XIII. THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY…

XIII. THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY

THE POPULUS.—THE PLEBEIANS.—THE CLIENTS.—THE PATRICIANS.—LIMITS OF THE ORDER.—LEGISLATION OF SERVIUS TULLIUS.—INSTITUTION OF PROPERTY CLASSES.—OF THE CENTURIES.—UNEQUAL SUFFRAGE.—COMITIA CENTURIATA.—SUPERSEDES COMITIA CURIATA.—CLASSES SUPERSEDE THE GENTES.—THE CENSUS.—PLEBEIANS MADE CITIZENS.—INSTITUTION OF CITY WARDS.—OF COUNTRY TOWNSHIPS.—TRIBES INCREASED TO FOUR.—MADE LOCAL INSTEAD OF CONSANGUINE.—CHARACTER OF NEW POLITICAL SYSTEM.—DECLINE AND DISAPPEARANCE OF GENTILE ORGANIZATION.—THE WORK IT ACCOMPLISHED.

Servius Tullius, the sixth chief of the Roman military democracy, came to the succession about one hundred and thirty-three years after the death of Romulus, as near as the date can be ascertained.[358] This would place his accession about 576 B. C. To this remarkable man the Romans were chiefly indebted for the establishment of their political system. It will be sufficient to indicate its main features, together with some of the reasons which led to its adoption.

From the time of Romulus to that of Servius Tullius the Romans consisted of two distinct classes, the populus and the plebeians. Both were personally free, and both entered the ranks of the army; but the former alone were organized in gentes, curiæ and tribes, and held the powers of the government. The plebeians, on the other hand, did not belong to any gens, curia or tribe, and consequently were without the government.[359] They were excluded from office, from the comitia curiata, and from the sacred rites of the gentes. In the time of Servius they had become nearly if not quite as numerous as the populus. They were in the anomalous position of being subject to the military service, and of possessing families and property, which identified them with the interests of Rome, without being in any sense connected with the government. Under gentile institutions, as we have seen, there could be no connection with the government except through a recognized gens, and the plebeians had no gentes. Such a state of things, affecting so large a portion of the people, was dangerous to the commonwealth. Admitting of no remedy under gentile institutions, it must have furnished one of the prominent reasons for attempting the overthrow of gentile society, and the substitution of political. The Roman fabric would, in all probability, have fallen in pieces if a remedy had not been devised. It was commenced in the time of Romulus, renewed by Numa Pompilius, and completed by Servius Tullius.

The origin both of the plebeians and of the patricians, and their subsequent relations to each other, have been fruitful themes of discussion and of disagreement. A few suggestions may be ventured upon each of these questions.

A person was a plebeian because he was not a member of a gens, organized with other gentes in a curia and tribe. It is easy to understand how large numbers of persons would have become detached from the gentes of their birth in the unsettled times which preceded and followed the founding of Rome. The adventurers who flocked to the new city from the surrounding tribes, the captives taken in their wars and afterwards set free, and the unattached persons mingled with the gentes transplanted to Rome, would rapidly furnish such a class. It might also well happen that in filling up the hundred gentes of each tribe, fragments of gentes, and gentes having less than a prescribed number of persons, were excluded. These unattached persons, with the fragments of gentes thus excluded from recognition and organization in a curia, would soon become, with their children and descendants, a great and increasing class. Such were the Roman plebeians, who, as such, were not members of the Roman gentile society. It seems to be a fair inference from the epithet applied to the senators of the Luceres, the third Roman tribe admitted, who were styled “Fathers of the Lesser Gentes,” that the old gentes were reluctant to acknowledge their entire equality. For a stronger reason they debarred the plebeians from all participation in the government. When the third tribe was filled up with the prescribed number of gentes, the last avenue of admission was closed, after which the number in the plebeian class would increase with greater rapidity. Niebuhr remarks that the existence of the plebeian class may be traced to the time of Ancus, thus implying that they made their first appearance at that time.[360] He also denies that the clients were a part of the plebeian body;[361] in both of which positions he differs from Dionysius,[362] and from Plutarch.[363] The institution of the relation of patron and client is ascribed by the authors last named to Romulus, and it is recognized by Suetonius as existing in the time of Romulus.[364] A necessity for such an institution existed in the presence of a class without a gentile status, and without religious rites, who would avail themselves of this relation for the protection of their persons and property, and for the access it gave them to religious privileges. Members of a gens would not be without this protection or these privileges; neither would it befit the dignity or accord with the obligations of a gens to allow one of its members to accept a patron in another gens. The unattached class, or, in other words, the plebeians, were the only persons who would naturally seek patrons and become their clients. The clients formed no part of the populus for the reasons stated. It seems plain, notwithstanding the weight of Niebuhr’s authority on Roman questions, that the clients were a part of the plebeian body.

The next question is one of extreme difficulty, namely: the origin and extent of the patrician class—whether it originated with the institution of the Roman Senate, and was limited to the senators, and to their children and descendants; or included the entire populus, as distinguished from the plebeians. It is claimed by the most eminent modern authorities that the entire populus were patricians. Niebuhr, who is certainly the first on Roman questions, adopts this view,[365] to which Long, Schmitz, and others have given their concurrence.[366] But the reasons assigned are not conclusive. The existence of the patrician class, and of the plebeian class as well, may be traced, as stated, to the time of Romulus.[367] If the populus, who were the entire body of the people organized in gentes, were all patricians at this early day, the distinction would have been nominal, as the plebeian class was then unimportant. Moreover, the plain statements of Cicero and of Livy are not reconcilable with this conclusion. Dionysius, it is true, speaks of the institution of the patrician class as occurring before that of the senate, and as composed of a limited number of persons distinguished for their birth, their virtue, and their wealth; thus excluding the poor and obscure in birth, although they belonged to the historical gentes.[368] Admitting a class of patricians without senatorial connection, there was still a large class remaining in the several gentes who were not patricians. Cicero has left a plain statement that the senators and their children were patricians, and without referring to the existence of any patrician class beyond their number. When that senate of Romulus, he remarks, which was constituted of the best men, whom Romulus himself respected so highly that he wished them to be called fathers, and their children patricians, attempted,[369] etc. The meaning attached to the word fathers (patres) as here used was a subject of disagreement among the Romans themselves; but the word patricii, for the class is formed upon patres, thus tending to show the necessary connection of the patricians with the senatorial office. Since each senator at the outset represented, in all probability, a gens, and the three hundred thus represented all the recognized gentes, this fact could not of itself make all the members of the gentes patricians, because the dignity was limited to the senators, their children, and their posterity. Livy is equally explicit. They were certainly called fathers, he remarks, on account of their official dignity, and their posterity (progenies) patricians.[370] Under the reges and also under the republic, individuals were created patricians by the government; but apart from the senatorial office, and special creation by the government, the rank could not be obtained. It is not improbable that a number of persons, not admitted into the senate when it was instituted, were placed by public act on the same level with the senators as to the new patrician rank; but this would include a small number only of the members of the three hundred gentes, all of whom were embraced in the Populus Romanus.

It is not improbable that the chiefs of the gentes were called fathers before the time of Romulus, to indicate the paternal character of the office; and that the office may have conferred a species of recognized rank upon their posterity. But we have no direct evidence of the fact. Assuming it to have been the case, and further, that the senate at its institution did not include all the principal chiefs, and further still, that when vacancies in the senate were subsequently filled, the selection was made on account of merit and not on account of gens, a foundation for a patrician class might have previously existed independently of the senate. These assumptions might be used to explain the peculiar language of Cicero, namely that Romulus desired that the senators might be called Fathers, possibly because this was already the honored title of the chiefs of the gentes. In this way a limited foundation for a patrician class may be found independent of the senate; but it would not be broad enough to include all the recognized gentes. It was in connection with the senators that the suggestion was made that their children and descendants should be called patricians. The same statement is repeated by Paterculus.[371]

It follows that there could be no patrician gens and no plebeian gens, although particular families in one gens might be patricians, and in another plebeians. There is some confusion also upon this point. All the adult male members of the Fabian gens, to the number of three hundred and six, were patricians.[372] It must be explained by the supposition that all the families in this gens could trace their descent from senators, or to some public act by which their ancestors were raised to the patriciate. There were of course patrician families in many gentes, and at a later day patrician and plebeian families in the same gens. Thus the Claudii and Marcelli, before referred to (supra p. 287), were two families of the Claudian gens, but the Claudii alone were patricians. It will be borne in mind, that prior to the time of Servius Tullius the Romans were divided into two classes, the populus and the plebeians; but that after his time, and particularly after the Licinian legislation (367 B. C.) by which all the dignities of the state were opened to every citizen, the Roman people, of the degree of freemen, fell into two political classes, which may be distinguished as the aristocracy and the commonalty. The former class consisted of the senators, and those descended from senators, together with those who had held either of the three curule offices, (consul, praetor, and curule ædile) and their descendants. The commonalty were now Roman citizens. The gentile organization had fallen into decadence, and the old division could no longer be maintained. Persons, who in the first period as belonging to the populus, could not be classed with the plebeians, would in the subsequent period belong to the aristocracy without being patricians. The Claudii could trace their descent from Appius Claudius who was made a senator in the time of Romulus; but the Marcelli could not trace their descent from him, nor from any other senator, although, as Niebuhr remarks, “equal to the Appii in the splendor of the honors they attained to, and incomparably more useful to the commonwealth.”[373] This is a sufficient explanation of the position of the Marcelli without resorting to the fanciful hypothesis of Niebuhr, that the Marcelli had lost patrician rank through a marriage of disparagement.[374]

The patrician class were necessarily numerous, because the senators, rarely less than three hundred, were chosen as often as vacancies occurred, thus constantly including new families; and because it conferred patrician rank on their posterity. Others were from time to time made patricians by act of the state.[375] This distinction, at first probably of little value, became of great importance with their increase in wealth, numbers and power; and it changed the complexion of Roman society. The full effect of introducing a privileged class in Roman gentile society was not probably appreciated at the time; and it is questionable whether this institution did not exercise a more injurious than beneficial influence upon the subsequent career of the Roman people.

