though the mother’s brother is designated by a distinct term from that
for father and father’s brother. Further, the term for child is extended
also to brother’s child by both sexes contrary to customary ‘forked’
usage. But this cannot be interpreted as symptomatic of the Hawaiian
principle since the sister’s child is designated by a special word,
which, moreover, differs for men and women speaking. The Vai
nomenclature is interesting in showing once more that a given ‘system’
is a complex growth that cannot be adequately defined as a whole by some
such catchword as ‘classificatory’, ‘Hawaiian’, or what not. Not only do
we find Hawaiian and Dakota elements in the same system, but even purely
descriptive combinations of primary terms. Thus, the designation of the
sister’s daughter’s husband is manifestly composed of the stems for
sister’s child and husband, and a corresponding juxtaposition of stems
results in the term for mother’s sister’s husband.
A similar phenomenon is presented by the terminology of the Timne,
another Sierra Leone people. A superficial glance at the list suggests
the Hawaiian principle: father’s brother and mother’s brother are
grouped together, and so are the children of the maternal and the
paternal aunt. But closer consideration shows that while uncles are
classed together they are sharply separated from the father, that while
aunts form a single group of _ntene_ the word for mother is _kara_ or
_ya_, that there is no connection between the words for _Geschwister_
and cousins. In short, the Hawaiian generation principle does not apply.
What Mr. Thomas’ schedules from eight tribes illustrate once more is the
overwhelming importance of historical, geographical and linguistic
considerations. A cursory examination of the lists shows that not only
the mode of classifying kin but the words themselves are identical in a
number of cases in two or more tribes. Thus, _mama_ is grandmother in
Karanko, Susu, Vai and Mendi. It is surely no accident that all of these
belong to the same prefixless subdivision of the Sudanese languages: the
similarity is due to historical relations. In some cases an identical
word is shared by members of distinct subdivisions. Thus, the father’s
sister is called _ntene_ not only in the non-prefixing Susu and Koranko
speech, but also in the prefixing language of the Timne. A glimpse at
Mr. Thomas’ map shows, however, that the habitat of the Timne adjoins
that of both of the other tribes; a kinship nomenclature is, in a
measure, a function of geographical position.
The last-mentioned term is suggestive in another way. Restricted among
the Koranko and Susu to the father’s sister, it is applied by the Timne
to the maternal aunt as well. Turning once more to the map, we discover
that this latter mode of grouping, though not the same word
phonetically, occurs among the Bulem, the immediate coastal neighbors of
the Timne, who belong to the same linguistic subdivision, and also to
the Mendi and Vai, to the east and southeast, who are members of the
complementary subdivision. So far, this only indicates the spread of a
terminological trait over a continuous area. But the data further
suggest that the word _ntene_ may have been borrowed by the Timne rather
than in the reverse direction, and that, as Mr. Thomas himself remarks,
the Timne secondarily extended the term to include a maternal as well as
a paternal aunt. This possibility is theoretically significant, first,
because it indicates that Hawaiian analogies may develop independently
of any such generation principle as dominates the Oceanian system;
secondly, because it suggests that such simplicity of nomenclature,
instead of being primitive as Morgan supposed, may represent a later
development. To this point we shall have to revert later.
