Walipiri Kinship Relations, Group Theory, and Reflections on Ethnomathematics

DO THIS

Now this entire discussion has treated the Kinship problem as basically a curiosity. A curiosity to be understood and examined in the context of a great human persuit but still a curiosity. It would be glib to finish the conversation here without addressing the real question at the heart of our interest in this particular example of a highly complex kinship structure (whose complexity and intricacy are easily rivaled): did the Walipiri invent D4, and does it make a difference?

There are two obvious answers to this question, neither of which do it justice.

1. Of course they did. We have described a structure

2. Don’t be ridiculous,

Mathematical structuralism

I am devoted to mathematics as a universal human project.