaleagnates), have a specially marked status within the nonagnatic category. Somerights and interests apply only to descendants with such marked descentstatus.

So conceptualised, the Kwaio and Tallensi systems still appear to be moresimilar than Fortes's description of Tallensi would suggest. However, there isno doubt that Tallensi place greater jural emphasis on agnatic ties in defininglineage membership. Tallensi more rigidly differentiate status of agnates andnonagnates, viewing agnatic descent as a connexion of deep moral as well asjural import. They do not allow de facto transformation from nonagnaticto agnatic status by virtue of childhood residence and social commitment, asKwaio do. But for purposes of comparison I continue to deem it important todistinguish conceptual constructions from their realisation in social groups,to distinguish cultural categories from the rights and duties that may, in aparticular society, be defined in terms of them. Scheffler's 1966 argumentremains compelling. Let me illustrate with reference to Solomon Islandsethnography.

The peoples of northern Malaita have the same general conceptual scheme as theKwaio, who occupy the mountainous central zone of the island. For To'abaita,originally studied by Hogbin (1939), I quote from Frazer (1981):

The widest grouping associated with an estate includes all those people whoclaim descent from the founding ancestor, or the most distantly rememberedancestor of that territory ... The founding ancestor is usually buried

in one of the burial grounds in the territory he founded, and this is the focalpoint for sacrificial rites carried out ... by ... descendants ... Thiscategory [is] made up of all the known cognatic descendants of a commonancestor ...

Within [this] descent category two sub-categories of descendants aredistinguished, those who are descended through all male links from the foundingancestor ... and those descended through one or more female links ... None ofthese categories or sub-categories ever comes together as a cohesive group,nevertheless it is membership of these categories which is the basis for theformation of discrete groups (1981:65).

Frazer's analysis makes clear that the subcategory of descendants 'through allmale links', i.e., agnates, are accorded primacy in land rights and ritual.However, nonagnates have secondary rights and ritual interests in an ancestralestate, which can in some circumstances become primary. Nonagnatic affiliationto local descent groups is fairly common (although agnates have primacy insuccession to priestly and leadership roles).

Ross's (1973) account for the Baegu speakers of the northern Malaita mountainsadds some clarification and some confusion. He describes a Baegu distinctionwhich corresponds to the To'abaita one between 'those who are descended throughall male links ... [and] through one or more female links'. The terms futaana wane, glossed as 'those joined by male linkages', and futa anageni, glossed '[joined by] female linkages, are equivalent to Kwaio futaani wane 'agnate' (lit. 'born of men') and futa ani geni nonagnate'(lit. 'born of women'). Yet Ross treats these concepts, which properly referto modes of descent from ancestors, as if they referred to subcategories ofego's kindred.

Ross emphasises the agnatic ideology which in Baegu defines membership inritual and land-owning corporations:

The Baegu recognise named patrilineal descent groups ... Membership ... isalmost without exception on the basis of patrilineal descent ... Only ... thosewho are properly descended (that is, agnatically) should have the stewardshipof the land and the responsibility for ... honouring its ancestors (1973:138).

However, he notes a complementary nonunilineal mode of descent:

The ancestors, being the founding fathers, are closely associated with thepatrilineal descent groups, and as such they form an agnatic supernaturalcommunity. Nevertheless, sacrifices to the ancestral spirits are notrestricted to agnatic lines. Any descendant, those born through female linksas well as of male, is entitled to offer sacrifices to the ancestor ...

A worshipper's status depends on ... a concept of cognatic or bilineal descentthat operates simultaneously with agnatic ideology (1973: 143).

For Fataleka speakers who inhabit the zone adjoining Baegu to the southeast,we have fragmentary evidence from Guidieri:
l'organisation segmentair Fataleka comprend huit clans ...patrilinéaires nommés ... Les clans se décomposent ensegments agnatiques (fuiwane, litt.: la racine de l'homme) nomméset non-localisés ...

