The Concept of Kinship on Yap and the Discussion of the Concept of Kinship

Thanks to the contribution of David M. Schneider, the society of the Yap Islands has played no minor part in anthropological discussions of kinship. I examine Schneider's writings on Yap kinship with respect to a general concept of kinship and the usefulness of marginal case material as argument, compare a central aspect of his writings with the ethnographic report of Müller, who did fieldwork on Yap in 1909-1910 (Müller 1917, 1918), and discuss Schneider's notion of Yap kinship in connection with Yap kin classification. In brief, Schneider's notion of Yap kinship seems questionable.