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.