COMMENT ON GERMAN DZIEBEL

Abstract

German Dziebel considers it more likely that the Crow-Omaha terminologies derive from terminologies that already have the vertical skewing associated with the Crow-Omaha terminologies than from terminologies without such a property. Thus, he argues, the horizontal skewing of genealogical relations that is characteristic of the Iroquois terminologies makes them unlikely candidates for being the kind of terminology from which Crow-Omaha terminologies originated. Vertical skewing does occur with self-reciprocal kin terms, and for this reason Dziebel posits that the Crow-Omaha terminologies had their origin in terminologies with self-reciprocal kin terms. While Dziebel is correct that the Iroquois terminologies lack vertical skewing, vertical skewing is introduced by simply adding the equation, ’son’ of ‘maternal uncle’ = ‘maternal uncle’ to an Iroquois terminology, along with its logical implications for kin terms relations, to derive an Omaha terminology, or add the equation ‘daughter’ of ‘sister of father’ = ‘sister of father’ to derive a Crow terminology. One of these equations may have been added to the kinship terminology of a group with an Iroquois terminology when unilineal descent groups were introduced into the social organization of that group since the added equation would resolve what otherwise would be structural inconsistency between an Iroquois terminology and the introduced unilineal descent groups.