Kir people: Difference between revisions

The Kir have a {{wp|Iroquois kinship|merged bifurcate}} understanding of kinship reflected in the terminology of the Kiravic language. One's father and his brothers and one's mother and her sisters are referred to by the same base term (''stur'' and ''enna''), while one's father's sisters and one's mother's brothers . Accordingly, one's {{wp|parallel cousins}} - the offspring of one's father's brother or mother's sister - are referred to as siblings, differentiated by degree; while one's {{wp|cross-cousins}} - the offspring of one's father's sister or mother's brother - are referred to as cousins. Like all Coscivian groups, the Kir trace descent through the {{wp|patriline}}. An extended family unit sharing the same grandfather is known as a ''danrin'', while a larger kinship group claiming common descent from an arbitrarily higher-order ancestor (typically a great-grandfather or great-great-grandfather) is known as a ''dóntra''.

The apical Kir kinship unit of cultural importance is the clan (''tanak''). Kir clans originally shared a common surname, though over time 'family names' denoting a particular ''dóntra'' displaced clan surnames among most non-elite families, with the clan name being retained as a secondary part of an individual's full name. Kirish clans had already ceased to function as socio-political or economic units by the time of Christianisation, and today they are mainly of genealogical interest.