538 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



One's clan affiliation is of the utmost importance in determining kin- 

 ship behavior and relationships to everyone else in the tribe. Since the 

 most important relationships are those sustained by birth or consan- 

 guinity and by marriage or affinity, the clan is fundamentally involved 

 with both. 



To cite a typical example, let us take the individual W. L., whose 

 clan, inherited from his mother, is Wolf. All members of this clan 

 are brothers and sisters to him, in common with his own real brothers 

 and sisters, and he visits and associates with members of this clan on 

 the most familiar terms — familiar in all ways except that he may not, 

 according to the rules of the clan, ever marry a "sister," that is, a 

 woman of the Wolf Clan. It is his mother who makes known to him 

 the rights and duties incumbent on him through his membership in 

 the Wolf Clan. His mother will never permit familiarities with her- 

 self and her generation. Nor may W. L. behave otherwise than with 

 great circumspection toward his sister and her children, who are also 

 of his clan. 



As a child W. L. is gently teased by his father who is of the Wild 

 Potato Clan. "You must marry my aunt," he tells his son. W. L. 

 thinks of the elderly and rather unattractive woman whom his father 

 calls "aunt" and who is really W. L.'s father's father's sister and whom 

 he himself calls "grandmother." He learns from his father's teasing 

 that it is customary for him to joke with his paternal grandfather's 

 sister about this marriage business and since she is of the Deer Clan 

 he finds that all her "brothers" and "sisters," including those of his 

 own age, are also joking about the same theme. Thus as time goes 

 on his mind becomes accustomed to the idea that he will find his wife 

 in the Deer Clan, which was the clan of his father's father. Toward 

 his father's clan, i. e., the brothers and sisters of his father, the Wild 

 Potato Clan, he maintains respectful and circumspect behavior. In 

 fact anyone whose father is in the Wild Potato Clan is a brother or a 

 sister to him. W. L.'s mother, like himself, is of the Wolf Clan, but 

 her father is of the Red Paint Clan. Hence she too can tell him that 

 he must marry her aunt or a woman of the Red Paint Clan when he 

 comes of age. 



It can be seen that there are four clans with whom an individual 

 Cherokee is closely concerned: (1) His own clan containing his 

 "brothers" and "sisters," both actual and classificatory ; (2) his fa- 

 ther's clan containing "fathers" and fathers' "sisters," toward which 

 he must always show respect and deference; (3) his father's father's 

 clan which contains "grandmothers" and "grandfathers" with whom 

 he can marry; and (4) his mother's father's clan, containing "grand- 

 mothers" and "grandfathers" with whom he can marry. 



Let us carry the type case a stage further. W. L. marries a wife of 

 the Deer Clan. Her father, let us say, is of the Blue Clan which she 