_The Dakota Principle._ Let us now turn to that principle which first
aroused Morgan’s interest and which since his time has occupied perhaps
more attention than any other, the classificatory principle _par
excellence_ in Dr. Rivers’ opinion, which finds expression among such
tribes as the Iroquois and Dakota. Like the Hawaiian principle, the
Dakota alignment groups together, regardless of proximity of
relationship, members of the same generation, but differs because in the
speaker’s generation, the first ascending and the first descending
generations, it separates the paternal and the maternal line. Another
way of expressing the facts is to say that collateral and lineal kin are
merged irrespective of nearness of relationship but with strict
bifurcation of the parental lines. Thus, in Dakota[15] the father,
father’s brother, father’s father’s brother’s son, father’s father’s
father’s brother’s son’s son are all addressed _até_; the mother,
mother’s sister, mother’s mother’s sister’s daughter are all called
_iná_. So far we have a classing together of kin who in English are
distinguished from one another. But there is separation of kin whom we
class together, inasmuch as the mother’s brother is designated by a
term distinct from that for father’s brother, _viz._, by _dēkcí_, and
the father’s sister by a term differentiating her from the mother’s
sister, _viz._, by _t ‘uwí_. Now, relationship is a reciprocal
phenomenon, and accordingly we may expect that all those whom I class
together under the term _até_ or _iná_ will address me by a correlative
term. Actually, we find that the Dakota have a single word, _mi
tcíñkci_, for son, brother’s son (man speaking), father’s brother’s
son’s son (man speaking), etc., and for sister’s son (woman speaking),
mother’s sister’s daughter’s son (woman speaking). To put the matter
into our own speech, for the sake of simplification, those whom I call
father and mother call me son. If logic shall prevail, the data hitherto
cited involve the condition that the mother’s brother must not call his
sister’s son ‘son’, but shall designate him by some distinct appellation
correlative only with the term _dēkcí_; and this holds for the Dakota
system where a man (not a woman) calls the sister’s son _mit ‘úncka_.
Further this term is also used by a woman addressing her brother’s son,
a point to which I shall have to return presently.
There are other logical implications in the features already mentioned.
If the term for father embraces a number of other collateral relatives,
we must expect a corresponding fusion of kin in the speaker’s
generation. This is exactly what happens. Like many other primitive
systems, that of the Dakota classifies brothers and sisters according to
relative seniority and the speaker’s sex, but the same terms are applied
to the other individuals who jointly designate the same members of the
next higher generation as their fathers and mothers. In other words, a
considerable number of cousins, irrespective of their varying degree,
are classed with the brothers and sisters. But certain other cousins are
_not_ so classed: they are the offspring of the father’s sister and the
mother’s brother. Corresponding exactly to the fact that sister’s son
(man speaking) and brother’s son (woman speaking) are denoted by a
single word, we have the correlative phenomenon that the children of the
paternal aunt and the maternal uncle are relatives of a special order,
the boys calling one another _t ‘ahá ci_ and the girls _hà kā´ cí_, the
girls calling one another _tcē´ pąci_ and the boys _citcé ci_.
In short, so far as the three middle generations are concerned, there is
at least an approach to a real system--a unified logical scheme by which
blood relatives are classified. If I am called father by a group of
people, they are my sons or daughters; if I am their uncle, they are my
nephews or nieces. In the former case, my sons and daughters are their
brothers and sisters; in the latter my offspring are their cousins, with
various refinements of nomenclature that are immaterial from a broader
point of view.
The system is not perfect, because of the terminology applied to the
offspring of cousins. As might be expected, a man regards the children
of those cousins whom he classes with his brothers as brother’s sons,
_i.e._, from the foregoing scheme, with his own sons. But contrary to
what might be expected, he puts into the same category the sons of those
male cousins designated by a distinctive term where we should expect a
distinct correlative designation. Even Herr Cunow, who lays stress on
the rational character of primitive relationship systems, is obliged to
admit that there is inconsistency here.[16]
It cannot be too strongly urged that a given nomenclature is molded by
disparate principles. It is, therefore, worth while to point out that
the principle by which brothers and sisters are distinguished by
seniority and the principle by which _Geschwister_ of the same sex use
different designations from those of opposite sex have no functional
relation whatsoever with the principle by which collateral and lineal
kin are merged. Another trait of the Dakota system which is similarly
independent of what I call the Dakota principle is the differentiation
in stem for vocative and non-vocative usage or with the first, second
and third person. Thus, the mother is addressed as _iná_, but ‘his
mother’ is _hų´ ku_, from an entirely different root. Passing to the
second ascending generation, we find a Hawaiian feature inasmuch as the
principle of bifurcation no longer holds, grandfathers of both sides
being designated by a common term. The Dakota case once more shows that,
as Professor Kroeber long ago pointed out,[17] every system is in
reality a congeries of systems or categories which must be analytically
separated unless complete confusion is to result. There is no Hawaiian
_system_, no Dakota _system_. But we can legitimately speak of the
principle of generations and the bifurcation principle of merging
collateral and lineal kin; and we can speak, by conventional definition
of the geographical terms employed, of Hawaiian and Dakota features to
express these and only these elements of the Hawaiian and Dakota
nomenclatures.
