‘_Systems_’. Abstractly considered, it is conceivable that every individual relative might be designated by a different term of relationship by every other individual, just as each object in nature might theoretically be defined by some distinctive word instead of being placed in some such category as ‘tree’, ‘animal’, or ‘book’. Indeed, primitive people go rather far in their distinctions. Thus, in the Menomini family circle boys are not called ‘son’ or ‘brother’, but each is addressed by a word indicating the order of his birth, the oldest being ‘mudjikiwis’, the second ‘osememau’, the third ‘akotcosememau’, the fourth ‘nanaweo’.[2] But in this, as in every other department of language, economy has been exercised and instead of a chaotic number of distinct terms for every possible relationship, there is always a limited series, many distinct individual relationships being always grouped together under a single head. Thus, in English we apply the word ‘brother’ to a number of individuals regardless of their age relatively to ourselves or to one another and irrespective of the sex of the speaker. Yet, as the Menomini instance shows, the age distinction might very well have been expressed in speech and there are many Indian languages in which one set of terms is used by female and another by male speakers. All the terms used by a people to designate their relatives by blood or marriage are jointly called their ‘kinship system’. This phrase is wholly misleading, if it is understood to imply that all the constituent elements form a well-articulated whole, for this probably never applies to more than a limited number of them, as will appear presently. But as a convenient word for the entire nomenclature of relationship found in a particular region the word ‘system’ may be provisionally retained. We may say, then, that systems of different peoples vary in their mode of classifying kin and it seems the ethnographer’s first duty to determine the types of system found and their geographical distribution.