These speculations as to racial affinity have been rightly disregarded by later students, because to accept Morgan’s premises means running counter to the most obvious facts of physical anthropology. As Lubbock pointed out, we cannot assume that the Two-Mountain Iroquois are more closely akin to remote Oceanians than to their fellow Iroquois because some of their kinship terms resemble in connotation those of the Hawaiians. Nevertheless, Morgan was right in feeling that some historical conclusions could be drawn from similarities of relationship nomenclature. We must simply bring this particular group of ethnological data under the same principle as other cultural phenomena. When the same feature occurs within a definite continuous region, we shall assume that it has developed in a single center and spread by borrowing to other parts of the area. When the same feature occurs in disconnected regions, we shall incline to the theory of independent development and shall inquire whether the course of evolution may have been due to the same cultural determinants, i.e., in this case, to the same social institutions.
After these preliminary remarks, we may turn to a closer scrutiny of the facts.
‘Systems’. Abstractly considered, it is conceivable that every individual relative might be designated by a different term of relationship by every other individual, just as each object in nature might theoretically be defined by some distinctive word instead of being placed in some such category as ‘tree’, ‘animal’, or ‘book’. Indeed, primitive people go rather far in their distinctions. Thus, in the Menomini family circle boys are not called ‘son’ or ‘brother’, but each is addressed by a word indicating the order of his birth, the oldest being ‘mudjikiwis’, the second ‘osememau’, the third ‘akotcosememau’, the fourth ‘nanaweo’.[2-v] But in this, as in every other department of language, economy has been exercised and instead of a chaotic number of distinct terms for every possible relationship, there is always a limited series, many distinct individual relationships being always grouped together under a single head. Thus, in English we apply the word ‘brother’ to a number of individuals regardless of their age relatively to ourselves or to one another and irrespective of the sex of the speaker. Yet, as the Menomini instance shows, the age distinction might very well have been expressed in speech and there are many Indian languages in which one set of terms is used by female and another by male speakers.
All the terms used by a people to designate their relatives by blood or marriage are jointly called their ‘kinship system’. This phrase is wholly misleading, if it is understood to imply that all the constituent elements form a well-articulated whole, for this probably never applies to more than a limited number of them, as will appear presently. But as a convenient word for the entire nomenclature of relationship found in a particular region the word ‘system’ may be provisionally retained. We may say, then, that systems of different peoples vary in their mode of classifying kin and it seems the ethnographer’s first duty to determine the types of system found and their geographical distribution.
At the present moment a satisfactory grouping of the world’s kinship systems is impossible, owing to our lack of knowledge of many areas. The task is also rendered very difficult by the frequent coexistence of distinct and even contradictory principles in the same ‘system’. Each of these may be defined separately, but to weld both or all of them into a unified whole defies our efforts. For example, the Masai of East Africa, in referring to the paternal uncle, simply combine the stems for ‘father’, baba, and ‘brother’, alasche, thus forming by juxtaposition of these primary terms the compound expression ol alasche le baba, which means literally ‘the brother of the father’. This mode of defining a relative’s status by combining primary terms of relationship or a primary term with a qualifying adjective as in our ‘grandfather’, is technically known as ‘descriptive’, and ethnologists are wont to speak of descriptive systems. As a matter of fact, this descriptive principle is highly characteristic of the Masai—but not when relatives are directly addressed by them. In such vocative usage, as it may be called, the father’s brother is called baba like the father himself; the mother’s brother is not designated by a phrase composed of primary stems but by a new stem, abula, which is also used reciprocally for the nephew; while koko serves to call both a paternal and a maternal aunt. These connotations introduce into the Masai ‘system’ a discordant principle by which relatives, instead of being defined descriptively, are grouped together in classes. But this ‘classificatory’ feature by no means characterizes all the vocative nomenclature. By far the majority of relatives are addressed by terms suggestive of the presents of live stock presented to them by the speaker; if the gift consisted of a bull, the word used is b-ainoni, from oinoni, bull; if an ass was given away, the vocative term is ba-sigiria, from sigiria, ass; and so forth. Accordingly, the vocative terms cited above are only employed by children, who have not yet presented stock to their kin.[3-v] In short, Masai terminology is molded by at least three entirely disparate principles.
We shall, accordingly, do well to amend our phraseology and to speak rather of kinship categories, features, or principles of classification than of types of kinship systems.
