Part of a series on the
Anthropology of kinship
Basic concepts Family Lineage Affinity Consanguinity Marriage Incest taboo Endogamy Exogamy Moiety Monogamy Polygyny Polygamy Concubinage Polyandry Bride price Bride service Dowry Parallel / cross cousins Cousin marriage Levirate Sororate Posthumous marriage Joking relationship Clan Cohabitation Fictive / Milk / Nurture kinship Descent Cognatic / Bilateral Matrilateral Lineal Collateral House society Avunculate Linealities Ambilineality Unilineality Matrilineality Patrilineality Household forms and residence Extended Matrifocal Matrilocal Neolocal Nuclear Patrilocal
Terminology Kinship terminology Classificatory terminologies By group Iroquois Crow Omaha Eskimo (Inuit) Hawaiian Sudanese Dravidian (debated)
Case studies Australian Aboriginal Burmese Chinese Philippine Polyandry in Tibet / in India Feminist Chambri Mosuo Sexuality Coming of Age in Samoa
Major theorists Diane Bell Tom Boellstorff Jack Goody Gilbert Herdt Don Kulick Roger Lancaster Louise Lamphere Eleanor Leacock Claude Lévi-Strauss Bronisław Malinowski Margaret Mead Henrietta Moore Lewis H. Morgan Stephen O. Murray Michelle Rosaldo Gayle Rubin David M. Schneider Marilyn Strathern
Related articles Alliance theory Matrilineal / matrilocal societies Feminist anthropology Sex and Repression in Savage Society Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship "The Traffic in Women"
Social anthropology Cultural anthropology
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Crow kinship is a kinship system used to define family. Identified by Lewis Henry Morgan in his 1871 work Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, the Crow system is one of the six major kinship systems (Eskimo, Hawaiian, Iroquois, Crow, Omaha, and Sudanese).^[1]

Kinship system

The system is somewhat similar to the Iroquois system, but distinguishes between the mother's side and the father's side. Relatives on the mother's side of the family have more descriptive terms, and relatives on the father's side have more classificatory terms.

The Crow system is distinctive because unlike most other kinship systems, it chooses not to distinguish between certain generations. The relatives of the subject's father's matrilineage are distinguished only by their sex, regardless of their age or generation. In contrast, within Ego's own matrilineage, differences of generation are noted. The system is associated with groups that have a strong tradition of matrilineal descent. In doing so, the system is almost a mirror image of the Omaha system, which is patrilineal.

As with the Iroquois system, the Crow uses bifurcate merging, meaning that there is a distinction between collateral relatives of different gender in Ego's descent group. In this case, father's brother would be called "father's brother", and mother's brother would be called "uncle".^[2] Only the Iroquois system uses bifurcate merging as a secondary name.

Usage

The system is named for the Crow Tribe of Montana. The system appears frequently among various cultures. In the Southwestern US, it has traditionally been part of the Hopi Indian culture and the Navajo Nation.