Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/137

BOAS] SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF THE KWAKIUTL 125 The fundamental difference between the organization of the Kwakiutl and the northern tribes appears also in the terminology of relationship. Their terms are throughout the same for the paternal and maternal lines; uncle and aunt, nephew and niece are terms used indiscriminately for father's and mother's brothers and sisters and for brother's and sister's children without regard to the sex of the speaker. There is no trace of the recognition of clan or gentile relationship. The terms correspond to a loose organization in which relationship is counted equally on both sides. The terminology by which individuals are called members of tribes indicates decidedly a preference to the father's side. The child of a father belonging to one tribe and of a mother belonging to another tribe is designated by the name of the father's tribe or numaym with the ending -ts!dze, i.e., offspring of such and such a tribe or numaym. The mother's tribe is indicated by her tribal name and the ending -k!otm, i.e., one side of face such and such a tribe. Furthermore, in a marriage between two members of different tribes, the wife is called "married far outside." This agrees with the custom that in by far the majority of cases the woman goes to live with her husband, as well when both belong to the same village as when they belong to different villages.

It appears from all that has been said that the privileges are individual property, not property of the whole numaym, so that the social divisions are not in any sense properly speaking totemic groups. The relation to a very generalized form of the clan crest which belongs to every member of the clan, which is characteristic of the northern tribes is absent here. Common to the northern tribes and to the Kwakiutl is only the personal privilege of persons of high rank to certain specific crests and privileges. Among the Kwakiutl a new-born child has no crest and no definite position until it is given to him by his parent or another relative and there is no association between all the members of the numaym and the "totem." It is true that the nobility believe that they are des-