MICHELSON— PI EGAN CONSANGUINITY 



that some of Morgan's schedules are of lasting value, but unfortu- 

 nately this cannot be said of his Piegan schedules. 



To begin with, Morgan labored under the necessity of employ- 

 ing a Cree half-breed as interpreter, and the informants were the 

 latter's wife, a Piegan, and their daughter. Now, as the Cree system 

 of consanguinity differs greatly from that of the Piegan, and inas- 

 much as the sex of the speaker at times is important, it will be seen 

 that confusion was inevitable. The Blood schedules suffer from the 

 defect that no male informant was employed ; but it should be under- 

 stood that my criticisms are aimed only at the Piegan schedules, as 

 I have no independent data from the Bloods. The phonetics are 

 extremely crude, and will not be considered unless vital to the point 

 at issue. To go into some details: On page 294 the term given for 

 "grandfather" {no-bes' -sib-a) is unknown to my informants; and other 

 investigators have not recorded it. In this connection it may be men- 

 tioned that the Blood term is the equivalent of terms recorded by 

 Tims, Grinnell, Wissler, Uhlenbeck, and Michelson, but the transla- 

 tion thereof is too restricted in meaning (see below). The term for 

 grandmother (p. 295), ne-td-ke-d'sd, though not given in the published 

 literature elsewhere, is nevertheless confirmed by my notes. Nee-so'- 

 tan (p. 296, in the column for "my grandson"), with the translation 

 "my grandchild", is an error; according to Tims and Michelson (the 

 only two others who have recorded the word under discussion) the 

 word applies only to a female, and is given correctly by Morgan under 

 "my granddaughter" (p. 297). For a more extended use of the term, 

 see below. The same mistake occurs in Morgan on pages 298 and 357 

 under schedules 15 and 193. The term for "my elder brother" (pp. 

 298, 299) is patently the term for "my younger brother, sister" with 

 a female speaker, as shown by the records of Tims, Wissler, Curtis 

 (see below), Uhlenbeck, and Michelson. As mentioned in a case 

 above, the Blood record by Morgan, though differing from his own 

 Piegan one, is nevertheless confirmed by other writers. The word 

 given for "my elder sister" (p. 299) is opposed to the information of 

 Tims, Grinnell, Wissler, Curtis, Uhlenbeck, and Michelson, all of 

 whom are in agreement save as to the phonetics of the word. As the 

 word occurs twice on the same page it could hardly be a misprint, 

 though it may be a bad mishearing (ni'n e sta ca , Michelson). The terms 

 for "my younger brother, younger sister" have been badly confused 

 (see pp. 300, 301). Grinnell shares the same mistakes. The agreement 

 of Tims, Wissler, Curtis (for a partial error, see below), Uhlenbeck, 

 and Michelson cannot be overthrown. The point is that with a male 

 speaker there is one term for "my younger brother" and "my younger 



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