Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/30

20 Naga (serpent) king, wished to have an heir. Instead of marrying, he found a partner for his sister Djaratkarou. The sister s son succeeded. Compare Eowditch s Ashantce (p. 185), " Their extraordinary rule of succession excludes all children but those of a sister, and is founded on the argument that, if the wives of the brothers are faithless, the blood of the family is entirely lost in the offspring, but, should the daughters deceive their husbands, it is still pre served." In leaving this part of the subject we may ask, from what considerations, except those indicated by Bowditch, could the rule of inheritance by the mother s side have been derived 1 4. It has been shown that the actual practices of many barbarous races make the existence of the patriarchal, and still more of the monogamous family impossible, and that the traditions of the races called Aryan, with many frag ments of their customs, testify to a similar state of things in the past experiences of nations now organized on the basis of the family. We must now ask (1) Of what nature are the wider tribal associations of savages 1 (2) How did they come into existence 1 (3) Are there any vestiges of similar and similarly formed associations among peoples which now possess strict marriage and kinship through males? We find that the Australian black fellows and the red men of North America are grouped in local (riles, which generally are named from the lands they occupy, Thus, the Onondaga are people of the hills, the Mohawks people of the flint, the Senecas people of the great hills, the Oneidas people of the granite, and so forth (Morgan, League, of the Iroquois, 1851). In Australia the tribes take the names of districts, as Ballarat, Wandyalloch, and Moreton Bay. Within these local tribes there are smaller associations, variously called " clans," " families," " septs," tribes," by travellers. They are, as a rule, governed on this principle in Australia : " All the children take after the clan of their mother, and no man can marry a v.-oman of the same clan, although the parties be born of parents in no way related, according to our ideas" (G. S. Lang, Aboriginals of Australia, Melbourne, 18G5, p. 10; Gray s Journals, &c., ii. 227). These smaller associations v;hich may not intermarry arc named after some animal, vegetable, or other natural object. A member of the Kangaroo associations may not slay or cat the kangaroo, which he holds in honour, and a Paddymelon must abstain from paddymelon. The obvious result of this scheme of prohibited marriage is to make every local tribe contain much the same assortment of smaller communities. Look ing at North America, we find the local tribe of Senecas to be composed of sets of persons called by the name of Wolf, Bear, Turtle, Beaver, Deer, Snipe. Heron, Hawk, and many of the same names prevail among Cayugas, Oneidas, Mohawks, and the rest. Just as in Australia, no man may marry a woman of the same name, though she may have been born hundreds of miles away, and may be no sort of relation in our sense of the word. As in Australia, the animal or plant from which each associa tion takes its name is sacred; in America it is called the t otem. The oldest Iroquois totems seem, from many legend ary and political proofs, to have been Wolf, Bear, and Turtle (Morgan, Ancient Society, 1877, p. 70; see also M Lennan, Fortnightly Review, 1869-1870). Turning to Africa (Bowditch s Mission to Ashantce, p. 181), we read of similar institutions. Livingstone reports similar facts among the Bechwanas, Falkner among the Patagonians, Brooke among the Sea .Dyaks, and Garcilasso de la Vega among the lower races of Peru. The essential features of these associations and groups of kindred are, for our present purpose (1) Their in dubitable growth out of female kinship, and the rule which prohibits marriage between persons who are of the same name, and own descent from the same plant, animal, or thing ; (2) their existence as stocks of different blood in the same local tribe ; and (3) their acknowledgment of kin ship with, and of the duty to support in war, or to revenge, other members of the same name. (On this point, see Morgan, Ancient Society, p. 78. Compare also Ancient Society, p. 175, as to the Louchoux or Kutchin of the Tukon Piiver: " A man does not marry into his own class; . . . . the children belong to the grade of the mother; .... members of the same grade in the different tribes do not war with each other. ; ) For convenience of nomen clature, we shall call all such associations totem-kin. The word totem points to the peculiarity of supposed descent from some natural object which gives the name, and "kin" is more convenient than "group" or "clan," because the same totem and the same name cover many scattered groups. 5. The question now rises, Do we meet similar associa tions among civilised peoples who now possess the family? First we find Mr Hart of Canton saying (Ancient /Society, pp. 364, 365) : " In some parts of the country large villages are to be met with, in each of which there exists but one family name ; thus in one district will be found, say, three villages, each containing two or three thousand people, the one of the Horse, the second of the Sheep, and the third of the Ox family name Just as among the North American Indians husband and wife are always of different families, that is, of different surnames. Custom and law alike prohibit marriage on the part of people having the same family surname. The children are of the father s family, that is, they take his surname." (Com pare Narrative of Two Mahometan Travellers, Piukcrtou, vol. vii.) The Arabian travellers had the same law at home, prohibiting marriage between people of the same family name. Looking at India we find in the Institutes of Menu (iii. 5) that a man of the twice-born classes may not marry " a woman descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree, nor [in words believed to be a comment on the original] one who is known by her family name to be of the same primitive stock with his father." No one, that is to say, may marry within the f/hotra, just as no Pied Indian may marry within the limits fixed by the totem. If the ghotra was counted, or if the Chinese family name ran, on the female side, Chinese and Brahmans would be exactly in the position of Australian blacks, as far as prohibited degrees are concerned. Mr Cunningham (Digest of Hindu Law, Madras, 1877) says that the old rule about the ghotra is falling into disuse, and that local custom in many places permits it to be dis obeyed. Now, just as observers in India note this change of practice, so observers among the Red Indians and Australians note another change of practice. Kindred among these peoples is very gradually beginning to bo reckoned by the male line; children are being counted among some tribes in the clan of the father (Morgan, p. 86). Leaving India, and turning to Greece and Rome, we find the local tribe and, subordinate to the tribe, two forms of associations called the ye vos and gens, which are prominent in early history and gradually die out. Thus, though in the Twelve Tables, as we have seen, the members of the gens succeed to the property of an intestate, yet in the 2d century Gaius declares (Inst., iii. 17) that all Gentile law had fallen into desuetude. The gens, then, was, as its very name implies, a form of kindred, but old and hastening to decay. The members of a gens, according to Cicero, had a common name, were born of free parents, and were those who capite non siint deminuti. Festus adds that members of a gens are ex eodcm yencre orli.