A. Blood Lines, Common Mythological Ancestor
Taboos:
With regard to Athapaskan language groups, Driver has
offered the following norm: "When two or more lineages are
thought to be related by a ficticious or traditional bond,
such as a belief in common descent from a mythical ancestor,
and when marriage between persons in these lineages is
forbidden on the same grounds, the group of lineages
constitutes a ‘sib’ "(Driver 244). Hence marriage was not
just governed by blood lines, but could also be constructed
by mythological connections or lack thereof.
Bourgeois notes in his edition of Ojibwa Narratives
that " Although aboriginal Ojibwa were egalitarian and
classless, there were people of prestige who achieved
special acknowledgment as orators, religious leaders, or
warriors. As part of each individual’s identity, everyone
belonged to a designated clan, with marriage required into a
different clan (although children belonged to the clan of
their father). Certain clans, moreover, were linked as
phratries providing one another with special hospitality and
mutual assistance." (p.12) Most of the material for his
collection comes from old Kawbawgam and his wife Charlotte,
who were looking back to a time before the destruction of
the fur trade in the 1830’s.
B. Incest Taboos:
Relational Law was also constituted by taboos…norms
establishing who one could not marry. Driver provides the
most succinct explanation:
Incest was universally tabooed in Indian North
America. Nowhere was mating or marriage tolerated
between father and daughter, mother and son, or brother
and sister. Marriage with certain first cousins was
permitted and even preferred among a small number of
tribes, but … these cousins are not regarded as genetic
relatives Incest taboos were often automatically
extended by the meaning of the terms for kin in the many
Indian languages. For example, if the word for ‘sister’
included all of a man’s female cousins, as it actually
did for many tribes, marriage with cousins would
normally be forbidden by extension of the incest taboo
from sister to cousin. The same principle applies to
other relationships. Where sibs exist, an individual has
a large number of fictitious or traditional relatives
who may actually be unrelated to him [at least by our
genetic understanding]. Nevertheless, such traditional
relationships are a bar to marriage, and a man must look
for a mate outside his sib" (Driver 226-227).
C. Preferred Partner:
There were a number of aspects that impacted upon mate
choice. We have already seen that cousins provide the most
acceptable arena to search for a mate. Yet the category is
not cousin from the meaning of the English terms, as Driver
indicates: "From the point of view of a man looking for a
wife, there are four kinds of female cousins: his father’s
brother’s daughters; his father’s sister’s daughters; his
mother’s brother’s daughters; his mother’s sister’s
daughters … the first and last types of cousins are
sometimes grouped together … ‘parallel cousins’[sex being
the same]. The second and third type are called
‘cross-cousins’ [sex being different]" (Driver 227). Further
east to the Cree and Ojibwa … although marriages with both
kinds of first cross-cousins were permitted, they were less
frequent than those with more remote cousins (Driver 229).
In a very old source, we find the following indication
that tribal intermarriage took place quite regularly. Here,
it is evident that the fur trade and the impact of white
systems was altering marriage patterns, but as Hind notes,
it did not modify the basic structures of marriage;
relational law was maintained despite this infusion of new
marriage partners:
One result of the active pursuit of the fur trade
for upwards of a century in the valley of the
Saskatchewan, is seen in blending of the different
tribes in intermarriage. The Crees of the Plains and the
Ojibways and Swampys of the Woods, although speaking
different languages, are often found hunting the buffalo
in company, and not infrequently form family
connections. The Ojibways of Lake Winnipeg may now be
discovered, summer and winter, near the Grand forks of
the Saskatchewan, having emigrated four hundred miles
west of Red River, where all the, where they have
permanently established themselves.
All the Ojibways now found west of the Lake of the
Woods, and the east coast of Lake Winnipeg are invaders
of the country. The real home of the Ojibways is the
region about the south, west, and north of Lake
Superior. Their habits of life have changed with the
character of the country the emigrants or invaders now
occupy. They are no longer dependent upon the forest for
their supply of food and clothing; but many of them on
the banks of the Assiniboine, Red River, Lake Manitobah,
and Dauphin Lake, and on the west flank of the Riding
and Duck Mountains, possess horses, and join the
half-breeds in their annual spring and fall hunts.
Notwithstanding this intercourse and blending of
different nations, most of the superstitions and customs
peculiar to each are still maintained and practiced
(Hind 1859: 110).
Moreover he points out that, "The Cree norm is patrilocal/sororal
polygynous, meaning further wives are usually sisters…a
number of Plains tribes had no other form. A man in this
society was especially anxious to acquire an elder sister as
a first mate, with an eye on acquiring her younger sisters
if and when he could afford them."(231)
There is one caveat to this notion, and that is the myth
among the Ojibwa of a first wife who died, but who came back
to haunt her sister, who was taken by the young man after
his wife’s death. The story tells of the ghost luring her
sister away into the forest and eventually pushing her into
a fire where she was burned to death. The myth is recorded
as the basis for marrying a sister after the death of the
wife; Charlotte Kawbawgam claims it is the basis of
reluctance to marry the sister following the death of the
first wife. (Kawabawgam, "The Sister’s Ghost", in Ojibwa
Narratives, 91)
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