Fatherless Families, the Trobriand.

Fatherless Families, the Trobriand --Gil Prost

Becoming a Trobriand husband means a number of things, many of which are very strange to a Westerner and for most of the cultures of the world. One significant difference is their firm belief that no husband can be a father. While no Trobriand husband is recognized as being a "father" of his children, he is, according to anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, “the head of his sister's family” of which he is a member.

This means, when a woman marries, according to anthropologist Malinowski, "her brother becomes the head of her family in more that a metaphorical sense." As "head" of his sister's family, he has been ascribed the task of planting a garden which provides food to feed his sister's children. His brother-in-law, on the other hand, has the moral duty to feed his sister's children, not his "biological" children, a category Trobriands deny exists because no husband is a father.

One feature of the rule of exogamy is how it affected Trobriand bachelor's choice of mates. The more sisters a potential wife wife has, the more gardens one has to make. In order to avoid making multiple gardens, bachelors prefer marrying someone who has no sisters.

Now for the contextualizing missiologist there is nothing wrong with such behavior, according to missiologist-anthropologist Charles Kraft, "Meanings belong to the people. They are not inherent in the forms themselves." As a concept-innatist, I strongly disagree. Inherent in the concept of fatherhood is the meaning of genitor. Every child has a biological father.

It is proposed that at some point in Trobriand history, there occurred a collective rebellion against what it meant to be "created in the image and likeness of God," and that a constituent of BEING was a Universal Lexicon structured in the unconscious mind. This means, common to every concept is an inherent meaning which is fixed and constant.

What the Trobriand specifically rebelled against was the inherent meaning attached to the universal concept of FATHERHOOD. The Divine meaning was rejected and replaced with the concept of father-less families. So while missiologist Kraft asserts, “Human biology provides the backdrop for all that we need to know as humans,” the Trobriand would strongly disagree. For them, no child has a biological father. Every birth is a virgin birth.

In addition, the Trobriand would wholeheartedly agree with cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner who wrote: “Man’s biological inheritance ...does not direct or shape human action and experience, does not serve as the universal cause. Rather, it imposes constraints on human action, constraints whose effects are modifiable. ...it is culture, not biology, that shapes human life and the human mind, that gives meaning to human action by situating its underlying intentional states in an interpretative system."

Child Development

Supporting the thesis that every child comes equipped with a Divine Interpretative Script which compel every child to construe from a Divine Perspective is developmental psychologist Paul Bloom. He reports:

“In the last few years, there has been an emerging body of research exploring children’s grasp of certain universal religious ideas. Some recent findings suggest that two foundational aspects of religious belief — belief in divine agents, and belief in mind-body dualism — come naturally to young children."

But in order prevent the concept of FATHERHOOD from naturally developing in the minds of their children, the Trobriand had to develop a spiritual weapon which could prevent the concept of FATHER from becoming part of their lexicon. The name of that weapon was called "teknonymy." Its spiritual function is to prevent society from acquiring a Divine perspective as to how the nuclear family should be structured.

Every teknonym consists of (a), a status position plus (b), the dative 'of.' At an early age, Trobriand children were instructed to address their biological fathers with the teknonym "husband of my mother." Now the function of the teknonym was to prevent the linking together of the inherent qualities of FATHERHOOD existing in a Universal Lexicon embedded in the subconscious with the symbol for father which existed in the language, namely tama.

The suppression worked. They were able to prevent the transfer of the concept of FATHERHOOD existing in a Universal Lexicon structured in the unconscious mind from becoming part of their lexicon. It was an amazing achievement.

Now if the word tama were to be uttered in a family context, it would "trigger" the meaning of the term and bring it to consciousness. Amazingly, the Trobriand had figured this out. The function of the teknonym was to prevent such a triggering from taking place. If "husbands of mothers" were recognized as being biological and social fathers, it would threaten their social defensive construct against anxiety and their need for magic to control events.

Thus the use of the teknonym, "husband of mother," became a semantic weapon for protecting the Trobriand interpretative system. Then to be on the safe side, the Trobriand added the myth of an ogre named Dokonikan who would destroy any individual or family who deviated from the Trobriand interpretive script which denied the existence of the status position of FATHER.

Now both the teknonym and myth have a shared function. That function was to suppress the "truth of God" (Romans 1:18) concerning FATHERHOOD from being "triggered" and coming to consciousness while preventing husband-wife intimacy from developing.

The Rejection of Biological Fatherhood

Instead of affirming fatherhood, the Throbriand denied it. Every birth, despite the biological evidence, they declared to be a virgin birth. This means no child "fathered" by a husband will ever be recognized or addressed as "father." And since no nuclear family has a "father," the "head" of every household was to be addressed by the children of the household as "the husband of our mother."

At an early age Trobriand children are taught to never address or speak of their biological "fathers" using the word tama, which means “father.” They were instructed to address their biological fathers with the teknonym "husband of my mother."

