While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
There are important
material differences in the organization and in the
functions of the family as found respectively in savagery
barbarism and civilization, and even within each of these
planes of culture several marked types of the family,
differing radically one from another in many characteristic
features, exist.
To determine definitely even the main organic features
of the family systems in a majority, not to say all, of the Indian
tribes north of Mexico, is not yet
possible, owing to lack of material. In communities like those of the
Muskhogean and the Iroquoian tribes, in which the clan system has been so highly
developed, two radically different organic groups of persons exist to which the
term family may properly be applied; and within each of these groups a more or
less complex system of relationships definitely fixes the status of every
person, a status that, acquired by birth or adoption, determines the civil or
other rights, immunities, and obligations of the person. Among the Iroquois the
ohwachira (the common Iroquoian name for the maternal blood family) was becoming
merged into the clan (q.v. ), so that in specific cases the two are virtually
identical, although in other cases several ohwachira are comprised under one
clan. The term ohwachira is common to all the known dialects of the
Iroquoian stock. On the other hand there are found in these dialects several different
names designating the group called a clan, seemingly indicating the probability
that the family as an institution existed long before the development of the
clan organization, when the several tribes still had a common history and
tradition. But it is not strictly accurate to call an ohwachira a family, or a
clan a family. The first and larger group, includes the entire body of kindred
of some one person, who is usually denominated the propositus.
In view of the rights and obligations of the father's clan to a person, in
addition to those inherited from the clan of the mother, it appears that the
family group among the Iroquois and Muskhogean tribes is composed of the
maternal and paternal clans. The clan owes the child of its son certain civil
and religious rights, and is bound to the child by obligations which vitally
concern the latter's life and welfare, present and future. The youth's
equipment for life would not he regarded as complete were the performance of
these clan duties neglected. The tutelar of every person is named and made, by
the members of the paternal clan. The duties just mentioned do not end with the
death of the person; if occasioned by war or by murder the loss must he made
good by the paternal clan supplying a prisoner or the scalp of an enemy.
Some of the duties and obligations of the clan or clans whose sons have taken
wives from a clan stricken by death are to condole with it, prepare the death
feasts, provide suitable singers to chant the dirges at the wake lasting one or
more nights, guard and care for the body lying in state and prepare it for
burial, make the bark burial case or wooden coffin, construct the scaffold or
dig the grave, and to perform all the other needful duties due from clans bound
together by marriage. It was regarded as unseemly for the stricken clan to do
anything but mourn until the body of the dead had been placed in its final
resting place and until after the feast of "re-associating with the public," held
ten days subsequent to the death of the deceased, at which his property was
divided among his heirs and friends. In case of the death of a chief or other
noted person the clan mourned for an entire year, scrupulously refraining from
taking part in public affairs until the expiration of this period and until
after the installation of a successor to the dead officer. During the interim
the bereaved clan was represented by the clan or clans hound to it by the ties
of marriage and offspring.
These two clans are exogamic groups, entirely distinct before the child's birth,
and form two subdivisions of a larger group of kindred-the family-of which any
given person, the propositus, is the focal point or point of juncture. Strictly
speaking, both clans form incest groups in relation to him. Every member of the
community is therefore the point of contact and convergence of two exogamic
groups of persons, for in these communities the clan is exogamic; that is to
say, each is an incest group in so far as its own members are concerned. Within
these clans or exogamic groups the members are governed by rules of a
more or less complex system of relationships, which fix absolutely the
position and status of everyone in the group, and the clan is thus
organized and limited. Those, then, who have common blood with one another, or with a third
person belong to the same family and are kindred. Both of these clans owe the
off spring the rights and obligations of kindred, but in differing degrees.
Thus a
person may be said to have two clans, in some measure, that of his mother and that of his father. Both clans exercise rights and are
bound by
obligations to the household of which he became a member; both have, moreover, in
different measure, the rights and obligations of kinship to him.
The second and smaller group, the fireside or household, includes only the husband, his wife or wives, and their children. Where there are several wives
from several different families, this group in its family relations becomes
very intricate, but is nevertheless under the rigid control of family law and
usage.
