Chapter V: Terms of Relationship (2)

In this regard the exogamy hypothesis in the broader sense enjoys an obvious superiority. Exogamous kin groups occur both in southern Africa and in many sections of America from which exogamous moieties have never been reported. Doubtless here, too, we must reckon to a considerable extent with the effect of diffusion, which repeatedly carried the Dakota principle to non-exogamous tribes. Yet when we apply the method of variation to the best-studied regions of the globe, our confidence in the essential correctness of the exogamy hypothesis is considerably strengthened. In Oceania it is the non-exogamous Polynesians who fail to distinguish the maternal and paternal sides, while the generally exogamous Melanesians recognize the principle of bifurcation. In North America, the non-exogamous tribes are either bifurcating but fail to merge the collateral and lineal lines or neither bifurcate nor merge.[42]

Certain instances are especially illuminating because they permit a refinement of the method of variation by the practical or total elimination of other factors to account for the phenomena. Thus on the northwest coast of America we find certain tribes like the Kwakiutl and Nootka who are not organized in strictly exogamous groups, and here neither merging nor bifurcation occurs. “The terms for ‘uncle’ and ‘aunt’ refer equally to the father’s and mother’s fraternity;” and specific terms distinguish father and mother from more remote kindred. When we compare such systems with those of the more northern and exogamous tribes, _viz._, the Tsimshian, Haida and Tlingit, we discover at once a striking difference. In all these terminologies men of the father’s are distinguished from those of the mother’s moiety or clan; and the collateral lines are wholly, or almost entirely, merged in the lineal lines.[43] Here we are not dealing simply with a contact phenomenon, for no good reason can be given why the Tlingit system should not have extended southward or the Kwakiutl system to the north. Nor are we simply confronted by a difference of tribal affiliation: while the Kwakiutl and Nootka belong to the same stock, and affinity has recently been claimed for the Tlingit and Haida languages, the Tsimshian stand apart. It is the difference in social organization that runs parallel with the difference in nomenclature.

A similar case is afforded by the Shoshonean stock. Within this family specific terms for father and mother as opposed to uncles and aunts are the rule and cross-cousins are generally not distinguished from parallel cousins and brothers. There is thus a combination of extreme Hawaiian inclusiveness in the speaker’s generation with the tendency to non-classificatory nomenclature in the first ascending generation. But among the Hopi, the only member of the group organized into exogamous clans, the Dakota principle holds sway. Since no Southwestern system is known that so clearly reveals the forked and merging principle, the possibility of borrowing seems barred and we have proof of the independent evolution of this feature in correlation with a clan system.

So far, then, as the distribution of the Dakota principle over discontinuous regions of the globe is concerned, the hypothesis of exogamy gives a reasonably satisfactory explanation of the facts, while within each continuous area we shall assume a greater or lesser degree of dissemination. Applying this, _e. g._, to the Northwestern Indians as a whole, we shall indeed regard the evolution of Dakota features as a response to the exogamous organization, but when we turn to the three exogamous tribes individually, we shall face the problem whether the terminology did not spread from one tribe to its two neighbors. It is quite true that theoretically there is the possibility that the _clan_ system, not the terminology, was the diffused feature and that the organization in each case independently produced an appropriate nomenclature. However, we have undoubted instances in which features of nomenclature were not associated with any social institution, indeed, where the very words have been borrowed. Further the development of an appropriate terminology is not an absolutely automatic process, as is shown by the failure of some tribes with exogamy to develop one. Hence it seems probable that within a limited continuous area the Dakota principle developed only once and then spread to neighboring tribes. That the existence of an exogamous organization among the borrowers would be a favorable condition for the adoption of the nomenclature is obvious, also that the organization and the terminology may be borrowed jointly.

In order to strengthen the case for the exogamous theory it is necessary to show that the same results could not be accomplished, or not so well, by other conditions of equally wide distribution. As a matter of fact, an alternative interpretation has recently been advanced.[44] In the case of the non-exogamous Californian Yahi Dr. Sapir connects the merging of lineal and collateral lines with the marriage regulations obtaining there and suggests that these rules “may no doubt not infrequently be examined as an equally or more plausible determining influence”. The practices referred to comprise the levirate, _i.e._, a man’s marriage with his brother’s widow, and marriage with the deceased wife’s sister. (Why, _deceased_? we may well ask Dr. Sapir, since a man’s preëmptive right to his wife’s younger sisters is a widespread custom in North America.)

I do not doubt for a moment that the customs in question have affected kinship nomenclature, but I seriously question whether they constitute an adequate substitute for exogamy as an interpretation of the empirical distribution of the Dakota principle. The levirate, it is true, is an exceedingly widespread institution: Tylor found it among one hundred and twenty out of some three hundred peoples.[45] But the levirate alone will not do since it only explains the extension of the father term to the father’s brother and the correlative extension of the term ‘son’ to the brother’s son (man speaking). It remains to be seen, therefore, to what extent the levirate is united in different regions of the globe with the usage of marrying two or more sisters, which would further explain the classification of mother’s sister with mother and of the sister’s children with the children (woman speaking). So far as I know, the range of the two usages jointly has not been ascertained; pending its determination, the distribution of the Dakota principle is not accounted for, as it approximately is by exogamy.

There are certain other objections to the levirate hypothesis. One of them was already urged by Morgan, who examined it under the heading of polygamy and polyandry, which together might obviously lead to the same results as the Yahi usages.[46] These customs do not necessarily take in the entire population. A man may not have a brother to inherit his widow, nor have all women sisters to join or follow them in wedlock. On the other hand, clan or gentile affiliation is an automatic affair not touched by such contingencies.

