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Ancestor Worship in Anthropology: or, Observations on Descent and Descent Groups [and Comments and Reply]

1966; University of Chicago Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/200770

1537-5382

Indigenous Studies and Ecology

Recently, a number of prominent anthropologists have cited with approval W. H. R. Rivers' observations on "descent" and "descent groups." Rivers has been credited with considerable insight and foresigh into matters terminological and conceptual. Goody and Leach favor his usage of descent to refer to the genealogical criteria for membership of descent groups, the latter being defined as corporte bodies which are mutually exclusive on genealogical grounds. Fortes agrees but does not cite Rivers. Other scholars favor a broader usage of both terms, and there is considerable disagreement over whether or not we ought to speak of "ambilineal" or "cognatic" descent groups. The Leach-Goody-Fortes position holds that it is unsound to do so. It is argued here that their argument is indefensible because it, too, fails to meet several terminological and conceptual problems posed by Rivers' usage. Rivers did not distinguish between indigenous ideological forms, such as concepts and rules, and the forms of social transactions which may be conceptualized and regulated by enunciated rules. Thus Rivers defined descent structurally and functionally, as do Goody, Leach, and Fortes. This leads to "holstic" analytical models, which are inadequate to the representation or explanation of social forms because these forms are mutable in structure and function. Descent is here defined in terms of ideological or conceptual phenomena, as a generic label for a variety of forms of genealogical continua. Descent-constructs are distinguished from descent-phrased rules and these from descent-ordered units or sets of social transactions. The concept "group" is also considered, and it is noted how some usages deprive the term of sociological utility. It is suggested that models of social structures should be mutable; typologies of groups with descent-phrased organizational ideologies should 1st deal with the operational aspects of group structure and then focus on their idioms of organization. In this way, it may prove possible to formulate and test generalizations about the complex material and other conditions to which various organizational idioms may be differentially adaptive or adjustive.