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Men
meeting on sunday, Sirbi, Rumania, 1972.
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Determined
to study kinship structures in European societies, the ethnologist has chosen
Rumania as his research field. He has then to start his research on kinship
in Rumanian society from the very beginning of kinship studies by asking
most simple questions which are most difficult to answer owing. So, I was
prepared to collect the vocabulary of kinship, to discern the rules of alliance,
residence and filiation, to observe the composition of these categories,
the interplay of these relations on the occasion of great events, such as
birth, marriage and death. But on the field, I was soon confronted with
the evidence that kinship categories and relations are not only revealed
by events, negociated agreements, arbitrations of any kind, tactics and
strategies, which was not to surprise me, since I had studied great historical
societies such as the Arabian and Turkish ones. They are not only revealed
by ceremonies, such as baptism, entrance in the Sunday dance, wedding or
engagement festivities, which was neither to surprise me, since I had studied
popular arts and traditions in French society. They are also and perhaps
essentially revealed by rite, i.e. by a body language, a communication through
materials and objects, poetic logos which are related to myth in a way that
remains to be explained.
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