Further, we may ask, what is really explained by the Yahi rules? The relationships of paternal uncle and maternal aunt and their discrimination from the mother’s brother and father’s sister are certainly accounted for; and correlatively, the distinction between the offspring of such relatives. But though discussion has hitherto for simplicity’s sake been mainly restricted to these nearer kindred, the Dakota principle involves far more remote relatives. It is not only the father’s brother but the father’s father’s brother’s son and the greatgrandfather’s brother’s son’s son that are classed with the father; not only the mother’s sister but the mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter and mother’s mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter’s daughter that are classed with the mother. No doubt an explanation can be patched together on the levirate-polygyny hypothesis. Since my father is brother to my father’s father’s brother’s son, the latter is my potential father under the levirate rule, and so forth. But even with the multiple clan or gentile hypothesis, the facts are more directly explained. From this point of view the relative in question is simply a father’s clansman with paternal descent, while with matrilineal descent the designations for the mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter _et al._ are at once clear. The moiety theory, of course, accounts for all the relevant data in the simplest manner.

It is, indeed, manifest that the levirate-polygyny rule stands to the exogamous principle somewhat in the relation of a part to the whole or of a special instance to a broader principle. Assume exogamous divisions, and my wife becomes _ipso facto_ my brother’s potential wife while my wife’s sisters are my and my brothers’ potential wives even though marriage be never actually consummated except monogamously. Incidentally, it is by no means certain that in reported cases the levirate is limited to the real brother or the multiple sister marriages to own sisters; indeed, in some cases the reverse is stated, cousins or members of the same clan or gens being expressly included. With the dual organization the case is especially clear. The kinship terms then appear simply as status names. I am brother to those who are potential husbands of the same group of women and since all of us males occupy this common status there is correlatively a single term by which all of us are called by our children. The status assumption is supported by such facts as the Gilyak rule by which men of a gens must take wives from a particular gens and where the gentes as units are regarded as standing to each other in the relationship of father-in-law and son-in-law.[47]

In short, where the levirate-polygyny usages coexist with exogamy, it would be rash to derive a merging and bifurcate nomenclature from the former rather than from the latter.

Still another objection is implied in Dr. Sapir’s own statement of the case. It is not necessary for the natives to look at the levirate from the point of view hitherto assumed. Instead of defining the paternal uncle in terms of his potential fatherhood, they may have a word distinct from that for father to designate the step-father and the paternal uncle. Dr. Sapir cites the Upper Chinook by way of illustration. In other words, the action of the levirate is equivocal. It may affect nomenclature so as to produce the semblance of the Dakota principle, but it may also produce quite different results. It may also fail to affect terminology at all, as apparently is the case in Semitic languages with their descriptive nomenclature.

In this connection a qualification must be made that applies equally to the exogamy hypothesis. Though the ultimate cause of a terminological feature be the levirate, the immediate cause in a given instance may well be an historico-geographical one. If the Chinook nomenclature is differently affected by the levirate from that of the Yahi, the proximate reason may be simply the fact that the Chinook did not come into contact with the same peoples as the Yahi and thus had no chance to borrow their nomenclature. In other words, admitting an influence of the levirate, it is not necessary to assume that it has repeatedly produced the same terminological effects independently.

I know of at least one instance in which the hypothesis advanced by Dr. Sapir seems definitely excluded, leaving exogamy in the field as the efficient cause. The Hopi system conforms to the essentials of the Dakota type, but neither the levirate nor the marriage with two sisters is in vogue. It cannot be argued that the Dakota features were borrowed from some other Southwestern tribe possessing these usages, first, because the Dakota features are far more highly developed among the Hopi than among other Pueblo Indians; secondly, because it is very doubtful whether the practices in question occur among other Pueblo tribes.[48]

In justice to Dr. Sapir it must be pointed out that he does not advance his hypothesis as a general interpretation of the phenomena. As he suggests, it is most serviceable where the exogamous factor does not occur, or, as I should add, where diffusion of features from a system affected by exogamy seems improbable. I have examined his hypothesis as if it were designed to account for all the relevant phenomena simply in order to bring out clearly its inferiority from this point of view to the theory of exogamy.

There are two series of cases which strongly corroborate the theory of the effect of the exogamous organization on the kinship nomenclature. They constitute a distinct variant of the Dakota principle, the deviation being in the designation of cross-cousins. While these are still differentiated from parallel cousins, they are not placed together in a single category but are classed, one group of cousins with the first ascending and the complementary group with the first descending generation. In short, the generation factor which is fundamental in the Hawaiian scheme and only modified by dichotomy in the usual type of bifurcate merging schemes is here overridden by some other factor. Now what is the nature of this new determinant? Let us look at the facts.

The Hidatsa class the father’s sister’s son with the father and the father’s sister’s daughter and all her female descendants through females to infinity with the father’s sister; correlatively, the mother’s brother’s son, in the absence of special words for nephew or niece, is classed with the son, even by women. That the Crow scheme is almost identical, is readily intelligible from the historical relations of the two tribes, who speak very similar languages of the Siouan stock. But the essentials of the classification reappear among the geographically, linguistically, and culturally remote Hopi, with suggestions of similar features among the Tlingit and even in Melanesia. We are again confronted with a puzzling problem of distribution.

An analysis of the Hidatsa data clarifies the situation. According to the statements of the natives themselves, the term ‘father’ is applied to any father’s clansman irrespective of age and would accordingly include the father’s sister’s son. This suggests that the clue to the entire situation may lie in the clan feature. As a matter of fact, we find the daughter of the father’s sister’s _son_ is not classed with the daughter of the father’s sister’s _daughter_. The only difference that can be connected with this distinction is that in clan membership: the former relative, owing to the exogamous clan system, can never, and the latter relative always must, belong to the father’s sister’s clan. Hence the former, being a father’s sister’s son’s, _i.e._, a ‘father’s’, daughter, becomes in Hidatsa speech a sister, while the latter is designated by a word translated paternal aunt’ but really embracing likewise all the lower generations of females in the paternal clan. That we are dealing with the clan factor, is corroborated by the fact that in Hidatsa terminology the mother’s brother, instead of being designated by a specific word, is classed with the elder brother, a term also applied to the mother’s mother’s brother. The last-mentioned kinsman may be similarly addressed in Hopi.

