34 



ON THE CLASSIFICATION 



conversing with each other, but relations do not use them in 

 familiar conversation, and prefer, in their stead, words 

 expressing the exact degree of affinity existing between the 

 parties. This mode of address is found still among many 

 nations, e.g., among the inhabitants of South India as well as 

 among the Australians and the Indians of North America. 32 

 It also most probably accounts for the peculiar custom of 

 dispensing with proper names, which prevails, as we hear, 

 so often among savages. So ancient a writer as C. Plinius 

 Secundus mentions it as occurring among the Atlantes. 33 



Actual relationship is, on the other hand, not always 

 required to induce people to address others by such terms 

 of kinship. Respect towards age or rank inspires juniors or 

 inferiors to call their seniors or superiors father or mother, 

 while kindness or condescension makes the latter address the 

 former by the terms " son" or " daughter/ ' In fact, by using 

 such words of relationship a certain familiarity, an acknow- 

 ledgment of consanguinity is produced, which is flattering 

 to the humble and not degrading to the mighty. If the 

 Czar of Russia calls his subjects children, and they call him 

 father, each party understands what is meant by these terms 



(32) See : Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity, by L. Morgan, page 132 ; 

 " American Indians always speak to each other, when related, by the term 

 of relationship, and never by the personal name of the individual addressed. 

 In familiar intercourse, and in formal salutation, they invariably address each 

 other by the exact relationship of consanguinity or affinity in which they 

 stand related. — It is not only the custom to salute by kin, but an omission 

 to recognize in this manner a relative would, amongst most of these nations, 

 be a discourtesy amounting to an affront. — It would be a violation of 

 good manners for an Indian to speak to another Indian by his name." 

 Dr. Schoolcraft, Vol. II, page 454, says: "It is next to impossible to 

 induce an Indian to utter personal names. The utmost he will do is to move 

 his lips, without speaking, in the direction of the person." — " The blacks of 

 Australia have great objections to speak of a person by name. They 

 address the person spoken to as brother, cousin, friend, or whatever relation 

 the person spoken to bears ;" see : The Aborigines of Victoria, by R. Brough 

 Smyth, Vol. II., page 94. 



(33) See: C. Plinii Secundi Natur. Hist. Lib. V., cap. 8, " Nam neque 

 nominum ullorum inter eos (Atlantes) appellatio est." 



