Sibling Terminology and Cross‐Sex Behavior: Data from the Southeastern Nuba Mountains1

Contrary to certain of the assumptions of Nerlove and Romney (1967) on sibling terminology and cross‐sex behavior, the sibling terminology of the Southeastern Nuba manifests a primary sex‐of‐speaker component and is shown to be conjunctive. Other data appear to weigh against their functional hypotheses for the cross‐parallel distinction in sibling terminology but support a general conclusion that there may be different levels of explanation in kinship usage and that attention should be paid to cultural conceptions of cross‐sex relations.