When the gentes had ceased to be organizations for governmental purposes under the new political system, the populus no longer remained as distinguished from the plebeians; but the shadow of the old organization and of the old distinction remained far into the republic.[376] The plebeians under the new system were Roman citizens, but they were now the commonalty; the question of the connection or non-connection with a gens not entering into the distinction.

From Romulus to Servius Tullius the Roman organization, as before stated, was simply a gentile society, without relation to territory or to property. All we find is a series of aggregates of persons, in gentes, curiæ and tribes, by means of which the people were dealt with by the government as groups of persons forming these several organic unities. Their condition was precisely like that of the Athenians prior to the time of Solon. But they had instituted a senate in the place of the old council of chiefs, a comitia curiata in the place of the old assembly of the people, and had chosen a military commander, with the additional functions of a priest and judge. With a government of three powers, co-ordinated with reference to their principal necessities, and with a coalescence of the three tribes, composed of an equal number of gentes and curiæ, into one people, they possessed a higher and more complete governmental organization than the Latin tribes had before attained. A numerous class had gradually developed, however, who were without the pale of the government, and without religious privileges, excepting that portion who had passed into the relation of clients. If not a dangerous class, their exclusion from citizenship, and from all participation in the government, was detrimental to the commonwealth. A municipality was growing up upon a scale of magnitude unknown in their previous experience, requiring a special organization to conduct its local affairs. A necessity for a change in the plan of government must have forced itself more and more upon the attention of thoughtful men. The increase of numbers and of wealth, and the difficulty of managing their affairs, now complex from weight of numbers and diversity of interests, began to reveal the fact, it must be supposed, that they could not hold together under gentile institutions. A conclusion of this kind is required to explain the several expedients which were tried.

Numa, the successor of Romulus, made the first significant movement, because it reveals the existence of an impression, that a great power could not rest upon gentes as the basis of a system. He attempted to traverse the gentes, as Theseus did, by dividing the people into classes, some eight in number, according to their arts and trades.[377] Plutarch, who is the chief authority for this statement, speaks of this division of the people according to their vocations as the most admired of Numa’s institutions; and remarks further, that it was designed to take away the distinction between Latin and Sabine, both name and thing, by mixing them together in a new distribution. But as he did not invest the classes with the powers exercised by the gentes, the measure failed, like the similar attempt of Theseus, and for the same reason. Each guild, as we are assured by Plutarch, had its separate hall, court and religious observances. These records, though traditionary, of the same experiment in Attica and at Rome, made for the same object, for similar reasons, and by the same instrumentalities, render the inference reasonable that the experiment as stated was actually tried in each case.

Servius Tullius instituted the new system, and placed it upon a foundation where it remained to the close of the republic, although changes were afterwards made in the nature of improvements. His period (about 576-533 B. C.) follows closely that of Solon (596 B. C.), and precedes that of Cleisthenes (509 B. C.). The legislation ascribed to him, and which was obviously modeled upon that of Solon, may be accepted as having occurred as early as the time named, because the system was in practical operation when the republic was established 509 B. C., within the historical period. Moreover, the new political system may as properly be ascribed to him as great measures have been attributed to other men, although in both cases the legislator does little more than formulate what experience had already suggested and pressed upon his attention. The three principal changes which set aside the gentes and inaugurated political society based upon territory and upon property, were: first, the substitution of classes, formed upon the measure of individual wealth, in the place of the gentes; second, the institution of the comitia centuriata, as the new popular assembly, in the place of the comitia curiata, the assembly of the gentes, with a transfer of the substantial powers of the latter to the former; and third, the creation of four city wards, in the nature of townships, circumscribed by metes and bounds and named as territorial areas, in which the residents of each ward were required to enroll their names and register their property.

Imitating Solon, with whose plan of government he was doubtless familiar, Servius divided the people into five classes, according to the value of their property, the effect of which was to concentrate in one class the wealthiest men of the several gentes.[378] Each class was then subdivided into centuries, the number in each being established arbitrarily without regard to the actual number of persons it contained, and with one vote to each century in the comitia. The amount of political power to be held by each class was thus determined by the number of centuries given to each. Thus, the first class consisted of eighty centuries, with eighty votes in the comitia centuriata; the second class of twenty centuries, to which two centuries of artisans were attached, with twenty-two votes; the third class of twenty centuries, with twenty votes; the fourth class of twenty, to which two centuries of horn-blowers and trumpeters were attached, with twenty-two votes; and the fifth class of thirty centuries, with thirty votes. In addition to these, the equites consisted of eighteen centuries, with eighteen votes. To these classes Dionysius adds a sixth class, consisting of one century, with one vote. It was composed of those who had no property, or less than the amount required for admission into the fifth class. They neither paid taxes, nor served in war.[379] The whole number of centuries in the six classes with the equites added, made a total of one hundred and ninety-three, according to Dionysius.[380] Livy, agreeing with the former as to the number of regular centuries in the five classes, differs from him by excluding the sixth class, the persons being formed into one century with one vote, and included in or attached to the fifth class. He also makes three centuries of horn-blowers instead of two, and the whole number of centuries one more than Dionysius.[381] Cicero remarks that ninety-six centuries were a minority, which would be equally true under either statement.[382] The centuries of each class were divided into seniors and juniors, of which the senior centuries were composed of such persons as were above the age of fifty-five years, and were charged with the duty, as soldiers, of defending the city; while the junior centuries consisted of those persons who were below this age and above seventeen, and were charged with external military enterprises.[383] The armature of each class was prescribed and made different for each.[384]

It will be noticed that the control of the government, so far as the assembly of the people could influence its action, was placed in the hands of the first class, and the equites. They held together ninety-eight votes, a majority of the whole. Each century agreed upon its vote separately when assembled in the comitia centuriata, precisely as each curia had been accustomed to do in the comitia curiata. In taking a vote upon any public question, the equites were called first, and then the first class.[385] If they agreed in their votes it decided the question, and the remaining centuries were not called upon to vote; but if they disagreed, the second class was called, and so on to the last, unless a majority sooner appeared.

The powers formerly exercised by the comitia curiata, now transferred to the comitia centuriata, were enlarged in some slight particulars in the subsequent period. It elected all officers and magistrates on the nomination of the senate; it enacted or rejected laws proposed by the senate, no measure becoming a law without its sanction; it repealed existing laws on the proposition of the same body, if they chose to do so; and it declared war on the same recommendation. But the senate concluded peace without consulting the assembly. An appeal in all cases involving life could be taken to this assembly as the highest judicial tribunal of the state. These powers were substantial, but limited—control over the finances being excluded. A majority of the votes, however, were lodged with the first class, including the equites, which embraced the body of the patricians, as must be supposed, and the wealthiest citizens. Property and not numbers controlled the government. They were able, however, to create a body of laws in the course of time which afforded equal protection to all, and thus tended to redeem the worst effects of the inequalities of the system.

The meetings of the comitia were held in the Campus Martius annually for the election of magistrates and officers, and at other times when the public necessities required. The people assembled by centuries, and by classes under their officers, organized as an army (exercitus); for the centuries and classes were designed to subserve all the purposes of a military as well as a civil organization. At the first muster under Servius Tullius, eighty thousand citizen soldiers appeared in the Campus Martius under arms, each man in his proper century, each century in its class, and each class by itself.[386] Every member of a century was now a citizen of Rome, which was the most important fruit of the new political system. In the time of the republic the consuls, and in their absence, the praetor, had power to convene the comitia, which was presided over by the person who caused it to assemble.