To revert to the Dakota principle, as Morgan points out,[18] the same
principle has in part molded the Iroquois system, and when we find that
in addition to the logically related elements the apparently irrational
classification of cousins’ offspring is likewise common to the two
terminologies, the case for historical connection becomes very strong.
This becomes a certainty when we find that in its essentials the
principle finds expression in the system of the intermediate Ojibwa,
while among other Algonkian tribes and among Siouan tribes other than
the Dakota a marked variant from the Dakota type makes its appearance.
In short, we have the Dakota principle spread over a continuous region,
which is sharply separated from adjoining regions. It has, then,
developed in a single center in this part of North America and has
thence spread by borrowing.
If we ignore the mode of designating cross-cousins’, _i.e._, cousins who
are children of a brother and a sister, and disregard certain other
deviations constituting sub-types, we get a very much wider range of
distribution for the Dakota principle in North America. The neglect of
degree of kinship and the clear separation of the maternal and paternal
line in the middle generations are features characteristic, probably, of
the entire region east of the Mississippi and occur also in the
Mackenzie River district, among the Tlingit and Haida of the Northwest
Coast and most of the Plains tribes, in a part of the Pueblo territory
(notably among the Hopi), and among the Miwok and adjacent populations
in California. Since we are not by any means familiar with the kinship
systems of the entire continent, it is necessary to supplement this
statement with another indicating the regions where the Dakota principle
is actually known to be lacking. The Dakota features are not found among
the Eskimo, Nootka, Quileute, Chinook, various Salish tribes, the
Kootenai, the Plateau Shoshoneans, nor in a large section of California
to the north and east of the Miwok, and they are also absent from
various Southwestern terminologies. The glib assumption of many writers
that all of North America is characterized by a ‘classificatory system’
on the Dakota plan, is demonstrably false. The only reason for this
belief is the historical accident that Morgan was conversant with the
systems east of the Rocky Mountains and practically altogether ignorant
of those of the Far West, and that since his time no one has
systematically presented the data for what to him was a _terra
incognita_.
Let us extend our search for evidences of the Dakota principle to other
regions.
For Mexico, the data are not very satisfactory since we are obliged to
rely on old Spanish sources and cannot be sure that our authorities were
on the alert for differences from the familiar European nomenclature or
always correctly represented what they did find. Thus, Dr. Paul Radin,
who has kindly compiled for me a Tarascan list from Gilberti’s
_Diccionario de la Lengua Tarasca_ (1559), finds the children of the
father’s brother and of the mother’s brother classed with the son and
daughter (contrary to the generation principle), but distinguished from
the children of the father’s and mother’s sister. This would indicate a
departure from both the Hawaiian and the Dakota scheme. A bare
suggestion of the latter is found in a common term for father and
paternal uncle. The Nahuatl data supplied by Molina in his _Vocabulario
de la Lengua Mexicana_ (1571) show no difference between the paternal
and maternal aunts and uncles. This does not apply to the Maya system
reported by Beltran in his _Arte del Idioma Maya_(1742), but here the
maternal and paternal uncle and aunt are not only distinguished from
each other, but also from the father and mother, so that there is no
merging of collateral and lineal lines in this generation. Accordingly,
it is somewhat surprising to find that the children of a brother are
classed with one’s own children (male speaking?) and that a woman
applies the same term to her sister’s children, in accordance with
Dakota usage. A very interesting feature of the Maya nomenclature is
that differences in generation are conspicuously ignored in several
instances. The paternal grandfather is classed with the elder brother, a
single reciprocal term is used for daughter’s son and mother’s father,
one word denotes the son’s son and the younger brother.
