4 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



the system a wide distribution. In the second place, its prevalence among these 

 nations would render probable its like prevalence among the residue of the 

 American aborigines. If, then, it should be found to be universal among them, it 

 would follow that the system was coeval, in point of time, with the commencement 

 of their dispersion over the American continent; and also that, as a system trans- 

 mitted with the blood, it might contain the necessary evidence to establish their 

 unity of origin. And in the third place, if the Indian family came, in fact, from 

 Asia, it would seem that they must have brought the system with them from that 

 continent, and have left it behind them among the people from whom they sepa- 

 rated; further than this, that its perpetuation upon this continent would rendei 

 probable its like perpetuation upon the Asiatic, where it might still be found; 

 and, finally, that it might possibly furnish some evidence upon the question of the 

 Asiatic origin of the Indian family. 



This series of presumptions and inferences was very naturally suggested by the 

 discovery of the same system of consanguinity and affinity in nations speaking 

 dialects of two stock-languages. It was not an extravagant series of speculations 

 upon the given basis, as will be more fully understood when the Seneca and Ojibwa 

 systems are examined and compared. On this simple and obvious line of thought 

 I determined to follow up the subject until it was ascertained whether the system 

 was universal among the American aborigines; and, should it become reasonably 

 probable that such was the fact, then to pursue the inquiry upon the Eastern Con- 

 tinent, and among the islands of the Pacific. 



The work was commenced by preparing a schedule of questions describing the 

 persons in the lineal, and the principal persons embraced in the first five collateral 

 lines, which, when answered, would give their relationship to Ego, and thus spread 

 out in detail the system of consanguinity and affinity of any nation with fullness 

 and particularity. This schedule, with an explanatory letter, was sent in the form 

 of a printed circular to the several Indian missions in the United States, to the 

 commanders of the several military posts in the Indian country, and to the 

 government Indian agents. It was expected to procure the information by 

 correspondence as the principal instrumentality. From the complicated nature of 

 the subject the results, as might, perhaps, have been foreseen, were inconsiderable. 

 This first disappointment was rather a fortunate occurrence than otherwise, since it 

 forced me either to abandon the investigation, or to prosecute it, so far as the 

 Indian nations were concerned, by personal inquiry. It resulted in the several 

 annual explorations among the Indian nations, the fruits of which will be found in 

 Tables II., which is attached to Part II. By this means all the nations, with but 

 a few exceptions, between the Atlantic and the Rocky Mountains, and between the 

 Arctic Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, were reached directly, and their systems of 

 relationship procured. Some of the schedules, however, were obtained by corre- 

 spondence, from other parties. 



Having ascertained as early as the year 1859 that the system prevailed in the 

 five principal Indian stock-languages east of the mountains, as well as in several 

 of the dialects of each, its universal diffusion throughout the Indian family had 

 become extremely probable. This brought me to the second stage of the investi- 



