As I wrote in an earlier article, Kerala’s matrilineal family consisted of the woman, her siblings, and their children living together as a joint family managed by the eldest maternal uncle.¹ The women could own property separate from the family property, bequeath property, and make decisions on their own property.² Boys and girls grew up together; yet, among the adults, the women were subordinate to the men of the family, and their spheres of activities were distinct.³
Such a family arrangement as described in ethnographical works about Kerala’s society of early 1900 CE, is strikingly similar to the families described in Egyptian tomb reliefs dating to the Old Kingdom and the First Intermediate period (together, ca. 2700 BCE-2035 BCE). In these tombs, the mother is oftentimes emphasized. Her important role is reinforced by the woman’s right to own and dispose of property, a state of affairs that was prevalent in Egypt to around 30 BCE, when Egypt fell to the Romans.⁴ There is also an emphasis on maternal lineage, which is more clearly evidenced during the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2035 BCE — 1780 BCE). Although boys and girls grew up together, as adults, their spheres of activities were separated.⁵ In general, the position of women was subservient to the male patriarch.⁶
This correspondence between the two cultures can be seen in the words that describe family relations. In ancient Egypt, kinship was generally ascribed in terms of the relation to the mother, no distinction being made between lineal and collateral relations.⁷ The term for “mother” was mw.t, likely pronounced ome (similar to Arabic ‘um, although the modern interpretation is mut), corresponding to Malayalam അമ്മ amma.⁸ Relationships were described relative to the mother; for example, the mother’s brother was sen-en-ome literally “mother’s brother.”⁹ The analogous Malayalam is the now defunct അമ്മായച്ചന് ammayachan, “mother’s brother.”¹⁰ The mother’s mother was ome-ome, corresponding to Malayalam അമ്മമ്മ ammamma “grandmother,” and ome-wel “elder mother” corresponded to Malayalam വലിയമ്മ valiyamma “mother’s elder sister.”¹¹
The members of the ascendant line, such as grandparents and great-grandparents, were variations of “father” and “mother,” analogous to the terms for such relationships in Malayalam (e.g., ete “father” is analogous to Malayalam അച്ചന് achan, and “grandfather” മുത്തഛ്ശന് mutthacchan likely derived from Egyptian ete-wett “older father”);¹² similarly, the members of the descendant line, such as children and grandchildren were variations of “son” and “daughter,” similar to the usage in Malayalam, in which grandchildren are described as പേരമകന് peramakan and പേരമകൾ peramakal with the prefix പേര pera “bearing the family name” added to മകൻ makan “son” and മകൾ makal “daughter.”¹³
The word for brother was sen and the sister sen.t, which were also used in Egyptian to describe “friend,” “lover,” or “equal,” as in Malayalam ചങ്ങാതി changaadi “companion,” referring to equals of the same generation.¹⁴ The eldest male heir was wete, corresponding to Malayalam മൂത്ത moottha.¹⁵ There was no distinction drawn between one’s own child and that of the sister’s, so that the “eldest son” could refer to one’s own eldest son or the heir, that is, eldest male child in the extended family comprising collateral kin.¹⁶
In Egyptian, there was no word for “nephew” or “niece,” as is the case in Malayalam too, in which “nephew” മരു-മകൻ maru-makan and “niece” മരു-മകൾ maru-makal are derived from makan “son” and makal “daughter” respectively. Indeed, the Egyptian tomb reliefs refer to some sons as “beloved son.” In Malayalam, the word marumakan, when interpreted as a compound word maru+makan, also means “beloved son.”¹⁷
The Egyptian language had an extensive set of terms for kin groups larger than nuclear families, all of which find correspondences in Malayalam.¹⁸ erbe referred to a family, corresponding to Malayalam ഉറവ urava “relationship.”¹⁹ hur identified the close kin of an individual, corresponding to Malayalam കൂറ് “family branch.”²⁰ The term wehi referred to the extended clan, corresponding to Malayalam വഹ vaha “clan.”²¹ ther were members of the family living in the same household, corresponding to Malayalam തറ tara “family house.”²²
The current explanation of Kerala’s culture as an offshoot of Tamil Nadu cannot explain all these similarities. On the other hand, a substantive part of Kerala’s culture likely derived directly from pharaonic Egypt, with which Kerala had extensive trade contacts at least since 1213 BCE, the timeframe attested by black pepper found in Pharaoh Ramesses II’s mummy. The Egyptian matrilineal culture existed certainly before and perhaps during and after Ramesses II’s time. Thus, the question of timeline remains open: when did the Egyptian matrilineal culture reach Kerala? Was it a sudden migration, or a gradual diffusion? Is it possible to find the answer through material evidence from archeology? Or, should we look elsewhere, such as in cultural artifacts and linguistic clues?
Notes
[1] Winterbotham, 1891, “Memorandum of the President,” in Report of the Malabar Marriage Commission, 1 (Madras: G.W. Taylor).
