descent patterns

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2000 04:36:37 GMT

David Dunham replying to me:
> >A very messy area is 'child custody'. Patrilineage is More-Than-
> >Orlanthi-Universal, but 'patrilocality' is much less certain.
>
> Greg once messily wrote that about 1/6 of the Sartarite clans
> practiced matrilineal descent, but never gave details.

Wow. _less_ than Orlanthi-Universal! (By about 1-2%... <g>) I'm not convinced, mesel' (Greg seems to think that _all_ minorities in Orlanthi society are 15-16%, arithmetic and common sense be blowed), but just to firm up on my original statement, I'd think that a few percent do. (Thing is you have to get your neighbours to agree to it too, otherwise there ain't much point...)

> Conceivably these could be clans who worship Ernalda as their main
> deity (as in King of Dragon Pass).

I'd have said that was much more common. For example (bias time again), our clan's main deity is Ernalda, but we still traditionally have an Orlanth-devotee male chief, and are def. patrilineal. We seem to be at least 'soft on' patrilocalism, though.

Cheers,
Alex.

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