HOLMES ANNIVERSARY VOLUME 



sister's husband" and "my wife's brother" in a single term "my 

 brother-in-law" as some writers on the Piegan system have done. The 

 word given for "my father" needs no criticism. Summing up, it 

 may be said that though Wissler's work is well arranged and is a 

 distinct advance in some ways, the schedules are not so complete as 

 they should be, and the meanings given the words in some cases 

 appear to be rather too broad, and in others too restricted. 



Curtis's contribution to our understanding of the Piegan system 

 of consanguinity may be briefly discussed. No attempt was made to 

 give more than a few schedules; and obviously his work was not 

 intended for the professional student. Nevertheless in determining 

 the cases, Curtis made a real contribution, and also anticipated Uhlen- 

 beck. It should be mentioned that he agrees partially with Wissler 

 in the terms for "paternal uncle" as opposed to Michelson and 

 Grinnell — partially because Wissler has recorded no term for "elder 

 brothers of my father" with male speaker; on the other hand Curtis's 

 distinction between "mother's younger brothers" and "mother's elder 

 brothers" is opposed to the information of Grinnell, Wissler, and 

 Michelson. Morgan's Blood schedule confirms the latter writers. 

 See the discussion above. A serious fault is committed by Curtis when 

 he inserts after certain terms 'masculine pronouns', 'feminine pro- 

 nouns'. "Masculine speaker" and "feminine speaker" are what should 

 have been said, for sex gender is unknown to Algonquian languages. 

 Moreover, the pronominal elements of the words cited this way are 

 the same. The term given for "paternal aunt" is opposed to Michel- 

 son's information, nor does it agree with the one given by Morgan. 

 Curtis agrees with Wissler and Michelson in the term given for "mater- 

 nal aunt". As might be expected, the phonetic system employed by 

 Curtis is deficient, but it is also true that refined phonetics would 

 have been unintelligible to the audience he reaches. 



We now come to Uhlenbeck's work. The Piegan terms of relation- 

 ship cited by Uhlenbeck are only incidental to a grammatical study, 

 and are not intended as a systematic exposition; hence the broader 

 meanings of the terms cited are ordinarily not given, for this would 

 have been foreign to his purpose. In one case (nistamoa), to wit, 

 "my brother-in-law", the term should have been qualified by the 

 addition of "male speaker", and the meaning should have been 

 given as "my sister's husband", for it does not include "my wife's 

 brother". See the discussion of the same word in the criticism of 

 Wissler's work. According to Michelson the term given for "my 

 sister", without specifying whether older or younger than self, should 

 be qualified by the addition of "male speaker". Otherwise the present 



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