SwANTONl INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES G63 



North Carolina allowed to trade with (ho whites at the same time as 

 the chiefs (Hurrage, 1906, p. 2'M). 



Michelson was told that there was gradation of tlie Shawnee bands.''^ 

 However, this probably had very little practical elToct in the tribe 

 as a whole. 



MOIETIKS 



Many tribes of North America, and indeed in all parts of the 

 world, are, or were, divided socially into two major sections which 

 generally determined n\arria<xe relationships and usually added cer- 

 tain other functions, such as j)artnership in ball <ijanies, the orderin<j; 

 of mortuary ceremonies, and so on. 



In the Southeast, a dichotomous division of this sort existed 

 amon<^ the Choctaw. One moiety was called Inioklasha, "their own 

 people," or **friends," Kashapa okl:i, "divided people," or, according; 

 to one early writer, Yuka-tathlapi, "the five slave [f^^roui^s] ;" and 

 the other, T'liolahta, which prob:d)ly signifies "chiefs." We know 

 that these moieties were strictly exogamous, and indeed exo<:;:imy 

 went somewhat farther since Halbert heard of two minor groups on 

 opposite sides which could not intermarry. Funeral obsequies for n 

 person of one nu)iety were conducted by those of the other side, and 

 we seem to have clear intimations that one nu)iely, the one first 

 mentioned, presided over ceremonial matters concerned with pence, 

 the other being the war division. The writer who calls the former 

 Vuka-tathhipi says that it was in fact considered less noble than 

 tlie other, bn( we have no suj^porting evidence. (Swanton, UKU a, 

 pp. 7G-7}); Swanton, 1032). 



Wo know that the Chickasaw also had moieties but our infornui- 

 tion regarding them is so confusing that we are not sure wlieth|iM* 

 they ere exogamous or endogamous. l*ossihly they may have had 

 two kinds of dual divisons, one of clans or minor local groups and 

 one of towns, the former analogous to the Choctaw, the latter to the 

 Creeks. The association of one of these (the Tcuka falaha) was 

 said to have been with war and they were said to have lived in a flat oi* 

 prairie country, whiU> the other (the Tcukilissa) was the peace side, 

 and they lived in the timber. This recalls the Choctaw divisions. 

 Clans and house groups were separated in general by moiety lines, but 

 the Raccoon clan is reported to have nuirried indifferently into either, 

 and there w^as a house name (possibly a house group) used on both 

 sides. S[)eck learned that malevolent conjuration resulting in sick- 

 ness was "believed, with a certain degree of hostility, to come from 

 the opposite groui)," and "it is considered a grave olVense, freciuenlly 

 punishable by death, for a member of one group to be present at 



'* MichclBon, personal Inforiuation. 