The Descriptive Principle. When we approach our subject in a purely empirical way, we are confronted with the fact that features do not, as a rule, occur sporadically but are distributed over continuous areas. Imperfect as is our knowledge of African systems, for example, we know that the descriptive feature of the Masai nomenclature does not appear everywhere, but flourishes especially among East African tribes, such as the Shilluk, Dinka, and other Upper Nile populations, and perhaps more widely where Arabic influence extends, the Arabian terminology being of a markedly descriptive character. In East Africa, indeed, there is almost quantitative proof of the dependence of kinship terminology on historical connection and geographical proximity. Among the Baganda, as among most Bantu Negroes, the descriptive feature is lacking and such a relative as the mother’s brother’s son, instead of being designated by a compound expression, is classed with the brother.[4-v] The Masai, who live surrounded by Bantu tribes, have a purely descriptive system for non-vocative usage but their vocative forms are in part classificatory, while some neighboring Bantu peoples have a correspondingly mixed system. The Shilluk and Dinka seem to use the descriptive principle exclusively, as do the Arabs. The Masai are undoubtedly closely allied with the Nilotes and markedly different from the Bantu. The conclusion is, therefore, inevitable that their terminology—whatever may be its ultimate raison d’être—is a function of their historical relations. They have descriptive features because they belong to a group of peoples of whom such features are characteristic. They have classificatory features because they have come into contact with peoples whose systems were characterized by such features and from whom they have borrowed them. The Shilluk lack the classificatory principle because they have not had the same alien influences as the Masai. The restriction of descriptive features to a definite part of Africa and their amalgamation with other features in the marginal section of this area show that kinship nomenclatures follow precisely the same rules as other elements of culture and that their distribution indicates probable or corroborates known tribal relations.
The descriptive principle is not restricted to East Africa and the Semitic family, but has been found in the Persian, Armenian, Celtic, Esthonian, and Scandinavian languages.[5-v] Although guesses might be offered, I do not feel that our present knowledge permits definite statements as to the historical relations suggested by the total range of the descriptive principle on the face of the globe.
The Hawaiian Principle. While the term ‘descriptive’ admits of a fairly unambiguous definition, the same cannot be said for the word ‘classificatory’. Morgan, after explaining his use of the former, states that a system of the second type reduces blood-relatives to great classes by a series of apparently arbitrary generalizations, applying the same terms to all the members of the same class. “It thus confounds relationships, which, under the descriptive system, are distinct, and enlarges the signification both of the primary and secondary terms beyond their seemingly appropriate sense.”[6-v] This is looking at the matter from the arbitrarily selected point of view of our own nomenclature (which Morgan improperly, as Rivers has shown, regarded as descriptive). Objectively considered, even descriptive terminologies are classificatory, inasmuch as they do not individualize, but content themselves with such generalizations as classing together, say, all the father’s brothers instead of uniformly specializing according to age. For this reason I regard as misplaced Dr. Rivers’ emphasis on whether a term designates a single individual or a wider group. What, then, lies at the basis of the classificatory principle? Dr. Rivers, following Tylor, reduces it to the clan factor or rather to the influence of the dual organization of ancient society, by which it was divided into exogamous moieties. But this important suggestion, to which we shall have to revert, applies avowedly only to one form of the classificatory system and involves, therefore, the hypothesis that this preceded other forms. This may prove to be valid, but we cannot prejudice an empirical survey by taking its proof for granted and cannot, therefore, simply substitute ‘clan’ for ‘classificatory’ systems—apart from the fact that to talk of systems instead of principles or features in this connection is demonstrably misleading.
It is quite clear that ‘classificatory’ can be used only in a loose sense, to indicate wider groupings of kin than those to which we are accustomed; and that there is no necessary evolutionary relation between the two forms usually classed under this head. The empirical data are simply these. In certain systems, blood-relatives are classed according to generation regardless of nearness of kinship and of their maternal or paternal affiliations; in others, there is bifurcation, the maternal and paternal kin of at least the generations nearest to the speaker being distinguished. We may call the former the ‘unforked merging’, or geographically the ‘Hawaiian’ mode of classification; the latter may be correspondingly referred to as ‘forked merging’, or ‘Dakota’. One point which it is essential to remember even at this early stage of our survey is that these principles, together with the descriptive one, are very far from exhausting the varieties found.