40 



ON TEE CLASSIFICATION 



female sex, the manner in which to determine sex is settled. 

 Age will be defined by subdividing the periphery in such 

 a way as is necessary; the higher quadrant being allotted to 

 seniority, the lower to juniority (a) (see plate). 



The question regarding age does not arise in the nearest 

 relationships, in those of parent and child. Parents must be 

 older than their children, and the latter, vice versa, younger 

 than the former. In parentage and filiation sex alone need be 

 determined, in order to know whether the individual con- 

 cerned is a father or mother, a son or daughter. Ego stands 

 to his father in exactly the same position as Ego's son stands 

 to Ego ; to his grandfather as his grandson to him, and so 

 on. The actual distance of relationship is respectively 

 the same in both cases. This is perhaps the reason why a 

 Spokane Redskin, when he speaks of his father's father 

 and of his son's son, calls both Is-heh-pa. 37 



In all abstract and in nearly all concrete languages the 

 words signifying father and mother can be traced to the 

 simple and unconscious exclamations of children, vvhatever 

 these may be. Such sounds are generally composed of the 

 easily pronounceable vowel a } preceded or followed by a 

 consonant, the articulation of which offers to an infant the 

 least difficulty ; and which varies accordingly. The words 

 distinguishing between father and mother once settL-d, the 

 child learns gradually, whether it has to call its father or 

 mother pa or ma, ata or ana, &c, &c. 



Bub this is not the only mode of naming. A child, 

 especially if it has been brought into closer contact only 

 with one of its parents (this will be as a rule its mother), 

 regards this parent as the parent, and gives to that 

 person a peculiar name. When it has afterwards become 



(37) The Spokane belong to the Salish (Flat-head) nations, who dwell 

 between the Rocky and Cascade Mountains. See L. H. Morgan's Systems of 

 Consanguinity, page 245. 



