Ojibwa - Kinship



Kin Groups and Descent. Except for the Northern Ojibwa, Ojibwa society was divided into numerous exogamous totemic clans. Among the nineteenth-century southwestern Chippewa in Minnesota there were twenty-three such clans, groups of which were linked and divided into five phratries. Clan membership was reckoned patrilineally.

Kinship Terminology. Ojibwa kinship terminology followed the Iroquois pattern. Parallel cousins were merged terminologically with siblings and cross cousins were classed separately. Parallel aunts and uncles were merged terminologically by sex with mother and father and cross aunts and uncles were classed separately.

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