SwANax)N] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 667 



and male descendants on both sides were known as "father," but 

 the father's sister's son's daughter was called "sister." One 

 can easily see why there should be more stability in the female 

 line than in the male line because in the former case the moiety 

 remained unchanged while in the other cases it would alter with every 

 generation. Choctaw shows less stability than Creek or Chickasaw 

 in this respect, and Muskogee the most. In Cherokee the descendants 

 of father's sister are usually '^f ather's sister" and "father," but there are 

 some exceptions for the father's sister's son's daughter is called "sister." 

 The children of the mother's brother, on the other hand, in Choctaw, 

 Chickasaw, Creek, Timucua, and Cherokee all receive the same terms 

 as those applied to one's own children, and the next generation are 

 grandchildren. And, of course, one's own children — I am now speak- 

 ing of a man as "self" — belong to the opposite moiety. Following 

 down the various lines of descent of self and relatives, we find that all 

 start with two terms of relationship applied to grandparents, "grand- 

 father" and "grandmother," that two streams pass down through 

 father and father's brothers and mother and mother's sisters, respec- 

 tively meeting in self, my brothers and sisters, my father's brothers' 

 children, and my mother's sisters' children, to my own children, the 

 children of my brothers, the children of the brothers of my father, 

 and the sisters of my mother, where they are met by a stream of blood 

 passing from my maternal grandparents through my mother's brothers. 

 These all have the same name, son and daughter, and their children 

 I call grandchildren. The stream passing through my father's sister 

 divides repeatedly. Her direct female descendants are all called 

 "paternal aunt," or among most of the tribes "grandmother," and their 

 brothers "fathers," and this goes on indefinitely. This appears to 

 be the only line of descent which does not end with the term "grand- 

 child." My father's sister's son's children, however, appear usually to 

 have been called "brother," or "sister" and, although it is not quite 

 certain, their children probably fell into the class of grandchildren. 

 My sister's children I call by distinct terms, "nephew," and "niece," 

 but their children also fall into the class of grandchildren. Tliis is 

 the system in Choctaw and Chickasaw in the main though there are 

 some few variations, whether due to errors in recording or to actual 

 changes in nomenclature is uncertain. In Creek all descendants of the 

 father's sister are said to have been called by the same terms as 

 father's brother and father's sister but it would now be diflScult to 

 be certain as to the ancient custom. So far as it has been preserved, 

 the Timucua system is substantially the same as those above de- 

 scribed. Cherokee agrees in the main with Creek and Chickasaw. 

 From the fact that the father's sister's son's daughter has the same 

 term as own sister and father's sister's son's son the same term as 



