The Na - Reviewed by Geertz 2001

Na Kinship and practices

What is descent theory?

Descent theory was associated with British anthropologist A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, and understood the nuclear, basic or elementary family to be constituted by a man, his wife and their children to be founded on natural requirements, and thus to be universal, and thus to be the hard core around which any social organization revolves.

What is Alliance Theory?

Alliance model derived from Claude Lévi-Strauss, Cai Hua’s mentor. The institutionalized exchange of women “between families” by the alliance of marriage is taken to be the central point of kinship.

Laws put in place against the Na

1950s arrival of Communists they felt productivity of work reduced by men thinking to run off and visit women… Party moved against tradition, produced regulation, such as giving land to men who changed over to nuclear-family pattern.

1966: Cultural revolution: said it was shameful not to know who your father is, imposed marriage by decree on all involved in visiting relationships. Failed…marriages fell apart as soon as cadre left…

1974: other policies… deeply disruptive, forcing people to marry, suspending annual grain rations to those who divorced…no rations for kids born out of wedlock…

Civil status forms, school forms, have fill-in forms with a blank for the name of the father… (big, bureaucratic pressure

How did the Han feel about the Na?

The Han were virilocal, centered on patrification, practicing ancestor worship. They reviled the Na as primitive, depraved, backward, licentious, unclean, and riddled with sexual diseases. They perceived Na practices as threatening to their social order, emphasizing lineage and male authority, contrasting sharply with the Na's matrilineal and egalitarian customs.

Na Kinship

A matrilineal system where descent and inheritance are traced through the female line, fostering egalitarian relations among members. Women would have multiple male lovers and receive visits from these men. An exceptional society focused on female choice and autonomy in relationships. Still practiced prohibition of incest.