ABSTRACT
Robin Fox has argued that it is possible to speak of a homology between the concept of genealogy and the onomastic system of Tory Island, because personal names help to fix the kinship status of a person. Marriage is considered as a cycle between different families of the community and provides the idea of a population that renews itself within continuity. It is considered that in each locality of the island kinship connects with the neighbourhood and that marriages renew existing links. In terms of collaterality it is considered that kinship becomes dispersed, and distant cousins enter into the category of diffuse kinship, deriving from closer collaterals in senior generations. The idea of a diffused kinship becoming dispersed from central stems serves to symbolise the internal structure of different parts of the island as homogeneous groups of houses related through kinship.