Powerful corroborative evidence is supplied by a second series of facts. Among the Omaha, where descent is reckoned in the paternal line, the father’s sister’s daughter is no longer classed with the father’s sister but with the sister’s daughter. These, it may be noted incidentally, would belong to the same division if the moieties of the Omaha were at one time exogamous, for which there is some evidence. But the essential point is that here the mother’s brother’s son and all his male descendants through males are indiscriminately classed with the maternal uncle. It is clear that they are all members of the same gens, and corresponding to our Hidatsa experiment we find that as soon as we pass outside the gens the terminology changes: my mother’s brother’s _daughter’s_ son is not my maternal uncle but my brother since his mother, the uncle’s daughter, is called ‘mother’, belonging as she must to my mother’s gens.[49]

The Omaha phenomena are absolutely paralleled not only among other Southern Siouans but also among a number of Algonquians, _viz._, the Miami, Sauk and Fox, Kickapoo, Menomini and Shawnee. The area covered is an absolutely continuous one, and it is impossible not to explain such a distribution by diffusion. This conclusion is accentuated by the fact that the Ojibwa, though an Algonquian people with a gentile system, do not share the Omaha variant of the Dakota scheme but conform to the more usual type found among their neighbors, the Dakota. The mere presence of a gentile organization, though doubtless a favorable basis for the development or adoption of the Omaha scheme, is not the only determining condition; the presence of terminological features in a particular tribe is also a function of its geographical position or historical connections. This does not interfere with the ultimate interpretation of such features but it shows the necessity of taking into account the geographico-historical situation. At present I cannot suggest what may have been the differential condition that produced the Hidatsa variant among some tribes with a clan system but not among the Iroquois; or the Omaha variant among certain Algonquian tribes but not the Ojibwa.

The exogamy hypothesis, with special reference, to the phenomena just mentioned, has recently been discussed by Professor Kroeber.[50] He accepts the empirical correlation between exogamy and the merging of lineal and collateral kin with bifurcation of the parental lines, but interprets it as due rather to the differentiation of male and female lines of descent than to exogamy itself, which latter he regards as ‘perhaps a common but not necessary development, and an overlying development of the former’. “The basic condition,” argues Dr. Kroeber, “would be that in which a woman would be felt to be a very different thing from a man in relationship--less perhaps as an existing individual than as a factor in the relations of other people. Once this point of view prevailed, cross-cousins would necessarily be felt to be something very different from parallel cousins, and cross-uncles and aunts from parallel ones; and the distinction would find expression in nomenclature.” Accentuation of the male and female lines of descent with greater weighting of the one would possibly lead to clan groups.

As a theory of the origin of exogamous groups I have no particular objection to offer to the foregoing. For reasons to be stated below (p. 163) I heartily concur in the assumption that the family, in America at all events, preceded the clan or gens. If I understand him correctly, Dr. Kroeber’s remarks merely paraphrase the fact of this sequence. But I do not see that acceptance of his view on this point involves a rejection of the influence of the clan when that has once developed. Of course it is not directly exogamy that is expressed but the alignment in groups which exogamy brings about. On Dr. Kroeber’s assumption it is unintelligible why father’s sister’s son and mother’s brother’s son should so frequently be classed together since the one is clearly related through the father, the other through the mother. We can hardly credit the native mind with a tendency to algebraic equalization of a plus and minus quantity by which the product of a male and a female relationship shall be standardized by a common designation. Generally speaking, Dr. Kroeber’s factors explain only bifurcation but not merging. The fact that even remote father’s cousins are grouped with the father is what the clan or gentile hypothesis explains over and above the dichotomy of relatives. That such merging occurs among tribes with definite exogamous groups, and generally not in loosely organized ones, can hardly be an accident. Dr. Kroeber’s case is, however, weakest as regards the Hidatsa and Omaha variants of the Dakota scheme. If ‘unilaterality of descent’ rather than clan or gentile affiliation is the determinant here, then why is the Hidatsa variant uniformly found among matrilineal tribes and the Omaha variant uniformly with a gentile system? In other words, why does not the Omaha call his father’s sister’s son ‘father’ and his father’s sister’s daughter ‘aunt’? The cross-cousins in question are as clearly related to me through the father among the Omaha as among the Hidatsa, but in the former case they are not, and in the latter they necessarily are, my father’s clansfolk. Similarly, the mother’s brother’s son and his male offspring are as emphatically related to me through my mother among the Hidatsa as anywhere, but they are not aligned in the same social group with one another and they are not classed together in terminology. For the sake of clearness I will, at the risk of repetition, formulate what I consider the probable course of events. Among certain loosely organized tribes the bifurcation of immediate kin evolved, as we find it among a number of our Far Western tribes. This tendency was amplified and became superseded by a definite clan or gentile scheme. As this scheme developed, possibly as a part of its growth, kinship terminology became not only forked but more inclusive as well. Finally, the fully established organization was able, in certain instances to exert the extreme retro-active influence on nomenclature revealed in the Hidatsa and Omaha variants.

