siOBX; - Smithsonian Institution

SWANTON] CHOCTAW SOCIAL AND CEEEMONIAL. LIFE 89
distinct terms for her husband's brother and her husband's sister.
While the use of these terms was probably somewhat extended, I
find few cases. The mother's brother's wife was, however, called by
the same term as the brother's wife. The term most restricted in its
use seems to have been that applied by a woman to her husband's
sister.
There are traces of a reciprocal use of terms. Thus ipok is ordinarily
used in the sense of " his granddaughter," while if one wants
to say " his grandson," nakni, the word for male, is added, anid
ippokni, grandmother, seems to be based upon this.
In the tables given above a few points are still somewhat obscure,
but it is not unlikely that usage also differed, because more than one
term of relationship was often applicable to the same person. Thus
one authority calls the father's sister's daughter ippokni (woman
speaking) or i°hulmi (man speaking), the term used for the
father's sister, and her husband imafo, " grandfather," which is
also the term for the father's sister's husband ; but a second author-
ity uses the terms ishki, " mother," and i°ki, " father," respectively.
If we had satisfactory examples of two more generations of the
father's sister's descendants we should probably find that the chil-
dren of the father's sister's son's daughter and the father's sister's
daughter's son and daughter would be called iso and iso tek and
that their children would be numbered with the ipok and ipok nakni.
On the other hand the descendants of the father's sister's son in
the male line all appear to have been called i°ki, " fathers." In
both of these cases we find the terms running straight across iksa
and moiety lines.
Most of these terms had a more extended application. Those for
grandfather and grandmother covered all ancestors and all indi-
viduals of the same generation as the grandfather and grand-
mother, at least those closely related to them. Unless limited in
some way of which we now have no knowledge, it would extend to
the boundaries of the tribe. In such cases it is usual to find that
the unmodified word is original. As noted above, ippokni, " grand-
mother," resembles ipok rather closely, but imafo, " grandfather,"
does not, and so it seems possible that ipok and ippokni were differ-
entiated from the same original word. As has been suggested,
i"hukni may also be derived from it.
However, the Choctaw have evolved a new device for indicating
reciprocal relationships. This does not define them minutely but
merely sets off the older from the younger speaker, or rather the one
entitled to the term belonging to the elder generation from the one
54564—31 7