204 THE SIOUAN INDIANS [f.th. ann. 15 



prohibition of coiiiiuiuiicatioii.s between cbildieu- in-law unci imients in- 

 law; the clan taboos are commonly connected with the tutelar beast- 

 god, i)erliai)s represented by a totem. 



The essential feature of the kinship terminolojjy is the reckoning 

 from ego, whereby each individual remembers his own relation to every 

 other member of the clan or tribe; and commonly the kinship terms 

 are elassilic rather than descriptive (i. e., a single term expresses the 

 relation which in English is expressed by the phrase "My elder 

 brothor's second son's wife"). The system is curiously complex and 

 elaborate. It was not discovered by the earlier and more sui)erlicial 

 observers of the Indians, and was brought out chiefly by ]\Iorgan, who 

 detected numerous striking examples among different tribes; but it 

 would appear that the system is iu)t equally complete among all of the 

 tribes, probably because of immature development in some cases and 

 because of decadence in others. 



The system of ordination, like that of kinship, is characterized by 

 reckoning from the ego and by adventitious associations. It may have 

 beeu developed from the kinship system through the need for recogni- 

 tion and assignment of adopted captives, collective property, and other 

 things pertaining to the group; yet it bears traces of influence by the 

 taboo system. Its ramifications are wide: In some cases it emphasizes 

 kinship by assigning members of the family group to fixed positions 

 about the camp-fire or in the house; this function develops into the 

 placement of family grou])s in fixed order, as exem])lifled in the Iro- 

 quoian long-house and the Siouau camping circle; or it develops into a 

 curiously exaggerated direction-concept culminating in the cult of the 

 Four Quarters and the Ilere, and this prepares the way for a quinary, 

 decimal, and vigesimal numeration ; this last branch sends off another 

 in which the cult of the Six Quarters and the Here arises to prepare 

 the way for the mystical numbers 7, 13, and 7x7, whose vestiges come 

 down to civilization; both the four-quarter and the six-quarter associa- 

 tions are sometimes bound up with colors; and there are numberless 

 other ramifications. Sometimes the function and development of these 

 curious concepts, which constitute perhaps the nujst striking charac- 

 teristic of prescriptorial culture, are obscure at first glance, and hardly 

 to be discovered even througb prolonged research; yet, so far as they 

 have been detected and interpreted, they are especially adapted to fix- 

 ing demotic relations; and through them the manifold relations of indi- 

 viduals and groups are crystallized and kept in mind. 



Thus the American Indians, including theSiouan stock, are made up 

 of families organized into clans or geutes, and combined in tribes, 

 sometimes united in confederacies, all on a basis of kinship, real or 

 assumed; and the organization is shaped and perpetuated by a series 

 of devices pertaining to the plane of prescri])torial culture, whereby 

 each member of the organization is constantly reiuinded of his position 

 in the group. 



