The Kinship System of the Mosuo in China

Ruxian Yan

The Kinship System of the Mosuo in China

Introduction

The Mosuo inhabit the Lugu Lake area on the borders of Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces in southwestern China. It is a hot tourist site nowadays, but in the 1960s when we first visited there, it was an isolated area with very poor transportation conditions. It took us ten days to walk from the seat of Lijiang County to Lugu Lake.

The Mosuo call the lake "xie na mi" meaning "Mother Lake." They call the mountain situated at the north shore of the lake "gan mu" meaning "Female Mountain," and consider it the guardian of the Mosuo. The Female Mountain is surrounded by a number of male mountains that are its companions. In this area, women are considered superior and mothers are highly respected. The big trees are called female trees while the small ones are called male trees; the big mountain is called mother-mountain while the small ones are called male mountains. The matrilineal blood ties are paramount. A Mosuo proverb says: "(We) do not worry about the lack of sons while water does not flow without daughters; having daughters is more significant than having sons for daughters are the roots." The Mosuo consider the matrilineal system as the most natural, most perpetual and most sacred tie among all human relations. In their mind, mother is the loftiest among all female relatives and the maternal uncle is the loftiest among all male relatives. It is their wonderful tradition to respect elders and care for the young. They hold the unity of the matrilineal relatives as the source of happy life for all.

The first Mosuo household we visited was the Yijie's with sixteen members in Aguwa village. I habitually asked the surname of the female head of the household, Gaocuomi. She answered that, "we don't have any surname. Just call us the Yijie's." The head of the township who acted as our guide explained to us that "Yijie is the name of a female ancestor ten generation before used as the name of the household. They belong to a siri (sub-clan) called Sadabu. Sadabu is the name of a more ancient ancestor." I then asked Gaocumi, "How many children do you have?" "Ten," she answered. I was surprised and confused because I was told that the birth rate of Mosuo women was very low. The first person I had ever talked to seemed to be an extreme exception! The head of the township explained again that, "She actually gave birth to only one son. The rest of the children are her sisters'. Mosuo women take all their sisters' children as their own. The children in turn treat all of them as their mothers."

The answers to these two simple questions reflect that the Mosuo concept of kinship and their notions of human relations are quite different from those of the patriarchal groups that we were familiar with. We immediately decided to move from the guesthouse of the local government to the Mosuo household so we could closely observe and experience their household structure and day-to-day life.

I. The Matrilineal Kinship System

The kinship system, also called the kinship terminology system, is a kind of social norm, which uses a set of particular vocabulary to indicate the blood or affinal relationships among the people of a certain social group. The matrilineal kinship system of the Mosuo is used within their matrilineal blood groups of er (clan), siri (sub-clan) and yidu (matrilineal household). It includes the following terminology (1):

1 The pronunciation of the kinship terminology uses the International Phonetic Symbols. The number on the upper right corner of the letter is the tune of the syllable.

