There can be scarcely any doubt that the terms for relationships are, in their origin, terms of address. “The American Indians,” says Mr. Morgan, “always speak to each other, when related, by the term of relationship, and never by the personal name of the individual addressed.”[471] From a psychological point of view, it would, indeed, be surprising if it could be shown that primitive men, in addressing all the different members of their family or tribe, took into consideration so complicated a matter as the degree of consanguinity. Can we really believe that a savage whose intelligence, perhaps, was so deficient that he was scarcely able to count his own fingers, applied the same term to his cousins as to his brothers, because he was not certain whether, after all, they were not his brothers and that, when he did make a distinction between them, he did so because they were begotten by different fathers? Facts show that savages generally denominate their kindred according to much simpler principles, the names being given chiefly with reference to sex and age, as also to the external or social, relationship in which the speaker stands to the person whom he addresses.
In every language there are different designations for persons of different sexes. In the rudest system of nomenclature, the Hawaiian, father and other kinsmen of the same generation are called “makua kana;” mother, mother’s sisters, father’s sisters, &c., “makua waheena,” “kana” and “waheena” being the terms for male and female. A son is called “kaikee kana,” a daughter “kaikee waheena,” whilst “kana” alone is applied to husband, husband’s brother, and sister’s husband, and “waheena” to wife, wife’s sister, brother’s wife, &c.
There are also separate terms in every language for relations belonging to different generations. Among the lower races especially, age, or, more exactly, the age of the person spoken to compared with that of the speaker, plays a very important part in the matter of denomination. According to Dr. Davy, the Veddahs appear to be without names; “a Veddah interrogated on the subject, said, ‘I am called a man: when young, I was called the little man: and when old, I shall be called the old man.’”[472] The Hawaiians, as we are informed by Judge Andrews, have no definite general word for brother in common use. But “kaikuaána” signifies any one of my brothers, or male cousins, older than myself, I being a male, and any one of my sisters, or female cousins, older than myself, I being a female; whilst “kaikaina” signifies a younger brother of a brother, or a younger sister of a sister.[473] Such distinguishing epithets applied to older and younger are, in fact, very frequently met with among uncivilized peoples. Thus, touching the Andamanese, Mr. Man states that “brothers and sisters speak of one another by titles that indicate relative age: that is, their words for brother and sister involve the distinction of elder or younger.” A like system is adopted by them in respect to half-brothers, half-sisters, cousins, brothers-in-law, and sisters-in-law.[474] In certain languages, too, there are special terms for an uncle on the father’s side older than the father, and for an uncle younger than he;[475] and in the Fulfúlde tongue, the age of the uncles is so minutely specified, that the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth uncle, on both the father’s and the mother’s side, are each called by a particular name.[476]
The wider meaning in which many terms for kinship are used bear witness in the same direction. The Rev. J. Sibree states that, in Hova, “ray,” father, does not take the sense the corresponding word in many Semitic languages has, of “maker” of a thing, but it is used in a wide sense as an elder or superior; and “rény,” mother, is also used in a wide sense as a respectful way of addressing an elderly woman.[477] Mr. Swann writes to me that, among the Waguha, West Tanganyika, men advanced in years are termed “baba,” father, whilst, in other parts of Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Reade, old men are addressed as “rera,” father, and old women as “ngwe,” mother.[478] The Russian “batushka” and “matushka,” as also the Swedish “far” and “mor,” are often used in a similar way. Again, Mr. Cousins asserts that, among the natives of Cis-Natalian Kafirland, the terms for father, mother, brother, and sister, are not restricted to them only, but are applied equally to other persons of a similar age, whether related or otherwise. “‘Bawo,’ father,” he says, “means elder or older, ‘bawo-kulu’ means a big-father, one older than father.” Probably “bawo,” as belonging to the type “pa,” was originally used as a term of address, from which the sense of elder or older was derived; but this does not interfere with the matter in question. The Rev. E. Casalis, writing of the Basutos, states that “in addressing a person older than one’s self, one says, ‘My father, my mother;’ to an equal, ‘My brother;’ and to inferiors, ‘My children.’”[479] The Finnish “isä” and the Votyak “ai,” father, the Lappish “Aja,” and the Esthonian “äi,” grandfather, are evidently related to, and probably the roots of, the Finnish “iso” and “äijä” which mean big.[480] The Chukchi use, besides “atta” for father and “mámang” for mother, “empynátchyo” and “émpyngau” respectively, which obviously have the same root as “émpytchin,” elder or older.[481] The Brazilian Uainumá call a father “paii,” but also “pechyry,” i.e., old.[482] “Les jeunes Australiens,” says Bishop Salvado, “ont coutume d’appeler ‘mama’ ou ‘maman’ (c’est-à-dire-père) tous les vieillards, comme aussi ‘N-angan’ (ou mère) les femmes avancées en âge.”[483] According to Nicolaus Damascenus, the Galactophagi denominated “all old men fathers; young men, sons; and those of equal age, brothers.”[484] In German, the parents are “die Eltern,” the older (“die Aelteren”), and they are also called familiarly “die Alten;” the father, “der Alte;” and the mother, “die Alte” or “Altsche.”[485] Again, among the North American Indians, old people are very commonly named grandfathers and grandmothers;[486] whilst the Finnish “ämmä” does not signify grandmother only, but old woman in general.[487] Among the Tsuishikari Ainos, the maternal grandfather and grandmother of a child are called both by him, and his father, “henki” and “unarabe” respectively.[488]
As to the collateral line, it should be observed that, in Ćagatai, an elder sister is called “egeći,” which actually means old woman “ege,” old, big; “eći,” woman, sister.[489] In Hungarian, where “bátya” stands for elder brother, an uncle is “nagybátya,” i.e., a big elder brother.[490] Among many Ural-Altaic peoples, the same term is applied to an elder brother as to an uncle, to an elder sister as to an aunt.[491] Were we to follow Mr. Morgan’s way of reasoning, we should, from this nomenclature, come to very curious conclusions as to the early marriage customs of the peoples in question.
