86 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bull. 1&5 



well. The important consideration, however, is that this was a sort 

 of thing which the boy's father, or his father's brother, would not 

 have done. 



Skinner (1915 c, p. 800) describes the brother-in-law/sister-in-law 

 relationship as a joking one as well. This was confirmed by my 

 informants. 



J. O. Dorsey (1884 a, pp. 262-263), Skinner (1915 c, p. 800), and 

 Lowie (1917, p. 91) all record the familiar mother-in-law taboo for 

 the Ponca. It was mentioned by nearly all of my informants as well. 

 Briefly, a man avoided his mother-in-law when it was at all possible, 

 and she avoided him. The avoidance was phrased in terms of extreme 

 mutual respect. The custom has now lapsed, but one Southern 

 Ponca commented: 'T still feel uncomfortable when my wife's old 

 lady is around." A similar taboo obtained between a wife and her 

 father-in-law. 



Dorsey (1884 a, pp. 252-253) speaks of Nikie kinship, or kinship 

 based upon a common mythical ancestor. Thus, the members of a 

 Ponca clan and those in an Omaha clan with a similar name called 

 each other by kinship terms because of their Nikie relationship. 



Kinship terms, such as * 'grandfather" were used on ceremonial 

 occasions to show respect to those officiating. Whitman (1939, p. 

 189) mentions that WBB had to use kinship terms in addressing the 

 holy men in charge of the rites when he was undergoing a religious 

 ordeal in the sweat lodge. At the present time Ponca peyotists 

 customarily refer to one another as "brother" and "sister." This 

 practice may have been borrowed from White churches, and is 

 apparently universal in peyote-using tribes. Likewise, a Ponca peyo- 

 tist always refers to his wife as "my companion" rather than "my 

 wife." 



There are several lists of Ponca clans in the literature, some of 

 which differ quite widely from one another. In some instances the 

 differences are so great as to present an impression of a rather transi- 

 tory clan system in the tribe. I am inclined to believe, however, 

 that this was not true. Many of the apparent differences result from 

 different English interpretations of the &egiha name. Others are 

 seen to be the result of one author's calling a clan a subclan and vice 

 versa. Interpretations of clan names might very well have changed 

 through the years. The meanings assigned words have certainly 

 changed elsewhere in the language. Likewise, the transformation of 

 a subclan into a clan might reasonably have occurred with the extinc- 

 tion of other subclans in recent times. Therefore, since the differences 

 shown may actually represent changes through time, and since no one 

 source may be regarded as authoritative, several are presented below. 

 The schemes are in chronological order, based upon the date of 

 collection, beginning with Lewis H. Morgan and ending with the list 