Relation to the ego	Appellation	Meaning
Great-grandmother	ε²sz²	Great-grandparent
Mother's mother	e²zi¹	Grandmother
Mother's maternal uncle	e²phu²	Granduncle
Mother	e²mi²	Mother
Maternal uncle	e²v²	Maternal uncle
Daughter (female call)	mv¹	Children
Son(female call)	zo²	Son
Granddaughter (female call)	zu¹mi²	Granddaughter
Grandson (female call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Great-granddaughter (female call)	zu¹mi²	Granddaughter
Great-grandson (female call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Elder sister	e²mv³	Elder sister
Elder brother	e²mv³	Elder brother
Younger sister	go²mi²	Younger sister
Younger brother	gi²zz²	Younger brother
Sisters	e²mv³go²mi²	Sisters
Brothers	e²mv³gi²zz²	Brothers
Sister's daughter (female call)	mv¹	Daughter
Sister's son (female call)	zo²	Son
Sister's granddaughter (female call)	zu¹mi²	Granddaughter
Sister's grandson (female call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Sister's daughter (male call)	zi³mi²	Niece
Sister's son (male call)	zi³v²	Nephew
Sister's granddaughter (male call)	zu¹mi²	Granddaughter
Sister's grandson (male call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Mother's elder sister	e²mi²gz³	Big mother
Mother's younger sister	e²mi²tci¹	Little mother
Mother's sisters	e²mi²	Mother
Mother's sister's daughter (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder sister
Mother's sister's daughter (younger than ego)	go²mi²	Younger sister
Mother's sister's son (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder brother
Mother's sister's son (younger than ego)	gi²zz²	Younger brother
Mother's sister's granddaughter (female call)	mv¹	Daughter
Mother's sister's grandson(female call)	zo²	Son
Mother's sister's great-granddaughter (female call)	zu¹ mi²	Granddaughter
Mother's sister's great-grandson (female call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Mother's sister's granddaughter (male call)	zi³ mi²	Niece
Mother's sister's grandson (male call)	zi³v²	Nephew
Mother's sister's great-granddaughter (male call)	zu¹ mi²	Granddaughter
Mother's sister's great-grandson (male call)	zu¹v²	Grandson
Grandmother's sister	e²zi¹	Grandmother
Grandmother's brother	e²phu²	Granduncle
Grandmother's sister's daughter	e²mi²	Mother
Grandmother's sister's son	e²v²	Maternal uncle
Grandmother's sister's granddaughter (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder sister
Grandmother's sister's granddaughter (younger than ego)	go²mi²	Younger sister
Grandmother's sister's grandson (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder brother
Grandmother's sister's grandson (younger than ego)	gi²zz²	Younger brother
Grandmother's sister's great-granddaughter (female call)	mv¹	Daughter
Grandmother's sister's great-grandson (female call)	zo²	Son
Grandmother's sister's great-granddaughter (male call)	zi³mi²	Niece
Grandmother's sister's great-grandson (male call)	zi³v²	Nephew
Great-grandmother's sister	ε²sz²	Great-grandparent
Great-grandmother's brother	ε²sz²	Great-grandparent
Great-grandmother's sister's daughter	e²zi¹	Grandmother
Great-grandmother's sister's son	e²phu²	Granduncle
Great-grandmother's sister's granddaughter	e²mi²	Mother
Great-grandmother's sister's grandson	e²v²	Maternal uncle
Great-grandmother's sister's great-granddaughter (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder sister
Great-grandmother's sister's great-granddaughter (younger than ego)	go²mi²	Younger sister
Great-grandmother's sister's great-grandson (older than ego)	e²mv³	Elder brother
Great-grandmother's sister's great-grandson (younger than ego)	gi²zz²	Younger brother
Great-grandmother's sister's great-great-granddaughter (female call)	mv¹	Daughter
Great-grandmother's sister's great-great-grand son (female call)	zo²	Son
Great-grandmother's sister's great-great-granddaughter (male call)	zi³mi²	Niece
Great-grandmother's sister's great-great-grandson (male call)	zi³v²	Nephew
Mother's partner	e²v²	?\|
Maternal uncle's partner	e²mi²	?\|
?iego's?jpartner	a²cia² a²du²	?\|
Partner's daughter (male call)	zi³mi²	?\|
Partner's son (male call)	zi³v	?\|
Partner's mother	e²mi²	?\|
Partner's maternal uncle	e²v²	?\| (2)

2 There is no affinal relationship with a yidu. One addresses the people in one's partner's yidu following the way of the partner. However, the relationship between these people and one is counted neither that of family members nor relatives.

The above terminology includes one lineal line and four collateral lines. That is all ranks of matrilineal social structures. And the principle of classifying relatives according to these categories can be further extended. However, regardless of whether the relation is close or remote, the appellations used are always the same as those of the lineal line blood relatives. As a result, all the collateral blood relatives are included into the range of the lineal line blood relatives. This kind of kinship terminology has the following features:

The great-grandmothers and the great-grand children are the most distant relationships upwards and downwards while all the ancestors before and all the descendants after these two categories are all incorporated into them respectively.

