188 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



are now persons, especially missionaries, who understand particular languages in 

 all their range, methods, and structure, and who are competent to present their 

 minute mechanism. The difficulty with most grammars of Indian languages, 

 besides their brevity, arises from a method too exclusively analytical, whereas a 

 synthetical method, if more cumbersome, would be more efficient. We learn 

 analytically, but teach synthetically. A grammar, therefore, should put together, 

 as well as resolve a language, and be so complete in both of its processes that the 

 philologist might learn, if need be, to speak the language from the grammar and 

 vocabulary. Some modification of the Ollendorif method would be a sensible 

 improvement upon the usual form of presenting an Indian language. A knowledge 

 more special than has yet been reached is needed to detect a foreign clement in 

 an aboriginal language. It is a reasonable supposition that contiguous nations, 

 and especially such as intermarry and maintain friendly intercourse, are constantly 

 contributing of their vocables to each other's dialects. The identity of a limited 

 number of vocables for common objects tends to show a near connection of the 

 Minnitarees and Upsarokas or Crows with the Missouri and Dakota nations; Avhilst 

 there are special features in their systems of consanguinity which reveal a more 

 remote, but not less certain connection with the Gulf Nations. 



Their systems of relationship are in agreement with each other in their radical 

 characteristics. They possess one feature which is anomalous, and another which 

 deviates from every form yet presented, but which finds its counterpart in the 

 system of the Gulf nations, and that of the Pawnee or Prairie nations as well. 

 The Minnitaree will be adopted for presentation. 



First Indicative Feature. My brother's son and daughter, Ego a male, are my 

 son and daughter. With Ego a female, they are my grandchildren. These last 

 relationships are a deviation from the common form. 



Second (wanting). My sister's son and daughter, Ego a male, are my younger 

 brother and younger sister, Mat-so' -ga and Md-ta-ka'-shd. This remarkable devia- 

 tion from uniformity is restricted to these two nations, among whom the relation- 

 ships of uncle and aunt, and nephew and niece, are unknown, their places being 

 supplied by elder and younger brother, and by elder and younger sister. 



Third. My father's brother is my father. 



Fourth. My father's brother's son and daughter are my brother and sister elder 

 or younger. There is a double set of terms for these relationships, one of which 

 is used by the males, and the other by the females, with the exception of the 

 terms for younger brother and sister, which are common. 1 In this respect the 

 Minnitaree and Upsaroka agree with the Dakota, Missouri, and Gulf nations. 



Fifth (wanting). My father's sister, among the Minnitarees is my grandmother, 

 Kti-ru' -Jia, and among the Crows my mother, Ik'-Jid. 



Sixth (wanting). My mother's brother is my elder brother, and calls me his 



1 My elder brother, male speaking, Me-a-ka'. Female speaking, Ma-tii-roo'. 



" younger " " " Mat-so'-gtt. " " Mat-so'-ga. 



" elder sister, " " Mat-ta-we'-&. " " Ma-roo'. 



" younger sister, " " JUa-ta-ka' -shU. " " Ma-ta-ka'-sha. 