It is thus apparent that these two groups of persons are in fact radically
distinct, for the lesser group is not merely a portion of the larger. The
relative status of the husband and his wife or wives and their children makes
this evident.
Custom, tradition, and the common law do not regard the wife or wives of the
household as belonging to the clan of the husband. By marriage the wife acquires
no right of membership in her husband's clan, but remains a member of her own
clan, and, equally important, she transmits to her children the right of
membership in her clan; and she acquires no rights of inheritance of property
either from her husband or from his clan. On the other hand, the husband
acquires no rights from his wife or from her clan, and he, likewise, does not
become a member of his wife's clan.
But the fireside, or household, is the product of the union by marriage of two
persons of different clams, which does not establish between the husband and
wife the mutual rights and obligations arising from blood feud and from
inheritance. It is precisely these mutual rights and obligations that are
peculiarly characteristic of the relations between clansmen, for they subsist
only between persons of common blood, whether acquired by birth or by adoption.
Therefore, husband and wife do not belong to the sauce clan or family.
As there is a law of the clan or exogamic kinship group governing acts and
relations as between members of the same clan group, so there are rules and
usages governing the household or fireside and
defining the rights and obligations belonging to its jurisdiction. The relations
of the various members of the fireside are affected by the fact that every
member of it is directly subject to the general rule of the clan or higher
kinship group, the husband to that of his clan, the wife or wives to those of
their respective clans, and the children to those of both parents, but in
different kind and degree.
The dominating importance of the family is the social organization of a
primitive people is apparent; it is one of the most
vital institutions founded by private law and usage. In such a community every
member is directly obligated to the family, first of all, for the protection
that safeguards his welfare. The members of the family to which he belongs are
his advocates and his sureties. In the grim blood feud the family defends him
and his cause, even with their lives, if need be, and this care ends not with
his death, for if he be murdered the family avenges his murder or exacts
payment there for. In the savage and barbaric ages, even to the beginning of
civilization, the community placed reliance largely on the fancily for the
maintenance of order, the redress of wrongs, and the punishment of crime.
Concerned wholly with the intimate relations of private life, family custom and
law are administered within the family and by its organs; such customs and laws
constitute daily rules of action, which, with their underlying motives, embody
the common sense of the community. In a measure they are not within the
jurisdiction of public enactment, although in specific cases the violation of
family rights and obligations incurs the legal penalties of tribal or public
law, and so sometimes fancily government comes into conflict with public law and
welfare. But by the increasing power of tribal or public law through
centralization of power and political organization the independence of the
family in private feuds, regarded as dangerous to the good order of the
community, is gradually limited. And when the family becomes a unit or is
absorbed in a higher organization the individual acquires certain rights at the
expense of the family, the right of appeal to the higher tribunal is one of
these.
The wealth and power of a clan or family depend primarily on the dearth or
abundance of its numbers. Hence the loss of a single person is a great loss, and
there is need that it be made good by replacing the departed with another or by
many others, according to the relative standing and importance of the person to
be restored. For example, Aharihon, an Onondaga chieftain of the 17th century,
sacrificed 40 men to the shade of his brother to show the great esteem in which
he held him. But among the Iroquois the duty of restoring the loss does not
devolve directly on the stricken clan or exogamic kinship group, but upon all
allied to it by the ties of what is termed hontoñnishoñ
i. e., upon those
whose fathers are clansmen of the person to be replaced. So the birth or the
adoption of many men in a clan or exogamic kinship group is a great advantage to
it; for although these men become separated through the obligation of marrying
into clans or such groups other than their own, the children of such unions are
bound in a measure to the clan or exogamic kinship group of their fathers. This
is a principle so well established that the chief matron of the paternal clan
or exogamic kinship might oblige these offspring of diverse households (as many
as might suffice) to go to war in fulfillment of their obligation, as seemed
good to her; or she might stop them if they wished to undertake a war
which was not, from its expediency, pleasing to her and her advisers.
