Culture & Ethnology

by Robert Harry Lowie

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-v] 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-v] 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-v] 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-v]

Bifurcation may be a dominant feature of systems which nevertheless differ markedly from the Dakota nomenclature because of their demarcation of collateral and lineal kin. Thus, the Araucanians of Chile call the father chao, the father’s brother malle, the mother’s brother huecu; the mother is ñuque, her sister ñuquentu, the father’s sister palu.[23-v] Here the designation of the maternal aunt is clearly derived from that of the mother but we cannot tell whether this merging is an ancient feature which appears in other parts of the system or a recent development. We learn from another source that the brother’s sons are differentiated from the sister’s,[24-v] but unfortunately there is no statement as to whether the former in male speech and the latter in female speech are classed with one’s own sons.

Bifurcation without reduction of the collateral lines is characteristic of the system of the Sipibo, who inhabit the country about the Ucayali River. Here the father is papa; the father’s brother eppa, the maternal uncle cuca; the mother tita, her sister huasta, the paternal aunt yaya, and of the three words for brother’s son (pia, nusa, picha) none even remotely resembles that for son, baque.[25-v]

To sum up the facts hitherto cited. If the doctrine of the unity of the American race depended on the uniformity of kinship terminologies in the New World, it would have to be mercilessly abandoned. Meager as are our data for the area south of the United States, we can find positive indications of nomenclatures with Dakota features only among the Caribs and the Chibcha, with occasional suggestions elsewhere. The Tupi and Arawak systems are markedly unforked; the Araucanian and Sipibo terminologies are forked but non-merging. Taking into account the large section of North America already defined as lacking bifurcation with merging, we thus have an immense territory in America in which the Dakota principle does not occur.

But, as the African facts cited above show, the Dakota principle is not confined to a portion of the Western Hemisphere. It is impossible completely to define its distribution in various parts of the globe, but the main regions must be indicated. As Morgan pointed out on the basis of Rev. Fison’s information,[26-v] the principle occurs in the nomenclature of the Coastal Fijians, and corroborative evidence has recently been furnished.[27-v] Rivers has shown that the typical Dakota principle appears in other parts of Melanesia, often with a very interesting additional feature in the designation of cross-cousins, who are not only rigidly distinguished from the parallel cousins but classed simultaneously as brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law, e. g., in Guadalcanar.[28-v] Bifurcation with merging of collateral and lineal relatives also characterizes at least some of the terminologies of New Guinea.[29-v] The same certainly holds for a large portion of Australia, though almost everywhere certain local refinements are apparent. Thus, the Urabunna apply one term to the father and the father’s brothers, as might be expected. But instead of merely separating the mother’s sisters from those of the father by grouping them with the mother, there is an additional dichotomy into the mother’s elder sisters, luka, who are classed with the mother, and the mother’s younger sisters who are differentiated as namuma. Corresponding differentiation occurs in the speaker’s generation, where the father’s elder sister’s daughters are distinguished not only from parallel cousins but from the father’s younger sister’s daughters. Nevertheless, the essentials of the Dakota principle are manifest.[30-v]

Here it is worth while to point out again how misleading it is to treat accidentally associated features of a given system as functionally correlated. The Urabunna system, like that of other tribes, is not an organically unified whole. Thus, over and above the usual trait of bifurcate merging, we find the feature that a grandparent and grandchild use a common term in addressing each other. This reciprocity is often referred to as characteristic of ‘classificatory systems’. It is nothing of the kind. In North America it occurs precisely in systems lacking the classificatory principle altogether. Apart from this, there is no manifest connection between the principles of grouping together relatives of alternate generations and the principle of classing under one head relatives of the same generation and side of the family. The mere fact that kinsfolk are united whom we happen to separate in nomenclature is a purely negative and insufficient reason for postulating an essential relationship between two modes of classification.

Finally, there are a number of Asiatic tribes whose systems reveal the essentials of the Dakota principle. At least a close approximation occurs in the nomenclature of the Gilyak of the Amur River country, where, except for the grouping together of father’s and mother’s sister, the two parental lines are kept apart while on either side the customary merging takes place.[31-v] The system of the Tamil, as Morgan emphatically pointed out, is almost identical with that of the Seneca Iroquois.[32-v] The essential resemblance to this type of the Toda,[33-v] Singhalese and Vedda[34-v] terminologies has since been established.

We are here again confronted by a problem in distribution that does not differ in principle from ethnological problems relating to other phases of culture. A sharply individualized feature is found not like the Hawaiian principle practically within the limits of a single continuous area but in several diverse and remote regions of the globe. It is impossible to hold with Morgan that the similarity found is an index of racial affinity unless we are willing to assume that the Indians of the eastern United States are not related at all to those west of the Rocky Mountains. The principle of diffusion obviously accounts for much. No one would hesitate to assume that the Singhalese and Vedda systems are connected and we should willingly regard both as historically related to the nomenclature of southern India. We might even be willing to grant that the Melanesian and Australian variants of the Dakota principle had the same source of origin. But how can we explain the predominance of the identical principle precisely in the eastern regions of North America and its absence in a great part of the Far West? And how can we account for the African approximations to the same pattern? We seem to have an independent evolution of the same highly characteristic trait in at least three distinct areas. Must we content ourselves with simply accepting the data as irreducible ethnological phenomena or can we carry our analysis a step further?

That the inclusiveness of terms which strikes us in the systems sharing the Dakota principle is somehow connected with the social divisions of the tribes concerned has been repeatedly noted. Even in his earlier, purely descriptive work Morgan remarked that among the Iroquois clan members were brothers and sisters as if children of the same mother.[35-v] Similarly among the Tlingit we are told that a single word is applied to the mother’s sister and all other women of the same moiety and generation.[36-v] The Yakut apply one term to any woman older than the speaker and belonging to the same gens.[37-v] Such instances might easily be multiplied. It is therefore rather natural to look to a clan or gentile system for the explanation of the ‘classificatory feature’, i.e., of bifurcate merging.