Re: Adoption

From: TTrotsky_at_aol.com
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1999 18:33:40 EST


Steve Leib:

<< >The very meaning of adoption is to establish new _kinship_ ties. If >the
ancestors don't recognize him as kin then why should the people >who adopted him be required to do so?

 True, but are all kinship ties equal? Is one required to defend one's second-cousin's honor as much as one's sister's? >>

     Depends on the culture. IMO, those clans that allow adoption would in most cases treat the adoptee just as any other member of the clan once he'd done all the relevant rituals and taken the associated risks. Since clans usually extend further than second cousins and still stick up for one another, the adoptee could count on at least that much support. But lacking any closer relatives within the clan might be a disadvantage - just as it would be for somebody born into the clan whose immediate relatives are all dead (it must happen). And of course, he'd have to earn status in the clan just as anyone else would, but with the disadvantage that he's starting with a clean slate at a (presumably) relatively greater age - and the advantage that he's presumably a bit tougher than your average 18-year old initiate.

<<Here's another issue: counterintuitively, I think it would be EASIER to be adpoted into an
ancestor worshipping tribe if you came from one already, than if you were (frex) some heathen city man who doesn't even KNOW who his father is, much less care about his great grandfather. Opinions?>>

      An ancestor worshipping clan is likely to be more positively inclined towards somebody from a clan with a similar tradition even before any questions of adoption get raised (unless of course, the two sets of ancestors were known enemies). Indeed, why would a heathen city man even want to join such a clan? Even if he did, he'd have much to learn and get to grips with before he could live among them without problems.

     So it'll be easier to get on good enough terms with the clan that they'll consider adopting you if you have similar traditions to them (not just including ancestor worship). However, it won't be much help in the actual cult initiation, because that's going to require a good knowledge of exactly what famous ancestors did and what the history of the clan is, and that's something you're going to have to learn from scratch.

Forward the glorious Red Army!

     Trotsky  


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