Therefore this chief matron. having decided that the time was at hand "to raise again the fallen
tree" or "to put back on the vacant mat" one of the clan whom death removed,
would inform one of the children whose fathers were her clansmen, their hontoñnishoñ, that it was her desire that
he form and lead a war party against
their enemies for the purpose of securing a prisoner or a scalp for the purpose
named. The person whom she selected was one judged most capable of executing her
commission. This was soon accomplished. She enforced and confirmed this
commission with a belt of wampum. So powerful was this chief matron of a clan
that when the council chiefs did not favor the designs of certain ambitious war
chiefs in raising levies for military purposes, fearing that they might injure
the best interests of the tribe, one of the surest methods they might employ to
frustrate these enterprises was to win the chief matrons of the clans whose
clansmen were the fathers of the recruits from the other clans, for these chief
matrons had only to interpose their influence and authority to bring to naught
the best concerted designs and enterprises of these ambitious war chiefs. This
is ample evidence that these women had an influence in some degree exceeding
that of the council of the ancients and tribal chiefs.
In the blood feud the paternal kin did not interfere except by counsel; but to
avenge the death of a clansman of their father was an obligation. Outlaws were
denied family and tribal rights. The renunciation of clan kinship entailed the
loss of every right and immunity inhering in kinship. The fundamental concept in
the organic structure of the family with its right, immunities, and
obligations is that of protection. To exercise the right of feud was lawful only
to avenge the guilty murder of a clansman.
The clan or family was made useful by the tribe as a police organization,
through which control was exercised over lawless men who otherwise were beyond
restraint. Every clan had jurisdiction over the lives and property of its
members, even to the taking of life for cause.
The mutual obligations of kindred subsist between persons who can act for
themselves; but there are duties of protection by these toward those who an not
act for themselves for any reason whatever, for it is a principle of humanity
that they who are legally independent should protect those who are legally
dependent. The modern law of guardianship of minors and imbeciles is evidently
but a survival and extension of this obligation of protection in the primitive
family and clan.
Speaking generally of the tribes of the northwest coast, Swanton (Am. Anthrop.,
n. s. vii, no. 4, 1905) says that in addition to the " husband, wife, and
children, a household was often increased by a number of relations who lived
with the house owner on almost equal terms, several poor relations or protégés
who acted as servants, and on the xnorth Pacific coast as many slaves as the house
owner could afford or was able to capture."
In tribes where a clan or gentile organization similar
to that of the Iroquoian and the Muskhogean tribes does not exist, it
is known that the incest groups on
the maternal and the paternal sides are largely determined by the system of
relationships, which fixes the position and status of every person within an
indefinite group, and the incest group is reckoned from each propositus. That is
to say, marriage and cohabitation may not subsist between persons related to
each other within prescribed limits on both the maternal and paternal sides,
although kinship may be recognized as extending beyond the prescribed limit.
Among the Klamath these relationships are defined by reciprocal terms defining
the relation rather than the persons, just as the term "cousin" is employed
between cousins.
In speaking of the fierce, turbulent, and cruel Athapascan tribes of the valley
of the Yukon, Kirkby (Smithson. Rep. 1864, 1865), says: "There is, however,
another division among them, of a more interesting and important character than
that of the tribes just mentioned. Irrespective of tribe they are divided into
three classes, termed, respectively, Chit-sa, Nate-sa, and Tanges-at-sa,
faintly representing the aristocracy, the middle classes, and the poorer orders
of civilized nations, the former being the most wealthy and the latter the
poorest. In one respect, however, they greatly differ, it being the role for a
man not to marry in his own, but to take a wife from either of the other
classes. A Chit-sa gentleman will marry a Tanges-at-sa peasant without the least
feeling infra dig. The offspring in every case belong to the class of the
mother. This arrangement has had a most beneficial effect in allaying the deadly
feuds formerly so frequent among them." As no further data are given, it is
impossible to say what, if any, was the internal structure and organization of
these three exogamic classes, with female descent, mentioned above.
Apparently a similar social organization existed among the Natchez, but no
detailed information on the subject is available.
