THE DYIRBAL KINSHIP SYSTEM

The Dyirbal-speaking people of North Queensland, Australia, have an unusual (and possibly unique) kinship system. Marriage takes place with someone not from ego's own generation but a generation above or below. A cross-cousin through an elder-sibling link at the parents' generation (i.e. mother's elder brother's child, father's elder sister's child) is a potential mother-in-law or father-in-law; ego may marry the child of such a relation. It follows from this that ego may also marry the child of a younger opposite-sex sibling of a grandparent (e.g. mother's mother's younger brother's child). The system is quite symmetrical with regard to sex. Following exposition of the rules of the kinship system, the paper discusses how these are actually put into practice. Justification for the kin categories is also provided by linguistic observations on (i) dual forms of kin terms; (ii) the possible subjects of ‘verbs of begetting’; (iii) the kinship basis of the two first person dual pronouns; (iv) the rules for using the special deferential (or ‘mother-in-law’) speech style.