Again, in the Galibi language of Brazil, “tigami” signifies young brother, son, and little child indiscriminately;[492] and several languages have no other words for son and daughter than those for lad and girl.[493] Thus, in Hawaiian, a son is called male child, or more properly, little male; and a daughter, female child or girl.[494] Mr. George Bridgman states that, among the Mackay blacks of Queensland, the word for daughter is used by a man for any young woman belonging to the class which his daughter would belong to if he had one.[495] And, speaking of the South Australians, Eyre says, “In their intercourse with each other, natives of different tribes are exceedingly punctilious and polite; ... almost everything that is said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree of relationship which would have been most in accordance with their relative ages and circumstances.”[496]
All those names, refer, as previously mentioned, not to the absolute, but to the relative, age of the person addressed. Often, too, there is a certain relativity in the use of words denominating sex. Mr. Dall remarks, for instance, that among the Eskimo, the form of the terms of relationship “appears to depend in some cases more on the sex of the speaker than on that of the person to whom the term refers.” In Eastern Central Africa, “if a man have a brother and a sister, he is called one thing by the brother, but quite a different thing by the sister.”[497] And several other instances of the same kind are to be found in Mr. Morgan’s tables.
As for the third factor influencing the terms of address—i.e., the social relationship which exists between the addresser and the one addressed,—it is obvious that different designations are applied to enemies and friends, to strangers and members of the family-circle, nay, generally, to persons to whom one stands in an altogether different external relationship. The importance of this factor is evident from several statements. Thus, among the Hovas, according to Mr. Sibree, the words for brother and sister “are also used widely for any person whom one meets and desires to act towards in a friendly manner.”[498] The Fuegians says Mr. Bridges, form certain kinds of friendships, and “speak of aunts, uncles, brothers, sisters, cousins, nieces and nephews, &c., which are only so through the friendships established.”[499] Among the Waguha, strangers are called “ndugu,” brother, if of the same tribe;[500] and Mr. Hartshorne tells us that the Veddahs applied to him the term “hura,” or cousin.[501] We can understand, then, why the same name, as a rule, is used by the savage to denote just the persons of the same sex and of like age who belong to his own family-circle; and why, as a consequence, the nomenclature is rich or poor according as that circle is small or large. The Yahgans, for instance, who live in families rather than in tribes, have a very definite list of terms for kinsfolk. They have different appellations for nephews and nieces on the brother’s side, and nephews and nieces on the sister’s side, and their words for uncle and aunt differ according as this relationship is paternal or maternal. They have also special terms for father-, mother-, son-and daughter-, brother-and sister-in-law.[502] On the other hand, the larger, the body of kinsfolk that keep closely together, and the less it is differentiated, as regards the functions of its various members, the more comprehensive are generally the terms of address. The “classificatory system of relationship” must, therefore, have emerged at a time when the separate families had already united in larger bodies.
The same principle explains how it happens that a maternal uncle is almost always distinguished from a father by a separate term, whilst this is not the case with an uncle on the father’s side, the former generally living in another community from his nephew, and, besides, very frequently standing to him in a quite peculiar relationship through the rules of succession. It may be fairly assumed, too, that a mother’s sister much oftener than a father’s sister is called a mother, because sisters, among savages, keep as a rule, far more closely together, when married, than brothers and sisters; sometimes even, especially among the North American Indians, they are the wives of the same man. If we add to this that a father’s brother’s son and a mother’s sister’s son are more commonly addressed as brothers than as father’s sister’s son and a mother’s brother’s son, it becomes obvious to how great an extent the nomenclature is influenced by external relations. But as a certain kind of external relationship is invariably connected with a certain degree, or certain degrees, of blood-relationship, the designations given with reference to the former have been taken as terms for the latter.
The basis on which Mr. Morgan has built his hypothesis must be considered, then, altogether untenable.[503] It cannot be proved that, where the “classificatory system” prevails, the nomenclature was intended to express the degree of consanguity so exactly as he assumes, or that it had originally anything whatever to do with descent. On the contrary, I have endeavoured to show that the case was probably just the reverse; so that no inference regarding early marriage customs is to be drawn from the terms for relationships. Even now, in Spanish, a brother’s great-grandson is called grandson; in Bulgarian, as also in Russian, a father’s father’s brother is termed a grandfather, and a father’s father’s sister a grandmother; the Greek “ἁνεψιός” appears to have been applied to a nephew, a grandson, and a cousin; “neef,” in Dutch, still expresses these three relationships indiscriminately; in Flemish and Platt Deutsch, “nichte” is applied to a female cousin as well as to a niece; and Shakspeare, in his will, describes his granddaughter, Susannah Hall, as “my niece.”[504] Surely, nobody would look upon these designations as relics of ancient times, when there really might have been some uncertainty as to kinship in the direction which the terms indicate. Mr. Morgan himself admits that, in Latin, “nepos” did not originally signify “either a nephew, grandson or cousin, but that it was used promiscuously to designate a class of persons next without the primary relationships.”[505]