420 family: Asia and the Pacific uhtlicue Shortly after a Mexican birth, a diviner consulted a tonalamatl, or book of days, to determine the nature of the child’s birthday and its future implications If the day was deemed inauspicious, the diviner mediated by selecting a beneficent day for baptismal rites During this ceremony Mexican boys received a symbolic shield and weapons along with tools of the profession they might engage in Girls received a small tunic and weaving instruments Women who endured the pain of childbirth were likened to warriors on the battlefield and were honored as such in death Scholars believe that the 260-day ritual calendar may be based on a nine-month human gestation period Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the Taíno, a large ethnic group that inhabited the Greater Antilles, describe their house structures and village layout Like their Caribbean ancestors, the Taíno built impermanent wood and fiber dwellings Large thatch-roofed structures housed the members of an extended family A long rectangular plaza or ball court, with the home of a lord at one end, formed the nucleus of the village; private homes surrounded it Villages accommodated as many as 1,000 nuclear families In the Andean region of South America the highland site of Tiwanaku (ca 100–ca 1000 c.e.) contains residential groupings that may have accommodated populations as high as 30,000 to 60,000 Most families lived outside the moat that surrounded Tiwanaku’s ceremonial core, while high-ranking political and religious practitioners may have occupied the city center The Incan culture of the 14th to 16th centuries venerated this earlier site as a sacred place of origin and attempted to emulate the fine stone masonry of the site’s ruined buildings in Cuzco An impressive example of the mortarless stone architecture sits high atop the Andean mountain range, where elite residences made up the Incan site of Machu Picchu Sixteenth- and 17th-century accounts by Spanish and mestizo authors provide information about Incan social mores This society valued duality and complementarity and was organized in kin groups called ayllu The lineages of the kin groups were divided into two parts, called moieties Marriage partners came from separate moieties, and Incan law forbade marriage to close relatives The Inca often turned to omens to help select marriage partners Incan society permitted rulers to take many wives, and the last two rulers are documented as taking their sisters as primary wives to emphasize the divinity of the ruling lineage and promote peaceful succession Asia and the Pacific by Amy Hackney Blackwell Family was very important throughout medieval Asia Family relationships dictated almost every aspect of a person’s life, from educational and marriage possibilities to how a person would spend any given day Contraception was not widely available or effective in medieval Asia The most commonly used contraceptive techniques were withdrawal and douches with such substances as lemon juice, which were not reliable means of preventing births Most women experienced many pregnancies and births during their lives Every pregnancy was risky because there were few medical treatments for complications of pregnancy and birth Many women died giving birth Once a child was born, it was almost invariably breastfed, either by the mother or by a wet nurse In some societies, such as that of New Guinea, husbands did not sleep with their wives when they were nursing babies or toddlers; people believed that semen from the man would contaminate the woman’s milk Women often nursed their babies for two or three years, so this period of abstinence could space births several years apart Infant mortality rates were high throughout Asia and the Pacific Although exact numbers are not known, historians estimate that between 30 and 50 percent of all babies born did not reach adulthood Many infants died at birth Some of them died of natural causes, while others died of infanticide, a typical method of reducing family size Female infants were the most common victims of infanticide In many Asian societies male offspring were desired and female children considered a burden If a newborn’s mother died in childbirth, the infant also stood a good chance of dying Older babies and children died of illnesses and accidents Family was the foundation of Chinese society Confucianism, one of the prevailing philosophies, placed great importance on relationships and the duties family members owed one another Younger people were supposed to respect and serve their elders Their elders, in return, were supposed to look out for the welfare of their juniors Children had to revere their parents and other ancestors Wives were expected to obey their husbands without protest Chinese people traced their lineage back several generations through the male line In the Mandarin Chinese language, each position in a clan had its own name For example, a paternal great-great-grandmother had a different name from a maternal great-great-grandmother An aunt by blood and an aunt by marriage had different names Different types of cousins had their own separate terms Dead family members were still considered part of the family, and the living often consulted their dead ancestors about important matters All children took their father’s surname Females were considered inconsequential in China, useful only as workers and to produce children A woman who married would move into her husband’s home, where three to