_Ni-kis'-ta._

My elder brother _Nis'-ah_

My younger brother _Nis-kun'._

My older sister _Nin'-sta._

My younger sister _Ni-sis'-ah._

My uncle _Nis'-ah._

My aunt _Ni-kis'-ta._

My cousin, male Same as brother.

My cousin, female Same as sister.

My grandfather _Na-ahks'._

My grandmother _Na-ahks'._

My father-in-law _Na-ahks'._

My mother-in-law _Na-ahks'._

My son _No-ko'-i._

My daughter _Ni-tun'._

My son-in-law _Nis'-ah._

My daughter-in-law _Ni-tot'-o-ke-man._

My brother-in-law older than self _Nis-tum-o'._

My brother-in-law younger than self _Nis-tum-o'-kun._

My sister-in-law _Ni-tot'-o-ke-man._

My second cousin _Nimp'-sa._

My wife _Nit-o-ke'-man._

My husband _No'-ma._

As the members of a gens were all considered as relatives, however remote,
there was a law prohibiting a man from marrying within his gens. Originally
this law was strictly enforced, but like many of the ancient customs it is
no longer observed. Lately, within the last forty or fifty years, it has
become not uncommon for a man and his family, or even two or three
families, on account of some quarrel or some personal dislike of the chief
of their own gens, to leave it and join another band. Thus the gentes often
received outsiders, who were not related by blood to the gens; and such
people or their descendants could marry within the gens. Ancestry became no
longer necessary to membership.

As a rule, before a young man could marry, he was required to have made
some successful expeditions to war against the enemy, thereby proving
himself a brave man, and at the same time acquiring a number of horses and
other property, which would enable him to buy the woman of his choice, and
afterwards to support her.

Marriages usually took place at the instance of the parents, though often
those of th