Part 7

In order to gain greater clearness in this matter it is necessary to extend our investigation to other Bantu tribes, preferably to those whose territories approach that of the Zulu. The essential point to ascertain is whether paternal and maternal uncles and aunts are merged in one group or are distinguished.[11] Among the Thonga, who live north of the Zulu, the father’s sister, as in Zulu, is classed with the father, the word meaning literally ‘female father’ and thus emphasizing her separation from the mother’s side of the family. The Herero, according to Schinz, seem to class all aunts with the mother in vocative usage, but when not directly referring to these relatives they employ quite distinct expressions for the father’s and the mother’s sisters. In Baganda the difference between the two sides is marked. _Mange_ is mother, and the same word with the qualifier _muto_ means mother’s sister, while father’s sister is _sengawe_. Even clearer is the case for the maternal uncle. In the Ronga group of the Thonga he is called by a distinct word, _malume_, which almost coincides with Morgan’s Zulu term. In the Djonga division he is classed with the grandfather, not the father. By a quite distinct stem, the Herero sharply distinguish the mother’s brother from the father and his brothers. The same applies to the Baganda. As for the correlative term, from which Morgan infers that the Zulu once called the maternal uncle ‘father’, the Ronga have a distinct word for nephew, _mupsyana_, while the Djonga who class the mother’s brother with the grandfather consistently enough call the sister’s son ‘grandson’. Among the Herero, though uncles and aunts generally regard their nephews and nieces as their own children, the maternal uncle applies to them a distinct term, _ovasia_. Among the Baganda a man calls his son _mutabani_ or _mwana_, but his sister’s son is _mujwa_. I may add that the altogether peculiar bond of familiarity that links together mother’s brother and sister’s son[12] among some Bantu people is inconsistent with Morgan’s assumption that the relationships of maternal uncle and father were once grouped under a single head among tribes of this family, for as stated above, such specific social relationships are generally expressed by specific terms for the relatives.

The conditions obtaining within the speaker’s generation at first seem to lend some support to the conception of the Bantu system as dominated by the Hawaiian principle, since the terms for brother and sister are more widely employed by some Bantu than is compatible with the forked division of kin. But closer inspection proves that, whatever may be at the root of the Bantu classification, it is not the Hawaiian notion of marking off generations. Even in Morgan’s Zulu series, while a man calls his maternal uncle’s children by a special term, they address him as brother; that is to say, members of the same generation and sex are not all classed together. Among the Herero, where the children of a brother and sister (but not of _Geschwister_ of the same sex) regularly intermarry, they are placed in a category distinct from that of the children of two brothers and two sisters, who are one another’s brothers and sisters. In Thonga a boy calls his mother’s brother’s daughter ‘mother’, and she calls him ‘son’. To be sure, the Baganda draw no distinction between the brother, the father’s brother’s, the father’s sister’s, the mother’s brother’s and the mother’s sister’s son. On the other hand, only the father’s brother’s daughter and the mother’s sister’s daughter are a man’s sisters; his father’s sister’s and his mother’s brother’s daughter belong to the special category of _kizibwewe_, quite distinct from that of the sister, _mwanyina_.

To cut a long story short, all the evidence is opposed to Morgan’s assumption that the Bantu systems are patterned on the Hawaiian principle of grading relatives by generations. There are merely occasional suggestions of that principle which will be discussed below as to their theoretical bearing.

So far as I know, there is only one region of the globe outside of Oceania and the possible Asiatic range defined above, where a definitely Hawaiian classification of relatives by generations has been reported, _viz._, among the Yoruba of West Africa.[13] Unfortunately, no more recent check data for this section seem available. For another part of West Africa we have Mr. Northcote W. Thomas’ tables,[14] which reveal a rather perplexing condition of affairs that seems to demand intensive reinvestigation together with linguistic analysis. The principle of bifurcation seems to hold sway only in a very limited measure.

Thus, the Vai do not distinguish the father’s sister from the mother, 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]