ABSTRACT
The kinship system of the Raj Gonds, like that of any other people, seizes upon those elements of the biological structure which are socially important and ignores distinctions which are of no relevance to a person’s location on the kinship map. Every Gond is born into a phratry and a clan and nothing short of expulsion from the tribal community can modify his position vis-á-vis all the other members of these immutable social units. A scrutiny of the terms contained in the tabulations reveals that although the Gond kinship system bears certain traits generally associated with classificatory systems, it is characterized by a much greater wealth of terms than, for instance, the Telugu system. Bapi is the Gondi term for father’s mother as well as for wife’s mother’s mother and husband’s mother’s mother, but the Marathi term, ati, is very frequently substituted for bapi.