In his extremely valuable paper on Miwok organization[51] Mr. Gifford also suggests a rival explanation in place of exogamy. The Miwok of California are organized in approximately exogamous moieties, and their nomenclature bears some resemblance to that of the Omaha. More particularly is the mother’s brother’s son (and his male descendants through males?) classed with the mother’s brother. According to Mr. Gifford, this is due to the custom of a man marrying, either polygamously or after his wife’s decease, the daughter of his wife’s brother. This form of marriage is actually practised among the Miwok in addition to the more generally diffused marriage with the mother’s brother’s daughter. Obviously, the facts of terminology are consistent both with this usage and with the moiety principle. Mr. Gifford objects that among the Miwok “there are no clan or moiety brothers and sisters, all relationship being based on blood and marriage ties.” This, however, is not the essential point. It does not matter whether the unrelated members are _called_ brother or sister provided they are aligned together in the same social group; the very existence of such social groups implies a differential attitude towards fellow-members as compared with the rest of the tribe. That mere affiliation along moiety lines does not solve all the mysteries of Miwok terminology, is quite true since a sharp distinction is drawn between the mother’s brother’s daughter and the father’s sister’s daughter. Since both these relatives are eligible mates from the point of view of exogamy while as a matter of fact marriage with the paternal aunt’s daughter is prohibited, Mr. Gifford’s objection seems to be sustained. That is to say, here the social organization explains the classing together of certain relatives but not the exclusion of certain other relatives, while the specific marriage regulations of the tribe do account for this phenomenon. But on the other hand, the marriage rules fail where the moiety hypothesis succeeds. Why are the mother’s younger sister, who cannot be married, and the father’s brother’s wife classed with the marriageable cross-cousin and the wife’s brother’s daughter unless it is because they are all members of the same moiety?

So far as the merging of a maternal uncle’s male descendants through males with the uncle himself is concerned, I do not see how any marriage rule would directly explain the extension of the term _ad infinitum_ while moiety alignment at once renders it intelligible. An advantage which the exogamous principle enjoys over every special marriage rule is the universality of its sway over the population. An individual’s wife may not have a brother and her brother may not have a daughter for the husband to marry, but where exogamous groups exist every tribesman is by birth a member of a particular group.

To the subject of specific marriage rules I shall have to revert below. My position as to the Miwok nomenclature is that special regulations undoubtedly account for some of its features while the dual organization successfully explains others and more particularly the Omaha variant of the Dakota principle.

We may sum up our discussion of the Dakota principle with the statement that its distribution, coupled as it is with exogamous groups, supports the theory of an organic connection between the two phenomena. On the question which I have hitherto shelved, _viz._, whether it is exogamy in any form or more particularly the dual organization that gave rise to the features under discussion, I am at present unable to reach a definite decision. Though the distribution of the moiety is far more restricted than that of exogamous groups generally, there is no doubt that not a few elements of the Dakota principle are most readily derived from a dual organization. It remains for the future to determine what is the relative part taken by the multiple kin group and the moiety organization in fashioning kinship nomenclature.

Before leaving the Dakota principle, it seems desirable to allude to two important theoretical problems with which it seems connected--its relations to the Hawaiian principle and its bearing on the antiquity of the clan organization. The Dakota scheme in its more usual form may be logically regarded as merely a complication of the simpler Hawaiian one. As Morgan pointed out, the two coincide in practically half of all the relationships. Inspired no doubt by the general trend of evolutionary thought in his day, Morgan converted the logical connection into an historical sequence and assumed the priority of the simpler system. He indicated how, if grafted on the Hawaiian scheme, the clan or gentile organization would transform it into the Dakota type. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the evolution might have taken place in the reverse direction. Development, as shown precisely by linguistic phenomena, such as the history of the English language--and kinship terms, no matter what else they may be, are elements of human speech--is not always from the simple to the complex. Morgan’s belief was influenced by the view that humanity started their social existence at an extremely low level, for which opinion he found support in the social conditions he inferred from the Hawaiian schedules. These, he argued, suggest brother-sister marriage since such marriages would explain the use of the same term for mother’s brother and father. Such unions certainly _would_ produce the observed terminology but Morgan failed to consider that an alternative explanation was at hand. His fundamental error lay in attaching to the primary kinship terms of the Hawaiians and other peoples the notion of actual cohabitation. From this starting-point he consistently argued that all men addressed as father had actual access to the speaker’s mother. As Cunow has well shown,[52] there is not a tittle of evidence that this represents the native point of view, from which the term ‘father’ merely indicates tribal status with reference to the speaker. When we have once recognized this fact, there is nothing so intrinsically primitive in the Hawaiian scheme of ranging kin as to demonstrate hoary antiquity.

All empirical considerations, indeed, point in the opposite direction. For one thing, all the peoples whose systems are characterized by the Hawaiian feature rank relatively high in the scale of civilization. No one would dream of placing the Maori culture below that of, say, the Fijians. Secondly, we have the most powerful circumstantial evidence from distinct quarters of the globe to prove that Hawaiian features develop secondarily within the Dakota scheme. Thus, among some Iroquois tribes, the tendency has developed to call the father’s as well as the mother’s sister ‘mother’. The Crow differ from all other Siouan tribes, even from their closest relatives, the Hidatsa, in similarly extending the word for mother in direct address. Among the Torres Straits Islanders a corresponding change of usage was recorded by Dr. Rivers,[53] and similar developments seem to have occurred among the Gilyak.[54] Relevant data from West Africa have already been cited in another connection.

All this does not prove that as a general proposition Morgan’s sequence must simply be inverted. For this there is no evidence in North America, where complete Hawaiian schemes, or even approximations thereto, are lacking. But the data at our disposal do indicate that in so far as a tendency toward Hawaiian elements appears it is often due to secondary development.

