List of matrilineal or matrilocal societies

The following list includes societies that have been identified as matrilineal or matrilocal in ethnographic literature.

"Matrilineal" means property is passed down through the maternal line on the death of the mother, not that of the father.

The Akans of Ghana, West Africa, are matrilineal. Akans are the largest ethnic group in Ghana. They are made of the Akims, Asantes, Fantis, Akuapims, Kwahus, Denkyiras, Brongs, Akwamus, Krachis, etc.

"Matrilocal" means new families are established in proximity to the brides' extended family of origin, not that of the groom.

Note: separate in the marriage column refers to the practice of husbands and wives living in separate locations, often informally called walking marriages. See the articles for the specific cultures that practice this for further description.


Group name	Continent	Country / Region	Marriage	Lineage	Reference	(c. year)
Akan	Africa	Ghana	both	matrilineal	Meyer Fortes[1]	1950
Alor	Asia	Indonesia			Cora du Bois	1944
Bamenda	Africa	Cameroon	patrilocal	only Kom matrilineal	Phyllis Kaberry	1952
Batek	Asia	Malaysia	patrilocal		Kirk Michael Endicott	1974
Bijagós	Africa	Guinea-Bissau		matrilineal	Luigi Scantarburlo	1978
Billava	Asia	India	patrilocal	matrilineal
Bontoc	Asia	Philippines			Albert Jenks Albert Bacdayan	1905 1974
Boyowan	Australasia	Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea	patrilocal	matrilineal	Bronisław Malinowski	1916
Bribri	North America	Costa Rica	matrilocal	matrilineal	William More Gabb	1875
Bunt	Asia	India	patrilocal	matrilineal	E Kathleen Gough	1954
Danes	Europe	Læsø	matrilocal	matrilineal[2]	Bjarne Stoklund[3]	1700-1900
Chambri	Australasia	Papua New Guinea			Margaret Mead	1935
Ezhava	Asia	India	both	matrilineal
Fore	Australasia	Papua New Guinea			Shirley Glasse (Lindenbaum)	1963
Garo	Asia	India	matrilocal	matrilineal
Greek	Europe	various islands	matrilocal		John Hawkins	to the end of the 18th century AD[4]
Hopi	North America	United States of America	matrilocal	matrilineal	Barbara Freire-Marreco	1914
Huaorani	South America	Ecuador			John Man	1982
Iban	Asia	Borneo	both	neither	Edwin H Gomes	1911
Imazighen	Africa	North Sahara			George Peter Murdock	1959
Iroquois	North America	North East North America	matrilocal	matrilineal	Lewis Henry Morgan	1901
Jaintia	Asia	India	matrilocal	matrilineal
Jívaro	South America	West Amazon			Rafael Karsten	1926
Jews in the Kibbutzim		Israel	[5]	matrilineal	Judith Buber Agassi[6]	1989
Karen	Asia	Burma	matrilocal	matrilineal	Harry Ignatius Marshall[7]	1922
Kerinci	Asia	Indonesia	matrilocal	matrilineal	C.W. Watson[8]	1992
Khasi	Asia	India	matrilocal	matrilineal	P. R. T. Gurdon[9]	1914
Kuna people	South America	Panama, Colombia	matrilocal
!Kung San	Africa	Southern Africa			Marjorie Shostak	1976
Marshallese	Oceania	Marshall Islands	matrilocal	matrilineal
Maliku	Asia	India	separate	matrilineal	Ellen Kattner	1996
Minangkabau	Asia	Indonesia	separate	matrilineal	Pieter Johannes Veth	1882
Mosuo/Nakhi	Asia	China	separate	matrilineal	Joseph Francis Charles Rock	1924
Nair	Asia	India	matrilocal	matrilineal	E Kathleen Gough	1954
Navajo	North America	United States of America	matrilocal	matrilineal
Ngazidja/Grande Comore	Africa	Comoros	matrilocal	matrilineal	Paul Guy[10] Martine Gestin, Nicole-Claude Mathieu[11]	1942
Nubians	Africa	Sudan			Ernest Godard	1867
Ovambo	Africa	Namibia		matrilineal	Maija Hiltunen (Tuupainen)[12]	1970
Serer subgroups : Saafi, Ndut, Palor, Laalaa, Noon and Niominka.	Africa	Senegal, the Gambia and Mauritania	patrilocal	both	Henry Gravrand[13] Charles Becker[14]	1990 1993
Siraya	Austronesia	Taiwan	duolocal, uxorilocal	matrilineal	Shepherd & Candidius	1995
Thai people	Asia		matrilocal
Tlingit	North America	United States of America, and Canada	matrilocal	matrilineal	Aurel Krause	1885
Vanatinai	Australasia	Papua New Guinea	matrilocal	matrilineal	Maria Lepowsky	1981
Wemale	Asia	Indonesia			Adolf E Jensen	1939
Basques	Europe	Spain and France	matrilocal	matrilineal
Chams	Asia	Vietnam, Cambodia	matrilocal	matrilineal	[15]
Rhade (Ê Đê)	Asia	Vietnam, Cambodia	matrilocal	matrilineal	[16]
Amis	Asia	Taiwan	matrilocal	matrilineal
Han Taiwanese (antiquated, mostly rural)	Asia	Taiwan	matrilocal	matrilineal		[17]