For Central and South America the data, from a cursory inspection, seem
somewhat more adequate, though we must eagerly await a more
thorough-going survey of this region than can at present be offered. The
Miskito of Nicaragua call the mother’s sister _yaptislip_, which is
merely a modification of _yapti_, mother, but while the father’s
brother, _urappia_, is classed with the step-father, he is distinguished
from the father, _aisa_. At all events, there is a distinctive term for
maternal uncle, _tarti_, and correlatively a special designation,
_tubani_, for the sister’s son (man speaking). For the father’s sister
our authority gives only a descriptive term: _saura_ may be the
correlative term, but it is simply translated ‘brother’s child’. Of the
four terms for cousin, one is descriptive (child of brother or sister),
two coincide with the regular words for _Geschwister_, the fourth is
unfortunately not clearly defined so that its application to the
cross-cousin, which would conform to Dakota usage, remains
problematical. The terms of affinity are interesting inasmuch as the
principle of reciprocity appears here. Thus, _dapna_ means both
father-in-law and son-in-law, and the same descriptive expression, oddly
enough, is applied to the mother-in-law and daughter-in-law in female
speech.[19] The former instance of reciprocity recurs among the Chibcha
of Colombia and we may thus have here another case of the geographical
localization of kinship features. The Chibcha list supplied by one of
Morgan’s informants,[20] imperfect though it is, records some suggestive
facts. The term for father’s brother seems only a variant of the word
for father, and is clearly distinct from that for maternal uncle. The
designations for both kinds of aunt are doubtful. In the speaker’s
generation ‘parallel’ male cousins, _i.e._, the sons of two brothers and
of two sisters, are grouped with brothers and distinguished from
cross-cousins, as they are in the Dakota system. That a woman calls her
father’s sister’s son by the same term as her husband is a fact of some
theoretical importance since it suggests the possible occurrence of
cross-cousin marriages.
From Martius’ rather confusing Carib list we may reasonably infer that
the paternal uncle was classed with the father in male speech and
distinguished from the mother’s brother. One of three terms used by a
man in designating his son coincides with that applied to a brother’s
son, but differs from the word applied to the sister’s son. These are
Dakota features; and the peculiar statement that children of sisters
were allowed to marry while those of brothers were not, coupled with the
remark that _Geschwisterkinder_ call one another brothers makes us
suspect that we have here merely an abortive attempt to describe the
difference between parallel and cross-cousins recognized on the Dakota
principle. The Tupi terminology furnished by the same writer does not
suggest the bifurcate feature. Though a single word denotes the father,
his brother and other paternal kinsmen, it seems to extend likewise to
the corresponding relatives on the mother’s side. In the second
ascending generation the grandfather’s brothers and male cousins are
classed with the grandfather--a Hawaiian trait if both sides of the
family are meant to be included, but one common to most systems on the
Dakota plan for the middle generations.[21] From the third great South
American family I can get no satisfactory evidence of bifurcation on the
Dakota plan. According to an accessible glossary of various Arawak
tongues, the Siusi is the only language that discriminates between the
paternal and maternal uncle, and even here the former is also
distinguished from the father, so that there is no merging of
collateral and lineal kin. Similarly, the word for aunt is different
from that for mother; and here the principle of bifurcation is
completely discarded, since a single word denotes father’s and mother’s
sister.[22]
Bifurcation may be a dominant feature of systems which nevertheless
differ markedly from the Dakota nomenclature because of their
demarcation of collateral and lineal kin. Thus, the Araucanians of Chile
call the father _chao_, the father’s brother _malle_, the mother’s
brother _huecu_; the mother is _ñuque_, her sister _ñuquentu_, the
father’s sister _palu_.[23] Here the designation of the maternal aunt is
clearly derived from that of the mother but we cannot tell whether this
merging is an ancient feature which appears in other parts of the system
or a recent development. We learn from another source that the brother’s
sons are differentiated from the sister’s,[24] but unfortunately there
is no statement as to whether the former in male speech and the latter
in female speech are classed with one’s own sons.
