Akan, Crow and Minangkabau matrilineal systems
July 2011


I came across an academic paper written by one Lynn Thomas (a professor currently at Pomona college in California) which is most interesting, as I think it sheds further light on what I wrote in The Akan Bookrelating to the Matrilineal systems of the Akan of West Africa, the Plains Native American Crow people and the Minangkabau people of Sumatra in Indonesia. The reference for the article for Professor Thomas' paper is at the end of this article. Those who have access to JSTOR and to other such online article repositories may be able to access it. Below is the abstract of the article which written in 1980:

"Akan societies of West Africa have unskewed kinship terminologies quite similar to those of the Sumatran and Minangkabau, and they also have kinterm systems with Crow-type skewing. Minangkabau has no skewing. Parallel examinations of kinship-related institutions in Akan and Minangkabau provide grounds for a (necessarily partial) accounting of the kin termino-logical differences. The hypothesized greater emphasis in Akan norms on individualized property holding, inheritance and succession, and the Akan avunculocal residence norm, may have provided conceptual bases for the Akan skewing rule. The hypothesized greater emphasis in Minangkabau norms on corporate lineage property holding, and the uxorimatrilocal residence norm, may be significant correlates of the absence of a skewing rule in Minangkabau. [kinship, West Africa, social organization, language and culture, Sumatran, Indonesian Societies]"


The academic jargon may be interesting to some. Much of it pertains to anthropology. All of that just basically means that the Akan matrilineal system has facets that are quite similar to those of the Minangkabau while at the same time having facets similar to the Native American Crow (hence the term Crow-type skewing being applicable to the Akan). The Minangkabau however do not have such similar Crow-type facets in their system so Crow-type skewing does not apply to their matrilineal system.

Let me just point out that my interpretation of this particular instance of Professor Thomas' work is mine and mine alone. The vast majority of academics operate within the framework of mainstream thinking and will write off what I have said here as nonsense, however that is never the case for those employed to do "top secret" (and higher classified) work, some of which come closer to aspects of scientific work beyond the mainstream paradigms of thought. So this article is not being written for your regular academic, who probably still believes that SETI is yet to be successful in finding extraterrestrial life and who will dismiss others talking about the real deal as disillusioned if not worse. So please, let no mainstream academic or other in-the-box-thinking person send me an email about my 'delusions'. This article is not written for you, if you are such a person.

Now let's talk about extraterrestrials and their star systems!

The Native American groups as I've said in the Akan Book have connections with both Pleiades and Sirius star systems, with Pleiades seeming to have a stronger influence. All those "bird tribes" have a strong link with 'indigenous' human groups originating from the Pleiades. In the Akan Book I mention the Batak (Ba-TAK) and the Minangkabau (Mintaka-Ba) in section 3.14. Sumatra is one area where the Sirian-Reptilians created human cultures representing Sirus (Ba-Tak) and Orion (Minangkabau) groups. That the Akan have very similar kinship terminologies to those of the Minangkabau indicates to me the strong Orion presence in Akan matrilineal culture. I have known this (there is a Rigelian-Reptilian streak in Akan culture) but this paper provides a lot of technical information and it was written by someone who probably does not buy into the existence of extraterrestrials and who very likely was not thinking the thoughts I had when I decided to put together this article.

That the Akan have Native American Crow-type skewing could point to the Pleiadian streaks found in Akan culture as well (many Akan Avian/Bird totems, for instance). The Akan also have an interest in the Pleiades star system, having at least two different names for the seven stars that make up the Pleiades cluster. Not only the Akan but also the the Aboriginal Australians, the Aztec, the Cherokee, the Chinese, Maori, the Mayans, the Persians and the Sioux all have Pleiades as a significant star system (according to wikipedia). I have earlier pointed out in articles on this website that the Akan have "Avian-Reptilian" influences in their culture, so for me it is quite interesting that their form of matrilineal inheritance falls between those of the Native American Crow and the Sumatran Minangkabau.


REFERENCES:
Crow-Type Skewing in Akan Kinship Vocabulary and Its Absence in Minangkabau
Author(s): Lynn L. Thomas
Source: American Ethnologist, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Aug., 1980), pp. 549-566