differ in principle from ethnological problems relating to other phases
of culture. A sharply individualized feature is found not like the
Hawaiian principle practically within the limits of a single continuous
area but in several diverse and remote regions of the globe. It is
impossible to hold with Morgan that the similarity found is an index of
racial affinity unless we are willing to assume that the Indians of the
eastern United States are not related at all to those west of the Rocky
Mountains. The principle of diffusion obviously accounts for much. No
one would hesitate to assume that the Singhalese and Vedda systems are
connected and we should willingly regard both as historically related to
the nomenclature of southern India. We might even be willing to grant
that the Melanesian and Australian variants of the Dakota principle had
the same source of origin. But how can we explain the predominance of
the identical principle precisely in the eastern regions of North
America and its absence in a great part of the Far West? And how can we
account for the African approximations to the same pattern? We seem to
have an independent evolution of the same highly characteristic trait in
at least three distinct areas. Must we content ourselves with simply
accepting the data as irreducible ethnological phenomena or can we carry
our analysis a step further?
That the inclusiveness of terms which strikes us in the systems sharing
the Dakota principle is somehow connected with the social divisions of
the tribes concerned has been repeatedly noted. Even in his earlier,
purely descriptive work Morgan remarked that among the Iroquois clan
members were brothers and sisters as if children of the same mother.[35]
Similarly among the Tlingit we are told that a single word is applied to
the mother’s sister and all other women of the same moiety and
generation.[36] The Yakut apply one term to any woman older than the
speaker and belonging to the same gens.[37] Such instances might easily
be multiplied. It is therefore rather natural to look to a clan or
gentile system for the explanation of the ‘classificatory feature’,
_i.e._, of bifurcate merging.
This hypothesis, which has recently been discussed by Swanton,[38] was
already advanced only to be proved inadequate by Morgan himself. Taking
the Seneca for illustration, where descent is in the maternal line,
Morgan shows that the children of two sisters would indeed be members of
the same clan and hence clan brothers and sisters but that this
explanation no longer holds for the children of two brothers. By the law
of exogamy these would be required to marry into another clan and there
is no reason why their wives should belong to the same clan. Hence the
brothers’ children will not be clan brothers and sisters, yet, according
to Seneca terminology, the offspring of brothers no less than of sisters
are classed with own brothers and sisters. Accordingly, the clan
system--though it has a definite place in Morgan’s scheme of
evolution--is not regarded by him as the determining factor of the
Seneca-Dakota principle.[39]
But the objection vanishes if we accept the theory that the Dakota
principle arose as a reflection not of a multiple clan system but of an
organization with exogamous moieties. This theory, which to my knowledge
was first developed by Tylor[40] and has since been advocated by
Rivers,[41] has obvious advantages. Even on the simple clan hypothesis
it is clear why the father’s brothers should be classed with the father
and separated from the maternal uncles, since the latter by exogamy must
belong to a different clan. The term which we translate ‘father’ would
really be seen to mean ‘male member of the father’s clan and
generation’. With the moiety theory the same facts are explained, but
also in addition the designations for other relatives. To take again the
Seneca instance, the sons of two brothers _must_ be members of the same
social division because with a dual organization the brothers are
restricted to the same division in the choice of a mate; hence it is
quite natural that the sons of brothers should call one another
brothers. Again, the difference between parallel cousins and
cross-cousins is perfectly intelligible. The mother’s brother’s and the
father’s sister’s son can never be of my moiety; if descent is
matrilineal they belong to my father’s moiety, if patrilineal to my
mother’s. Hence it is natural that they should not be classed with my
brothers who in either case are my moiety-mates. This hypothesis also
explains features not yet referred to, but often found in conjunction
with those grouped under the heading of the Dakota principle, _e. g._,
the frequent classification of the father’s sister’s husband with the
maternal uncle. Given exogamous moieties, these relatives must belong to
the same half of society, to my own moiety if descent is maternal, to my
mother’s if it is patrilineal. The Tylor-Rivers theory thus explains
very satisfactorily the rather numerous features that jointly constitute
what I have called the Dakota principle; we can at once see that here is
not an arbitrary rule of classification but a definite rationale.
However, it is worth noting that while the moiety theory explains a
number of traits better and more simply than the hypothesis of multiple
clans or gentes of which it is a special form, the latter is not in so
bad a plight as Morgan would have us believe. That I should call my
father’s brothers and male cousins of the paternal line ‘father’ and my
mother’s sisters and female cousins of the female line ‘mother’, follows
from the general hypothesis of exogamy no less than from the moiety
theory. The difficulty urged is the grouping together of brothers’ sons
who are not clansmen under a matrilineal organization with sisters’ sons
who are. But all terms of relationship are correlative: the concept of
elder brother is meaningless without the correlated concept of younger
brother; so the very fact that I address my father’s brother as ‘father’
has as a necessary consequence that he should address me as ‘son’
regardless of whether his own son is in my clan. Similarly, the fact
that my father’s brother’s son and I both address my own father as
father makes us brothers irrespective of clan affiliation. Clan
affiliation is still the primary determinant since it fixes the
connotation of the word translated ‘father’, while the other usages
mentioned are derivative applications. The objection that naturally
obtrudes itself is why the term for father should be taken as the
starting-point rather than that for son or brother. The answer lies in
the fact that in a number of instances the term for father has an
emphatically clan or gentile significance, being extended even to
father’s clansmen of the speaker’s generation, as among the Crow and
Arizona Tewa. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that from the point of
view of summarizing the data comprised under the caption of ‘Dakota
principle’ or intimately linked with them the moiety theory is
distinctly superior. Thus, the union of father’s sister’s husband and
mother’s brother under a single head does not follow from a multiple
clan or gentile organization but is intelligible on the basis of a dual
division.
The weakness of the moiety theory lies in another direction. In order
that the dual organization may fashion kinship nomenclature, it must of
course exist. Now it does occur in Australia and Melanesia, though not
universally, and in part of North America, but it is lacking in many
regions of this continent and, so far as I know, in Africa. If we derive
the Dakota principle exclusively from the dual organization we are
therefore obliged to assume either that this institution once had a far
wider range of distribution or that the nomenclature it produced
traveled independently of the moieties to a considerable number of other
peoples. This is a difficulty that must be frankly recognized.
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]