From Kinship to Common Descent: Four-Generation Genealogies among the Gusii

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Opening ParagraphThis paper is concerned with the limits to which exact genealogical tracing is JL carried among the Gusii, a Bantu-speaking people of western Kenya.At the time of field-work (1946–9) the Gusii were a moderately prosperous peasant people subsisting by hoe culture and stock raising. They were isolated between non-Bantu peoples (Luo, Kipsigis, Masai) in mountain country near the Kavirondo Gulf of Lake Victoria. They had no central authorities, except those introduced by the British colonial administration, and no central cult; they were not stratified either by rank or by marked differences of wealth. A segmentary descent system, and a common code of law regarding marriage and compensation, held them together as a common society (see P. Mayer, 1949 and 1950).
Keywords

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: