 For example, whereas he had earlier translated the Kwakiutl word "numaym" as "clan", he now argued that the word is best understood as referring to a bundle of privileges, for which there is no English word.Men secured claims to these privileges through their parents or wives, and there were a variety of ways these privileges could be acquired, used, and transmitted from one generation to the next.As in his work on alternating sounds, Boas had come to realize that different ethnological interpretations of Kwakiutl kinship were the result of the limitations of Western categories.