Genealogical descriptions systematically map very different kinds of bodies according to different criteria, such as parents, children, ancestral lineages, potential marriage partners and clans.
People use various techniques to document and materialise ideas about inheritance, including shared blood, genes, people’s relationship to a particular place, shared names, or even reincarnation.
The power of many of these artefacts is not simply to serve as records, lists or documents that objectify relations for others. Many are actually held to bring forth the power or capacity of the bodies depicted in their forms.
