Historical Changes in the Osage Kinship System

Abstract

N 1862 two Osage kinship schedules, one from a male and one from a female, were collected for Lewis H. Morgan.1 With one exception2 no further attention was given to Osage kinship until the summer of 1950 when the data which is herein presented was gathered in Osage County, Oklahoma, by the writer, in a series of contacts with the Osage, a Siouan-speaking people. Before entering the field the writer had planned to use the genealogical method of collecting kinship data and to use five men and five women of over sixty-five years as informants. In practice the genealogical method proved to be untenable because many of the older Osage would not call a dead relative by name, and those who would were afraid that a genealogical survey would possibly result in controversies over the inheritance of headrights. Many of the older Osages who were interviewed did not speak English, and the use of an interpreter was not feasible. Other older members were reluctant to co6perate on such short acquaintance. Nine informants were finally chosen: six women and three men. The sample, while not strictly random, was taken to be representative, a condition suggested by the general similarity of the schedules. Interviews were intensive and were recorded in the presence of the informant. Formally the interviews consisted of collecting kinship terminology. As an informal derivative, non-directed information was obtained on behavioral patterns in ordinary and crisis situations. From all of the schedules (including Morgan's) an older ideal kinship system was reconstructed on the assumption that all relationships were reciprocal: the system was stable. Morgan's data were given preferential weighting because they were more contemporaneous with aboriginal social conditions. When the ideal system was completed, each of the ten schedules was compared with the ideal system and deviations were analysed. The system was then analysed in terms of the behavioral data.