Statistical Marriage Preferences Of Ramah Navajos.

Marriage into a father's clan is statistically infrequent. The first choice in a given generation is random, and the subsequent choices are systematically determined by the first. However, there is a certain amount of "play" or slippage in the system so that in larger sibling groups, at least, one or two siblings tend to be married into clans different from their brothers and sisters. The evidence indicates that in a given generation, alliances may be formed significantly often with more than one clan, and that two or more groups of marrying siblings do not recruit randomly from all sibling groups in the given generation. In other words, the distinction between mothers is not irrelevant. Tables. Endnotes. Bibliography.