Nikko Stefanni Concepcion Ibaez

2010-36945 Matigsalog Kinship

LING102

It reminded me of my family tree as I got the information about the Matigsalug affinity. In fact, I traced my relatives to remember how each of my kin was called and then related it to how I would make a simpler description for my informants to understand easily. As we visited some of the Matigsalug households located in Sitio Upian, Marilog District, and as I interviewed some of their family members, I found out that there were no significant differences between ours (Bisaya) and the Matigsalug kinship except that they have other practices that cannot be accepted in the Bisayan culture. But as we all know, as far as influence, is concerned, it would not be that impossible if the Matigsalug community today has already been overlapped by Bisayan culture. A number of Bisayas had lived in the Matigsalugs ancestral domain and might already have dominated the latters way of life. Mrs. Aiza Liwas, one of my major informants, cites an example concerning this matter: a man should only have one wife but due to circumstances and traditional influences, a man can now secretly engage in a relationship forbidden by the tribe, and that is to have an affair with another woman. If this secret might be found out, it would be either to marry the other woman or at once end their relationship. Duwey in this concept of changes has not been mentioned. Naturally, like any other kinship system, Matigsalug kinship primarily is composed of an ame, ine and mga anak. But in their culture, having multiple wives and duwey is acceptable. Technically, it is the man who had to have two wives, but in their system, itll be the first wifes arrangement to have them both (the original and the succeeding wife) be one with each other: to equally share the chores for reasons of the first wife not able to do all of those alone anymore. This they refer to as having a duwey and having an asawa for that which refers to the mans own effort and choice of having another wife. Both these terms are similar by their counting: hun-a ne asawa, hun-a ne duwey for first, igkarangeb ne asawa, igkarangeb ne duwey for second, ika-tatelu for third, ika-hep-at for fourth, ika-lalim-ma for fifth, ikahen-em for sixth, ika-pit-to for seventh, ika-walo for eighth, ika-siyew for ninth, ika-sapulo for tenth. Same counting goes for the number of children. The primary family, the second family, the third family, the fourth to the nth family has similar kinship terms. No differences in name calling. Exception in the Matigsalug terminology is how they add words for certain terms to indicate their differences in family rank. For example, they add nasunod ne which means next to the word ine for stepmother and nasunod ne ame for stepfather. In counting their children, from first to their last family, they count from hun-a and never stops until the last child. They do not put a gap to any of their children. They view them as their own no matter how extended their family is.

Matigsalog Kinship

Key:

lukes /lukes/ (boy) malitan /malitan/ (girl) -

- indicates main family *reference based on main family

1 0

1 1

1 2

1 3

1 4

1 5

1 6

1 7

1 8

1 9

2 0

2 1

2 2

2 3

2 4

2 5

2 6

2 7

2 8

2 9

3 0

3 1

3 2