STATUS OF IROQUOIS WOMAN HEWITT 477 



children of these daughters belonged to the blood stream of the 

 mother propositus. 



It has been said that these ohwachira composed clans; ohwachira 

 which possessed chief ship titles received eponyms or group names; 

 but the clans received distinctive faunal names, and so the ohwachira 

 bore a named allied to that of the clan under which it was grouped. 

 Clans bore the names of various animals and birds of the habitat 

 of the tribe to which the clan belonged. So we find the Wolf Clan, 

 the Bear Clan, the Turtle Clan, the Deer Clan, and so on. 



It has been said that the ohwachira was highly organized ; its mem- 

 bers were regimented first by the device of terms of relationship 

 which fixed the status or standing of every member of the ohwachira 

 or uterine incest kinship group. Eldership in this discipline was 

 most important. 



The first and highest term is that of mother, which has a much 

 broader and deeper meaning here than it has among white people; 

 it is applied not only to the actual mother but to all her sisters and 

 to all women of her generation in the collateral lines of descent, 

 who among white people would be called cousins ; the second term is 

 that of mother's brother, or uncle, which is applied not only to her 

 actual brothers but to all collateral males of her generation to whom 

 white people would apply the name cousin. 



Here a word of explanation is needful. The native Iroquois words, 

 sister and brother, as terms of blood kinship have no exact equivalent 

 term in English. These terms in Iroquois terminology denote 

 elder sister and younger sister, elder brother and younger brother. 

 These age distinctions are fundamental and fix the duties and obliga- 

 tions of these members of the ohwachira one to another. 



The persons within the ohwachira were largely regimented or clas- 

 sified, if one may so speak, by means of these relationships, which 

 defined implicitly right, duty, or obligation, and these several re- 

 lationships had well-defined names, so that the right and the duty and 

 the obligation of each person did not have to be obtrusively recalled. 



The names of these relationships were the following, namely : Great 

 grandmother, grandmother, mother, uncle (i. e., mother's brother), 

 elder sister, elder brother, younger sister, younger brother, daughter, 

 son, granddaughter, and grandson, niece, and nephew, the last two 

 being used exclusively by the mother's brother. 



Questions of honor, of respect, of right, of obligation, and of duty 

 depended upon these relative age distinctions among the members of 

 the ohwachira (or blood-kinship group). It must be remembered 

 that the English rendering of a majority of these native kinship 

 terms can not be considered satisfactory, and need not be pressed. 