En 1969 ... ces lignes étaient au nombre de cinquante-huit. Dans lecas où l'unité du clan est assurée par le principejuridique qui détermine les droits de transmission en distinguant lesrelations entre les parents - le dogme agnatique, ou par celui qui ...distingue en outre la ligne aînée de la ligne cadette - le dogmede primogéniture, et établit une hiérarchie entre elles,la perception de l'espace parental est claire (1972: 324).

Dans la succession d'un sacrificateur, par exemple, cette règle [i.e.,the primacy of agnates] est toujours opérante. Les vicissitudesdémographiques s'un groupe lignager peuvent naturellement assouplir oucontredire ce principe. Mais dans ce cas, la succession est consideréecomme irrégulière ... (1972: 324).

Le contexte cérémoniel ... modifie considérablement lacomposition du groupe parental. Les membres se trouvent réunis et sereconnaissent mutuellement solidaires en fonction de relations parentalesmultiplies, directes et collatérales ... Le principe unilinéaires'estompe, le nombre de participiants augmente, les groupesintermédiaries apparaissent (1972: 326).

In theory full 'ownership' rights in land belong only to men descended in themale line from the ancestor who first established these

rights ... However, despite the emphasis which the system of ritualorganisation placed on patrilineal descent, ... in practice many ... hold theland they now occupy through cognatic ties with the original 'owning' lineage.Men's rights in the land of patrilineages to which their female ancestorsbelonged were symbolised by the sacrifices made to the cognatic ancestors fromwhom they inherited ... Sons are likely to settle on their own patrilinealestates. However, they could sacrifice to individual ancestors on theirmother's side, and cannot be denied the right to cultivate her land if theychoose ... Men such as these [are] 'born of woman' of the lineage (Burt inpress).

While these northern Malaita peoples are visibly operating with the sameconceptual categories as the Kwaio,the importance of agnation in defining landand ritual interests, the possibility of nonagnates attaining the status ofde facto agnates, the interests of ancestors in agnatic and nonagnaticdescendants, and the role of nonagnates in ritual and sacrifice, all varyconsiderably. Moreover, the Kwaio and Kwara'ae systems appear to have become'less agnatic' and 'more cognatic' on the basis of population shifts anddemographic trends in the colonial period. I have suggested (Keesing 1970b)that the Kwaio conceptual system incorporates both an 'agnatic model' and a'cognatic model'; and I have attempted to analyse formally the mechanismswhereby 'as population density increases, social structure approaches what isimplied in the agnatic model ... [whereas] when population dwindles, moredescent group affiliations become multiple, nonagnatic, or diffuse' (1970b:1016).

An even more striking contrast appears when we examine the Lau speakers whoinhabit the coastal lagoons adjacent to the mountains where Baegu is spoken.Lau Baegu are related dialects; and their conceptual/ideational systems arevery close, though elaborated in different ways appropriate to their maritimeand interior environments. Yet as social systems Lau and Baegu arestrikingly different. Lau communities built on islets or coral platformsdredged from the lagoon floor, represent a 'bush' cultural pattern squeezedinto radically compressed social space.

Whereas Kwaio, Kwara'ae and Baegu live in tiny, scattered and shiftinghomestead clusters, the male cores of Lau patrilineages are localised indensely crowded villages, often of several hundred people (Ivens 1930; Maranda1974; Maranda & Maranda 1970). Apparently the Lau conceptualise agnatic,cognatic and nonagnatic descent, and define social categories of agnates,cognates and nonagnates with reference to founding ancestors. Yet in ritualand the definition of lineages and their rights, Lau speakers are

It is worth recalling here a similar phrasing from the Tallensi, who

insist onthe equal importance of both parents in the procreation of a child. Thoughpatrilineal descent is overwhelmingly important in the jural, economic, andritual constitution of Tale society ... the two principles of patrilinealdescent and maternal origin always work together. The two ideas areinseparable in native thought ... Whenever I have discussed these matters withinformants they have generally begun by enumerating the things that make'paternal parentage (ba dog-am)' the most important facts of one's life,and have usually concluded that, of course, 'maternal parentage (madogam)' is also of the greatest importance, though in a different way(Fortes 1949: 30)².

