was spontaneously accomplished in the great states of Central America. In Peru maternal filiation was still in general use, but the paternal family was beginning to appear. In the mass of the nation, says Gomara, the heritage was transmitted to nephews and not to sons; but in the family of the Incas direct male descendants alone had the right to avail themselves of their origin, and sons inherited.[1] It seems that in Mexico the familial evolution may have been more advanced, for there it is always the paternal personality which predominates, and it is the father who dictates to the children rules of conduct and moral precepts. The mothers exhort their daughters to be submissive to their husbands, to obey them and strive to please them.
The familial customs which I have just described are general in America; they are not universal as regards exogamy, for Hearne tells us that many Chippeways frequently take to wife their sisters, daughters, and even mothers.[2] We know, on the other hand, that the Peruvian Incas married their sisters, and that throughout the Peruvian empire no one married outside the administrative district.
In some parts of America the diversity is still greater. The Caribs married their relatives, with the exception of sisters,[3] indiscriminately; the Indians of Guiana, on the contrary, practised totemic exogamy, like the Redskins.[4]
The Indians of Guatemala were unacquainted with maternal kinship. They willingly married their sisters, provided they were not children of the same father, and among them the children belonged to the class of the father even when the mother was a slave.[5] Among the Mayas descent was also reckoned in the male line.[6] In various savage tribes of Mexico the women did not inherit. Among the Ityas and in Yucatan the name of the child was formed by combining the names of the father and mother; the mother's name, however, had the precedence.[7]
The monk Thevet relates that the Indians of Brazil