Such a government appears to us, in the light of our more advanced experience, both rude and clumsy; but it was a sensible improvement upon the previous gentile government, defective and illiberal as it appears. Under it, Rome became mistress of the world. The element of property, now rising into commanding importance, determined its character. It had brought aristocracy and privilege into prominence, which seized the opportunity to withdraw the control of the government in a great measure from the hands of the people, and bestow it upon the men of property. It was a movement in the opposite direction from that to which the democratic principles inherited from the gentes naturally tended. Against the new elements of aristocracy and privilege now incorporated in their governmental institutions, the Roman plebeians contended throughout the period of the republic, and at times with some measure of success. But patrician rank and property possessed by the higher classes, were too powerful for the wiser and grander doctrines of equal rights and equal privileges represented by the plebeians. It was even then far too heavy a tax upon Roman society to carry a privileged class.

Cicero, patriot and noble Roman as he was, approved and commended this gradation of the people into classes, with the bestowment of a controlling influence in the government upon the minority of citizens. Servius Tullius, he remarks, “having created a large number of equites from the common mass of the people, divided the remainder into five classes, distinguishing between the seniors and juniors, which he so constituted as to place the suffrages, not in the hands of the multitude, but of the men of property; taking care to make it a rule of ours, as it ought to be in every government, that the greatest number should not have the greatest weight.”[387] In the light of the experience of the intervening two thousand years, it may well be observed that the inequality of privileges, and the denial of the right of self-government here commended, created and developed that mass of ignorance and corruption which ultimately destroyed both government and people. The human race is gradually learning the simple lesson, that the people as a whole are wiser for the public good and the public prosperity, than any privileged class of men, however refined and cultivated, have ever been, or, by any possibility, can ever become. Governments over societies the most advanced are still in a transitional stage; and they are necessarily and logically moving, as President Grant, not without reason, intimated in his last inaugural address, in the direction of democracy; that form of self-government which represents and expresses the average intelligence and virtue of a free and educated people.

The property classes subserved the useful purpose of breaking up the gentes, as the basis of a governmental system, by transferring their powers to a different body. It was evidently the principal object of the Servian legislation to obtain a deliverance from the gentes, which were close corporations, and to give the new government a basis wide enough to include all the inhabitants of Rome, with the exception of the slaves. After the classes had accomplished this work, it might have been expected that they would have died out as they did at Athens; and that city wards and country townships, with their inhabitants organized as bodies politic, would have become the basis of the new political system, as they rightfully and logically should. But the municipal organization of Rome prevented this consummation. It gained at the outset, and maintained to the end the central position in the government, to which all areas without were made subordinate. It presents the anomaly of a great central municipal government expanded, in effect, first over Italy, and finally over the conquered provinces of three continents. The five classes, with some modifications of the manner of voting, remained to the end of the republic. The creation of a new assembly of the people to take the place of the old, discloses the radical character of the Servian constitution. These classes would never have acquired vitality without a newly constituted assembly, investing them with political powers. With the increase of wealth and population the duties and responsibilities of this assembly were much increased. It was evidently the intention of Servius Tullius that it should extinguish the comitia curiata, and with it the power of the gentes.

This legislator is said to have instituted the comitia tributa, a separate assembly of each local tribe or ward, whose chief duties related to the assessment and collection of taxes, and to furnishing contingents of troops. At a later day this assembly elected the tribunes of the people. The ward was the natural unit of their political system, and the centre where local self-government should have been established had the Roman people wished to create a democratic state. But the senate and the property classes had forestalled them from that career.

One of the first acts ascribed to Servius was the institution of the census. Livy pronounces the census a most salutary measure for an empire about to become so great, according to which the duties of peace and of war were to be performed, not individually as before, but according to the measure of personal wealth.[388] Each person was required to enroll himself in the ward of his residence, with a statement of the amount of his property. It was done in the presence of the censor; and the lists when completed furnished the basis upon which the classes were formed.[389] This was accompanied by a very remarkable act for the period, the creation of four city wards, circumscribed by boundaries, and distinguished by appropriate names. In point of time it was earlier than the institution of the Attic deme by Cleisthenes; but the two were quite different in their relations to the government. The Attic deme, as has been shown, was organized as a body politic with a similar registry of citizens and of their property, and having besides a complete local self-government, with an elective magistracy, judiciary and priesthood. On the other hand, the Roman ward was a geographical area, with a registry of citizens and of their property, with a local organization, a tribune and other elective offices, and with an assembly. For a limited number of special objects the inhabitants of the wards were dealt with by the government through their territorial relations. But the government of the ward did not possess the solid attributes of that of the Attic deme. It was a nearer copy of the previous Athenian naucrary, which not unlikely furnished the model, as the Solonian classes did of the Servian. Dionysius remarks, that after Servius Tullius had inclosed the seven hills with one wall he divided the city into four parts, and gave the names of the hills to the re-divisions: to the first, Palatina, to the second, Suburra, to the third, Collina, and to the fourth, Esquilina; and made the city consist of four parts, which before consisted of three; and he ordered the people who dwelt in each of the four regions, like villagers, not to take any other dwelling, nor to pay taxes elsewhere, nor give in their names as soldiers elsewhere, nor pay their assessments for military purposes and other needs, which each must furnish for the common welfare; for these things were no longer to be done according to the three consanguine tribes (φυλὰς τὰς γενικὰς), but according to the four local tribes (φυλὰς τὰς τοπικὰς), which last had been arranged by himself; and he appointed commanders over each tribe, as phylarchs or comarchs, whom he directed to note what house each inhabited.[390] Mommsen observes that “each of these four levy-districts had to furnish the fourth part not only of the force as a whole, but of each of its military subdivisions, so that each legion and each century numbered an equal proportion of conscripts from each region; evidently for the purpose of merging all distinctions of a gentile and local nature in one common levy of the community, and especially of binding, through the powerful leveling influence of the military spirit, the meteoci and the burgesses into one people.”[391]

In like manner, the surrounding country under the government of Rome was organized in townships (tribus rusticae), the number of which is stated at twenty-six by some writers, and at thirty-one by others; making, with the four city wards, a total of thirty in one case, and of thirty-five in the other.[392] The total number was never increased beyond thirty-five. These townships did not become integral in the sense of participating in the administration of the government.

As finally established under the Servian constitution, the government was cast in the form in which it remained during the existence of the republic; the consuls taking the place of the previous military commanders. It was not based upon territory in the exclusive sense of the Athenian government, or in the modern sense; ascending from the township or ward, the unit of organization, to the county or arrondissement, and from the latter to the state, each organized and invested with governmental functions as constituents of a whole. The central government overshadowed and atrophied the parts. It rested more upon property than upon territory, this being made the commanding element, as is shown by the lodgment of the controlling power of the government in the highest property classes. It had, nevertheless, a territorial basis as well, since it recognized and used territorial subdivisions for citizenship, and for financial and military objects, in which the citizen was dealt with through his territorial relations.

The Romans were now carried fairly out of gentile society into and under the second great plan of government, founded upon territory and upon property. They had left gentilism and barbarism behind them, and entered upon a new career of civilization. Henceforth the creation and protection of property became the primary objects of the government, with a superadded career of conquest for domination over distant tribes and nations. This great change of institutions, creating political society as distinguished from gentile society, was simply the introduction of the new elements of territory and property, making the latter a power in the government, which before had been simply an influence. Had the wards and rustic townships been organized with full powers of local self-government, and the senate been made elective by these local constituencies without distinction of classes, the resulting government would have been a democracy, like the Athenian; for these local governments would have moulded the state into their own likeness. The senate, with the hereditary rank it conferred, and the property basis qualifying the voting power in the assembly of the people, turned the scale against democratical institutions, and produced a mixed government, partly aristocratic and partly democratic; eminently calculated to engender perpetual animosity between the two classes of citizens thus deliberately and unnecessarily created by affirmative legislation. It is plain, I think, that the people were circumvented by the Servian constitution, and had a government put upon them which the majority would have rejected had they fully comprehended its probable results. The evidence is conclusive of the antecedent democratical principles of the gentes, which, however exclusive as against all persons not in their communion, were carried out fully among themselves. The evidence of this free spirit and of their free institutions is so decisive that the proposition elsewhere stated, that gentilism is incompatible with monarchy, seems to be incontrovertible.

As a whole, the Roman government was anomalous. The overshadowing municipality of Rome, made the centre of the state in its plan of government, was one of the producing causes of its novel character. The primary organization of the people into an army with the military spirit it fostered created the cohesive force which held the republic together, and afterwards the empire. With a selective senate holding office for life, and possessing substantial powers; with a personal rank passing to their children and descendants; with an elective magistracy graded to the needs of a central metropolis; with an assembly of the people organized into property classes, possessing an unequal suffrage, but holding both an affirmative and a negative upon all legislation; and with an elaborate military organization, no other government strictly analogous has appeared among men. It was artificial, illogical, approaching a monstrosity; but capable of wonderful achievements, because of its military spirit, and because the Romans were endowed with remarkable powers for organizing and managing affairs. The patchwork in its composition was the product of the superior craft of the wealthy classes who intended to seize the substance of power while they pretended to respect the rights and interests of all.