Now the function of the teknonym was to prevent the linking together of the inherent qualities of FATHERHOOD existing in a Universal Lexicon embedded in the unconscious mind with the symbol for father which existed in the language, namely tama. The suppression worked. They were able keep a cultural-free meaning from being attached to a cultural form common to all.

While paternal uncles were classified as "tama," no "husband of a mother" was spoken of as being a "tama." In other words, SOCIAL EXISTENCE in the South Pacific was shaping their interpretative system. It denied husbands the privilege of becoming fathers in the same way the Miccosukee of South Florida denied husbands the role of becoming fathers of their offspring.

If the word tama were to be uttered in a family context, it would "trigger" the meaning of the term and bring it to consciousness. The function of the teknonym was to prevent such a triggering from taking place. If "husbands of mothers" were recognized as being biological and social fathers, it would threaten their social defensive construct against anxiety and their need for magic to control events.

Thus the use of the teknonym, "husband of mother," became a semantic tool for protecting the Trobriand interpretative system. Then to be on the safe side, the Trobriand added the myth of an ogre named Dokonikan who would destroy any individual or family who deviated from the Trobriand interpretive script which denied the status position of FATHER.

Sadly, the missiological dogma of contextualization rejects the idea of an innate culture-free Interpretative System from which a society may diverge. Instead, each society develops its own set of standards, values, customs, and tradition for existing in the world. The validity of each standard and value is to be measured in terms of environmental "fitness."

If true, it means every missionary should “learn to employ more important criteria (such as ‘fit’ and ‘adequacy’)”. Since the Trobriand's belief that no husband could be a father satisfied an existential need, the criteria of environmental "fitness" both trumped biology and what it meant to be "created in the image and likeness of God."

For the contextualizer, there exists no culture-free Interpretative System from which a society may diverge. And one's failure to contextualize would, according to the dogma of contextualization, mean one is opposing and "distorting the diversity of God’s creation. ...forcing upon people our standards." The missionary must therefore refrain from informing the Trobriand that God the Father had a Son.

The message of contextualization is clear: There exists no cultural universals to which there are attached Divine meanings which are fixed and constant; only cultural particulars since "meanings belong to the people." In the words of existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre, “Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.”

In creating their interpretative system, the Trobriand's denial of biological paternity became the linchpin that held the various elements of their matrilineal "family" structure together. "Life had no meaning a priori." Regardless what the Word of God declares, there exists no a priori culture-free Interpretative System from which a society could diverge.

In the words of Charles Kraft, “There is no such thing as an absolute set of cultural forms... that would imply the existence of some sort of absolute cultural structure (i.e., some set of absolute cultural forms) are so misleading that they must be abandoned.”

Kraft's statement implies every missionary must not only abandon what it means to be "created in the image and likeness of God," but also reject that "...knowledge and rationality are the basic constituents of God's image in man." In contrast, Clark's statement implies the existence of a culture-free Interpretative System that is part of our inner being.

A Life-way of Ascribed Functions

In the mechanistic life-way of the Tobriand, the ascribed function or moral duty of every Trobriand "husband of a mother" was to "fully share in the care of the children" which did not belong to him.

According Malinowski, husbands of mothers "will fondle and carry the baby, clean and wash it, and give it mashed vegetable food which it receives in addition to the mother's milk almost from birth. In fact, nursing the baby in the arms or holding it on one's knees, which is described by the native word kapo'i, is the special role or duty of the [biological] 'father.'"

But Malinowski was mistaken when he classified the concept kapo'i as a "role." The Trobriand word kapo'i represents a status position, an assigned function, not a natural role.

Just as Chácobo sons-in-laws were ascribed the status position of raisi, i.e., 'food providers for the Chácobo household-of-five,' and just as Mikasuki husbands were ascribed the status position of functional sperm donor for the wife's "family" called the "matrilineal clan," Trobriand "fathers" were ascribed the functional status position of kapo'i, i.e., wife's nursemaid. It was a status position every "husband of a mother" relinquished at puberty, at which point his brother-in-law began to exercise authority over his biological child.

So as sons grew and matured, they, unlike sisters, begin to realize they were "outsiders" in the very household they were raised. They recognized that they were not members of the same clan as the kapo'i who had nursed them. At puberty, the rule of residential endogamy kicked in. In the words of Malinowski, "Another man appears on the horizon, and is called by the child kadugu ("my mother's brother"). ...The child also learns that the place his kadu (mother's brother) resides is the place where he has legal standing." The rule of residential endogamy demanded that every son return to his matrilineal "family" roots.

Unless the biological "father" had the political power to override the residential rule of endogamy which declared every son must return to his "family" or clan village "where his future career awaits him; that there his natural allies and associates are to be found," it meant walking away from the biological father who raised him to live with an uncle whom he barely knows but was ascribed the task of feeding him with yams from his own garden until puberty.

The Contextualizer's Dilemma

Now if one is to do "appropriate missiology," then it is imperative that every contextualizing missionary evaluate the validity of the Trobriand interpretative system. They must ask: Does their matrilineal design for living, a design which rejects the concept of FATHERHOOD, affect the preaching of the Gospel and the establishing of a church among the Trobrianders? Malinowski recognized it did.

