Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/131

 BOAS] SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE KWAKIUTL 119

tained it through a former marriage not with the mother of the individual (2) from his former wife's father. Diagrammatically this may be expressed as follows (fig. 5). In another case the father of a man was given a name and position by his daughter- in-law's father. In these cases the person who paid the marriage price to the bride's father receives the gifts returned by the father- in-law.

These names and positions, of course, cannot be actually taken until the son-in-law gives a feast at which the gifts are formally bestowed and at which the presents received from the father-in-law are distributed among the numayms of the son-in-law's tribe, excluding his own numaym. Practically the son-in-law is the recipient of these names, but they are given to him to be bestowed upon certain designated persons. In most cases the son-in-law who already holds a noble position, uses the new name and position that he himself received from his father-in-law only at the festival at which he distributes the marriage presents which he has received from his father-in-law, and then he "puts away" the name until he in turn gives it to his son-in-law or to some member of his son- in-law's family. There are, however, cases in which this is not done. Thus a noble chief of the Kwag'ul gave up his position and took the place of his father-in-law who was a Mamaleleqala. The Kwag'ul were dissatisfied with this arrangement and in order to adjust matters, he sent his second and third children to take his places in the numaym to which he belonged, while he himself, his wife, eldest and youngest sons took their places among the Mamale- leqala. Such a transfer of a son-in-law to his wife's numaym and tribe does not seem to be frequent, although it is permitted.

The actual position of the first born child is, therefore, that by birth it belongs to a certain numaym and that under normal con- ditions it will remain there and receive additional names and posi- tions from its father-in-law. These, however, will be given up when his daughter marries and ordinarily descend to her son, although this is not absolutely necessary. Later born children are liable to attain high rank through marriage and will be more readily trans- fered through marriage to a new numaym. That the son-in-law

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