All in the Family: Descent and Succession in the Protohistoric Chiefdoms of the Greater Antilles—a Comment on Curet

In a recent article published in Ethnohistory, L. Antonio Curet argued that Spanish accounts of succession among the protohistoric chiefdoms of the Greater Antilles do not support prior interpretations that these groups practiced matrilineal descent. This commentary reexamines the evidence presented by Curet and concludes that matrilineal principles provided the basic foundation on which these chiefdoms were built.