Recognizing the missiological problem, he wrote: “We must realize that the cardinal dogma of God the Father and God the Son, the sacrifice of the only Son and the filial love of the Maker would completely misfire in a matrilineal society, where the relation is decreed by tribal law to be that of two strangers, where all personal unity between them is denied, and where all family obligations are associated with the mother-line. We cannot then wonder that Paternity must be among the principal truths to be inculcated by the proselytizing Christians. Otherwise the dogma of the Trinity would have to be translated into matrilineal terms, and we would have to speak of a God-kadala (mother’s brother), a God-sister’s son, and a divine baloma (spirit).”

It means any missionary who preaches John 3:16, “For God [the Father] so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believed in him should not perish but everlasting life” would immediately be classified by the Trobriand as being a liar. When “they [the missionaries] talk that seminal fluid makes child. Lie! The spirits indeed bring [children] at night time.”

From the Trobriand's perspective, missionaries were not bringing Good News; instead, from their native perspective, they were liars because no father had a "son." They found the dogma of the fatherhood of God "to be an absurdity. Unwilling to accept the idea of fatherhood, the natives held a strong dislike for the missionaries because of their 'lies.'"

In-coming missionaries who mentioned the biological truth about paternity were viewed as enemies of the Trobriand life-way, a life-way that denied the existence of a Divine Interpretative System. Their interpretative system demanded a restructuring of the nuclear family which made the brother-sister dyad the dominant dyad of ever family as illustrated below.

From a top-down, inside-out concept-innatist's perspective of existence, the constituents of knowledge, form and meaning-context, were linked when "the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, breathed the breath of life into man's nostrils and man became a living person."

Personhood and an a priori Interpretative Script demand the linkage of both form and meaning-content to have occurred at creation, an untenable position for every empiricist, materialist, or naturalist. For them, personhood and language began when naked apes magically became people. History began when universal empty forms structured in their brains were fill with imported meaning-content derived from SOCIAL EXISTENCE.

According to Marvin Harris "The process of sapienization [magically] unfolded in a synchronized fashion across all of Eurasia and Africa, and that no continent or region moved toward Homo sapiens sapiens status more rapidly than any other." For the naturalist, there can be no other interpretation.

Rejection of an Innate Interpretation Meta Script

At some point in history the Trobriand broke the Divine linkage between a cultural form and its inherent meaning. Breaking the linkage meant a rejection of a Divine Interpretative System for a cultural interpretive system that belonged to the people. Significant features of the Trobriand's interpretive system include:

At some point in history the Trobriand broke the Divine linkage between a cultural form and its inherent meaning. Breaking the linkage meant a rejection of a Divine Interpretative System for an cultural interpretive system that belonged to the people. Significant features of the Trobriand's interpretive system include:

Their success in preventing the concept of FATHERHOOD from being added to their lexicon. No other society, to my knowledge, has attempted to do this.
Their innovated solution for solving the problem as how to prevent the concept of FATHERHOOD embedded in the unconscious mind from being "triggered" and brought to consciousness. By training children at an early age to address biological fathers as "husband of mother," they they were able to suppressed the truth of God "within them" from being triggered and brought to consciousness.
Their attempt to suppress God's Truth within them resulted in "God's anger being revealed from heaven against all the sin and evil of people whose evil ways [weaponize teknonymy] prevent the truth [of FATHERHOOD from being triggered and] being known" --Romans 1:18.
Their interpretive system produced two types of "families," the father-less nuclear family and the matrilineal clan "family."
The existence of two types of families produced an ethical problem. It is this. Since no "husband of mother" is the father of the daughters living in his household, can he marry his daughter if his wife dies? Since the Rule of Exogamy does not apply to him, the logical answer would be "Yes."
But as Malinowski points out, "Marriage between the two is viewed with definite repugnance." But we must ask: Why is intercourse between the husband of a mother and the virgin born daughters he raised be forbidden? From where did the rule come?

Convictions:

Marriage between a "husband of a mother" and the virgin born daughters living under his roof was "viewed with definite repugnance" because the concept of FATHERHOOD could not be deleted from consciousness. Conscience was informing them all that sexual intimacy between father and daughter was incestuous.
For the two to become intimate would violate a Divine Interpretative Script which says: "Marry Out," an innate Interpretative Script which empiricists, materialists, and functionalists like Malinowski all refused to recognize, despite the empirical evidence.
Because the Trobriand rejected the concept of FATHERHOOD, planting a church among them makes them one of the most difficult societies on earth to evangelize. In 1884, the Overseas Mission Department of the Methodist Church commenced work among the Trobriand. After 135 years, "Although some aspects of culture and language on the Trobriand Islands are really dying out, most aspects and features of culture and language that are affected by the changes observed here are not just 'chopped off from the body of a living speech community and society." Their use of the teknonym "husband of mother" continues.
When Trobriand society replaced the husband-wife dyad with that of brother-sister, they introduced chaos and confusion into their LIFE-WAY OF DOINGS THINGS