[2] Praveena Kodoth, “Framing Custom, Directing Practices: Authority, Property and Matriliny under Colonial Law in Nineteenth Century Malabar,” Center for Development Studies Working Paper 338 (2002): 35. Mayadevi, Moothedath. 2015. “Women and Marriage in Marumakkathayam.” International Research Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 4(10): 32–36.
[3] The well-to-do women attended to the children and minor domestic work. They spent most of their time indoors, perusing religious books, playing games, or in afternoon visits, while the men of the house managed the family’s properties, or engaged in administrative work according to their stations. Anantha Iyer, 1909–12, The Tribes and Castes of Cochin, 2 vols., repr. 1981, 2:48–49 (New Delhi: Cosmo Publications).
[4] Doaa Abdel Motaal Ahmed, 2019, “Land-mistresses in Graeco-Roman Egypt,” International Journal of Tourism and Hospitality Management, vol. 2(1): 8–20.
[5] Henry Fischer, 2000, Egyptian Women of the Old Kingdom and of the Heracleopolitan Period. 2nd ed., 45 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art).
[6] Fischer, Egyptian Women of the Old Kingdom, 45.
[7] Marcelo Campagno, 2009, “Kinship and Family Relations,” In UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, edited by Jacco Dieleman, and Willeke Wendrich, 2 (Los Angeles: UCLA).
[8] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/69040. Arabic ‘um became Malayalam ഉമ്മ umma.
[9] 𓌢𓀀 sen, “brother,” https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/136230; 𓌢𓈖𓏏𓁐 sen.t “sister,” https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/136260. Egyptian sen and sen.t lost their meanings as “brother” and “sister” in Malayalam, replaced by different words for “elder brother,” “younger brother,” etc.
[10] Hermann Gundert, 1872, A Malayalam and English Dictionary, 43 (Mangalore: C. Stolz). Suffixes and prefixes were transposed between Egyptian and Malayalam, so that sen-en-emwe became emwe-en-sen, and probably lose the nasal -en- in the middle when transforming to Malayalam. The current Malayalam word for maternal uncle is അമ്മാവന് ammavan, in which the [s] sound is lost from Egyptian. It is possible that അമ്മായച്ചന് and അമ്മാവന് existed in different Malayalam dialects in the past.
[11] Campagno, “Kinship and Family Relations,” 2; mw.t-wr.t https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/69090 (note that [r] was also pronounced as [l]). One of the royal decrees retrieved from Saqqara states, “the king’s mother Ankhesenmeryre the elder and the king’s mother Neith,” (emphasis added). Nigel Strudwick, 2005, Texts from the Pyramid Age, 116 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature). mw.t-mw.t https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/860086.
[12] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/32820 ([t] in Egyptian transformed to [ch] in Malayalam, but may have been retained in Tamil attan, see Gundert, Malayalam and English Dictionary, 9); https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/850422.
[13] Campagno, “Kinship and Family Relations,” 3. Gundert, Malayalam and English Dictionary, 705. മകൻ makan “son” and മകൾ makal “daughter” likely derived from Tamil. In Egyptian, the son was ser (or sa) and daughter was ser.t (or sae), corresponding to Malayalam ചെറുക്കന് cherukkan (or ചെക്കന് chekkan) “boy” and ചെറുക്കി cerukki (or ചക്കി chakki) “girl,” respectively. 𓅭𓏤 https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/125510; 𓅭𓏏 https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/125630. The two interpretations of ser and sa result from the different interpretations of the vulture hieroglyph as [r] and [a]. Note that these differing interpretations are seen in the two alternate words in Malayalam too, namely ചെറുക്കന് cherukkan which includes [r] and ചെക്കന് chekkan which does not, and in their feminine counterparts.
[14] Campagno, “Kinship and Family Relations,” 2–3. See note 9 supra.
[15] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/51120. The interpretation of heir as eldest “son” is a patriarchal assumption that is questionable. In Kerala’s matrilineal system, the heir is the eldest nephew in the family.
[16] Leire Olabarria, 2014, “Materialising kinship, constructing relatedness: kin group display and commemoration in First Intermediate Period and Middle Kingdom Egypt (ca. 2150–1650 BCE),” Doctoral Thesis, 25, University of Oxford. Kim McCorquodale, 2012, “Reconsidering the Term ‘Eldest Son/Eldest Daughter’ and Inheritance in the Old Kingdom,” The Bulletin of the Australian Centre for Egyptology, vol. 23: 78–85. Jing Wen, 2018, “The Iconography of Family Members in Egypt’s Elite Tombs of The Old Kingdom.” Doctoral Thesis, 14 University of Pennsylvania.
[17] Thus, it is likely that the Egyptian tomb reliefs refer to nephews and nieces rather than to sons and daughters.
[18] Campagno, “Kinship and Family Relations,” 4.
[19] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/67.
[20] https://thesaurus-linguae-aegyptiae.de/lemma/97480.