To turn next to the problem of the exogamous kin group. Some theoretical writers have assumed the priority of the clan or gens to the ‘loose’, _i.e._, clanless or non-gentile, organization in which the family and local group usually form the only important social units. To support such a view appeals have sometimes been made to kinship nomenclatures. So far as North America is concerned, this argument is certainly without foundation. It was Dr. Swanton, I think, who first showed that in North America the exogamous system is found precisely among the more highly cultured tribes while generally speaking it is lacking among the more primitive peoples. Now as I have shown above, exogamy in North America largely goes hand in hand with the Dakota principle. It is therefore rather remarkable that the more primitive clanless North American tribes of the Plateau and neighboring regions also lack the Dakota principle. The suggestion sometimes offered that a clan or gentile system has once existed and simply eluded the field worker’s scrutiny on account of the degeneration of aboriginal life under modern conditions thus breaks down. We cannot argue positively that where the Dakota principle reigns exogamy must necessarily have occurred, because the correlation, while high, is not perfect and because the principle may have been borrowed without the social organization. But an exogamous organization is so frequently associated with the Dakota principle and there is so little reason for a change of kinship terminology provided the native language is preserved that the total lack of Dakota features over a wide area may be regarded as exceedingly strong evidence against the former or at least ancient existence of exogamous groups.

_Supposed Features of ‘Classificatory’ Systems._ Under the misnomer ‘classificatory systems’ some writers have included consideration of the principle of differentiating elder and younger brothers and sisters. The distribution of this distinction is simply staggering when one attempts to trace it more or less systematically. Of North American systems, I can offhand recall only two, the Pawnee and Kiowa, in which it does not appear. We find it in association with the Hungarian and Chukchee terminologies, both of which lack the Dakota principle, and it occurs with the Hawaiian no less than the vast majority of bifurcate systems. So far as I know, the only one who has offered any explanation of the phenomenon is Dr. Rivers, who once connected it with a difference in the time of tribal initiation.[55] But since there are many peoples, _e. g._, in North America, who do not practise any form of tribal initiation, the hypothesis hardly seems tenable and we must rest content to accept the facts of distribution.

Another feature that is often erroneously treated in association with the Dakota principle is that of reciprocity, which has already been referred to as the usage of designating a pair of relatives, more particularly two belonging to different generations, by a single term. Thus, the Shoshone call the mother’s father and the daughter’s son (man speaking) by one term. Such usage would be manifestly opposed to the Hawaiian principle with which it does not seem to be associated. It is found in connection with the Dakota scheme in Melanesia and particularly in Australia, but is markedly absent from the merging systems of North America. Since here it is highly developed where the Dakota principle does _not_ occur, it cannot be regarded as an essential element of ‘classificatory systems’. The question remains how we are to account for the facts of distribution. Australian data forcibly suggest that, there at least, the reciprocal feature is a reflection of social organization. Grandparents and grandchildren, by the curious rule of descent that regulates affiliation with the matrimonial classes of the area, are necessarily in the same class, _i.e._, a father’s father and a son’s son or a mother’s father and a daughter’s son (man speaking) are fellow-members of a class. The fit seems too close to admit of an accidental association. But when we turn to the North American region of reciprocal features the interpretation no longer holds since no vestige is found there of any institution that might align the relatives under discussion in a common group. The inference is that there has been convergent development, and perhaps the most plausible explanation of the North American terms is that they are designations not so much of the relatives as of the relationship itself.[56]

If we cannot give more than this general interpretation of the reciprocal feature as found in North America, we can on the other hand show quite definitely that its occurrence is a function of geographical position there. The practical absence of this trait in the immense region particularly dealt with by Morgan is as remarkable as its spread over a practically continuous region in the Far West, among the Lillooet, Spokane, Kootenai, Nez Percé, Wishram, Takelma, and various Californian and Shoshonean Plateau populations, as well as in a considerable number of Southwestern tribes. The Pacific, Plateau and Southwestern regions obviously define the distribution of reciprocity in North America, which thus becomes intelligible only through diffusion.

_Various Features._ The principles of kinship nomenclature that have been treated hitherto are far from exhausting the variety found in a survey of the world. A very odd mode of addressing relatives after presentation of a gift has been mentioned for the Masai (p. 104), and there is little doubt that more extensive knowledge will reveal equally quaint notions elsewhere. Here I merely wish to enumerate a few examples from the particular point of view assumed in this chapter.

It is a remarkable fact that while in Australia the principle of bifurcation is consistently carried to the grandparental stratum of society in conjunction with the reciprocal feature, the North American region in which the Dakota principle is especially prominent lacks the distinction between mother’s and father’s parents, so that Morgan does not even dedicate special columns to these relationships in his elaborate schedules and notes the discrimination with some surprise for the Spokane.[57] This feature is nevertheless widely spread in the Far West, coinciding to some extent with that of reciprocity. We find it among Salish and Shoshonean tribes, in California, among the Takelma and Wishram, and to some extent in the Southwest. Both the positive and the negative facts of distribution indicate the occurrence of diffusion.

The change of terms after the death of a connecting or other relative is another feature of considerable interest. Thus, the Kawaiisu of California address the father as _muwuni_, but by the quite distinct term _kuguni_ after the loss of a child.[58] Again, the Kootenai have one word for the father-in-law before and another after the wife’s or husband’s death. This peculiarity appears also among Californian tribes, the Chinook, Quileute, and several Salish tribes. This distribution again demonstrates diffusion from a common center. On the other hand, the probably even higher development of _post-mortem_ nomenclature among the Timucua of Florida[59] cannot be ascribed, in the present state of our knowledge, to anything but independent origin, though we are not in a position to state what common cause, lacking in the intervening area, produced the common effect in the southeastern United States and in the remote regions of the Far West.

