The Baniwa co-affinity: descriptions and models in the Northwest Amazon

Abstract

The article seeks to locate the extrakinship relations (or potential affinity) in the construction of the kinship of the Upper Rio Negro, from an ethnography among the Baniwa of the Aiari river, in the debate on the Amazonian dravidianate. Based on classification controversies involving sociocentric categories (fratrias and clans) and egocentric categories (dravidian terminology’s tripartition between consanguines,
affines and co-affines), marriages made possible by co-affinity (between "mother’s children" or uterine kinship) and non-prescribed marriages, an attempt is made to explain a dynamic in which agnattic and uterine kinship deny each other without any of them being established in a fixed way or being considered paradigmatic. Although the agnatic kinship (with its sociocentric classifications) is more prominent in the description of the region, the article tries to encourage reflection on uterine kinship and its codification according to co-affinity, considering the affinity coefficient of Amazonian kinship relationships. It highlights a dynamic where agnatic kinship and consanguinity may be understood as subordinated to cognation and potential affinity. Finally, it is expected to demonstrate that affinity as a scheme of difference explains important dynamics between kinship and extrakinship, between human and non-human domains, revealing the production conditions of collectives and relatives between the Baniwa in the Upper Rio Negro.