Paper short abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork this presentation will discuss matrilineal features of societies in Tanzania and Northern Mozambique where matrilineal characteristics appear especially resilient. Remarkably there has been little consideration of certain matrilineal cluster of features

Paper long abstract:

Based on ethnographic fieldwork this presentation will discuss matrilineal features of societies in Tanzania and Northern Mozambique where matrilineal characteristics appear especially resilient. Remarkably there has been little consideration of certain matrilineal cluster of features in East African societies in which matriliny was rather forecasted as fading and doomed to die. By not abiding to this deterministic perspective, I believe that an emic perspectives on matriliny, a view on how people see their own institutions and the extent women exercises power in societies pervaded by matrilineal characteristics is worth exploring. I shall thus discuss some characteristics of matriliny in two different social contexts of east Africa in northern East Tanzania and Northern Mozambique, compare the ways in which changes have been introduced and some reasons why people have been forced to abandon certain features while others have persisted. The role of the apyamwene in the Makhwa society as well as the rituals of wellbeing performed according to matrilineal criteria among the Zigula of Somalia and Tanzania shows that matriliny still is the foundation of several societies organization within specific socio-economic and sometimes juridical contexts.