Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/281

 SAPIR] NA SS RIVER TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP 269

('wi't'e'sim nt J se'' e t'sC}. It is difficult to believe that these para- phrases are anything but modern imitations of the English terms, though Mr. Calder claimed they were old Nass River usages.

To 2, j. Mr. Calder claimed that in the old days the maternal and paternal grandparents were distinguished, but he does not remember how this was done.

To 5. The term pd'p* can also be used with the possessive suffix: pa' f bC "my father" (male speaking), but only as a vocative, not as a term of reference. The term hadc ni evidently has the first person singular possessive suffix. Mr. Calder fancied this term was derived from ha'P, the word for "intestines," but this is simply an example of folk-etymology. Mr. Matheson gave similar folk-etymologies for the Tsimshian terms for "grandfather" and "grandmother," which he has learned from an old Tsimshian. Both of these Indians claimed that the older members of their tribes knew the "real" meanings, i.e., the supposed etymologies, of all the kinship terms. The existence of such folk-etymologies for kinship terms is itself an interesting fact. The probable etymology of hddi' H has been suggested to me by Miss Theresa Mayer. The fact that the same non-vocative form for "father" is used by both males and females in Nass River and Tsimshian (Dr. Boas states that Tsimshian a'b is used by women only for "father," but this is incorrect; a' 'bo "my father" is an obsolescent term indicating great respect and used by both sexes) and, further, the fact that the Tsimshian vocative does not seem to distinguish the sex of the speaker make it likely that the Nass River usage is a secondary one. The word hadt' ni cannot be explained by reference to any- thing else in Nass River or Tsimshian. It is altogether likely that it is simply borrowed from the Haida vocative ha'da''ij used by a female child in addressing its father. This term is evidently simplified from the regular vocative, xa'da' f i, of Haida xa't-ga, xa'd-, the term for "father of female." The Haida differentiation of "father" according to the sex of the child applies to both vocative and non- vocative forms. This would be but one of several facts tending to show that the Haida had closer cultural relations with the Nass River people than with the Tsimshian proper. The Nass

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