I will only call attention to one other kinship usage of more general interest, that embraced in the term ‘teknonymy’, the custom of denoting an individual in terms of his relationship to a child, _viz._, ‘father of Mary’, ‘grandmother of John’. This practice exists in South Africa and India,[60] in Melanesia,[61] and in the Pueblo area and on the Northwest coast of North America.[62] Tylor connected it with the custom of the husband’s residence with his wife’s kin, of the father’s assertion of his paternity and his ultimate recognition as more than a stranger by the wife’s family with whom a condition of ceremonial avoidance obtains. However, it should be noted that among the Zuñi and the Hopi, though the husband lives with his wife’s people, there is no parent-in-law taboo, and the wife is as often referred to teknonymously as the husband. Thus, my Hopi interpreter always spoke to me of his wife as ‘Herman’s mother’. Tylor’s explanation is accordingly inadequate and would seem to require at least amplification. But whatever result a systematic survey of the subject may lead to, it is certain that the effect of diffusion will have to be taken into account. It is inconceivable, _e. g._, that the practice originated independently among tribes so geographically situated and so intimately related in culture as the Zuñi and Hopi.

_Special Forms of Marriage and Social Customs._ There can be little doubt that a well-established marriage rule often finds expression in nomenclature. Even the exogamous principle can be brought under this head since it expresses the potential matrimonial status of members of the community. In a dual organization my ‘father’ is one who potentially, if not actually, is a mate of women of my mother’s group, while a ‘mother’s brother’ is one who can under no condition occupy that status.

Of the specific forms of marriage the levirate has already been considered and the cross-cousin marriage briefly mentioned. Dr. Rivers has demonstrated the close dependence of nomenclature on the latter practice in Melanesia. Here the custom itself is found in full swing, and it would be unreasonable to deny that the terminology had its origin in this usage even in parts of Melanesia where it cannot be observed. This does not mean that cross-cousin marriage necessarily obtained throughout the range of distribution of the corresponding terminology but that the terminology spread from a center where it reflected the social institution. Thus, in Guadalcanar the cross-cousin marriage still persists and we find cross-cousins, brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law comprised under a single appellation. In Anaiteum, cross-cousins of opposite sex address one another by the terms used for husband and wife.[63] It seems to me methodologically quite justifiable to interpret similar features in neighboring islands as having their ultimate origin in cross-cousin marriage. But the argument fails where similar connotations of terms occur without evidence of the marriage rule unless it can be demonstrated that no other cause could have produced the result. Thus, I must consider unsuccessful Dr. Rivers’ attempt to deduce, though with qualifications, the former existence of the institution in question from the system of the Dakota Indians.[64] The classification of brothers-in-law with cross-cousins might be simply a reflection of the dual organization, by which these relatives would fall within the same group; or, to put it differently, if the term cross-cousin is given the wide significance with which we are familiar in primitive systems, so as to include members of the opposite moiety and one’s own generation, a man’s brothers-in-law are necessarily members of the cross-cousin class. The superiority of the moiety hypothesis in this instance lies in the fact that the dual organization occurs among several contiguous and related tribes while the cross-cousin marriage is extremely rare in North America and its highest development occurs among remote peoples of the Pacific region. Regarding special forms of marriage, it is rather important to ascertain whether the terms used by our authorities are to be interpreted in our own or in the more inclusive primitive sense. For example, Tylor reduced the institution of cross-cousin marriage to the principle of exogamous moieties by assuming the wider significance.[65] As Dr. Rivers points out,[66] the two rules are not identical if marriage is prescribed with the own daughter of the own mother’s brother. In that case, the moiety rule is only a larger framework with which the specific institution is not incompatible but which does not determine cross-cousin marriage. Looking at the matter chronologically, I can even conceive the development of larger social groups from such specific marriage regulations. If in the absence of an own cross-cousin, a more remote cousin comes to be regularly substituted, we should have a whole class of possible mates, of whom the nearest cross-cousin would be only _primus inter pares_.

It must be understood that while special marriage regulations, like exogamy, tend to be mirrored in nomenclature, there is no absolute necessity for this occurrence. As the New Mexican Tewa have exogamous groups without the Dakota principle, so the Miwok of California have the cross-cousin marriage with little or no indication of it in terminology.[67] One factor that must always be considered in this connection is the time element. A recently acquired custom may not yet have developed an appropriate nomenclature, while, as Morgan supposed, the nomenclature may survive after the custom has become obsolete. That the frequency of marriage according to a certain rule, and the coexistence of other rules, possibly antagonistic in their effects, must have an influence, is obvious. As regards the latter point, Mr. Gifford shows that while marriage with the cross-cousin is not suggested in Miwok nomenclature, marriage with the wife’s brother’s daughter is reflected by twelve terms.

Among the Thonga of South Africa several interesting forms of preferential matrimonial union occur. As among the Miwok, marriage with the wife’s, younger sisters and wife’s brother’s daughter is considered peculiarly appropriate, and these affinities are subsumed under a common caption. Levirate extends only to the elder brother’s, not to the younger brother’s, wife, and quite consistently these affinities are distinguished by distinct words. A man may inherit his maternal uncle’s wife and therefore classes her with the wife. On the other hand, logic does not hold sway undisputedly. A man calls cross-cousins by the same term as parallel cousins and brothers, yet it is possible for a man to inherit his parallel cousin’s, but not his cross-cousin’s (father’s sister’s son’s), wife. The explanation given by Junod seems quite satisfactory from a comparative point of view. My cross-cousin cannot belong to my gens, my parallel cousin must belong to it.[68] Since the Thonga usually distinguish marriage potentialities with considerable nicety, we may reasonably infer that the present terminology for cousins is a recent innovation, which conclusion once more indicates the relatively late development of Hawaiian features.

A systematic comparison of the effect of definite forms of marriage on nomenclature, in different parts of the world is highly desirable. When we shall have examined how such an institution as the inheritance of a maternal uncle’s wife affects the systems of the Tlingit of northwestern America, of the Banks Islands in Melanesia, and the Thonga of South Africa, and know the action of whatever coexisting institutions may occur, we shall have gained considerably more insight into a very suggestive problem. It is fairly clear that a form of marriage does not determine nomenclature univocally, as the facts relating to the levirate indicate. To ascertain in how far parallelism actually occurs, is a matter of great moment.

