Paper short abstract:

Skewing is often an 'overlay' rather than a system, but it can become entrenched and lead to system change. Omaha skewing in Australia restricts marriage partners in some areas and links to patrilineal inheritance in others. The paper investigates how contextual strategies can lead to system change.

Paper long abstract:

Omaha and Crow skewing are frequently listed in typologies of kinship systems but skewing (eg calling a mother's brother's daughter 'mother' ) also occurs for contigent contextual reasons. Skewing is often therefore an 'overlay' on other systems rather than a system in its own right (Kronenfeld). Among the Gurindji in Australia Omaha skewed terms are used for 'close' relations and in other places (eg Cape York Peninsula, Thomson) they are interpreted as a device for rendering relations unmarriageable. This is reminiscent of the property of 'semi-complex' skewing systems of dispersing marriage alliances (Heritier). In other parts of Australia (eg the North Kimberleys) and elsewhere in the world, Omaha systems (of a slightly different kind) seem to link strongly to inheritance patterns in patrilineal descent groups, to the extent that skewing systems are often known as 'lineal'. In Australia historical linguistic evidence points to Omaha skewing playing a role in the transition from 'restricted' exchange (bilateral cross-cousin marriage in Cape York Penisula) to 'generalised' exchange (matrilateral marriage, North East Arnhem Land) (McConvell & Alpher , McConvell & Keen). This paper attempts to answer two questions: (1) is there a connection between the restriction of marriage and the importance of lineal groups in these cases?; and (2) how and why do patterns of contextual strategies lead to full-scale change in systems? In investigating these questions the new database of Australian kinship terminology AUSTKIN (http://austkin.pacific-credo.fr) will be used.