ATHABASCAN KIN TERM SYSTEMS

ATHABASCAN KIN TERM SYSTEMS By A. L. KROEBER N the AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST l for last year, M. E. Opler analyzes the kinship systems of seven South Athabascan groups. The data are presented compactly and conveniently for comparison; and a classification is made into two types, called Chiricahua and Jicarilla, of which the first is construed as developmentally earlier. Dr Opler's paper is executed with genuine workmanship, and his data are a boon: there has not been even one Apache kinship system previously on record, so far as I know. He has how­ ever taken no cognizance of Northern or Pacific Athabascan kinship sys­ tems, long ago recorded by Morgan and Gifford; and it seems worth while examining these to see whether, at least on certain points, they do not suffice for a tentative reconstruction of primitive Athabascan kinship which in turn will illumine the South Athabascan situation. I Southern Athabascan includes Chiricahua, Mescalero, Western Apache, Nav­ aho, Jicarilla, Lipan, .Kiowa Apache. They are all Apaches, historically and in Spanish usage. The first three are southwesterly, the last four northeasterly within the Southwest. California Athabascan includes Kato, Wailaki, Lassik, Sinkyone, Hupa, Tolowa. Linguistically there appear to be three groups: Kato-Wailaki-Lassik-Sinkyone; Hupa; and Tolowa-Oregon Athabascan. Northern Athabascan (superordinate to the preceding) includes Slave Lake, Hare, Yellow Knife ( Red Knife ), Kutchin, Tukuthe, Carrier (this last from Morice, Carrier Lang1tage). Kinship abbreviations are as introduced by Gifford in Californian Kinship Terminologies. All original Athabascan forms are rough generalizations, not proven or arguable reconstructions such as a philologist would designate by a *. The purpose is recog­ nition of former kinship plans, not of precise linguistic forms. Grandparents-Chiricahua and Mescalero have 4 terms: FF nale, FM tc'ine, MF tsoye, MM teo. Western Apache merges the two last, Navaho the two first, Jicarilla and Lipan use MF for both GF, and MM for both GM; Kiowa Apache has again merged and uses MF for all 4 GP. That this is the historical sequence is shown by the California Athabascans having the 4-GP scheme, with close cor­ respondence of forms: FF al (Lassik, Wailaki; others aberrant: Tolowa ame', Hupa maatcwufi, Sinkyone abak, Kato tcau); FM trene, tcin, tcuo, tcao; MF tcugi, tcigi, tchuwe, sagi; MM teo, tcwo, suo Northern Athabascan has only two terms, of type tsian and tsu, or tsun and tsea, for GF and GM; these forms probably correspond to FM and MF. The whole of America east of the Rockies is a region of 1 M. E. Opler, Tm Kinship Systems ofthe Soutmrn Athabaskan-Speaking Tribes (American Anthropologist, Vol. 38, pp. 620-33, 1936).