2020, Volume 17, Issue 2
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Nikita S. Shishelov Teknonymy in the Anthroponymic System of Northern Athabaskans
Voprosy onomastiki, 2020, Volume 17, Issue 2, pp. 36–58 (in Russian) Received on 1 April 2019 Abstract: The paper explores the anthroponymic tradition of teknonymy (paedonymic), renaming a parent by the name of a child, that is common among the northern Na-Dene populations. The study focuses on northern Athabaskans, occasionally using the data on neighboring peoples. The analysis refutes the accuracy of the functional interpretation of teknonymy proposed by Edward B. Taylor at the end of the 19th century. In this paper, teknonymy is considered as an integral part of a holistic traditional anthroponymic system of Athabaskan people which enables the author to identify and analyze the social strategies and implicit meanings it invokes. Linked to the tradition of tabooing personal names and a complex of views on reincarnation, the teknonymic subsystem in the past occupied a dominant position in the anthroponymy of most northern Athabaskans. Currently, it is still alive among some groups in a somewhat reduced form. The collected data provides for determining the boundaries of the largest continuous distribution area of teknonymy in America, including at least two dozen ethnolinguistic groups. A particular attention is given to pseudo-teknonyms, the names using the same pattern but unsuggestive of the real kinship of the name bearer. Two morphemic patterns of the teknonym formation are described. The author hypothesizes that in the Athabaskan culture, the teknonym was primarily a declarative marker of marriage indicating a special parental status that was the only publicly expressed marriage tradition. Meanwhile, teknonymy is regarded contextually, in relation to the social and generational stratification, and comparatively, in view of the functional difference it shows in two cultural clusters within the North Asian ethnic group. At some points, close parallels between teknonymic traditions of the northern Athabaskans and some peoples of the Old World are noted, which the author considers as convergent similarities. Keywords: anthroponymy, personal names, kinship systems, reincarnation, neoteronymy, geraiteronymy, teknonymy, pseudo-teknonymy, Athabaskans, Na-Dene. References Bishop, C., & Krech, S. (1980). Matriorganization: The Basis of Aboriginal Subarctic Social Organization. Arctic Anthropology, 17(2), 34–45. Bromberger, Ch. (2012). K antropologicheskomu analizu antroponimov [To Anthropological Analysis of Anthroponyms]. Voprosy onomastiki, 1, 116–145. Dzibel, G. V. (2001). Fenomen rodstva: prolegomeny k ideneticheskoi teorii [The Phenomenon of Kinship: Prolegomena to an Idenetic Theory]. St Petersburg: MAE RAN. Evans-Pritchard, E. (2003). Istoriia antropologicheskoi mysli [The History of Anthropological Thought]. Moscow: Izd-vo RAN. Geertz, H., & Geertz, C. (1968). Teknonymy in Bali: Parenthood, Age-grading and Genealogical Amnesia. In P. Bohannan, & J. Middleton (Ed.), Marriage, Family, and Residence (pp. 355–376). New York: The Natural History Press. Grinev, A. V. (1990). Lichnye imena indeitsev tlinkitov [Tlingit Indians Personal Names]. Sovetskaia etnografiia, 5, 132–141. Helm, J. (1965). Bilaterality in the Socio-Territorial Organization of the Arctic Drainage Dene. Ethnology, 4(4), 361–385. Litvinova, L. (2011). Sistema i terminy rodstva khausa [Kinship System and Terms in the Hausa Language]. In N. A. Zherlitsyna (Ed.), Afrika v global’nom mire: proshloe, nastoiashchee i budushchee: materially X Shkoly molodykh afrikanistov Rossii [Africa in the Global World: Past, Present and Future: Collected Papers of the 10th School of Young Africanists of Russia] (p. 172). Moscow: In-t Afriki RAN. Moore, P. (2007). Negotiated Identities: The Evolution of Dene Tha and Kaska Personal Naming Systems. Anthropological Linguistics, 49(3/4), 283–307. Perry, R. J. (1989). Matrilineal Descent in a Hunting Context: The Athapaskan Case. Ethnology, 28(1), 33–51. Sapir, E. (1924). Personal Names among the Sarcee Indians. American Anthropologist, 26(1), 108–119. Savishinsky, J. S. (1971). The Dog and the Hare: Cannine Culture in an Athapaskan Band. In A. McFadyen Clark (Ed.), Proceedings: Northern Athapaskan Conference (Vol. 2, pp. 642–515). Ottawa: National Museums of Canada. Slobodin, R. (1994). Kutchin Concepts of reincarnation. In A. Mills, & R. Slobodin (Ed.), Amerindian Rebirth: Reincarnation Belief Among North American Indians and Inuit (pp. 136–155). Toronto: Toronto Press. Tylor, E. B. (1889). On a Method of Investing the Development of Institutions: Applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 18, 245–269. |
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