A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1966-1967 (Debrecen, 1968)

Mesterházy Károly: Adatok a honfoglalás kori magyar köznépi család szerkezetéhez

and became founders of new joint families. The family in the fifth row, already belonging to the third generation, may have separated from one of the independent joint families of the second generation. The woman in grave 37, her husband and her descendants, i.e. the first row, would seem not to be relatives of the founder joint family. We know from ethnographical observations that outsiders could not be buried in the family cemetery, except in a separate part of the cemetery. The joint family of the first row can be regarded as a family moved to the community from some remote region. This may be indicated by the reversed order of the row, the inaccurate pattern, and the fact that children were buried among the adults. So finally the result we obtain is that the cemetery at Nádudvar-Töröklaponyag is the cemetery of joint families related by blood, and of some outsiders, which means a village. The member of the highest status in a joint family was always a woman, and the same applies to small families. Descent was observed on the basis of the women's graves. So we identified this family system with the matrilinear joint family, based on descent on the mother's line. Its essential feature is that descent is kept in evidence only through the mother. It is always the women members that remain within the family; the men move to their wives from other joint families. This family pattern still exists among primitive peoples, in a variety of forms, needless to say. The ethnography of the Hungarian and related peoples shows only traces of this family system. The vestiges of the ancient cult of women and the mother can still be observed in the peoples of Siberia. Most data in this respect have survived among the Ugrians at the Ob river, our nearest relatives. The ancestors of two related fraternities of these Ugrians are mythical figures of feminie nature; for example, in the por fraternity the first woman is a she-bear, the founder of the female lineage; in the mos fraternity it is the kaldas woman. The expressions "matrilineal clanmate" and "maternal ancestors" are still current among them, and the vendetta for relatives on the mother's side has survived. The custom of marrying into the wife's family is also found occasionally. The traces of the maternal joint family can be detected in Hungarian ethnographical materials. Such is the tradition of marrying into the family of the wife. The position of the son-in-law in his wife's family was often that of a serf, and sometimes he had to protect himself with a contract. It has been found, too, that the husband or the child were named after the given name of the wife or the mother, even of the grandmother or great-grandmother, or by their petname, sue h as Paul Line, Lew Lina et. Certain ethnographic and linguistic data can be related to the inner life and structure of the matrilinear joint family. The saying "good for you to have called me your grandmother" probably refers to the degree of respect, due to the authority of the female head of the joint family. The word ük in our kinship terminology originally denoted the female ancestor of the fourth preceding generation. There was no term to denote such a male ancestor in Hungarian, and the word ükapa (apa=father) is the result of development in the 19th century. Linguists have shown that in a number of Finno-Ugrian languages, including Hungarian, part of the words relating to the family have developed from ancient compound words whose first part denotes a female member of the family. In Old Hungarian, and even at the end of the 19th century in some dialects, the word férj (husband) meant wife or woman at the same time. The structure of the matrilineal joint family was read from the structure of the cemetery at Nádudvar-Töröklaponyag. The cemetery itself seems to be the reflection of a matrilocal village. Up to our days a number of phenomena have survived among our Finno-Ugrian relatives that can be accepted as the uninterrupted continuation of the ancient Finno-Ugrian period. Yet the data of Hungarian ethnography do not seem to convey a picture of continuous traditions, they rather may be interpreted as very slight indications. In every day life the traditions of the matrilineal joint family are not likely to have prevailed in such a pure form as is revealed by the cemeteries. But their full manifestation in the rites of burial supports the view that they were living reality, or some of their elements at least, with part of the Hungarian people as long as heathen burials were practised. We know from the studies of Gyula László and Béla Szőke that the archeological finds uncovered at the cemetery of Nádudvar-Töröklaponyag lead us east, partly neart the Avar period, partly near the Pjanobor culture, at the region of the Volga-bend. Ethnographic and linguistic data pointed towards the Ugrians at the Ob and other Finno-Ugrian peoples. So it is obvious that these remains in the cemeteries of our commoners should be identified with the find material of the Finno-Ugrian part of the conquering Magyars. It is the tribe of Megyer that must be considered first of all in this respect, as this is the only one whose name is of Finno-Ugrian origin beyond any doubt. Having studied all cemeteries of identical character (Halimba, Kérpuszta, Vajdahunyad, Várfalva, etc.) we feel that the material of the tribe of Megyer must be looked for first in Transd anubia. 12 Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 177