The Process of Kinship in the Paternal/Fraternal House of the Austronesian‐speaking Amis of Taiwan

Abstract

In this essay, I will describe the traditional social organisation of the Amis peoples of Taiwan which previous ethnographers have portrayed as consisting of a matrilineal clan‐based system conjoined with a residential‐based male age‐set/grade system. Following David Schneider's critique of ‘kinship’ cross‐culturally and the ‘new kinship studies' which his work inspired, I will attempt a reinterpretation of overall Amis social organisation as instead a total kinship‐based system comprised of a paternal/fraternal system which integrates and encompasses the multiplicity of maternal‐focused houses constitutive of village communities. Rather than being a system composed of kinship and non‐kinship parts, I argue that Amis social organisation is comprehensively kinship‐based. Moreover, I shall describe how through paternal/fraternal relations generated by rites of male initiation and rebirth this overall integration of diverse matrifocal units is achieved. In the first section, I will describe the structure of the paternal/fraternal initiatory system. In the following section, I will draw upon the major anthropological theories of initiation including rites of passage and the literature on sacrifice to describe numerous aspects of initiation activities, showing how the classificatory father‐son and elder‐younger‐brother relations between and within the initiation sets are explicitly represented by the concepts and practices of the Amis.

Evolution of initiation rites during the Austronesian dispersal

“…Headquartered in a house in the village center, the hierarchical paternal system served to resolve community disputes, make collective decisions about land, and coordinate activities among the matrifocal households. 54 The initiation ceremony of males-feasting, dancing, ritual sacrifice of a pig, thrashings by senior initiation brothers-united members of the initiation set under paternal-based social norms (p. 196). 54 In any case, we expect fluidity during Austronesian dispersal from Taiwan in terms of household kinship, collective governance, and sacrificial ritual.…”

Migration and homemaking practices among the Amis of Taiwan

“…These observations are then applied to an investigation of how resources and experiences from the contexts of migration influence community development in the native place and the economic and social ecology of places that supply migrants. In addition, I draw upon the accumulated anthropological research on Amis culture and society (Chen 1987(Chen , 1989Hsu 1991;Huang 1991Huang , 2005aHuang , 2005bLiu et al 1965;Suenari 1983;Yuan 1969), and in particular analysis of family and kinship networks, cultural practices and values (Yeh 2009a(Yeh , 2009b(Yeh , 2012(Yeh , 2013(Yeh , 2014 to provide a more nuanced understanding of Amis migration, balancing political and economic variables with personal and cultural variables (Johnson and Werbner 2010).…”

Mobilities of Return: Pacific Perspectives

“…These observations are then applied to an investigation of how resources and experiences from the contexts of migration influence community development in the native place and the economic and social ecology of places that supply migrants. In addition, I draw upon the accumulated anthropological research on Amis culture and society (Chen 1987(Chen , 1989Hsu 1991;Huang 1991Huang , 2005aHuang , 2005bLiu et al 1965;Suenari 1983;Yuan 1969), and in particular analysis of family and kinship networks, cultural practices and values (Yeh 2009a(Yeh , 2009b(Yeh , 2012(Yeh , 2013(Yeh , 2014 to provide a more nuanced understanding of Amis migration, balancing political and economic variables with personal and cultural variables (Johnson and Werbner 2010).…”

“…It is through the overarching paternal-fraternal system that the numerous matrifocal houses in any given Amis village are integrated into an encompassing kinship-based society. See Yeh (2012) for more information on the overall structure of the Amis paternal-fraternal organisation and how the classificatory father-son and elder-younger-brother relations between and within the initiation sets are explicitly represented by the concepts and practices of the Amis. 6…”