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Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner
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Historical SummaryIn America adoption was prevalent but the attitudes were different from the Melanesian and more related to family, sib, and tribal organization. There was among the Indians a strong feeling about the replacement of lost members. In the narrative of his captivity Tanner says that his capture (as a boy of nine) was brought about by the complaint of the wife of a chief that she could not live unless he brought back her youngest son, who had recently died.3 This was an intimation that he should capture a boy of the same age. Tanner relates also that an Indian mother proposed to adopt a young Indian who had murdered her son in a drunken brawl.4 The Indians had also the idea that the dead reappeared in some child born somewhat later and resembling the deceased in physical features, and this point of view led them also to adopt any available child resembling a recently deceased relative:
The Omaha idea of adoption differs from ours. A member of the same gens or one who is a consanguinity cannot be adopted; he or she is received by a relation. . . . Adoption is called "ciegice," to take a person instead of one’s own child. This is done when the adopted person resembles the deceased child, grandchild, nephew, or niece, in one or more features. It takes place without any ceremony. An uncle by adoption has all the rights of a real uncle. For example, when Mr. La Flesche’s daughter Susette wished to go to the Indian Territory to accept a situation as teacher, and had gained the consent of her parents, Two-crows interposed, being her uncle by adoption, and forbade her departure.5
3Tanner, J.n/an/an/an/an/a, , 25–26.
4Ibid., 243–244.
5 Dorsey, J. O., "Omaha Sociology," Bur. Amer. Ethnol., Ann. Rep., 3: 265.
Chicago: Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. Thomas, William I. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937), Original Sources, accessed November 25, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B16LKDGMTAJ2F9Q.
MLA: . Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner, in Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, edited by Thomas, William I., New York, McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., 1937, Original Sources. 25 Nov. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B16LKDGMTAJ2F9Q.
Harvard: , Narrative of the Captivity and Adventures of John Tanner. cited in 1937, Primitive Behavior: An Introduction to the Social Sciences, ed. , McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., New York. Original Sources, retrieved 25 November 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=B16LKDGMTAJ2F9Q.
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