DUAL ORGANISERING, HIERARKI OG FIREDELINGSLOGIK I ANDES: En komparativ tilgang

Resumé

Alf Hornborg: Dual Organization,

Hierarchy and the Logic of Quadripartition

in Andean Societies. A Comparative

Approach

A comparative perspective can help to

illuminate the quadripartite, ethnic hierarchies

of Andean communities by placing

them in a wider, South American context.

The ethnography of Southern India also

provides us with valuable clues for

understanding the structure of traditional,

Andean hierarchies. The endogamous

moiety systems of the Andes can be understood

as transformations of exogamous

moiety divisions such as those of central

Brazil. In both areas, hierarchies of ranked,

endogamous strata have been intersected by

exogamous dual divisions. The horizontal,

ceremonially and spatially more conspicuous

moiety divisions would have had the

effect of mystifying and neutralizing the

vertical dimensions of political and economic

stratification, augmenting moiety

allegiance to minimize tensions between

strata. The recurrent, quadripartite organization

of Andean communities appears to

harbour a potential for either the symmetric

or restricted exchange of exogamous

moieties or the asymmetric exchange of

more inclusive and hierarchical social

systems. Apparently, the dualistic social

categories of Andean communities are

classificatory grids which can subsume new

ethnic elements as they enter the scene. In

maintaining an illusion of reciprocity, dual

organization may well have facilitated the

growth of hierarchical social systems. The

obsession with dual organization in the

Andes and the central Brazil suggests an

attempt to reproduce the basic, structural

principles of two-line terminologies (viz.

dual opposition, relative age, and gender)

through other means than the simple,

transitive logic of kin term usage. At the very

point where these ordering principles could

no longer be maintained in the course of

everyday interaction, they proved to be of

such profound significance for resisting

chaos that they provided templates for the

physical construction of social space.