skin-group

A form of skin group — An Australian Aborigine social division, which is inherited from the mother and which determines whom one can marry and how one relates to others.

Meanings

nounskin-group (plural skin-groups)

plural skin-groups

  1. alternativeAlternative form of skin group.

    The skin-group, or “yiminga” of a Tiwi is matrilineal; it is inherited from the mother and determines the marriage line.

    2008, Heide Smith, Brian Oram Smith, Portrait of a People: The Tiwi of Northern Australia, →ISBN
    2 more examples

    In Walbiri society you belong to one of these eight skin-groups. They dominate your social life; they determine who you can marry, and they determine how you relate to everybody else in Walbiri society.

    2009, Rob Ranzijn, Keith R. McConnochie, Wendy Nolan, Psychology and Indigenous Australians, →ISBN, page 50

    She moved from skin-group to skin-group at the start of each of the six Noongar seasons, helping each family as best she could, and circulating the idea that violent resistance to the Europeans would result in more dead Noongar.

    2014, David Mitchell, The Bone Clocks, →ISBN, page 414
Cite this entry
APA

skin-group. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skin-group

MLA

“skin-group.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skin-group. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “skin-group,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/skin-group.

Source: skin-group on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.