Title: The Vietnamese Kinship System and its Prototype
Abstract:There are many peoples in the Peninsula of Indochina with various types of kinship systems: patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral. A comparative study on the kinship systems of these peoples, howeve...There are many peoples in the Peninsula of Indochina with various types of kinship systems: patrilineal, matrilineal, and bilateral. A comparative study on the kinship systems of these peoples, however, would reveal some particularity among those living in Tonkin Province, namely, the fact that the paternal rights are emphasized among all of them and almost all the peoples have the patri-clan system. The problem is why the same direction of development toward paternal rights is to be observed among all the peoples of this Province, notwithstanding they are mutually of different origins and have divergent languages and histories. As to the patri-clan systems, on the other hand, they seem to be classified into at least two types.The late H. MASPERO, a very able historian and ethnologist, once pointed out the parallelism between the types of kinship system and those of the tonal system ('mononique' and 'variotonique') and all the peoples of Tonkin Province have 'variotonique' languages. However he did not enter into the matter deeply and moreover there still remains much to be proved concerning the correlation between kinship systems and tonal systems.The native peoples living in the Province mentioned above are Vietnamese, Muong, Thai, Meo, Lolo, and Man, etc.. Among these the author attempts to take up the problem of the Vietnamese, who are most definitely of the patriclan system.In addition, the author attempts to prove that their patri-clan system is derived from that of the Chinese.As already mentioned, the author believes that there are two kinds of clan systems in Tonkin Province; the problem concerning another clan system seen in the Black Thai or Muong will be discussed in the next article contained in this volume.Read More