Hawaiian kinship (also referred to as the Generational system) is a kinship system used to define family. Identified by Louis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Hawaiian system is one of the six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese).

The Hawaiian system is the most classificatory system of kinship. In it, differences are distinguished by generation and by gender. There is a parental generation and a generation of children. In this system, Ego refers to all females of his parent's generation as "Mother" and all of the males as "Father". In the generation of children, all brothers and male cousins are referred to as "Brother", all sisters and females as "Sister".

The Hawaiian system is usually associated with ambilineal descent groups.

Usage

The Hawaiian system originated in the Hawaiian Islands. However, due to the dominance of Western culture, most people on the islands now use the Eskimo system. Use of the Hawaiian system is now most common in Malayo-Polynesian-speaking areas.

This form of kinship is most common in societies where economic production and child-rearing are shared.

See also

• Family
• Kinship and descent
• Anthropology
• List of anthropologists

Sources

• William Haviland, Cultural Anthropology, Wadsworth Publishing, 2002. ISBN 053427479X
• The nature of kinship
• Archnet: Hawaiian kinship