Kinship Systems in Foraging and Horticultural-Based Society of the Iroquois Essay

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Iroquois Kinship System

THE IROQUOIS

Iroquois kinship system was initially identified by Morgan, 1871, as the system to define family. Iroquois is among the six main kinship systems namely Eskimos, Hawaiian, Sudanese, Crow, Omaha and Iroquois. The horticulture societies are subsistence-based so as the foraging societies. In the foraging society, the foremost component is the composition and existence of the nuclear family. The nuclear family is together irrespective of their shift to any geographical location or band of cultures. However, in the horticulture society they live in extended family structures which are comprised of three generations including grandparents, parents, children, married siblings with their spouses and children, all adapted to the external environment. In the Iroquois, women are the key food producers and they are joint owners of the land. Because of this, women's central role in food production matrilineal groups is more common in horticulture societies.

There exists many similarities and differences among the foraging i.e. food collecting societies and horticulture i.e. food production societies. Both have the ideology of living with the nature as being part of it rather than controlling it. People prefer living with the notion of nature and encourage egalitarianism. However, foraging population is conventionally stable with thin population. Access to resource and even band membership and sharing of relationship is made based on kinship relationship.

The following text will uncover three specific areas of how kinship system of the Iroquois have an impact on the way a particular culture behaves in terms of their thinking abilities, actions and living patterns.

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These behavioral patterns are then compared with the modern day city societies and critically analyzed that how the kinship has an impact on behavior or not. The areas which will be discussed are framed in the following three questions that address the cultural aspects of these societies and compares with our modern day living:

1. The cultures of Iroquois kinship of horticulture or forages lives by the notion of 'Original Affluent Society'. Are we not handicapped with the ever increasing desire of modernity?

2. How far does the concept of shelter construction and ownership contradict or resemble the societies we all live in?

3. Formation of families, giving authority to the elder with their deserved respect. To what extend does it relate to the current society?

Discussion & CRITICAL analysis

Social and Economical Ethical norms

Both the cultures for foragers and horticulturalists are direct collector or producer of their living. Horticulturalist are classified to work in the delayed return system where they are able to reap their crop after a certain period of time of the season, on the other hand foragers are classified as immediate return system because their consumption of food and other resources occur immediately. It is the conventional thinking that these people are struggling for their survival. In modern times, they have civilized and their living has been successful in hunting and producing food for themselves and their community at large. The….....

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