Rules of Residence and Ecology Among the Northern Ojibwa1

Abstract

IN DEALING with societies at or near the subsistence level of economic production, Steward proposed hypothesis the size of the band and the extent of the territory utilized are determined largely by ecological factors (1936:343). In testing his hypothesis on historical data from the Basin-Plateau Shoshoni and Paiute groups, he found the concept of band and land ownership too rigid to hold but his data validated the thesis of the interdependence of ecology with the demographic form and social system (1938). Moreover, Hallowell has called for dynamic analysis of the social system in terms of factors, including noncultural ones, beyond those of ... cultural description, the of geographic distribution and problems of historical depth and continuity (1949:36). My purpose in entering the discussion is to present some current ethnographic data which concur with Steward's ecological hypothesis, and to carry the analysis further in the direction called for by Hallowell, i.e. a type of investigation which goes beyond the bare ethnographic facts (1949:44). Residence rules are an important sociological aspect of society, particularly in societies such as the northeastern Algonkian groups in which linearity is only minimally expressed. That is to say, this type of social system, often lacking gens organization, does not express much unilinearity in its descent group structure beyond of the normal domestic group based on kinship. Moreover, if explicit structural linearity is lacking, greater emphasis might normally be placed on other social institutions, one of which is residence rules. The ethnographic literature of the northeastern Algonkian region presents an apparently conflicting view of residence patterns. Only Strong (1929:286) stated explicitly (of the Naskapi) it was impossible to generalize about rules of residence. Skinner, speaking of the Ojibwa groups in the area of the English River (including Lac Seul, Fort Hope, and Osnaburgh Bands), suggests since some persons reside matrilocally and others patrilocally, the only rule is of neolocal residence (1911). Speck says of the Temiskaming Ojibwa residence was definitely patrilocal (1915). Landes says of the Emo Ojibwa that . .. apparently individual preferences or exigencies are the deciding factor. Where marriage was endogamous in the village, questions of matrilocality or patrilocality of course did not arise. Often there was an initial temporary matrilocal residence, followed by temporary patrilocal residence, followed by independent residence, possibly neighboring either the paternal or maternal home (1937:76). More recently Leacock (1955), speaking of the