On the Conversion of Non-Agnates into Agnates among the Manga, Jimi River, Western Highlands District, New Guinea

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Abstract
This paper examines an aspect of a New Guinea kinship terminological system in which "genealogical amnesia" has sometimes been cited as causing non-agnates to be re-classified as agnates. I maintain that for the Manga certain non-agnatic kintypes in specific contexts are nominally converted into agnatic kinsmen by consistent application of the kinship terminology. I also imply that the problem of non-agnates in the patrilineage is in part an epistemological problem stemming from the intersection of ethnographical concepts and indigenous concepts. I conclude that "genealogical amnesia" is not a causative agent but, rather, that it is induced and is therefore an epiphenomenon, i.e., a by-product.

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