While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The sibling or cousin nomenclature, I may say incidentally, was quite
difficult to work out, as White Moon persistently assumed that the Indian and
the English systems were the same. It was only through testing by the
genealogical tables that the differentiation became clear first to me, then to
him. And then one of the genealogical tables, in one case, had to be revised, a
woman who had been described as a father's sister having to be reclassified as a
parallel cousin. As for the principles of seniority which prevail, as we are to
see, in this part of the nomenclature the testing had to proceed bit by
bit-White Moon said it made his head feel like the map of Oklahoma which
happened to be stretched out in front of him, a kind of razzle dazzle, and it
was the hardest work he had ever done. The effect on him when he was set to
analyze his own kinship terms through exact comparison with another system was
quite as bewildering as that on the novice among us.
As for cousins beyond the first degree, evidence was still more difficult
to get. Beyond saying that any one your father called brother, or your mother
called sister, you would call father, and his son, brother; or you would call
mother, and her son brother, White Moon was frequently at a loss.59
As he calls the younger generation by their given names with a few striking
exceptions, definite cases of cousin terminology were scarce.
In the sibling nomenclature the principle of
seniority is an outstanding feature. There are distinctive terms for the older
sister of a female and for the older brother of a male.60 In the
application of the sibling terms to parallel cousins it is the respective ages
of the parents, not of the speakers, which is the determinant.61 In
the application of the cross-cousin terms the childrenof the sister are
accounted senior to the children of the brother 12 i.e. seniority is imputed to
the female line, and this imputation persists for cross-cousins several times
removed, the "senior" cross-cousins removed going by the grandparent terms.
The use of a suffix meaning little (t'iti, abbreviated to t',
or ts'i) is very common to distinguish between persons in the same
kinship class, e.g. between mother and mother's sister or any one your mother
calls sister, or, by a man, between older sister and younger sister or between a
senior maternal uncle and a junior or between a senior paternal aunt and a
junior; and to denote the cross-cousins removed who go by the grandparent terms.
The diminutive appears to be used to denote positive age also, age up to about
eighteen, according to White Moon, but in general this suffix is, I surmise,
loosely used. Ingkanish applied it as follows: a'atete, father's brother;
ina'tete, mother's sister; ahaitete, father's younger sister;
tahaitete, iyetete, sister terms. Pardon used a'atete for stepfather,
as well as for father's younger brother-father's older brother he called
a'ahai'me, father big. For mother's brother, second brother, ibatete.
The term for "child," hanin,63 is the usual reciprocal
for descendants, lineal and collateral. The special terms for grandchild and
sister's child, m. sp. may be passing out, as White Moon did not know them.
The only true reciprocals occur in the affinity terms, of which there are
three: two between two different generations, and one within the same
generation. White Moon and Pardon knew no term for the spouse of the
offspring of the father's sister. Pardon opined that the husband of the
mother's sister was called a'atete, little father; the wife of the
father's brother, ina, mother; and the wife of the mother's brother,
chu'unu, mother-in-law.
The latter affinity term shows neither the sex of the speaker nor of
the person spoken to or of. The affinity terms between different generations
show the sex of the person spoken to or of. In the sibling terms the sex of
the person addressed is expressed, and, except in the case of addressing a
younger sister, the sex of the speaker. Difference of sex between speaker
and person spoken of is expressed only in the sibling terms (term for
younger sister excepted). In the cross-cousin term sex is entirely
unexpressed.
There are no special terms for half brothers or sisters or, as far as I can
learn, for stepfather. In referring to relatives by affinity there is, in one
verbal expression at least, a difference of stress. "Where is she (or he)?"
referring to a relative by affinity is kwidi.'a which is
pronounced kwid'ia when referring to relatives by blood or to unrelated
persons.64
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59 Similarly, he thought that any one your father called sister,
or your mother, brother, you would call aha'i' or iba`. 60 Cp. Choctaw (Swanton 3: 85, 86) and Mandan (Lowie 1: 14).
In the other Caddoan nomenclatures there is no distinction of seniority in
respect to females. Grand Pawnee have a distinctive term for the oldest
brother, w. sp.; Arikara have distinctive terms for the oldest brother and
for the "first younger" brother, m. and w. sp. (Morgan, Table II).
61 The application of the terms according to the genealogical
tables are in evidence; but on this point White Moon was not at all
uncertain: asked, for example, the hypothetical question: "Suppose Nettie
(Gen. I, 28) has a daughter ten years old, and Millie (Gen. I, 26) has a
daughter five years old, what would Nettie's daughter call Millie's
daughter?" he answered at once, "Iyet'iti, little older sister,
because Millie is older than Nettie." Spier states that seniority is based
on the respective age of the speaker.
62 Compare for a similar practice of classifying cross-cousins in generations
different from the speaker's (Lowie 1: 27, 59, 89), for Crow and Hidatsa; also,
citing Morgan, for Moskogean (Choctaw) and Pawnee (Lowie 2: 341). By Pawnee the
father's sister's offspring are called father or mother, and the mother's
brother's offspring, child (Morgan, Table II). Offspring of the Father's
sister's offspring are called brother or sister, not as in Caddo, grandfather or
grandmother.
63 hanĭ’', son, daughter, brother's child, w. sp. (Spier).
64Possibly this linguistic distinction points to some obsolete
practice of avoidance. Compare the Hidatsa expression of avoidance by the use of
the third person plural (Lowie 1: 48).