When the new political system became established, the old one did not immediately disappear. The functions of the senate and of the military commander remained as before; but the property classes took the place of the gentes, and the assembly of the classes took the place of the assembly of the gentes. Radical as the changes were, they were limited, in the main, to these particulars, and came in without friction or violence. The old assembly (comitia curiata) was allowed to retain a portion of its powers, which kept alive for a long period of time the organizations of the gentes, curiæ and consanguine tribes. It still conferred the imperium upon all the higher magistrates after their election was completed, though in time it became a matter of form merely; it inaugurated certain priests, and regulated the religious observances of the curiæ. This state of things continued down to the time of the first Punic war, after which the comitia curiata lost its importance and soon fell into oblivion. Both the assembly and the curiæ were superseded rather than abolished, and died out from inanition; but the gentes remained far into the empire, not as an organization, for that also died out in time, but as a pedigree and a lineage. Thus the transition from gentile into political society was gradually but effectually accomplished, and the second great plan of human government was substituted by the Romans in the place of the first which had prevailed from time immemorial.

After an immensely protracted duration, running back of the separate existence of the Aryan family, and received by the Latin tribes from their remote ancestors, the gentile organization finally surrendered its existence, among the Romans, to the demands of civilization. It had held exclusive possession of society through these several ethnical periods, and until it had won by experience all the elements of civilization, which it then proved unable to manage. Mankind owe a debt of gratitude to their savage ancestors for devising an institution able to carry the advancing portion of the human race out of savagery into barbarism, and through the successive stages of the latter into civilization. It also accumulated by experience the intelligence and knowledge necessary to devise political society while the institution yet remained. It holds a position on the great chart of human progress second to none in its influence, in its achievements and in its history. As a plan of government, the gentile organization was unequal to the wants of civilized man; but it is something to be said in its remembrance that it developed from the germ the principal governmental institutions of modern civilized states. Among others, as before stated, out of the ancient council of chiefs came the modern senate; out of the ancient assembly of the people came the modern representative assembly, the two together constituting the modern legislature; out of the ancient general military commander came the modern chief magistrate, whether a feudal or constitutional king, an emperor or a president, the latter being the natural and logical result; and out of the ancient custos urbis, by a circuitous derivation, came the Roman praetor and the modern judge. Equal rights and privileges, personal freedom and the cardinal principles of democracy were also inherited from the gentes. When property had become created in masses, and its influence and power began to be felt in society, slavery came in; an institution violative of all these principles, but sustained by the selfish and delusive consideration that the person made a slave was a stranger in blood and a captive enemy. With property also came in gradually the principle of aristocracy, striving for the creation of privileged classes. The element of property, which has controlled society to a great extent during the comparatively short period of civilization, has given mankind despotism, imperialism, monarchy, privileged classes, and finally representative democracy. It has also made the career of the civilized nations essentially a property-making career. But when the intelligence of mankind rises to the height of the great question of the abstract rights of property,—including the relations of property to the state, as well as the rights of persons to property,—a modification of the present order of things may be expected. The nature of the coming changes it may be impossible to conceive; but it seems probable that democracy, once universal in a rudimentary form and repressed in many civilized states, is destined to become again universal and supreme.

An American, educated in the principles of democracy, and profoundly impressed with the dignity and grandeur of those great conceptions which recognize the liberty, equality and fraternity of mankind, may give free expression to a preference for self-government and free institutions. At the same time the equal rights of every other person must be recognized to accept and approve any form of government, whether imperial or monarchical, that satisfies his preferences.

XIV. CHANGE OF DESCENT FROM THE FEMALE TO THE MALE LINE

HOW THE CHANGE MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE.—INHERITANCE OF PROPERTY THE MOTIVE.—DESCENT IN THE FEMALE LINE AMONG THE LYCIANS.—THE CRETANS.—THE ETRUSCANS.—PROBABLY AMONG THE ATHENIANS IN THE TIME OF CECROPS.—THE HUNDRED FAMILIES OF THE LOCRIANS.—EVIDENCE FROM MARRIAGES.—TURANIAN SYSTEM OF CONSANGUINITY AMONG GRECIAN TRIBES.—LEGEND OF THE DANAIDÆ.

An important question remains to be considered, namely: whether any evidence exists that descent was anciently in the female line in the Grecian and Latin gentes. Theoretically, this must have been the fact at some anterior period among their remote ancestors; but we are not compelled to rest the question upon theory alone. Since a change to the male line involved a nearly total alteration of the membership in a gens, a method by which it might have been accomplished should be pointed out. More than this, it should be shown, if possible, that an adequate motive requiring the change was certain to arise, with the progress of society out of the condition in which this form of descent originated. And lastly, the existing evidence of ancient descent in the female line among them should be presented.

A gens in the archaic period, as we have seen, consisted of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the children of her daughters, and of her female descendants through females in perpetuity. The children of her sons, and of her male descendants, through males, were excluded. On the other hand, with descent in the male line, a gens consisted of a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the children of his sons and of his male descendants through males in perpetuity. The children of his daughters, and of his female descendants, through females, were excluded. Those excluded in the first case would be members of the gens in the second case, and vice versâ. The question then arises, how could descent be changed from the female line to the male without the destruction of the gens?

The method was simple and natural, provided the motive to make the change was general, urgent and commanding. When done at a given time, and by preconcerted determination, it was only necessary to agree that all the present members of the gens should remain members, but that in future all children, whose fathers belonged to the gens, should alone remain in it and bear the gentile name, while the children of its female members should be excluded. This would not break or change the kinship or relations of the existing gentiles; but thereafter it would retain in the gens the children it before excluded, and exclude those it before retained. Although it may seem a hard problem to solve, the pressure of an adequate motive would render it easy, and the lapse of a few generations would make it complete. As a practical question, it has been changed from the female line to the male among the American aborigines in a number of instances. Thus, among the Ojibwas descent is now in the male line, while among their congeners, the Delawares and Mohegans, it is still in the female line. Originally, without a doubt, descent was in the female line in the entire Algonkin stock.

Since descent in the female line is archaic, and more in accordance with the early condition of ancient society than descent in the male line, there is a presumption in favor of its ancient prevalence in the Grecian and Latin gentes. Moreover, when the archaic form of any transmitted organization has been discovered and verified, it is impossible to conceive of its origination in the later more advanced form.

Assuming a change of descent among them from the female line to the male, it must have occurred very remotely from the historical period. Their history in the Middle Status of barbarism is entirely lost, except it has been in some measure preserved in their arts, institutions and inventions, and in improvements in language. The Upper Status has the superadded light of tradition and of the Homeric poems to acquaint us with its experience and the measure of progress then made. But judging from the condition in which their traditions place them, it seems probable that descent in the female line had not entirely disappeared, at least among the Pelasgian and Grecian tribes, when they entered the Upper Status of barbarism.

When descent was in the female line in the Grecian and Latin gentes, the gens possessed the following among other characteristics: 1. Marriage in the gens was prohibited; thus placing children in a different gens from that of their reputed father. 2. Property and the office of chief were hereditary in the gens; thus excluding children from inheriting the property or succeeding to the office of their reputed father. This state of things would continue until a motive arose sufficiently general and commanding to establish the injustice of this exclusion in the face of their changed condition.

The natural remedy was a change of descent from the female line to the male. All that was needed to effect the change was an adequate motive. After domestic animals began to be reared in flocks and herds, becoming thereby a source of subsistence as well as objects of individual property, and after tillage had led to the ownership of houses and lands in severalty, an antagonism would be certain to arise against the prevailing form of gentile inheritance, because it excluded the owner’s children, whose paternity was becoming more assured, and gave his property to his gentile kindred. A contest for a new rule of inheritance, shared in by fathers and their children, would furnish a motive sufficiently powerful to effect the change. With property accumulating in masses and assuming permanent forms, and with an increased proportion of it held by individual ownership, descent in the female line was certain of overthrow, and the substitution of the male line equally assured. Such a change would leave the inheritance in the gens as before, but it would place children in the gens of their father, and at the head of the agnatic kindred. For a time, in all probability, they would share in the distribution of the estate with the remaining agnates; but an extension of the principle by which the agnates cut off the remaining gentiles, would in time result in the exclusion of the agnates beyond the children and an exclusive inheritance in the children. Farther than this, the son would now be brought in the line of succession to the office of his father.

Such had the law of inheritance become in the Athenian gens in the time of Solon or shortly after; when the property passed to the sons equally, subject to the obligation of maintaining the daughters, and of apportioning them in marriage; and in default of sons, to the daughters equally. If there were no children, then the inheritance passed to the agnatic kindred, and in default of the latter, to the gentiles. The Roman law of the Twelve Tables was substantially the same.

It seems probable further, that when descent was changed to the male line, or still earlier, animal names for the gentes were laid aside and personal names substituted in their place. The individuality of persons would assert itself more and more with the progress of society, and with the increase and individual ownership of property, leading to the naming of the gens after some ancestral hero. Although new gentes were being formed from time to time by the process of segmentation, and others were dying out, the lineage of a gens reached back through hundreds not to say thousands of years. After the supposed substitution, the eponymous ancestor would have been a shifting person, at long intervals of time, some later person distinguished in the history of the gens being put in his place, when the knowledge of the former person became obscured, and faded from view in the misty past. That the more celebrated Grecian gentes made the change of names, and made it gracefully, is shown by the fact, that they retained the name of the mother of their gentile father, and ascribed his birth to her embracement by some particular god. Thus Eumolpus, the eponymous ancestor of the Attic Eumolpidæ, was the reputed son of Neptune and Chione; but even the Grecian gens was older than the conception of Neptune.

