What is the depiction of familial relationships in Go Down, Moses?

William Faulkner's "Go Down Moses" is a group of related
short stories or an episodic novel dealing with the McCaslin family. As in many of
Faulkner's works, the southern system of family is inextricably tied with the system of
slavery and the ubiquity of misegenation. Uncharacteristically, Native American
traditions are invoked in the relationship of the family to the
land.

One of the central points about the McCaslin family
is that after generations of affairs between masters and slaves, blood and kinship ties
are blended across racial boundaries. There are actually two families, one black and one
white bearing McCaslin blood, and only in the final chapters are the two brought back
into tentative harmony. The question of what it is to be a McCaslin is complicated by
the fact that the people who display the most characteristic McCaslin traits are
partially black.