Kinship and Social OrganisationRivers, W. H. R. (William Halse Rivers)
General
Kinship and Social Organisation
Rivers, W. H. R. (William Halse Rivers)
Anthropology; Consanguinity; Ethnology -- Melanesia; Marriage
The case for the former existence of the cross-cousin marriage will be
much strengthened if this form of marriage should occur elsewhere in
North America. So far as I am aware, the only people among whom it has
been recorded are the Haidahs of Queen Charlotte Island.[27] It is
a far cry from this outpost of North American culture to Dakota, but
it may be noted that it is among the Crees who formerly lived in the
intermediate region of Manitoba and Assiniboia that the traces of the
cross-cousin marriage are most definite. This mode of distribution of
the peoples whose terminology of relationship bears evidence of the
cross-cousin marriage suggests that other intermediate links may yet
be found. Though the existing evidence is inconclusive, it should be
sufficient to stimulate a search for other evidence which may make it
possible to decide whether or no the cross-cousin marriage was once a
widespread practice in North America.
[27] Swanton, _Contributions to the Ethnology of the Haidahs, Jesup
North Pacific Expedition_, 1905, vol. v., pt. i., p. 62. Miss
Freire-Marreco tells me that the cross-cousin marriage occurs among
some of the Hopi Indians.
I can only consider one other kind of marriage here. The discovery of
so remarkable a union as that with the daughter’s daughter in Pentecost
and the evidence pointing to a still more remarkable marriage between
those having the status of grandparent and grandchild in Fiji and
Buin have naturally led me to look for similar evidence elsewhere
in Melanesia. Though there is nothing conclusive, conditions are to
be found here and there which suggest the former existence of such
marriages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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