_Conclusion._ The question with which this chapter opens has now received an answer. Terms of relationship form a proper topic of investigation for the ethnologist, first because they are often directly correlated with cultural phenomena, such as social usages regulating marriage; secondly, because the features of kinship nomenclature are an index of tribal relationship. Any particular system is not a unified logical whole but a complex product of internal development and foreign connections. Accordingly, its features cannot be understood by themselves any more than other cultural phenomena, but only in association with concomitant traits of the native culture and in the light of a comparative survey of like features among neighboring tribes and ultimately throughout the world. By utilizing our ethnographical knowledge in applying the method of variation it is possible to ascertain, at least to a considerable extent, the causes, whether primary or secondary, that have shaped a given system.

When, for example, we endeavor to explain the system of the Hopi, we can start with the fact that their speech constitutes them a member of the Shoshonean family, _i.e._, we can begin by comparing Hopi nomenclature with that of the Paiute, Paviotso, Ute and Shoshone. One fact that strikes us here is the great difference in the actual vocables employed by the Hopi from those of their congeners, an observation which by no means extends to all of their language. Morgan held the view that kinship words were the most persistent elements of speech, but however this rule may work in other stocks, such as the Athabaskan, it certainly does not obtain among the Shoshoneans, nor, I may add, within the Siouan family, where even such closely related languages as Crow and Hidatsa reveal far greater differences in the lexicon of relationships than might be expected from other vocables. It is, however, in the classification of kin that the distinctiveness of the Hopi seems most remarkable. Their system is not characterized by the prominent features of the Plateau Shoshonean terminologies, such as reciprocity and the separation of paternal from maternal grandparents. On the other hand, they employ the Dakota principle with the Hidatsa variation. That variant occurs, so far as we now know, only among peoples historically quite unrelated to the Hopi so that neither genetic connection nor dissemination accounts for the similarity. On the other hand, all the tribes having this feature share exogamous groups with maternal descent. Such clans are characteristic of the Hopi also, but are lacking among the other Shoshoneans. We infer from this that the Hidatsa variant among the Hopi is functionally connected with their clan system. If the neighboring Zuñi do not share this characteristic, a possible explanation may be found in the relative weakness of the Zuñi clan concept, as recently expounded by Professor Kroeber, when contrasted with its dominance in the social life of the Hopi. In other features the intimate cultural contact between the Zuñi and Hopi is emphatically apparent. Probably for no other tribes is there evidence for such exaggerated reliance on teknonymy, while a certain looseness in the use of terms common to both seems to be a general Southwestern trait. The Hopi system thus reflects both the social fabric of the tribe and its historical relations,--the ancient ones reduced to a few lexical resemblances, while the more complex tribal organization and recent cultural affiliations with the Southwest, and particularly with the Zuñi, stand out in bold relief.

A strictly similar inquiry might be made into the system of the Crow. Here the almost complete coincidence of certain very unusual features with Hidatsa ones bears eloquent testimony to the exceptionally close genetic relationship of the two tribes. Thus, a wife who has been married before is distinguished by a specific word, and spouses generally refer to each other not by a specific term, which seems restricted to non-vocative usage, but by a demonstrative expression. Not only is there a confusion of generations according to the Hidatsa variant, but the mother’s brother is classed with the elder brother and so is the mother’s mother’s brother. The last-mentioned features are partly found among the Mandan. All three tribes differ from the other Siouans, and indeed from all other Plains Indians in having matrilineal descent. Since this is likewise the rule among genetically unconnected peoples sharing the Hidatsa variant, we regard the latter as functionally connected with the clan organization. But there are other traits in which the terminology of the Crow differs from that of their nearest congeners, and here we must systematically consider the possible effect of all such peoples as the Oglala, or Blackfoot, with whom they have come into contact. Such divergence may be merely the effect of internal readjustment. Thus, the Crow classification of the father’s sister’s husband with the father admits of a plausible interpretation as the result of another peculiarity--the classing of the father’s sister with the mother in direct address. Instead of having two deviations from the Hidatsa norm, we should thus have at bottom only one.

It is clear that a far more intensive investigation of kinship terminologies must take the place of what has hitherto been attempted. Precisely the so-called minor peculiarities of a system are important historically because they are the differential indications of cultural contact with definite tribes. The phonetic inadequacy of Morgan’s schedules, which has been brought to light by Dr. Michelson and Mr. Spier,[69] requires a reëxamination of the entire field covered. Still more important is the thorough-going determination of the innumerable systems, both in and outside of America, not touched upon by Morgan at all. Fortunately the work of Dr. Rivers, Mr. A. R. Brown and Mr. A. M. Hocart in England, of Dr. R. Thurnwald in Germany, of Dr. J. R. Swanton, Mr. Leslie Spier and Mr. E. W. Gifford in America bids fair to reduce our ignorance of the facts. With our lamentable absence of knowledge on some of the most essential points it would be rash indeed to claim for the present sketch a more than preliminary value. I am content with calling attention to the tremendous ethnological significance of kinship terminologies, with combating premature confidence in generalizations based on sheer ignorance, and above all with suggesting that the most rigorous logical formulation of problems is possible in this too long neglected domain of the science of culture.

REFERENCES

I

[1] WISSLER, CLARK. Psychological and Historical Interpretation for Culture, _Science_, N. S. vol. 43, pp. 193-201, 1916. HOCART, A.M. Psychology and Sociology, _Folk-Lore_, 1915, pp. 115-137. KROEBER, A. L. Eighteen Professions, _American Anthropologist_, N. S. vol. 17, pp. 283-288, 1915. LOWIE, ROBERT H. Psychology and Sociology, _American Journal of Sociology_, 1915, pp. 217-229.