Bifurcation without reduction of the collateral lines is characteristic
of the system of the Sipibo, who inhabit the country about the Ucayali
River. Here the father is _papa_; the father’s brother _eppa_, the
maternal uncle _cuca_; the mother _tita_, her sister _huasta_, the
paternal aunt _yaya_, and of the three words for brother’s son (_pia_,
_nusa_, _picha_) none even remotely resembles that for son, _baque_.[25]
To sum up the facts hitherto cited. If the doctrine of the unity of the
American race depended on the uniformity of kinship terminologies in the
New World, it would have to be mercilessly abandoned. Meager as are our
data for the area south of the United States, we can find positive
indications of nomenclatures with Dakota features only among the Caribs
and the Chibcha, with occasional suggestions elsewhere. The Tupi and
Arawak systems are markedly unforked; the Araucanian and Sipibo
terminologies are forked but non-merging. Taking into account the large
section of North America already defined as lacking bifurcation with
merging, we thus have an immense territory in America in which the
Dakota principle does not occur.
But, as the African facts cited above show, the Dakota principle is not
confined to a portion of the Western Hemisphere. It is impossible
completely to define its distribution in various parts of the globe, but
the main regions must be indicated. As Morgan pointed out on the basis
of Rev. Fison’s information,[26] the principle occurs in the
nomenclature of the Coastal Fijians, and corroborative evidence has
recently been furnished.[27] Rivers has shown that the typical Dakota
principle appears in other parts of Melanesia, often with a very
interesting additional feature in the designation of cross-cousins, who
are not only rigidly distinguished from the parallel cousins but classed
simultaneously as brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, _e. g._, in
Guadalcanar.[28] Bifurcation with merging of collateral and lineal
relatives also characterizes at least some of the terminologies of New
Guinea.[29] The same certainly holds for a large portion of Australia,
though almost everywhere certain local refinements are apparent. Thus,
the Urabunna apply one term to the father and the father’s brothers, as
might be expected. But instead of merely separating the mother’s sisters
from those of the father by grouping them with the mother, there is an
additional dichotomy into the mother’s elder sisters, _luka_, who are
classed with the mother, and the mother’s younger sisters who are
differentiated as _namuma_. Corresponding differentiation occurs in the
speaker’s generation, where the father’s elder sister’s daughters are
distinguished not only from parallel cousins but from the father’s
younger sister’s daughters. Nevertheless, the essentials of the Dakota
principle are manifest.[30]
Here it is worth while to point out again how misleading it is to treat
accidentally associated features of a given system as functionally
correlated. The Urabunna system, like that of other tribes, is not an
organically unified whole. Thus, over and above the usual trait of
bifurcate merging, we find the feature that a grandparent and grandchild
use a common term in addressing each other. This reciprocity is often
referred to as characteristic of ‘classificatory systems’. It is nothing
of the kind. In North America it occurs precisely in systems lacking the
classificatory principle altogether. Apart from this, there is no
manifest connection between the principles of grouping together
relatives of alternate generations and the principle of classing under
one head relatives of the same generation and side of the family. The
mere fact that kinsfolk are united whom we happen to separate in
nomenclature is a purely negative and insufficient reason for
postulating an essential relationship between two modes of
classification.
Finally, there are a number of Asiatic tribes whose systems reveal the
essentials of the Dakota principle. At least a close approximation
occurs in the nomenclature of the Gilyak of the Amur River country,
where, except for the grouping together of father’s and mother’s sister,
the two parental lines are kept apart while on either side the customary
merging takes place.[31] The system of the Tamil, as Morgan emphatically
pointed out, is almost identical with that of the Seneca Iroquois.[32]
The essential resemblance to this type of the Toda,[33] Singhalese and
Vedda[34] terminologies has since been established.