During the period of 1930 to 1945 Japanese admin istrators, ethnographers and Mongolists conducted surveys in Inner Mongolia, where they found the clan system had already given way. There were two types of family ; one was 'small family' (stem family), and the other 'large family.' The former was prevalent in nomadic areas, whereas the latter in peripheral areas. It had been assumed that the family form of the Mongol nomadic people was originally a small family type, and their contact with farming peoples helped to transform it into a large family type. Then, were there any kinship systems beyond the small family? T. CHIKUSA and some other researchers reported of torol and omok, both of which are a kind of the patrilineal descent group. H. VREELAND and D. F. ABELRE had independently given accounts of the torol and the omok, and defined them as a patri-lineage or patri-sib. Then, what sort of structures and functions do these patrilineal descent groups have? Torol is often divided into two phases, that is, oir torol (close torol) and hol torol (distant torol) . The boundary which divides the close torol and the distant torol is not always clear. In some regions, however, the former includes patrilineal kinsmen of five ascending and five descending generations (collaterally, as far as the fifth parallel cousins), and the latter includes more distant paternal kinsmen. Moreover, the collaterals of the close torol are classified into such categories as uyeeld, hayaald, uyincir, and hayincir, according to the degree of collaterality. Thus, torol seems to be an ego-centric descent group. The main function of torol is regulating marriage. Generally, marriage within the same torol is prohibited ; the exogamous restrictions tend to be relaxed in the distant torol. When a father has no son, he chooses an heir from among his own torol members (as a rule, a daughter is married out of her torol, and can neither inherit her father's property nor succeed to his status). It is said that torol-mates help each other in case of disaster, wedding and on such occasions as, funeral and so forth. Omok is also a patrilineal descent group, but it is more inclusive than torol. Those who have the same surname are regarded as members of the same omok, whether a genealogical relationship is traceable or not. Omok members sometimes hold a ceremony of oboo (a religious mound or cairn) belonging to them. Probably, omok originated from oboq (obox) that appears in The Secret History of the Mangols. Generally, torol and omok do not have territoriality; they have no direct relationship with such a political or administrative system as sumun or khoshun. In khoshun there are no patrilineal kinship ties between the noblemen (rulers) and the other members (commoners). Oboq, as defined by E. BACON as a segmented lineage, appears only in the early part of The Secret History of the Mongols. As M. MORI pointed out, oboq had already lost its political role around the time when Chinggis Khan appeared on the stage. The Mongol kinship system, which includes a stem family, torol and omok, must have beer formed through complicated processes which are yet to be explored.
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