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-v] 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-v]

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-v] 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-v] 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.