References

Val'Dman, A. V.; Kozlovskaia, M. M. (1975). "1950 Ashanti Kinship. In A.R. Radcliffe Brown. African systems of Kinship and Marriage. London: Oxford University Press". Zhurnal Nevropatologii I Psikhiatrii Imeni S.s. Korsakova (Moscow, Russia : 1952). 75 (11): 1710–7. PMID 1950.
only in informal everyday language.
Gårdene gik i arv på spindesiden. Kvinderne drev landbruget, medens mændene mest tog sig af strandinger og fiskeri og hjalp med pløjning og tærskning.
The farms were inherited in the distaff side. The women drive agriculture, while men most took care of shipwrecks and fishing and helped with plowing and threshing.
- Stoklund, Bjarne: "Arbejde og kønsroller på Læsø o. 1200-1900" ISBN 87-88683-08-7
- "Kvindefællesskaber" (Anna Birte Ravn og Marianne Rostgård). ISBN 87-982062-1-4
Myers, Peter (November 23, 2001). "Aryan Invasions – Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Colin Renfew, Marija Gimbutas and Martin Bernal on the Indo-European invasions and the earlier Goddess cultures". Neither Aryan Nor Jew. Retrieved 10 March 2014. Traces of matrilineal practices have been found in recent centuries in peripheral areas of the west and north of Europe, and in the Aegean islands. In a number of islands, including Lesbos, Lemnos, Naxos, and Kos, matrilineal succession to real property was the rule at the end of the 18th century A.D. The facts were reported by an English traveller, John Hawkins, who wrote: "In the large number of the islands, the eldest daughter takes as her inheritance a portion of the family house, together with its furniture, and one third of the share of the maternal property, which in reality in most of these cases constitutes the chief means of subsistence; the other daughters, when they marry off in succession, are likewise entitled to (a portion of) the family house and the same share of whatever property remains. These observations were applicable to the islands of Mytilin (Lesbos), Lemnos, Scopelo, Skyros, Syra, Zea Ipsera, Myconi, Paros, Naxia, Siphno, Santorini and Cos, where I have either collected my information in person or had obtained it through others."
see Jewish views of marriage
Agassi, Judith Buber, (1989) "Theories of Gender Equality: Lessons from the Israeli Kibbutz", Gender and Society, 3/2, 160-186.
Marshall, Harry Ignatius (1922). "The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology." Ohio State University Bulletin 26(13). ISBN 974-8496-86-4
C. W. Watson Kinship, Property and Inheritance in Kerinci, Central Sumatra 1992 ISBN 0 904938 19 0
The Khasis by P. R. T. Gurdon
Guy, Paul (October–December 1942). "Sur une coutume locale de droit musulman de l'Archipel des Comores". Revue algérienne, tunisienne et marocaine de législation et de jurisprudence (in French). pp. 78–79. Lay summary.
Gestin, Martine; Mathieu, Nicole-Claude (2007). Une maison sans fille est une maison morte (in French). Maison des sciences de l'homme. Lay summary.
Marriage in a matrilineal African tribe: A social anthropological study of marriage in the Ondonga tribe in Ovamboland.
(in French) Gravrand, Henry, "La civilisation sereer, vol. II : Pangool", Nouvelles éditions africaines, Dakar (1990), pp 193-4, ISBN 2-7236-1055-1
(in French) Becker, Charles, "Vestiges historiques, témoins matériels du passé dans les pays sereer", Dakar (1993), CNRS - ORS TO M Excerpt (Retrieved : 23 July 2012)
Phuong, Tran Ky; Lockhart, Bruce (2011-01-01). The Cham of Vietnam: History, Society and Art. NUS Press. ISBN 978-9971-69-459-3.
Lebar, Frank M.; Gerald C. Hickey; John K. Musgrave (1964). Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Connecticut: Human Relations Area Files Press. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-25414.
Kleinman, A.; Lin, T. Y. (29 June 2013). Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture. ISBN 9789401749862.

