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THE BILOXI
The tribal organization of this people has disappeared. When the few survivors were visited by the author at Lecompte, Louisiana, in 1892 and 1893, they gave him the names of three of the clans of the Biloxi, descent being reckoned in the female line. These clans are: 1, Ita aⁿyadi, Deer people; 2, Oⁿʇi aⁿyadi, Bear people; 3, Naqotodc̷a aⁿyadi, Alligator people. Most of the survivors belong to the Deer clan. The kinship system of the Biloxi is more complicated that that of any other tribe of the stock; in fact, more than that of any of the
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tribes visited by the author. The names of 53 kinship groups are still remembered, but there are at least a dozen others whose names have been forgotten. Where the C̸egiha language, for example, has but one term for grandchild and one grandchild group, the Biloxi has at least fourteen. In the ascending series the Dakota and C̸egiha do not have any terms beyond grandfather and grandmother. But for each sex the Biloxi has terms for at least three degrees beyond the grandparent. The C̸egiha has but one term for father's sister and one for mother's brother, father's brother being "father," and mother's sister "mother." But the Biloxi has distinct terms (and groups) for father's elder sister, father's younger sister, father's elder brother, father's younger brother, and so on for the mother's elder and younger brothers and sisters. The Biloxi distinguishes between an elder sister's son and the son of a younger sister, and so between the daughter of an elder sister and a younger sister's daughter. A Biloxi man may not marry his wife's brother's daughter, nor his wife's father's sister, differing in this respect from a Dakota, an Omaha, a Ponka, etc; but he can marry his deceased wife's sister. A Biloxi woman may marry the brother of her deceased husband. Judging from the analogy furnished by the Kansa tribe it was very probably the rule before the advent of the white race that a Biloxi man could not marry a woman of his own clan.
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