Kinship of the Caddo

Of any clanship system White Moon had never heard, and, whatever approach to the subject we made, he remained consistently unaware of clan groups. White Moon was born in 1897, and it seemed not improbable that his ignorance of clanship was characteristic of the younger generation of the tribe; but Ingkanish20 and Pardon were equally ignorant of any clanship is system, present or past. And yet, in 1890-1891, Mooney recorded among the Caddo the existence of clans, the names of which, as words merely, were verified by White Moon as follows:

White Moon himself suggested that these names might have been the names of supernatural helpers, a relationship merely personal, entirely unrelated to kinship." Possibly White Moon's theory of Mooney's data is correct.²²" Yet it is not unlikely that a clan system once existed. From as intensive study of the localized groups as can be made at a distance, it appears quite plainly that in several cases the principle of grouping is that of the maternal family²⁴ and the kinship nomenclature points to matronymy.²⁵

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²¹ Also called tsudachittsi, sharp nose.
²² Compare the account Ingkanish has given of the Beaver doctor, p. 34.
²³ Just as, analogously, the names of Pueblo Indian societies have sometimes been recorded as clan names. The Isletan Tiwa regularly refer to their matrilineal, non-exogamic, ceremonial groups as "clans."
     No clanship system has been found among other Caddoan tribes. Among Shawnee it once existed but is now lost (Voegelin). Matrilineal clanship is general in the Southeast.
²⁴ Spier writes: "There are said to be no exogamous groups, but in conversation with my informant maternal affiliation seemed to be stressed."
²⁵ In 1912 Once-in-white-house (Caddo Jake) assured Swanton that there were several exogamic maternal clans. On the other hand White-bread stated that the clans which were Buffalo, Bear, Panther, Wolf and Beaver (in this order according to the strength of the animal) were neither exogamic or endogamic; if one married outside the clan the children all belonged to the woman's clan if it was "stronger," but if "weaker" then only the girls belonged to the maternal clan. Swanton suggests that the different bands may have had different usages, the eastern or Louisiana Caddo to whom Caddo Jake belonged having had strictly matrilineal clans, perhaps borrowed from the Creeks, and the western Caddo to whom White-bread belonged having had non-exogamous clans, in case of intermarriage not all the children inheriting from the same side (Swanton 4: 204-206).

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Notes on the Caddo

Notes About the Book:

Source: Notes on the Caddo, Memories of the American Anthropological Association, Elsie Clews Parsons, 1921.

Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual output.

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