[2] RADLOFF, WILHELM. Aus Sibirien. Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1893, vol. 2, p. 16 f.

[3] JOCHELSON, WALDEMAR. The Yukaghir and Yukaghirized Tungus, _Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History_, vol. 13, part 1, Leiden and New York, 1910, pp. 30-38. CZAPLICKA, M. A. Aboriginal Siberia. A Study in Social Anthropology. Oxford, 1914, pp. 307-325.

II

[1] THORNDIKE, EDWARD L. Mental Work and Fatigue and Individual Differences and their Causes. New York, 1914, pp. 206-224.

[2] MAXIMILIAN, PRINCE OF WIED. Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika in den Jahren 1832 bis 1834. Coblenz, 1841, vol. 2, p. 134.

[3] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. Some Fundamental Ideas of Chinese Culture, _Journal of Race Development_, vol. 5, 1914, pp. 160-174.

[4] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. Zur Geschichte der Brille, _Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften_, vol. 6, 1907, pp. 379-385.

[5] THORNDIKE. _op. cit._, p. 223.

[6] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. Skizze der mongolischen Literatur, _Extrait de la Revue Orientale_, 1907, pp. 165-261, esp. p. 232 f.

[7] LAUFER. _Ibid._, pp. 183-187.

[8] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. Skizze der manjurischen Literatur, _Extrait de la Revue Orientale_, 1908, pp. 1-53, esp. pp. 12 f., 17 f. GILES, H. A. The Civilization of China, _Home University Library_, London, 1911, p. 209.

[9] HELL, J. Die Kultur der Araber, Leipzig, 1909, pp. 68, 93, 97, 83 f., 89, 99, 100.

[10] GILES. _Op. cit._, p. 119.

III

[1] WISSLER, CLARK. The Psychological Aspects of the Culture-Environment Relation, _American Anthropologist_, N. S., vol. 14, 1912, pp. 217-225. WISSLER, CLARK. The Relation of Culture to Environment from the Standpoint of Invention, _Popular Science Monthly_, 1913, pp. 164-168. BOAS, FRANZ. The Mind of Primitive Man. New York, 1911, pp. 160-164. GOLDENWEISER, A. A. Culture and Environment, _American Journal of Sociology_, 1916, pp. 628-633.

[2] OBERMAIER, HUGO. Der Mensch der Vorzeit. Berlin, no date, p. 238 f.

[3] BOGORAS, WALDEMAR. The Chukchee--Material Culture, _Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History_, vol. 11, part 1, Leiden and New York, 1904, p. 7, _et seq._

[4] RADLOFF, WILHELM. Aus Sibirien, vol. 1, p. 444 f.

[5] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. _Journal of Race Development_, vol. 5, pp. 167-170.

[6] MORICE, A. G. The Canadian Dénés, _Annual Archæological Report_, 1905, _Appendix, Report, Minister of Education_, Toronto, 1906, pp. 187-219, 197 f.

[7] BOAS, FRANZ. The Eskimo of Baffin Land and Hudson Bay, _Bulletin, American Museum of Natural History_, vol. 17, 1907, pp. 75, 357.

[8] FORRER, ROBERT. Urgeschichte des Europäers von der Menschwerdung zum Anbruch der Geschichte, Stuttgart, 1908, p. 197.

[9] BOAS, FRANZ. Mind of Primitive Man, p. 162. BOGORAS, The Chukchee, p. 177.

[10] RIVERS, W. H. R. The Disappearance of Useful Arts, _Festskrift tillägnad Edvard Westermarck_, 1912, pp. 109-130.

[11] NELSON, N. C. Chronology of the Tano Ruins, New Mexico, _American Anthropologist_, N. S., vol. 18, 1916, pp. 159-180.

[12] JOCHELSON, WALDEMAR. Material Culture and Social Organization of the Koryak, _Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History_, vol. 10, part 2, 1908, p. 405.

[13] WISSLER, CLARK. Aboriginal Maize Culture as a Typical Culture-Complex, _American Journal of Sociology_, 1916, pp. 656-661.

IV

[1] RIVERS, W. H. R. Kinship and Social Organization, London, 1914, p. 92.

[2] TYLOR, EDWARD B. Primitive Culture; Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Languages, Art and Custom. 2 vols., New York, 1889, vol. 1, p. 53.

[3] HATT, GUDMUND. Moccasins and their Relation to Arctic Foot-Wear, _Memoirs, American Anthropological Association_, vol. 3, no. 3, 1916, p. 246.

[4] WISSLER, CLARK. Aboriginal Maize Culture, etc., pp. 656-661.

[5] BOAS, FRANZ. Mind of Primitive Man, p. 167.

[6] MONTELIUS, O. Der Handel in der Vorzeit, _Praehistorische Zeitschrift_, II, 1910, pp. 249-291; _Id._, A Guide to the National Historical Museum, Stockholm.

[7] FORRER, ROBERT. Urgeschichte des Europäers, etc., p. 197.

[8] LAUFER, BERTHOLD. Chinese Pottery of the Han Dynasty. Leiden, 1909, pp. 212-236.

[9] OBERMAIER, HUGO. Der Mensch der Vorzeit, p. 337.

[10] BOAS, FRANZ. Mind of Primitive Man, p. 182 _et seq._

[11] WISSLER, CLARK. Material Cultures of the North American Indians, _American Anthropologist_, N. S. vol. 16, 1914, pp. 447-505, pp. 487-489.

[12] CZEKANOWSKI, JAN. Objektive Kriterien in der Ethnologie, _Korrespondenzblatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte_, 1911, XLII, pp. 71-75.