OCR Text |
Show 34 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF INDIAN LANGUAGES. woman are considered the potential wives of her husband, and the brothers of a married man are considered the potential husbands of his wife. This potential affinity has various meanings among the different tribes where it is found. In some, the right of the man to his potential wives is the right to decide to whom they shall be given in marriage, but from them he may first select whom he will for his own. If these women, having married other persons, become widows, he again has the prior claim. A more common form of potential affinity is this: A man having married a woman can thereafter acquire a second. or third wife in the practice of polygamy only from the group of potential affinities. Other customs of a similar nature appear, leading to the inference that these people have emerged from connubial society. Again, in Indian languages we sometimes discover that wives and wives7 sisters are designated by the same kinship term; and that brotherfe and male cousins are designated by the same term; and sisters and female cousins are designated by the same term; and many similar facts appear as linguistic phenomena. Such are the reasons that make this subject so attractive to the students of Indian society and language and call for its elaborate treatment here. In the seventeeth schedule of the next chapter there is presented a series of questions the answers to which will give the kinship terms used in any language for which the record is made. The answers will also afford all of the facts necessary to determine the system of kinship classification belonging to the language. To assist the student in filling out the schedule four charts have been prepared, and accompany this volume. In charts numbered I, II, and III, the kindred are grouped about a central person, designated as u Self," on Chart No. I. Chart No. II belongs properly on the left of Chart No. I and is a continuation of it In like manner Chart No. I l l is a continuation of Chart No. I to the right. With " Self" the following classes of kinships may exist: 1. RELATIVES.- Consanguineal kindred, those which arise from genetic kinship. \ |