Recurring now to the main question, the absence of direct proof of ancient descent in the female line in the Grecian and Latin gentes would not silence the presumption in its favor; but it so happens that this form of descent remained in some tribes nearly related to the Greeks with traces of it in a number of Grecian tribes.

The inquisitive and observing Herodotus found one nation, the Lycians, Pelasgian in lineage, but Grecian in affiliation, among whom in his time (440 B. C.), descent was in the female line. After remarking that the Lycians were sprung from Crete, and stating some particulars of their migration to Lycia under Sarpedon, he proceeds as follows: “Their customs are partly Cretan and partly Carian. They have, however, one singular custom in which they differ from every other nation in the world. Ask a Lycian who he is, and he answers by giving his own name, that of his mother, and so on in the female line. Moreover, if a free woman marry a man who is a slave, their children are free citizens; but if a free man marry a foreign woman, or cohabit with a concubine, even though he be the first person in the state, the children forfeit all the rights of citizenship.”[393] It follows necessarily from this circumstantial statement that the Lycians were organized in gentes, with a prohibition against intermarriage in the gens, and that the children belonged to the gens of their mother. It presents a clear exemplification of a gens in the archaic form, with confirmatory tests of the consequences of a marriage of a Lycian man with a foreign woman, and of a Lycian woman with a slave.[394] The aborigines of Crete were Pelasgian, Hellenic and Semitic tribes, living locally apart. Minos, the brother of Sarpedon, is usually regarded as the head of the Pelasgians in Crete; but the Lycians were already Hellenized in the time of Herodotus and quite conspicuous among the Asiatic Greeks for their advancement. The insulation of their ancestors upon the island of Crete, prior to their migration in the legendary period to Lycia, may afford an explanation of their retention of descent in the female line to this late period.

Among the Etruscans also the same rule of descent prevailed. “It is singular enough,” observes Cramer, “that two customs peculiar to the Etruscans, as we discover from their monuments, should have been noticed by Herodotus as characteristic of the Lycians and Caunians of Asia Minor. The first is, that the Etruscans invariably describe their parentage and family with reference to the mother, and not the father. The other, that they admitted their wives to their feasts and banquets.”[395]

Curtius comments on Lycian, Etruscan and Cretan descent in the female line in the following language: “It would be an error to understand the usage in question as an homage to the female sex. It is rather rooted in primitive conditions of society, in which monogamy was not yet established with sufficient certainty to enable descent upon the father’s side to be affirmed with assurance. Accordingly the usage extends far beyond the territory commanded by the Lycian nationality. It occurs, even to this day, in India; it may be demonstrated to have existed among the ancient Egyptians; it is mentioned by Sanchoniathon (p. 16, Orell), where the reasons for its existence are stated with great freedom; and beyond the confines of the East it appears among the Etruscans, among the Cretans, who were so closely connected with the Lycians, and who called their father-land mother-land; and among the Athenians, consult Bachofen, etc. Accordingly, if Herodotus regards the usage in question as thoroughly peculiar to the Lycians, it must have maintained itself longest among them of all the nations related to the Greeks, as is also proved by the Lycian inscriptions. Hence we must in general regard the employment of the maternal name for a designation of descent as the remains of an imperfect condition of social life and family law, which, as life becomes more regulated, was relinquished in favor of usages, afterwards universal in Greece, of naming children after the father. This diversity of usages, which is extremely important for the history of ancient civilization, has been recently discussed by Bachofen in his address above named.”[396]

In a work of vast research, Bachofen has collected and discussed the evidence of female authority (mother-right) and of female rule (gyneocracy) among the Lycians, Cretans, Athenians, Lemnians, Ægyptians, Orchomenians, Locrians, Lesbians, Mantineans, and among eastern Asiatic nations.[397] The condition of ancient society, thus brought under review, requires for its full explanation the existence of the gens in its archaic form as the source of the phenomena. This would bring the mother and her children into the same gens, and in the composition of the communal household, on the basis of gens, would give the gens of the mothers the ascendency in the household. The family, which had probably attained the syndyasmian form, was still environed with the remains of that conjugal system which belonged to a still earlier condition. Such a family, consisting of a married pair with their children, would naturally have sought shelter with kindred families in a communal household, in which the several mothers and their children would be of the same gens, and the reputed fathers of these children would be of other gentes. Common lands and joint tillage would lead to joint-tenement houses and communism in living; so that gyneocracy seems to require for its creation, descent in the female line. Women thus entrenched in large households, supplied from common stores, in which their own gens so largely predominated in numbers, would produce the phenomena of mother right and gyneocracy, which Bachofen has detected and traced with the aid of fragments of history and of tradition. Elsewhere I have referred to the unfavorable influence upon the position of women which was produced by a change of descent from the female line to the male, and by the rise of the monogamian family, which displaced the joint-tenement house, and in the midst of a society purely gentile, placed the wife and mother in a single house and separated her from her gentile kindred.[398]

Monogamy was not probably established among the Grecian tribes until after they had attained the Upper Status of barbarism; and we seem to arrive at chaos in the marriage relation within this period, especially in the Athenian tribes. Concerning the latter, Bachofen remarks: “For before the time of Cecrops the children, as we have seen, had only a mother, no father; they were of one line. Bound to no man exclusively, the woman brought only spurious children into the world. Cecrops first made an end of this condition of things; led the lawless union of the sexes back to the exclusiveness of marriage; gave to the children a father and mother, and thus from being of one line (unilateres) made them of two lines (bilateres).”[399] What is here described as the lawless union of the sexes must be received with modifications. We should expect at that comparatively late day to find the syndyasmian family, but attended by the remains of an anterior conjugal system which sprang from marriages in the group. The punaluan family, which the statement fairly implies, must have disappeared before they reached the ethnical period named. This subject will be considered in subsequent chapters in connection with the growth of the family.

There is an interesting reference by Polybius to the hundred families of the Locrians of Italy. “The Locrians themselves,” he remarks, “have assured me that their own traditions are more conformable to the account of Aristotle than to that of Timæus. Of this they mention the following proofs. The first is, that all nobility of ancestry among them is derived from women, and not from men. That those, for example, alone are noble, who derive their origin from the hundred families. That these families were noble among the Locrians before they migrated; and were the same, indeed, from which a hundred virgins were taken by lot, as the oracle had commanded, and were sent to Troy.”[400] It is at least a reasonable supposition that the rank here referred to was connected with the office of chief of the gens, which ennobled the particular family within the gens, upon one of the members of which it was conferred. If this supposition is tenable, it implies descent in the female line both as to persons and to office. The office of chief was hereditary in the gens, and elective among its male members in archaic times; and with descent in the female line, it would pass from brother to brother, and from uncle to nephew. But the office in each case passed through females, the eligibility of the person depending upon the gens of his mother, who gave him his connection with the gens, and with the deceased chief whose place was to be filled. Wherever office or rank runs through females, it requires descent in the female line for its explanation.

Evidence of ancient descent in the female line among the Grecian tribes is found in particular marriages which occurred in the traditionary period. Thus Salmōneus and Krētheus were own brothers, the sons of Æolus. The former gave his daughter Tyrō in marriage to her uncle. With descent in the male line, Krētheus and Tyrō would have been of the same gens, and could not have married for that reason; but with descent in the female line, they would have been of different gentes, and therefore not of gentile kin. Their marriage in that case would not have violated strict gentile usages. It is immaterial that the persons named are mythical, because the legend would apply gentile usages correctly. This marriage is explainable on the hypothesis of descent in the female line, which in turn raises a presumption of its existence at the time, or as justified by their ancient usages which had not wholly died out.

The same fact is revealed by marriages within the historical period, when an ancient practice seems to have survived the change of descent to the male line, even though it violated the gentile obligations of the parties. After the time of Solon a brother might marry his half-sister, provided they were born of different mothers, but not conversely. With descent in the female line, they would be of different gentes, and, therefore, not of gentile kin. Their marriage would interfere with no gentile obligation. But with descent in the male line, which was the fact when the cases about to be cited occurred, they would be of the same gens, and consequently under prohibition. Cimon married his half-sister, Elpinice, their father being the same, but their mothers different. In the Eubulides of Demosthenes we find a similar case. “My grandfather,” says Euxithius, “married his sister, she not being his sister by the same mother.”[401] Such marriages, against which a strong prejudice had arisen among the Athenians as early as the time of Solon, are explainable as a survival of an ancient custom with respect to marriage, which prevailed when descent was in the female line, and which had not been entirely eradicated in the time of Demosthenes.