The female ego is the center in both the direct line and the collateral line kinship relations. That is, the basic reference for the genealogy can only be a female because only women have children. We can trace up from oneself to the mother and the mother of the mother while trace down to the daughter and the daughter of the daughter. The brothers of each generation are included in the lineal line. However, the sexual partners of the mothers, oneself and the daughters are not included. Neither do the sexual partners of male members of the household. Within a yidu, both sexes of the same generation are siblings. All the relatives of the collateral lines are classified the same way.

The first and by far the most important characteristic of this kinship system is that there is no difference between the lineal line and the collateral line in it. The first collateral line indicates the relations between the sisters' descendants and oneself: if I am a woman, my sisters' children are theirs as well as mine. They call their biological mother "e²mi²" and they call me "e²mi²" too. In the same way, the children of my sisters' daughters are their grandchildren as well as mine. Namely, I take my sisters' children as my very own and treat them as such.

Secondly, in this Mosuo system, children belong to their mother and her yidu. So a man's next generation is his sisters' children instead of his own. He calls them nieces and nephews while they call him maternal uncle.

Thirdly, the sisters of one's mother are the mothers to one. That is, sisters of both the lineal line and the collateral line all take the position of the mothers to each other's children.

Fourthly, The children of one's mother's sisters are one's siblings. The second collateral line indicates the relations between the descendants of my mother's sisters and me. Regardless of I am a woman or a man, the sisters of my mother are all my mothers and their children my sisters and brothers. Furthermore, the children of these sisters are my children if I am a woman while they are my nieces and nephews if I am a man.

Fifthly, the sisters of one's grandmother are all taken into the category of grandmothers so as to avoid leaving out any upwards-collateral matrilineal relatives. The third collateral line indicates the relations between the sisters of one's grandmother as well as their descendants and one. In the same way, the children of these grandmothers are one's mothers and maternal uncles while these mothers' children are one's siblings.

Finally, although the blood ties are more distant by going further upward or downward on the collateral lines, the use of kinship appellations are exactly the same as those of the same generations with one's lineal line relatives. Take the fourth collateral line as an example. It indicates the relations between the sisters and their descendants of my great-grandmother and me. Namely, the sisters of my great-grandmother are my great-grandmothers; their daughters are my grandmothers; their granddaughters are my mothers and their great-grand daughters my sisters. Their sons are different generations of maternal uncles. So are other collateral relatives.

Consequently, although the matrilineal blood relatives could have many collateral lines, there are only thirteen basic terms in the Mosuo system. They are great-grandmothers & great-grand maternal uncles"ε²sz²," grandmothers "e²zi¹," grand maternal uncles "e²phu²," mothers"e²mi²", maternal uncles "e²v²", sisters"e²mv³go²mi²", brothers"e²mv³gi²zz²", daughters"mv¹", sons"zo²", nieces"zi³mi²", nephews"zi³v²", grand daughters"zu¹mi²"and grand sons"zu¹v²".

II. The Social Foundation and the Evolution of the Mosuo Kinship System

The matrilineal system of Mosuo has a solid practical basis and a deep historical basis. According to historical record, the ancestors of the Mosuo arrived at the Lugu Lake area in the fourth century. Six ancient er or matrilineal clans settled in a place called Sibuanawa to the north of Lugu Lake, and then they migrated towards the south in three pairs, which intermarry each other. At the beginning, the members of an er lived together in the same community. When the population grew, er formed a subgroup called siri, and the members of a siri lived together in the village. The fission continued and an even smaller group yidu derived from siri. The social function of a yidu is like a family while it is the epitome of a matrilineal clan, the unilateral consanguinity of a maternal blood relative group. When we conducted our investigation in 1963, most yidu consisted of brothers and sisters who were born from the same female ancestor, and the children of the sisters. The average size of the yidu was seven to eight people, and at the most twenty to thirty. Yidu is still the basic production and living unit among the Mosuo today.

In a yidu, the head is most commonly a female. If she is not the oldest generation in the household, her mother and mother's sisters and brothers are also included. In a typical Mosuo house, old women and children sleep in the main room where all group activities are held. There are small rooms for each adult woman but no place for male adults unless they are lamas or they are too old to have sexual life. Male adults are expected to spend nights with their sexual partners while work for and live their daily life with their maternal yidu. All children belong to their mother's yidu and they call their mother's sisters mother and their mother's brothers maternal uncle, who are responsible to raise and educate them, and also give them financial and emotional supports. There is neither an affinal kin in the yidu nor the affinal terminology in the Mosuo kinship system.

