Akan Teleteaching Course

Unit 4.3: Akan kinship 1

The Akan are of matrilineal descent. This doesn't mean, however, that women occupy the decisive positions within the family or the community. Matrilineality is rather a question of inheritance than of (political) power. The most important male within the family is not the child's own father but mother's brother, called 'wõfa'. When he dies his sisters' children, not his own, will inherit him. Read more on Akan kinship in Fortes (1950: 252 ff.).

I. Perspective of EGO (male) to children, parents, and grandparents

II. Perspective of EGO (female) to children, parents, and grandparents

-> Akan kinship 2, -> Akan kinship 3

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