Descent in the female line presupposes the gens to distinguish the lineage. With our present knowledge of the ancient and modern prevalence of the gentile organization upon five continents, including the Australian, and of the archaic constitution of the gens, traces of descent in the female line might be expected to exist in traditions, if not in usages coming down to historical times. It is not supposable, therefore, that the Lycians, the Cretans, the Athenians and the Locrians, if the evidence is sufficient to include the last two, invented a usage so remarkable as descent in the female line. The hypothesis that it was the ancient law of the Latin, Grecian, and other Græco-Italian gentes affords a more rational as well as satisfactory explanation of the facts. The influence of property and the desire to transmit it to children furnished adequate motives for the change to the male line.

It may be inferred that marrying out of the gens was the rule among the Athenians, before as well as after the time of Solon, from the custom of registering the wife, upon her marriage, in the phratry of her husband, and the children, daughters as well as sons, in the gens and phratry of their father.[402] The fundamental principle on which the gens was founded was the prohibition of intermarriage among its members as consanguinei. In each gens the number of members was not large. Assuming sixty thousand as the number of registered Athenians in the time of Solon, and dividing them equally among the three hundred and sixty Attic gentes, it would give but one hundred and sixty persons to each gens. The gens was a great family of kindred persons, with common religious rites, a common burial place, and, in general, common lands. From the theory of its constitution, intermarriage would be disallowed. With the change of descent to the male line, with the rise of monogamy and an exclusive inheritance in the children, and with the appearance of heiresses, the way was being gradually prepared for free marriage regardless of gens, but with a prohibition limited to certain degrees of near consanguinity. Marriages in the human family began in the group, all the males and females of which, excluding the children, were joint husbands and wives; but the husbands and wives were of different gentes; and it ended in marriage between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation. In subsequent chapters an attempt will be made to trace the several forms of marriage and of the family from the first stage to the last.

A system of consanguinity came in with the gens, distinguished as the Turanian in Asia, and as the Ganowánian in America, which extended the prohibition of intermarriage as far as the relationship of brother and sister extended among collaterals. This system still prevails among the American aborigines, in portions of Asia and Africa, and in Australia.

It unquestionably prevailed among the Grecian and Latin tribes in the same anterior period, and traces of it remained down to the traditionary period. One feature of the Turanian system may be restated as follows: the children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters, and as such could not intermarry; the children of sisters stood in the same relationship, and were under the same prohibition. It may serve to explain the celebrated legend of the Danaidæ, one version of which furnished to Aeschylus his subject for the tragedy of the Suppliants. The reader will remember that Danaus and Ægyptus were brothers, and descendants of Argive Io. The former by different wives had fifty daughters, and the latter by different wives had fifty sons; and in due time the sons of Ægyptus sought the daughters of Danaus in marriage. Under the system of consanguinity appertaining to the gens in its archaic form, and which remained until superseded by the system introduced by monogamy, they were brothers and sisters, and for that reason could not marry. If descent at the time was in the male line, the children of Danaus and Ægyptus would have been of the same gens, which would have interposed an additional objection to their marriage, and of equal weight. Nevertheless the sons of Ægyptus sought to overstep these barriers and enforce wedlock upon the Danaidæ; whilst the latter, crossing the sea, fled from Egypt to Argos to escape what they pronounced an unlawful and incestuous union. In the Prometheus of the same author, this event is foretold to Io by Prometheus, namely: that in the fifth generation from her future son Epaphus, a band of fifty virgins should come to Argos, not voluntarily, but fleeing from incestuous wedlock with the sons of Ægyptus.[403] Their flight with abhorrence from the proposed nuptials finds its explanation in the ancient system of consanguinity, independently of gentile law. Apart from this explanation the event has no significance, and their aversion to the marriages would have been mere prudery.

The tragedy of the Suppliants is founded upon the incident of their flight over the sea to Argos, to claim the protection of their Argive kindred against the proposed violence of the sons of Ægyptus, who pursued them. At Argos the Danaidæ declare that they did not depart from Egypt under the sentence of banishment, but fled from men of common descent with themselves, scorning unholy marriage with the sons of Ægyptus.[404] Their reluctance is placed exclusively upon the fact of kin, thus implying an existing prohibition against such marriages, which they had been trained to respect. After hearing the case of the Suppliants, the Argives in council resolved to afford them protection, which of itself implies the existence of the prohibition of the marriages and the validity of their objection. At the time this tragedy was produced, Athenian law permitted and even required marriage between the children of brothers in the case of heiresses and female orphans, although the rule seems to have been confined to these exceptional cases; such marriages, therefore, would not seem to the Athenians either incestuous or unlawful; but this tradition of the Danaidæ had come down from a remote antiquity, and its whole significance depended upon the force of the custom forbidding the nuptials. The turning-point of the tradition and its incidents was their inveterate repugnance to the proposed marriages as forbidden by law and custom. No other reason is assigned, and no other is needed. At the same time their conduct is intelligible on the assumption that such marriages were as unpermissible then, as marriage between a brother and sister would be at the present time. The attempt of the sons of Ægyptus to break through the barrier interposed by the Turanian system of consanguinity may mark the time when this system was beginning to give way, and the present system, which came in with monogamy, was beginning to assert itself, and which was destined to set aside gentile usages and Turanian consanguinity by the substitution of fixed degrees as the limits of prohibition.

Upon the evidence adduced it seems probable that among the Pelasgian, Hellenic and Italian tribes descent was originally in the female line, from which, under the influence of property and inheritance, it was changed to the male line. Whether or not these tribes anciently possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, the reader will be better able to judge after that system has been presented, with the evidence of its wide prevalence in ancient society.

The length of the traditionary period of these tribes is of course unknown in the years of its duration, but it must be measured by thousands of years. It probably reached back of the invention of the process of smelting iron ore, and if so, passed through the Later Period of barbarism and entered the Middle Period. Their condition of advancement in the Middle Period must have at least equaled that of the Aztecs, Mayas and Peruvians, who were found in the status of the Middle Period; and their condition in the Later Period must have surpassed immensely that of the Indian tribes named. The vast and varied experience of these European tribes in the two great ethnical periods named, during which they achieved the remaining elements of civilization, is entirely lost, excepting as it is imperfectly disclosed in their traditions, and more fully by their acts of life, their customs, language and institutions, as revealed to us by the poems of Homer. Empires and kingdoms were necessarily unknown in these periods; but tribes and inconsiderable nations, city and village life, the growth and development of the arts of life, and physical, mental and moral improvement, were among the particulars of that progress. The loss of the events of these great periods to human knowledge was much greater than can easily be imagined.

XV. GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY

THE SCOTTISH CLAN.—THE IRISH SEPT.—GERMANIC TRIBES.—TRACES OF A PRIOR GENTILE SYSTEM.—GENTES IN SOUTHERN ASIATIC TRIBES.—IN NORTHERN.—IN URALIAN TRIBES.—HUNDRED FAMILIES OF CHINESE.—HEBREW TRIBES.—COMPOSED OF GENTES AND PHRATRIES APPARENTLY.—GENTES IN AFRICAN TRIBES.—IN AUSTRALIAN TRIBES.—SUBDIVISIONS OF FEJEES AND PEWAS.—WIDE DISTRIBUTION OF GENTILE ORGANIZATION.

Having considered the organization into gentes, phratries and tribes in their archaic as well as later form, it remains to trace the extent of its prevalence in the human family, and particularly with respect to the gens, the basis of the system.

The Celtic branch of the Aryan family retained, in the Scottish clan and Irish sept, the organization into gentes to a later period of time than any other branch of the family, unless the Aryans of India are an exception. The Scottish clan in particular was existing in remarkable vitality in the Highlands of Scotland in the middle of the last century. It was an excellent type of the gens in organization and in spirit, and an extraordinary illustration of the power of the gentile life over its members. The illustrious author of Waverley has perpetuated a number of striking characters developed under clan life, and stamped with its peculiarities. Evan Dhu, Torquil, Rob Roy and many others rise before the mind as illustrations of the influence of the gens in molding the character of individuals. If Sir Walter exaggerated these characters in some respects to suit the emergencies of a tale, they had a real foundation. The same clans, a few centuries earlier, when clan life was stronger and external influences were weaker, would probably have verified the pictures. We find in their feuds and blood revenge, in their localization by gentes, in their use of lands in common, in the fidelity of the clansman to his chief and of the members of the clan to each other, the usual and persistent features of gentile society. As portrayed by Scott, it was a more intense and chivalrous gentile life than we are able to find in the gentes of the Greeks and Romans, or, at the other extreme, in those of the American aborigines. Whether the phratric organization existed among them does not appear; but at some anterior period both the phratry and the tribe doubtless did exist. It is well known that the British government were compelled to break up the Highland clans, as organizations, in order to bring the people under the authority of law and the usages of political society. Descent was in the male line, the children of the males remaining members of the clan, while the children of its female members belonged to the clans of their respective fathers.

