HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



Another very interesting feature is the differentiation of maternal 

 and paternal grandparents. This is so completely lacking in the im- 

 mense area east of the Rocky mountains that Morgan has not even 

 distinct tables for these relationships and notes their discrimination 

 with some surprise for the Spokane. 1 Yet in the Far West of the 

 United States it is exceedingly common. Boas notes it for the Kalis- 

 pelm and Okinagan, 2 it occurs probably among the majority of Plateau 

 Shoshoneans, 3 among the Takelma and Wishram, 4 and according to 

 Professor Kroeber is widespread in California. According to Harring- 

 ton and Kroeber, it exists also among the Tewa and Zufii; weakly 

 developed, it occurs among the Navaho. It is a striking fact that in 

 the North American areas in which clans, gentes, and moieties occur 

 (including the Tlingit and Haida) and where accordingly a discrimi- 

 nation between maternal and paternal grandparents might a priori 

 be expected, such a distinction exists only in the Southwest, while the 

 discrimination occurs precisely in the region without definite social 

 organization. We are clearly dealing with an historical problem. 



Still another peculiarity may be mentioned here because its occur- 

 rence seems restricted to the same general area — the change of terms 

 after the death of a near or connecting relative. This has been found 

 by Professor Kroeber among the Yokuts and by Mr Gifford among 

 the neighboring Kern River and Kawaiisu Shoshoneans of California; 

 Boas recorded it for several Salish tribes, the Chinook, and the 

 Kootenay. 5 Again one cannot think of a social custom prevalent 

 among these tribes capable of producing the terminological feature 

 and lacking among tribes without it. 



Finally, I may refer to the absence of separate terms for elder and 

 younger brothers and sisters. The failure to distinguish these differ- 

 ences within one's own generation marks the Pawnee system, 6 and 

 occurs in that of the Kiowa. 7 The fact that so glaring an anomaly 

 from the point of view of the ordinary North American system should 

 occur in the same portion of the Plains area is hardly without signifi- 

 cance; and, once more, we are tempted to ask what social usage can 

 be lacking here that unites the rest of the North American tribes. 



The foregoing remarks seem to me to establish the principle that 

 features of kinship terminology are distributed like other ethnograph- 

 ical phenomena and must be approached in the same spirit. Like 



1 Morgan, ibid., p. 247. 



2 Boas, loc. cit. 



3 Sapir, loc. cit., and the writer's field notes. 

 * Sapir, loc. cit. 



5 Boas, loc. cit.; American Anthropologist, 1904, p. 135; and manuscript notes. 



6 Morgan, op. cit., p. 197. 



7 Writer's field notes. 



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