This paper examines what information about composition of the family can be found in birch bark manuscripts. The composition of the family is studied, firstly, as a household composition (relatives, who lived together) and, secondly, as a composition of a community which was thought of as a family because one supposedly perceived his/her relatives who lived separately as a part of his/her family. In order to determine the household composition, the author places birch bark documents in the archeological context and studies the intra-familial correspondence. The author concludes that in the 14th and early 15th century there existed different types of family as a household, both nuclear and extended. In the part of the work dedicated to the perception of the family, the terms that could denote a group of relatives, which is known today as family, are studied. The author draws a conclusion that the term family does not occur in birch bark letters. In other sources the word family in the “modern” meaning has appeared since the 14th century. The terms clan and trib e found in birch bark letters dating to the time under consideration definitely had a broader meaning than the modern term family .
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