#uzume was the daughter of a merchant

[sennokami]

* the uchiha clan & avoiding the hapsburg chin.

“The Uchiha Clan is at least five centuries old. Perhaps even older. Record-keeping is, unfortunately, a thankless task that often only gives up its rewards long after one has passed. But our blood is an old one, dating back to the emergence of chakra and ninshu.”

- Uchiha Kyoko, Blood Keeper, Year 3 of the 6th Century.

The Uchiha clan divides its members by five main bloodlines (there was a sixth, but unfortunately, that line went extinct in the 3rd Century after feuding within the clan). Some say that these bloodlines can be traced back to the original sons of Indra, but that’s just pure conjecture. In order of prestige, the lines are:

- Naga (1st son of Indra, married Princess Oto-hime) - Arashi (2nd son of Indra, married Uzume) - Taira (3rd son of Indra, married unknown) - Yume (4th son of Indra, married unknown) - Sena (5th son of Indra, married Hisame) - Hijin (6th son of Indra, married unknown)

In an official capacity, these names mean nothing. But when it comes to breeding, they mean everything. It’s the main way to trace broad tracts of who relates to who and, subsequently, who can marry who.

The matter is both simple and complex. The broad strokes of it is that bloodline clans need to walk the tightrope balance of just enough blood purity to maintain their kekkai genkai, while strenuously avoiding in-breeding.

“Third eyes, horn protrusions, albinism, and mutations in the chakra are one of the many defects an Uchiha child can be born with if his or her parents are too closely related. There was the highest spike of this in the latter half of the 2nd Century, likely due to a poor understanding of genetics and dwindling clan numbers. In those barbaric times, such abominations were given to the hunting dogs. Now, we only drown them.”

- Uchiha Hitomi, Blood Keeper, Year 89 of the 4th Century

Oftentimes, children are given different categories of cousins. There are the cousins who are close, and therefore may only be one’s friends, and the cousins who are far, who are eligible marriage prospects. The tradition is ‘seven generation split’, where one’s blood is removed by seven different generations from another Uchiha (rendering them safe to marry). Of course, some people risk it and marry closer than they should, but everyone else’s caution ensures that defective offspring are minimal.

(And they’ve stopped drowning them. Euthanasia is kinder.)

Uchiha Madara’s birth is considered rather ‘low’ in the clan (Sena’s line, his great-great-great grandfather was a bastard adopted into the clan, born by a runaway). Again, its ultimately unimportant compared to his personal merit, but it’s also not uncommon to point to one’s place on the blood hierarchy and posit conclusions from it.