We shall pass over the Irish sept, the phis or phrara of the Albanians, which embody the remains of a prior gentile organization, and the traces of a similar organization in Dalmatia and Croatia; and also the Sanskrit ganas, the existence of which term in the language implies that this branch of the Aryan family formerly possessed the same institution. The communities of Villeins on French estates in former times, noticed by Sir Henry Maine in his recent work, may prove to be, as he intimates, remains of ancient Celtic gentes. “Now that the explanation has once been given,” he remarks, “there can be no doubt that these associations were not really voluntary partnerships, but groups of kinsmen; not, however, so often organized on the ordinary type of the Village-Community as on that of the House-Community, which has recently been examined in Dalmatia and Croatia. Each of them was what the Hindus call a Joint-Undivided family, a collection of assumed descendants from a common ancestor, preserving a common hearth and common meals during several generations.”[405]

A brief reference should be made to the question whether any traces of the gentile organization remained among the German tribes when they first came under historical notice. That they inherited this institution, with other Aryan tribes, from the common ancestors of the Aryan family, is probable. When first known to the Romans, they were in the Upper Status of barbarism. They could scarcely have developed the idea of government further than the Grecian and Latin tribes, who were in advance of them, when each respectively became known. While the Germans may have acquired an imperfect conception of a state, founded upon territory and upon property, it is not probable that they had any knowledge of the second great plan of government which the Athenians were first among Aryan tribes to establish. The condition and mode of life of the German tribes, as described by Cæsar and Tacitus, tend to the conclusion that their several societies were held together through personal relations, and with but slight reference to territory; and that their government was through these relations. Civil chiefs and military commanders acquired and held office through the elective principle, and constituted the council which was the chief instrument of government. On lesser affairs, Tacitus remarks, the chiefs consult, but on those of greater importance the whole community. While the final decision of all important questions belonged to the people, they were first maturely considered by the chiefs.[406] The close resemblance of these to Grecian and Latin usages will be perceived. The government consisted of three powers, the council of chiefs, the assembly of the people, and the military commander.

Cæsar remarks that the Germans were not studious of agriculture, the greater part of their food consisting of milk, cheese and meat; nor had anyone a fixed quantity of land, or his own individual boundaries, but the magistrates and chiefs each year assigned to the gentes and kinsmen who had united in one body (gentibus cognationibusque hominum, qui una coerint) as much land, and in such places as seemed best, compelling them the next year to remove to another place.[407] To give effect to the expression in parenthesis, it must be supposed that he found among them groups of persons, larger than a family, united on the basis of kin, to whom, as groups of persons, lands were allotted. It excludes individuals, and even the family, both of whom were merged in the group thus united for cultivation and subsistence. It seems probable, from the form of the statement, that the German family at this time was syndyasmian; and that several related families were united in households and practiced communism in living.

Tacitus refers to a usage of the German tribes in the arrangement of their forces in battle, by which kinsmen were placed side by side. It would have no significance, if kinship were limited to near consanguinei. And what is an especial incitement of their courage, he remarks, neither chance nor a fortuitous gathering of the forces make up the squadron of horse, or the infantry wedge; but they were formed according to families and kinships (familiæ et propinquitates).[408] This expression, and that previously quoted from Cæsar, seem to indicate the remains at least of a prior gentile organization, which at this time was giving place to the mark or local district as the basis of a still imperfect political system.

The German tribes, for the purpose of military levies, had the mark (markgenossenschaft), which also existed among the English Saxons, and a larger group, the gau, to which Cæsar and Tacitus gave the name of pagus.[409] It is doubtful whether the mark and the gau were then strictly geographical districts, standing to each other in the relations of township and county, each circumscribed by bounds, with the people in each politically organized. It seems more probable that the gau was a group of settlements associated with reference to military levies. As such, the mark and the gau were the germs of the future township and county, precisely as the Athenian naucrary and trittys were the rudiments of the Cleisthenean deme and local tribe. These organizations seemed transitional stages between a gentile and a political system, the grouping of the people still resting on consanguinity.[410]

We naturally turn to the Asiatic continent, where the types of mankind are the most numerous, and where, consequently, the period of human occupation has been longest, to find the earliest traces of the gentile organization. But here the transformations of society have been the most extended, and the influence of tribes and nations upon each other the most constant. The early development of Chinese and Indian civilization and the overmastering influence of modern civilization have wrought such changes in the condition of Asiatic stocks that their ancient institutions are not easily ascertainable. Nevertheless, the whole experience of mankind from savagery to civilization was worked out upon the Asiatic continent, and among its fragmentary tribes the remains of their ancient institutions must now be sought.

Descent in the female line is still very common in the ruder Asiatic tribes; but there are numerous tribes among whom it is traced in the male line. It is the limitation of descent to one line or the other, followed by the organization of the body of consanguinei, thus separated under a common name which indicates a gens.

In the Magar tribe of Nepaul, Latham remarks, “there are twelve thums. All individuals belonging to the same thum are supposed to be descended from the same male ancestor; descent from the same mother being by no means necessary. So husband and wife must belong to different thums. Within one and the same there is no marriage. Do you wish for a wife? If so, look to the thum of your neighbor; at any rate look beyond your own. This is the first time I have found occasion to mention this practice. It will not be the last; on the contrary, the principle it suggests is so common as to be almost universal. We shall find it in Australia; we shall find it in North and South America; we shall find it in Africa; we shall find it in Europe; we shall suspect and infer it in many places where the actual evidence of its existence is incomplete.”[411] In this case we have in the thum clear evidence of the existence of a gens, with descent in the male line.

“The Munnieporees, and the following tribes inhabiting the hills round Munniepore—the Koupooes, the Mows, the Murams, and the Murring—are each and all divided into four families—Koomul, Looang, Angom, and Ningthajà. A member of any of these families may marry a member of any other, but the intermarriage of members of the same family is strictly prohibited.”[412] In these families may be recognized four gentes in each of these tribes. Bell, speaking of the Telûsh of the Circassians, remarks that “the tradition in regard to them is, that the members of each and all sprang from the same stock or ancestry; and thus they may be considered as so many septs or clans.... These cousins german, or members of the same fraternity, are not only themselves interdicted from intermarrying, but their serfs, too, must wed with serfs of another fraternity.”[413] It is probable that the telûsh is a gens.

Among the Bengalese “the four castes are subdivided into many different sects or classes, and each of these is again subdivided; for instance, I am of Nundy tribe [gens?], and if I were a heathen I could not marry a woman of the same tribe, although the caste must be the same. The children are of the tribe of their father. Property descends to the sons. In case the person has no sons, to his daughters; and if he leaves neither, to his nearest relatives. Castes are subdivided, such as Shuro, which is one of the first divisions; but it is again subdivided, such as Khayrl, Tilly, Tamally, Tanty, Chomor, Kari, etc. A man belonging to one of these last-named subdivisions cannot marry a woman of the same.”[414] These smallest groups number usually about a hundred persons, and still retain several of the characteristics of a gens.

Mr. Tyler remarks, that “in India it is unlawful for a Brahman to marry a wife whose clan-name or ghotra (literally ‘cow-stall’) is the same as his own, a prohibition which bars marriage among relatives in the male line indefinitely. This law appears in the code of Manu as applying to the first three castes, and connexions on the female side are also forbidden to marry within certain wide limits.”[415] And again: “Among the Kols of Chota-Nagpur, we find many of the Oraon and Munda clans named after animals, as eel, hawk, crow, heron, and they must not kill or eat what they are named after.”[416]

The Mongolians approach the American aborigines quite nearly in physical characteristics. They are divided into numerous tribes. “The connection,” says Latham, “between the members of a tribe is that of blood, pedigree, or descent; the tribe being, in some cases, named after a real or supposed patriarch. The tribe, by which we translate the native name aimauk, or aimâk, is a large division falling into so many kokhums, or banners.”[417] The statement is not full enough to show the existence of gentes. Their neighbors, the Tungusians, are composed of subdivisions named after animals, as the horse, the dog, the reindeer, which imply the gentile organizations, but it cannot be asserted without further particulars.

Sir John Lubbock remarks of the Kalmucks that according to De Hell, they “are divided into hordes, and no man can marry a woman of the same horde;” and of the Ostiaks, that they “regard it as a crime to marry a woman of the same family or even of the same name;” and that “when a Jakut (Siberia) wishes to marry, he must choose a girl from another clan.”[418] We have in each of these cases evidence of the existence of a gens, one of the rules of which, as has been shown, is the prohibition of intermarriage among its members. The Yurak Samoyeds are organized in gentes. Klaproth, quoted by Latham, remarks that “this division of the kinsmanship is so rigidly observed that no Samoyed takes a wife from the kinsmanship to which he himself belongs. On the contrary, he seeks her in one of the other two.”[419]

A peculiar family system prevails among the Chinese which seems to embody the remains of an ancient gentile organization. Mr. Robert Hart, of Canton, in a letter to the author remarks, “that the Chinese expression for the people is Pih-sing, which means the Hundred Family Names; but whether this is mere word-painting, or had its origin at a time when the Chinese general family consisted of one hundred subfamilies or tribes [gentes?] I am unable to determine. At the present day there are about four hundred family names in this country, among which I find some that have reference to animals, fruits, metals, natural objects, etc., and which may be translated as Horse, Sheep, Ox, Fish, Bird, Phœnix, Plum, Flower, Leaf, Rice, Forest, River, Hill, Water, Cloud, Gold, Hide, Bristles, etc., etc. In some parts of the country large villages are 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 husbands and wives are of different tribes [gentes], so in China husband and wife are always of different families, i. e., of different surnames. Custom and law alike prohibit intermarriage on the part of people having the same family surname. The children are of the father’s family, that is, they take his family surname.... Where the father dies intestate the property generally remains undivided, but under the control of the oldest son during the life of the widow. On her death he divides the property between himself and his brothers, the shares of the juniors depending entirely upon the will of the elder brother.”

