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!
Between relations by marriage within the same generation, i.e. between
those who call each other da'hai', there is a joking relationship65
(tsimbakanishia, I joke66 with him, with her) as well as with
one kind of cousin you call "sister," dahai'’. More explicit on this
parallel cousinship White Moo could not be, unfortunately, except that it was
farther away than first cousinship.67 The jokes are largely conjugal
and economic. A man might say to his sister-in-law that he had seen her husband
with another woman, or woman might say to her brother-in-law that she had seen
his wife with another man. To a woman, a man might also say, "I hear that you
are a poor cook." To a man a woman might say, "I have heard that you don't know
how to plough." The retort must be in joke.
There is no parent-in-law taboo such as occurs among the neighboring Plains tribes;68 but in the presence of his parents-in-law a man
may not swear or make sex jokes.69 As for avoidance of parents-in-law
Pardon considers it "foolishness." He has a relative whose father is an Arapaho.
This man when he goes to visit his father's people would play practical jokes in
connection with the Arapaho rule to avoid a mother-in-law. If somebody asked
him, "Where is mother-in-law?" in order to avoid her, Pardon would send the
questioner in the woman's direction. Then, when the woman asked, Where is
son-in-law?" Pardon would send her in the direction of her son-in-law, so that
the two would be sure to meet.
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65 The joking relationship between a brother-in-law and sister-in-law
occurs amo Wichita (Spier, 261), among Shawnee and many other Eastern tribes
(Voegelin) and amo Crow, Hidatsa, Arapaho, Blackfoot, etc. (Lowie 1: 94).
66 There is no other term for joke, and this term is confined
exclusively to this stereot
67 In an inter-clan marriage, the near relatives on each side could
make fun of, and pl pranks upon each other (Informant, White-bread-Swanton
4:204).
68 Or among Choctaw (Swanton 3: 129), but in the East parent-in-law taboos
were not as common as on the Plains (Voegelin).
69 Spier's informant affirmed that "conversation is tabooed between
parents-in-law and Children-in-law except in cases of serious need." This taboo
is marked among Wichita (Spier, 261).