Although the matrilineal clan, er, had collapsed long time ago, most people know to which er they belong. Siri existed for a long period after the collapse of er and had functioned as the kin group of mutual production and consumption. After yidu, the group that had smaller number of people and tighter blood connections, derived from siri and grew stronger, siri was no longer the group that people lived their daily life together but still played the role of the matrilineal clan with a ceremonial importance.

As a practical entity of production and living, the yidu keeps the characteristics and the customs of the matrilineal clan alive and more specific:

Women at the center. The statuses of women and men are equal. The genealogy is passed down through the maternal line. The head of the household is called "dabu" and usually is the mother or a capable daughter. The head of the household is responsible for planning production and arranging daily life.
The properties belong to all the members of the yidu. Everyone does the work according to her/his ability, and the whole yidu consume together.
Dividing of the yidu. When there are so many people in a household that it causes some inconveniences, a daughter yidu "a po" will separate from the mother yidu "a wo". The "a wo" will help the "a po" build up a new house, give them certain amount of land, domestic animals and tools while the major properties remain in the "a wo". It is hardly any conflict caused by dividing the properties.
Naming of the yidu. Most yidu are named after an ancestor especially a female. Some of them take the names from animals or the places they live.
Dwelling of the yidu. Members of a yidu live together in the same compound centered by women. Namely, old women and children live in the main room; elderly maternal uncles live in the upper room; and each adult woman has her private room. However, although each adult man has a seat in the main room in daytime, there is no bedroom for him, as he should spend nights at his partner's room in her yidu.
The common cemetery. Each yidu has a burial ground in the cemetery of the siri they belong. The Mosuo cremate those who died naturally, put their ashes into hemp pouches and bury them into the common ground according to the same order of their seats by the hearth of the household when they were alive. Namely, the older generation is seated on the upper place and the younger generation the lower while female on the right side and male on the left. This shows that the people of the same matrilineal blood kin would never separate from each other even in death.

Apparently, all the characteristics are inherited from the matrilineal clan. The yidu members see themselves inseparable and they go through thick and thin together. There is deep sense of intimacy and security in the consanguinity. This extends to the entire Mosuo community. All old and young, sick and handicapped are taken care of. There are very few conflicts between household members or between neighbors. All the people would offer their care and help to those whom affected in case of difficulties or disasters. Mother's love is the core of humanity. It nurtures the material and spiritual bases of the Mosuo matrilineal system, which has existed for centuries and will exist for a long time to come.

III. Rethinking the Origin of the Kinship System

The origin of the kinship system is a topic that has been debated and concluded by the victory of Morgan's theory of bilateral origin long time ago. MacLennan's unilateral origin lost because he failed to provide examples. However, the very existence of the Mosuo yidu and their practices of the pure unilateral matrilineal kinship system call for the re-examination of this issue.

The American Lewis Henry Morgan (1818-1881) was the founder of the kinship study. He collected rich data of the kinship terminology from over two hundreds societies, created the general lists of the terminology, and established a research methodology. He observed that the origin of the kinship system is bilateral and clearly pointed out that it originated in Malayan system, which he called "the simpler, and, therefore, the older form" (3) among classificatory kinship system.

The British anthropologist John Ferguson McLennan (1827-1881) at Morgan's time held a different viewpoint. He argued that there had been a period of promiscuity in the process of human evolution, and then matriarchy arose. Therefore, tracing the genealogy from the maternal line was earlier than from the paternal line. However, the one who initiated the point of matriarchy was the Swiss Johann Jakob Bachofen. In his book Mother Right, Bachofen held that marriage had not existed in the primitive group marriage society, so it was hard to identify who the father was, and the blood relation could only be determined through mother. Consequently, the kinship relation could only be traced through the maternal line.