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[1] Val'Dman, A. V.; Kozlovskaia, M. M. (1975). "1950 Ashanti Kinship. In A.R. Radcliffe Brown. African systems of Kinship and Marriage. London: Oxford University Press". Zhurnal Nevropatologii I Psikhiatrii Imeni S.s. Korsakova (Moscow, Russia : 1952). 75 (11): 1710–7. PMID 1950.

[2] y in informal everyday language.

[3] Gårdene gik i arv på spindesiden. Kvinderne drev landbruget, medens mændene mest tog sig af strandinger og fiskeri og hjalp med pløjning og tærskning.
The farms were inherited in the distaff side. The women drive agriculture, while men most took care of shipwrecks and fishing and helped with plowing and threshing.
Stoklund, Bjarne: "Arbejde og kønsroller på Læsø o. 1200-1900" ISBN 87-88683-08-7

"Kvindefællesskaber" (Anna Birte Ravn og Marianne Rostgård). ISBN 87-982062-1-4

[4] Stoklund, Bjarne: "Arbejde og kønsroller på Læsø o. 1200-1900" ISBN 87-88683-08-7

[5] "Kvindefællesskaber" (Anna Birte Ravn og Marianne Rostgård). ISBN 87-982062-1-4

[4] Myers, Peter (November 23, 2001). "Aryan Invasions – Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Colin Renfew, Marija Gimbutas and Martin Bernal on the Indo-European invasions and the earlier Goddess cultures". Neither Aryan Nor Jew. Retrieved 10 March 2014. Traces of matrilineal practices have been found in recent centuries in peripheral areas of the west and north of Europe, and in the Aegean islands. In a number of islands, including Lesbos, Lemnos, Naxos, and Kos, matrilineal succession to real property was the rule at the end of the 18th century A.D. The facts were reported by an English traveller, John Hawkins, who wrote: "In the large number of the islands, the eldest daughter takes as her inheritance a portion of the family house, together with its furniture, and one third of the share of the maternal property, which in reality in most of these cases constitutes the chief means of subsistence; the other daughters, when they marry off in succession, are likewise entitled to (a portion of) the family house and the same share of whatever property remains. These observations were applicable to the islands of Mytilin (Lesbos), Lemnos, Scopelo, Skyros, Syra, Zea Ipsera, Myconi, Paros, Naxia, Siphno, Santorini and Cos, where I have either collected my information in person or had obtained it through others."

[5] see Jewish views of marriage

[6] Agassi, Judith Buber, (1989) "Theories of Gender Equality: Lessons from the Israeli Kibbutz", Gender and Society, 3/2, 160-186.

[7] Marshall, Harry Ignatius (1922). "The Karen People of Burma: A Study in Anthropology and Ethnology." Ohio State University Bulletin 26(13). ISBN 974-8496-86-4

[8] C. W. Watson Kinship, Property and Inheritance in Kerinci, Central Sumatra 1992 ISBN 0 904938 19 0

[9] The Khasis by P. R. T. Gurdon

[10] Guy, Paul (October–December 1942). "Sur une coutume locale de droit musulman de l'Archipel des Comores". Revue algérienne, tunisienne et marocaine de législation et de jurisprudence (in French). pp. 78–79. Lay summary.

[11] Gestin, Martine; Mathieu, Nicole-Claude (2007). Une maison sans fille est une maison morte (in French). Maison des sciences de l'homme. Lay summary.

[12] Marriage in a matrilineal African tribe: A social anthropological study of marriage in the Ondonga tribe in Ovamboland.

[13] (in French) Gravrand, Henry, "La civilisation sereer, vol. II : Pangool", Nouvelles éditions africaines, Dakar (1990), pp 193-4, ISBN 2-7236-1055-1

[14] (in French) Becker, Charles, "Vestiges historiques, témoins matériels du passé dans les pays sereer", Dakar (1993), CNRS - ORS TO M Excerpt (Retrieved : 23 July 2012)

[15] Phuong, Tran Ky; Lockhart, Bruce (2011-01-01). The Cham of Vietnam: History, Society and Art. NUS Press. ISBN 978-9971-69-459-3.

[16] Lebar, Frank M.; Gerald C. Hickey; John K. Musgrave (1964). Ethnic Groups of Mainland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Connecticut: Human Relations Area Files Press. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-25414.

[17] Kleinman, A.; Lin, T. Y. (29 June 2013). Normal and Abnormal Behavior in Chinese Culture. ISBN 9789401749862.