refers to a person of either sex whose father belonged to the same clan as the speaker’s father, but is never used for a member of the speaker’s own clan. . . . Between two men the relationship is one of excessive intimacy and license. Like two brothers, they hunt and fish together, and have the right to ask each other for articles of property. When one is in trouble, the other comes to his assistance. If one contemplates an adventure or lark of any kind, e.g., to keep a tryst with a pair of unmarried girls, he will ask his athlnungkas to accompany him in preference to anyone else. The most striking feature of the relationship is the license it permits. The two men play practical jokes upon one another. Like college roommates amongst ourselves, they heap insults and scurrilous language upon each other without ever taking offense. One will even, in jest, employ the most potent rites of black magic against the other in the latter’s presence. The joking does not cease even on the deathbed. In one reported case, for instance, a younger man, while visiting his aged athlnungkas as the latter lay seriously ill, happened to notice some attractive food and immediately offered aloud a prayer for his friend’s speedy demise so that he himself might enjoy the victuals. In Skidegate this license, though prevalent, does not go to quite such extremes as in Masset and Hydaburg.

Between women the relationship is much less prominent, but a similar license in a milder form does prevail. Between a man and a woman liberties are inhibited between the puberty and marriage of the latter by a tabu similar to that between brother and sister. After the woman’s marriage, however, at least in Masset, a moderate amount of joking, unconventional language, and even physical intimacy is allowed.¹

¹Murdockn/an/an/an/an/an/a, , 369.