clan: one construct, many systems

In anthropology, a clan is a kin group whose members claim descent from a common ancestor through one line (mother's or father's) but, unlike a lineage, cannot always trace the exact genealogical links back to that founder, who may be legendary or even non-human. Fox's Kinship and Marriage treats the clan as a unilineal descent group, often exogamous and marked by a shared name or totem, that organises belonging, cooperation, and marriage. The referent is a descent-based social unit defined by claimed common ancestry, and it is the same kin-group idea that behavioural ecologists later borrowed for the matrilineal societies of some animals.[1]

Unit

Membership in a descent group tracing to a claimed common ancestor

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Established through descent rules, clan names or totems, and the marriage and cooperation patterns that follow membership

In behavioural ecology, clan names a kin-based animal society whose members share an inherited group marker, closely echoing the anthropological descent group. Ford's 1991 study of resident killer whales describes acoustic clans: sets of matrilineal pods that share a related repertoire of calls, a vocal 'dialect' passed down the maternal line and taken to reflect common ancestry, much as a human clan is marked by a shared name or emblem. The referent is a matriline-based social grouping identified by a heritable shared trait, and it is the anthropologists' descent-group construct transposed to an animal society.[2]

Unit

A grouping of matrilines sharing a heritable, learned group marker

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Delimited by shared call repertoires or other heritable group markers and the matrilineal association patterns among members