In 1971, I showed that the affiliation of nonagnates to descent groupsrepresented the operation of a medical category of nonagnatic descendants:those whose mothers returned to their natal descent groups and raised theirchildren there. For some purposes of descent reckoning, these women who raisetheir children in their (the women's) natal group are treated as if theywere male links (Keesing 1971: fig 1). I call these links (from thestandpoint of the children of these women) 'quasi-patrifilial'; and I classthose descendants related through such links as 'quasi-agnates'³. Thenonagnatic affiliants to Kwaio descent groups are mainly quasi-agnates.Technically, the distinction between agnates and quasi-agnates is a marked one(in the linguistic sense). In some contexts, mainly of ritual, the distinctionis maintained and quasi-agnates are classed as nonagnates; in others, includingland rights, feasting and residence, the distinction is neutralised andquasi-agnates are classed as if they were agnates. I suspect a similarconceptualisation operates among To'abaita, Baegu, Kwara'ae, and other northernMalaita hill peoples. The frequency of quasi-agnatic status is obviously aproduct of residence patterns and the outcome of custody claims, which in turnreflect the strength of agnatic vis-à-vis cognatic ideology(Keesing 1970b), as well as demographic circumstances. Peoples to their northappear to differ from Kwaio in part because of the lesser frequency of such quasi-agnatic linkages, in part because

What does all this have to do with the Tallensi? It indicates theinadequacies of stressing the differences between Kwaio and Tallensi on groundsthat the Tallensi lineages are 'strictly agnatic', that relations betweenancestors and their agnatic descendants are qualitatively different from theirrelations with nonagnatic descendants, and that the rights of Tale agnates andnonagnates in ritual and sacrifice are sharply distinguished. The Malaitasystems represent a spectrum of relative importance placed on agnatic andcognatic descent in defining group membership, ritual status and relations withancestors. Apparently all northern Malaita peoples recognise a principle ofcognatic descent as defining the broad category of all descendants withinterests in an ancestrally-created estate and important connexions to thefounding ancestors. But in none of these systems is it a 'matter ofindifference' whether 'connexions are matrilateral [sic] of patrilineal'(Calhoun 1980: 310). The category of cognatic descendants is, everywhere innorthern (and southern) Malaita, internally differentiated, with separatestatus ascribed to agnates and nonagnates.

The Malaita evidence shows, I think ,the importance of distinguishing betweendescent constructs and categories, on the one hand, and the rights that areascribed, and the groups generated⁴, with reference to them. Such an analysismay, as Calhoun says, be 'unsociological'. But if it allows us to compareeffectively the spectrum of northern Malaita societies, to place within thesame structural framework other Oceanic societies with similar descentconstructs and categories (such as the Varisi speakers of Choiseul, onlyremotely related to the Malaita peoples, who similarly distinguish, within acognatic descent category, between those 'born of men' and 'born of women'[Scheffler 1965]), and to make more coherent sense of Tallensi 'complementaryfiliation', then being 'unsociological' is surely a virtue.
Australian National University Roger Keesing

I am indebted to my colleague Michael Young for helpful comments.

¹ When Kwaio recorded the membership of 'lines', during and after the postwarMaasina Rule movement, they listed all the cognatic descendants of each group'sfounding ancestors. Apparently despite their greater emphasis on strict agnationother northern Malaira peoples did the same.

²2 Two points bear note. First,despite Tallensi idioms, note the inadequacy of 'maternal origin' as a term fornonagnatic descent, which can be either matri- or patrilateral. Second, despitethe fact that the 'two ideas' of 'patrilineal descent' and 'maternal origin' are'inseparable', Fortes goes to pains to separate them - so they exist, as it were,on different conceptual planes and are the foci or two different books. In Talethought they seem simply to be two sub-varieties of dosam - 'descent'.

³ A fewindividuals who, because their agnates have died out or moved to Christianvillages on the coast, have attached themselves to groups to which they arerelated through female descent lines.

⁴ As I argue in Keesing 1970b and Keesing1971, actually membership in descent groups, as opposed to entitlement tomembership, may be affected by circumstances of residence and life history; sothat while descent groups may be generated with reference to descent categorymembership, they are in many 'unilineal' societies not strictly coterminous withunilineal descent categories.