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“Defensive systems against anxiety are the stuff that culture is made of."  In order to relieve these existential anxieties and meet their perceived needs for survival on the Great Plains, the Kiowa-Apache created a defensive system grounded in a web of kinship relationships.  It was designed to "fit" the environment of the treeless Plains, being unconsciously shaped by infrastructural forces of the environment which the apostle Paul called "the elemental forces of the world/environment" (Col. 2:8 --Holman). 

 

Excluding grandparents and grandchildren,  the Kiowa-Apache “super-family” or web of kinship relationships illustrated below consisted of thirty-six members, thirty more than the Biblical family of six.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

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The Kiowa-Apache “super-family” construct represents a 400% increase in rights, duties, and obligations all which are ascribed. But it was also followed with a  complementary decrease in voluntary action and the freedom to have an intimate relationship with one's spouse.  

 

Excluding the second ascending generation, namely, FaFaBrSo, FaFaSiSo, FaMoSiSo, FaMoBrSo, and MoMoSiDa, MoMoBrDa, MoFaSiDa, MoFaBrDa, anthropologist McAllister lists thirty collateral relatives which were classified as family members.  They are:

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• Five collateral relative called "father," ace: FaBr, FaFaBrSo, FaFaSiSo, FaMoSiSo, FaMoBrSo.

• Five collateral relative called "mother,"  nade: MoSi, (MoMoSiDa, MoMoBrDa, MoFaSiDa, MoFaBrDa).

• Five collateral relatives called "older brother," daran: MoBrSo, MoSiSo, FaBrSo, FaSiSo.  (The same for tlaan, younger brother.)

• Five collateral relatives called "older sister," dadan: MoBrDa, MoSiDa,  FaBrDa, FaSiDa.  (The same for  detcan, ‘younger sister’) 

• Five collateral relatives called "sons," jaan: BrSo, FaBrSoSo, FaSiSoSo, MoSiSoSo, MoBrSoSo.

• Five collateral relatives called "daughters" tceyan: BrDa, FaBrSoDa, FaSiSoDa, MoSiSoDa, MoBrSoDa. 

 

Now whenever a society rejects the Universal (the nuclear family) and decides to go its own way, it must, of necessity, create a new kind of family.  This it accomplishes by merging mutually exclusive concepts like sons and nephews, daughters and nieces, siblings and cousins, fathers and uncles, and mothers and aunts as illustrated in the Kiowa-Apache kinship system above.  In so doing, however,  there are some serious negative effects which need to be taken into account. 

  

From a top-down, outside-in perspective, some of the social cost of restructuring the nuclear family by replacing the husband-wife dyad with that of brother-brother along with  the merging of mutually exclusive concepts are: 

 

• A life-way which destroys parent-child intimacy.  According to McAllister, "A child usually loves and respects his parents but is not intimate with them."

• A life-way that replaces father-son intimacy with mother's brother-nephew intimacy.  Again, according  to McAllsiter,  "The relationship between a mother's brother and sister's child is one of friendly intimacy. ...The mother's brother takes a great deal of interest in the training of a sister's son, teaching him to shoot and taking him hunting.  ..If a child is in trouble, he is more likely to go to his mother's brother than to his parents,' for he knows that his uncle will not refuse him."

• A life-way in which "the most intimate behavior, the closest feelings of unity, is between siblings of the same sex,...loyalty on the part of brothers is cited as a reason for loving a brother more than a wife."  In adapting to the harsh conditions  of  life on the Great Plains, the Kiowa-Apache restructured the nuclear family and replaced the husband-wife dyad with that of brother-brother.

• A life-way in which a man never uses his wife's name and she never uses his. "Life would be short if I called my wife by her name."  The rule existed to prevent husband-wife intimacy from developing. 

• A life-way that says: "Loving grandparents more than love for parents" is the norm.

• A life-way that demands complete mother-in-law avoidance.  "A man would never touch his mother-in-law, look at her, talk to her, call her name, or be alone with her in a tipi." The rule suggest that there exists a jealousy triangle in which mothers-in-laws and sons-in-law are competing for the allegiance of the conflicted daughter-wife. 

 

Summary

 

Husband-wife Intimacy.  Now if the life-way of the Kiowa-Apache was to survive, then the Kiowa-       Apache had to create cultural forms that would  prevent husband-wife intimacy from developing,     forms like replacing the use of one's spouses name with a teknonymn like mother or father of         (first born child).

   

Web of Kinship. The effect of rejecting the Orders of Creation was a society dependent on a Web of      Kinship relationships on earth and the sun in the heavens to meet its needs.  The result?            Cultural stultification. 

 

Choices in history.   At some point in history, the Kiowa-Apache rejected the Divine Script for Living      "written on their hearts" and let their life-way be shaped by the "elemental forces of the           environment" in which they lived.  But the created life-way did not "accord with Christ." 

 

Escaping the "prison of disobedience."  A strong husband-wife bond would eventually free the              nuclear family from cultural forms which had imprisoned them, forms shaped by "the elementary      forces of the environment." 

 

Bible translation.  The Kiowa-Apache would be shocked to read what the Word of God declared:              "Older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children" (Titus         2:4). Such action would destroy the web and set them free.