An X-ray of Mẽbêngôkre Houses in terms of matrimonial alliance

This article examines the matrimonial implications of the Houses, or matrihouses, of the Mẽtyktire subgroup of the Mẽbêngôkre (Kayapó-Jê) with the assistance of Puck (Program for the Use and Computation of Kinship Data) and Pajek software. In accordance with the greater legibility of graphics, statistical results have been converted into graphics whenever possible. The analysis is based on a revised version of a dataset spanning the years 1978 to 1982 and published on the site Kinsources. What began as a village census later morphed into genealogies, which served as the basis for the digital dataset. The matrihouses constitute a matrilineal institution present among all Mẽbêngôkre peoples; in contrast, matrimonial alliance favours village endogamy and balanced reciprocity. This “house-based society” traditionally incorporated outsiders, opening itself to historical transformations via acquisitions mediated by war captives. The 1970s produced a bonanza of immigrants from Indigenous peoples relocated from their traditional territories during Brazil’s military dictatorship and incorporated into the matrimonial circuits of their host communities. At the time of research, it was premature to foresee the outcome of this process, indissociable from a myriad of other factors such as the introduction of money and school education and the impacts of climate change. By focusing on the matrihouses, this article debunks the association of Mẽbêngôkre women with the periphery of society, which had contributed to their relative invisibility in ethnographic accounts and the tendency of white outsiders to address themselves exclusively to men.