[3] This pattern generally occurs when a man obtains his status, his job role, or his privileges from their nearest elder matrilineal male relative.
[4] In the Southwest United States, the Apache tribe practices a form of this, where the uncle is responsible for teaching the children social values and proper behavior while inheritance and ancestry is reckoned through the mother's family alone.
[8] Alfred Radcliffe-Brown identified the Tsonga (BaThonga) of Mozambique, the Tongans of the Pacific, and the Nama of Namibia as avunculate societies as early as 1924.
[10] Jan N. Bremmer argued based on a survey of the Indo-European peoples that the avunculate is explained by the principle of education outside the (extended) family, and does not indicate matrilinealism.
In most cultures with avunculate customs in the sense used by anthropologists, such a marriage would violate incest taboos governing relations between members of the same matrilineal lineage.