Kinship, Family, and Social Organization

Both the Dakota and the Nakota lived in unstratified bands or villages whose internal composition was based largely on kinship ties. Some families were more prosperous than others, and differences in material prosperity became more marked with the widespread introduction of horses after the middle of the eighteenth century. The ownership of horses was a mark of prosperity in itself and also a means of acquiring and transporting other valued belongings. But material prosperity was esteemed only to the extent that it was accompanied by generosity. Liberality was required of the chief and his family and was the most important way for other families to demonstrate their standing in the community. Thus, material goods were constantly redistributed and permanent distinctions of wealth were levelled out.

Generosity was, and is, the highest social virtue among the Dakota and Nakota, just as stinginess and meanness are the worst vices. A Dakota from Saskatchewan visiting a relative in Manitoba in 1972 described how he had spent half the morning at his kinsman’s home without being offered so much as a cup of the coffee which the woman of the house was preparing in his presence. Where a Euro-Canadian might find such an episode laughable (even the Dakota narrator, a skilled raconteur, highlighted the ludicrousness of the episode), the Dakota who heard (and richly enjoyed) the narrative were horrified by conduct that they regarded as shameful and incomprehensible. It went beyond mere discourtesy or personal eccentricity and suggested a deep moral deficiency. This pairing of straight-faced comical narration and themes of deep moral significance is characteristic of traditional storytelling among the Siouans.

Marriage was forbidden between persons who were known to be closely related, and there was a strong tendency towards bands and village exogamy. The newly married couple might camp near the bride’s family for some time, especially if the couple was relatively young or the girl’s parents needed their economic assistance. After the early years of marriage, the place of residence was at the couple’s discretion.

Social behaviour within the residential group was largely dictated by kinship norms. Tensions and potential conflict within the family were managed by patterns of compulsory avoidance and joking. Both men and women practised avoidance towards their parents-in-law. They were not supposed to talk to each other except in case of necessity. Brothers- and sisters-in-law, on the other hand, observed a “joking” relationship. Most of this took the form of verbal teasing – often rising to the level of an art form – which provided a sanctioned outlet for the tensions arising from the unremitting closeness of relationships among people who held often conflicting claims on one another’s loyalties. Both avoidance and joking are still observed as norms of conduct; however, the former is much less stringent than it once was, and the latter, being dependent on fluency in the language, is also on the wane.

The status of women was relatively high. The commonly held view of Indian women as “drudges” who toiled all day long while their men idled reflects a Euro-Canadian bias. The native people did not view necessary work as drudgery. Men’s hunting and raiding were high-intensity activities that took them away from the village or encampment for periods lasting from several days to several months. Women’s work tended to be more evenly spaced. They and their older children provisioned the household with firewood and water and harvested vegetable foods during the appropriate seasons. They performed all the work involved in processing meat and fat and in preparing hides, as well as in the manufacture of clothing and footgear and the construction of the tipi and its accessories. The economic contribution of the women was essential to the group’s survival, especially in the northern areas, where the labour of every able-bodied adult was required for year-round survival. The skills and efficiency of the women of a family could make all the difference between a comfortable living and indigence or starvation.

A woman’s life between puberty and menopause was strongly affected by her procreative role. It was believed that the powers associated with sexuality and procreation were incompatible with the powers associated with warfare and medical practice, and both men and women governed themselves accordingly. Women separated themselves during menstruation and childbirth and avoided all contact with equipment associated with warfare and curing, while men observed sexual continence before embarking on war parties or major ceremonial undertakings. Both men and women deferred seeking active medical attention for ailments until their procreative life was past its peak. This observance is still important to older Dakota, and the failure of Euro-Canadians to be sensitive to this concern can be a source of anxiety. Younger women no longer separate themselves from the family during their periods, but at such times they will avoid visiting elders who keep traditional medicines in their homes.

Kinship ties among the Dakota and the Nakota are wider than those in Euro-Canadian society and are intensely important for the individual throughout life. Kinship tends to influence a variety of practical choices: residence, occupation, personal allocation of time, allocation of duties within the family, caretaking of children, and so on. The traditional kinship vocabulary of the Dakota was extraordinarily complex and reflected a mechanism for uniting large numbers of people into a network of responsibilities and rights which extended beyond the local community or residential group. It enabled Dakota to relate themselves to most of the other Dakota they would encounter in their lifetime. Mother, mother’s sisters, and father’s brothers’ wives were all addressed by one term (iná), and another single term (até) was used for father, father’s brothers, and mother’s sisters’ husbands. The nuclear family was still of primary importance, but the extension of terms served to widen the sense of respect, affection, and mutual obligation beyond the circle of the immediate family. Father’s sisters and mother’s brothers’ wives were grouped under a single term (tuwí). Mother’s brothers and father’s sisters’ husbands belonged to one relationship category (deksí). One enjoyed a special relationship with each of these categories of relatives. Seven distinct terms were used for siblings and for sons and daughters of mother’s sisters and father’s brothers. These terms classified the relatives in question according to their age relative to the speaker, their sex, and the sex of the speaker. Four more terms classified the sons and daughters of one’s father’s sisters and mother’s brothers, according to their sex and the sex of the speaker. The fact that men and women used different kin terms for their siblings and cousins reflected the strong distinction between the sex roles within the social organization and the economy. Women and men were felt to have strongly different, but mutually balanced, spheres of influence and responsibility.