Interestingly, all the aforementioned three scholars agreed that there was a group marriage period in the early human history. The discrepancies lay in that Morgan thought there were relevant marriage rules even in that time. The maternal line, paternal line and the affinal line were all clear and could be expressed by kinship terminology. McLennan, on the other hand, did not believe there were marriage rules during that period. He maintained that there were only matrilineal relatives at the time. However, there was no adequate evidence to prove this point.

In fact, Morgan brought up a hypothesis on the relations between a woman and her children, between her and her mother and her mother's mother, between her and her siblings and between the children of her daughter and her granddaughters - all these relations could be expressed by appropriate terminology. This hypothesis started a whole new kinship system, which was based on blood ties and had nothing to do with marriage rules. This was a wonderful hypothesis. Unfortunately, he could not obtain any physical evidences. Although he firmly believed that the partially consanguineal and partially affinal Malayan system was the most ancient kinship system based on the data he had at the time, Morgan left a profound question: if consanguineal system was indeed a kinship system, where had this lost system been?

The exciting answer was from China: it was there and is still there among the Mosuo people by the Lugu Lake in Southwest China! In fact, it has never lost, but we did not realize it until we conducted our fieldwork research in that region. We found the missing link that caused the error in Morgan's theory on kinship system and provided a solid evidence for the matrilineal kinship system. The Mosuo kinship system is exactly like Morgan's hypothesis. That is the "unilateral" kinship system. In this system, all maternal blood relatives, no matter how close or remote, are classified into a category of five-rank kinship relation. To the female ego, those who one generation older are all mothers and maternal uncles; those who two generations older are all grandmothers and maternal granduncles; those who the same generation with the ego are all brothers and sisters; the next generation are daughters and sons while those who two generations younger are granddaughters and grandsons. The whole series of relatives are connected by maternal blood tie and have nothing to do with marriage principles. Therefore, there are no patrilineal terms and affinal terms in the system. This system is apparently simpler than the Malayan system, and it is "a kinship system that is clearly based on blood relations."

The Mosuo kinship system had not changed after the establishment of clan exogamy because the basis of the kinship system was the maternal blood tie. Two terms were added to the original terminology: niece and nephew. This clearly marked that men had no direct descendent and the clan commune was passed down through the maternal line. More importantly, a large number of yidu exist today. They are not families but the products of the constant fission of matrilineal clans, therefore small matrilineal blood groups.

Although coexist families and patrilineal families appeared in Mosuo region as the influence of the central dynasties, the matrilineal yidu still held the dominant position. The patrilineal terminology emerged and some terms were borrowed from the neighboring ethnic groups. Nevertheless, even in the patrilineal families, most children call their father e²v² (maternal uncle) and their paternal aunt e²mi² (mother) while affinal terminology virtually didn't exist.

In conclusion, the development of the Mosuo kinship system reveals that the early form of the matrilineal system is unilateral, namely maternal, kinship system. Patrilineal kinship terminology was gradually developed along with the establishment of the father/son relation. However, the bilateral system has not yet completely formed among the Mosuo up to now. We believe that the "early period" when the kinship system was counted only according to maternal line was the early and middle stages of matrilineal clans. In that time, the matrilineal clan functioned as both the unit of production and living, and the basic cell of the society. The matrilineal blood tie provided the natural connection to the system. The sexual relation between women and men was the sexual partnership established between clans. The relation between the two parties was loose and unstable, and did not lead to a common life. The clan, which based on the matrilineal blood tie, was all that mattered at the time. The members lived together closely as a unit while they were buried together when they died. That was the foundation of the unilateral kinship relation.

The Mosuo kinship system and the matrilineal blood kinship structures, the clan and the yidu, which the kinship system was developed from, is the kinship structure that is more ancient than Tulannian kinship system and Iroquian bilateral kinship system. It filled the missing linkage of " the kinship system based on maternal line only." It is not only significant in exploring the history of matrilineal clan system but also crucial in examining the rich maternal culture.

(translation by Liu Xiaoxin)

1 The pronunciation of the kinship terminology uses the International Phonetic Symbols. The number on the upper right corner of the letter is the tune of the syllable.

3 Henry Lewis Morgan: Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997, p.484.