Family Structures and Roles
Family Structures and Roles
Native Studies 10 | Unit 2 Handout 6
Native Studies 10 | Unit 2 Handout 6
Learning Goal: I can describe the roles and responsibilities of Indigenous family members and explain why family and kinship systems are central to Indigenous communities.
In Indigenous cultures, family extends well beyond the people who share a house. It reaches to grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, clan members, and community members who take on family-like responsibilities. These extended kinship systems formed the foundation of how Indigenous societies organized themselves, made decisions, and cared for one another.
Families in all cultures serve similar basic functions: they protect their members, provide for physical needs, and transmit cultural knowledge from one generation to the next. In traditional Indigenous societies, these functions spread across an extended network rather than concentrating in a nuclear household.
Grandparents often held primary responsibility for teaching children about culture, language, and ethics
Aunts and uncles served as additional parents, offering guidance and correction without the direct authority of a parent
The community as a whole shared responsibility for children's wellbeing
Clan systems assigned people specific social roles and responsibilities based on family lineage
In many traditional Indigenous societies, women held considerable power. In matrilineal nations, family membership and property passed through the mother's line. Women controlled the domestic sphere, managed food storage, and in some nations held political authority. The Indian Act, introduced in 1876, deliberately undermined this by stripping Indigenous women of their status when they married non-Indigenous men.
Men in traditional Indigenous societies took on roles as hunters, warriors, diplomats, and ceremonial leaders. These roles varied between nations. On the Plains, skilled hunters who could provide for many families earned community respect. Among nations with warrior societies, military leadership carried its own set of responsibilities and expectations.
Many First Nations organized kinship through clan systems. A clan is a group of families who share a common ancestor, often an animal or natural force that serves as a spiritual protector. Clans regulated marriage: members of the same clan could not marry each other, and each clan carried specific political, ceremonial, and social responsibilities. Among the Haudenosaunee, clan mothers selected, advised, and could remove chiefs.
Key Idea: In Indigenous traditions, belonging to a family meant you had people who would care for you, and people you were responsible for caring for in return. Family membership was about relationship, responsibility, and reciprocity.
Kinship: the network of family relationships, by blood or through cultural bonds, that connects people to each other and carries mutual responsibility.
Extended family: a family network that includes grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and community members, not just parents and children.
Matrilineal: a system where family membership, lineage, and property pass down through the mother's line.
Clan: a group of families who share a common ancestor, often an animal or natural force, that regulates marriage and carries specific responsibilities.
Reciprocity: a relationship of mutual give and take, where being cared for comes with a responsibility to care for others in return.
Indian Act: a Canadian federal law first passed in 1876 that has controlled many aspects of First Nations life, including, until it was amended, stripping status from Indigenous women who married non-Indigenous men.
1. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. (1996). Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (Vol. 3). Canada Communication Group.
2. Anderson, K. (2000). A Recognition of Being: Reconstructing Native Womanhood. Second Story Press.
3. Turpel-Lafond, M. E. (1993). Patriarchy and Paternalism: The Legacy of the Canadian State for First Nations Women. Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, 6(1), 174-192.
4. Maracle, L. (1996). I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism. Press Gang Publishers.
5. Saskatchewan Ministry of Education. (2002). Native Studies 10 Curriculum Guide. Government of Saskatchewan.