Despite this, the Ngada have seldom been considered a matrifocal people and there is remarkable confusion in the anthropological literature regarding Ngada kinship, their system sometimes being defined as patrilineal (Arndt 1954), sometimes as
matrilineal (Bader 1951 [sic: 1953]:135) or cognatic (Barnes 1972:85).
Generally, northern Thai people have
matrilineal ancestor spirits around whom descent groups are formed (Turton 1972).
Some are characterized by
matrilineal beliefs and practices, some by patriliny, some are bilateral, and others combine multiple aspects of these classic types.
It is writing in which
matrilineal signature is erased, and patrilineage written in its place; in which the maternal voice is eclipsed by the paternal; male-embodiment is normative, and female-embodiment disavowed' (p.
The Taino genome project, which was initiated in 1999 through a grant from the National Science Foundation to test mitochondrial (
matrilineal) DNA throughout the island, has identified a heretofore improbable-sounding 62 percent majority of Puerto Ricans today as of Amerindian, hence presumably Taino, descent.
In addition, the Minangkabau, while being regarded as devoutly Islamic, also have one of the strongest remaining
matrilineal systems in Indonesia, though Kahin makes little of this contradiction.
The egalitarian principle, which underlines
matrilineal descent, is subverted by men's seeking power and the hierarchical political structures that exclude women.
She honors her own family's
matrilineal strength in "I Come." And in "Bittersweet Sistah," Scott sketches a portrait of a woman unable to move beyond the pain of her hardened heart.
They represented the generations of women in the family, in a society where families were
matrilineal. One figure inside another suggests a symbol of fertility and generations.
Perdue effectively shows how, in the early Cherokee Republic, numerous trends including the centralization of power, the outlawing of polygamy, and clan vengeance, and new rules that allowed the transmission of property and identity from fathers to children gradually undermined town and
matrilineal authority.
Her early chapters provide a useful, concise account of the way Elizabethan and Stuart dynastic politics served to confuse the standard alignment of the male gender with familial and political power: Elizabeth's patrilineal claim to power was complicated by her female gender, and James's authoritarian politics and misogynistic social policy were complicated by his
matrilineal claim to power and his notorious homosocial tendencies.
If she were, she would know that Palestine, which she calls "the historic land of Israel," belongs to "the Jewish people" only if one accepts the fable that God gave it to the
matrilineal descendants of Sarah and Abraham.
But she also cites evidence that a female primate will often use "promiscuity" to make numerous males think they could have fathered her offspring; in
matrilineal hunter-gatherer societies, women similarly line up more than one husband.
PERHAPS BECAUSE Flinders' own teacher was raised in a
matrilineal Hindu family in India, Flinders is able to offer fascinating examples of work by contemporary Hindu women, such as the grassroots resistance to large-scale mining in the Garwhal region of the lower Himalayas.
