Interesting (but Incomplete) History of Indigenous Peoples of Guyana (INTERESTING HISTORY OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES – BY COUNTRY)

Interesting (but Incomplete) History of Indigenous Peoples of Guyana

Alfred Henry Huth; The Marriage of Near Kin Considered with Respect to the Laws of Nations: The Results of Experience and the Teachings of Biology; 2nd edition; Legal classics library; Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO): Women: Transnational Networks; ISBN 0722218079, 9780722218075; Longmans, Green, & Co; 1887
Alfred Henry Huth writes: “The Indians of Guiana may be divided into four or five branches, the Carib, Wapisiana, Arawak, Warrau, and perhaps the Tarumas and Maopityans. These are divided into tribes, among which, says Mr im Thurn, there was formerly no intermarriage except with war captives. There are traces of subdivision of the tribes into families, but these subdivisions and restrictions on marriage are now almost obliterated, and the Arawak, who longest preserved their lines of family descent, will serve as a type of the marriage system of all. They are divided into a number of families, about forty-seven, within which marriage was prohibited; but since relationship is only recognised through females, this is no real prohibition. The husband lives with his wife’s family. Close as this system permits marriage between relations to be, there are traces of the old Iroquois system of constant intermarriage between particular families.”