366 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 196 



ever, in certain instances, families assigned as "virilocal" spent as 

 much as 4 months that year in uxorilocal or neolocal residence. In 

 two cases hsted as "virilocal," wives and children (joined by the hus- 

 bands for portions of these periods) spent 3 months or more "visiting" 

 the mothers' families of orientation in Thoreau and Fort Wingate. 

 A man (with wife and child) who had been working at the Kamah 

 Navaho Day School some time is considered as a case of neolocal 

 residence. This assignment is arbitrary and arguable. From the 

 point of view of interaction and economic reciprocities, this family 

 could properly be grouped with the husband's divorced sister (also 

 working at the Day School) and her two children as constituting an 

 extended family, or — stUl better — as belonging to the extended family 

 of the parents of the man and his sister, who resided only a few miles 

 away. The above are given merely as examples to warn against an 

 overly literal interpretation of the list about to be presented. The 

 list, should, nevertheless, prevent simple generalizations (other than 

 purely statistical) as to residence patterns and composition of family 

 units. 



In 97 cases, residence was uxorilocal in 47,^^ virilocal in 33,^^ bilocal 

 in 6,^^ neolocal in 8, and could be classified only arbitrarily in 3.^^ 



COMPOSITION BY SOCIAL GROUPS 



I have made a complete listing of the population for June, 1950 by 

 "units." A "unit" consists of persons (in three instances of only a 

 single person) who ordinarily live together (though not necessarily 

 sleeping in the same dwelling) and who share meals, chores, and — to 

 some extent — possessions. The term "household" would be appro- 

 priate except that, on the one hand, it perhaps implies a single "roof" 

 and that, on the other hand, it could properly be applied to at least 

 some of the extended families of the Ramah Navaho. In many 

 cases a unit means an elementary family or a polygynous family. 

 In other cases it consists of a single divorced or widowed parent with 

 subadult children. Often, however, a unit includes additional adults: 

 unmarried or widowed or divorced children or siblings of a spouse 

 or spouses; a widowed or divorced parent of a spouse; collateral 

 relatives and adopted children. When two parents are present (and 

 sometimes in other cases), additional adult relatives ordinarily sleep 

 in a different dwelling, but the unit nevertheless works and eats to- 

 gether. A type of unit that occurs frequently and characteristically 



M This means residence In an area occupied by the family of the wife or husband, respectively. It does 

 not necessarily mean residence within a stone's throw of wife's or husband's parents or parent (if still alive) . 



" These figures embrace, of course, only marriages In force at that time; they do not Include widowed 

 and divorced persons residing with one or more subadult children. 



" Two of these ambiguous cases could be considered avunculocal as far as Instigating circumstances are 

 concerned, but the residence of the maternal uncles in question was virilocal. The other case could perhaps 

 be described as flllolocal. 