The family here described appears to be a gens, analogous to the Roman in the time of Romulus; but whether it was reintegrated, with other gentes of common descent, in a phratry does not appear. Moreover, the gentiles are still located as an independent consanguine body in one area, as the Roman gentes were localized in the early period, and the names of the gentes are still of the archaic type. Their increase to four hundred by segmentation might have been expected; but their maintenance to the present time, after the period of barbarism has long passed away, is the remarkable fact, and an additional proof of their immobility as a people. It may be suspected also that the monogamian family in these villages has not attained its full development, and that communism in living, and in wives as well, may not be unknown among them. Among the wild aboriginal tribes, who still inhabit the mountain regions of China and who speak dialects different from the Mandarin, the gens in its archaic form may yet be discovered. To these isolated tribes, we should naturally look for the ancient institutions of the Chinese.

In like manner the tribes of Afghanistan are said to be subdivided into clans; but whether these clans are true gentes has not been ascertained.

Not to weary the reader with further details of a similar character, a sufficient number of cases have been adduced to create a presumption that the gentile organization prevailed very generally and widely among the remote ancestors of the present Asiatic tribes and nations.

The twelve tribes of the Hebrews, as they appear in the Book of Numbers, represent a reconstruction of Hebrew society by legislative procurement. The condition of barbarism had then passed away, and that of civilization had commenced. The principle on which the tribes were organized, as bodies of consanguinei, presuppose an anterior gentile system, which had remained in existence and was now systematized. At this time they had no knowledge of any other plan of government than a gentile society formed of consanguine groups united through personal relations. Their subsequent localization in Palestine by consanguine tribes, each district named after one of the twelve sons of Jacob, with the exception of the tribe of Levi, is a practical recognition of the fact that they were organized by lineages and not into a community of citizens. The history of the most remarkable nation of the Semitic family has been concentrated around the names of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the twelve sons of the latter.

Hebrew history commences essentially with Abraham, the account of whose forefathers is limited to a pedigree barren of details. A few passages will show the extent of the progress then made, and the status of advancement in which Abraham appeared. He is described as “very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.”[420] For the cave of Machpelah “Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hundred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant.”[421] With respect to domestic life and subsistence, the following passage may be cited: “And Abraham hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures of fine meal; knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.”[422] “And he took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them.”[423] With respect to implements, raiment and ornaments: “Abraham took the fire in his hand and a knife.”[424] “And the servant brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment, and gave them to Rebekah: he gave also to her brother and to her mother precious things.”[425] When she met Isaac, Rebekah “took a veil and covered herself.”[426] In the same connection are mentioned the camel, ass, ox, sheep and goat, together with flocks and herds; the grain mill, the water pitcher, earrings, bracelets, tents, houses and cities. The bow and arrow, the sword, corn and wine, and fields sown with grain, are mentioned. They indicate the Upper Status of barbarism for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Writing in this branch of the Semitic family was probably then unknown. The degree of development shown corresponds substantially with that of the Homeric Greeks.

Early Hebrew marriage customs indicate the presence of the gens, and in its archaic form. Abraham, by his servant, seemingly purchased Rebekah as a wife for Isaac; the “precious things” being given to the brother, and to the mother of the bride, but not to the father. In this case the presents went to the gentile kindred, provided a gens existed, with descent in the female line. Again, Abraham married his half-sister Sarah. “And yet indeed,” he says, “she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother: and she became my wife.”[427]

With an existing gens and descent in the female line Abraham and Sarah would have belonged to different gentes, and although of blood kin they were not of gentile kin, and could have married by gentile usage. The case would have been reversed in both particulars with descent in the male line. Nahor married his niece, the daughter of his brother Haran;[428] and Amram, the father of Moses, married his aunt, the sister of his father, who became the mother of the Hebrew lawgiver.[429] In these cases, with descent in the female line, the persons marrying would have belonged to different gentes; but otherwise with descent in the male line. While these cases do not prove absolutely the existence of gentes, the latter would afford such an explanation of them as to raise a presumption of the existence of the gentile organization in its archaic form.

When the Mosaic legislation was completed the Hebrews were a civilized people, but not far enough advanced to institute political society. The scripture account shows that they were organized in a series of consanguine groups in an ascending scale, analogous to the gens, phratry and tribe of the Greeks. In the muster and organization of the Hebrews, both as a society and as an army, while in the Sinaitic peninsula, repeated references are made to these consanguine groups in an ascending series, the seeming equivalents of a gens, phratry and tribe. Thus, the tribe of Levi consisted of eight gentes, organized in three phratries, as follows:

Tribe of Levi. Sons { I. Gershon. 7,500 Males. of { II. Kohath. 8,600 ” Levi. { III. Merari. 6,200 ”

I. Gershonite Phratry. Gentes.—1. Libni. 2. Shimei.

II. Kohathite Phratry. Gentes.—1. Amram. 2. Izhar. 3. Hebron. 4. Uzziel.

III. Merarite Phratry. Gentes.—1. Mahli. 2. Mushi.

“Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families.... And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari. And these were the names of the sons of Gershon by their families; Libni, and Shimei. And the sons of Kohath by their families; Amram, and Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. And the sons of Merari by their families; Mahli, and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites by the house of their fathers.”[430]

The description of these groups sometimes commences with the upper member of the series, and sometimes with the lower or the unit. Thus: “Of the children of Simeon, by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers.”[431] Here the children of Simeon, with their generations, constitute the tribe; the families are the phratries; and the house of the father is the gens. Again: “And the chief of the house of the father of the families of the Kohathites shall be Elizaphan the son of Uzziel.”[432] Here we find the gens first, and then the phratry, and last the tribe. The person named was the chief of the phratry. Each house of the father also had its ensign or banner to distinguish it from others. “Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father’s house.”[433] These terms describe actual organizations; and they show that their military organization was by gentes, by phratries and by tribes.

With respect to the first and smallest of these groups, “the house of the father,” it must have numbered several hundred persons from the figures given of the number in each phratry. The Hebrew term beth’ ab, signifies paternal house, house of the father, and family house. If the Hebrews possessed the gens, it was this group of persons. The use of two terms to describe it would leave a doubt, unless individual families under monogamy had then become so numerous and so prominent that this circumlocution was necessary to cover the kindred. We have literally, the house of Amram, of Izhar, of Hebron, and of Uzziel; but as the Hebrews at that time could have had no conception of a house as now applied to a titled family, it probably signified, as used, kindred or lineage.[434] Since each division and subdivision is headed by a male, and since Hebrew descents are traced through males exclusively, descent among them, at this time, was undoubtedly in the male line. Next in the ascending scale is the family, which seems to be a phratry. The Hebrew term for this organization, mishpacah, signifies union, clanship. It was composed of two or more houses of the father, derived by segmentation from an original group, and distinguished by a phratric name. It answers very closely to the phratry. The family or phratry had an annual sacrificial feast.[435] Lastly, the tribe, called in Hebrew matteh, which signifies a branch, stem or shoot, is the analogue of the Grecian tribe.

Very few particulars are given respecting the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of these bodies of consanguinei. The idea of kin which united each organization from the house of the father to the tribe, is carried out in a form much more marked and precise than in the corresponding organizations of Grecian, Latin or American Indian tribes. While the Athenian traditions claimed that the four tribes were derived from the four sons of Ion, they did not pretend to explain the origin of the gentes and phratries. On the contrary, the Hebrew account not only derives the twelve tribes genealogically from the twelve sons of Jacob, but also the gentes and phratries from the children and descendants of each. Human experience furnishes no parallel of the growth of gentes and phratries precisely in this way. The account must be explained as a classification of existing consanguine groups, according to the knowledge preserved by tradition, in doing which minor obstacles were overcome by legislative constraint.

The Hebrews styled themselves the “People of Israel,” and also a “Congregation.”[436] It is a direct recognition of the fact that their organization was social, and not political.

In Africa we encounter a chaos of savagery and barbarism. Original arts and inventions have largely disappeared, through fabrics and utensils introduced from external sources; but savagery in its lowest forms, cannibalism included, and barbarism in its lowest forms prevail over the greater part of the continent. Among the interior tribes, there is a nearer approach to an indigenous culture and to a normal condition; but Africa, in the main, is a barren ethnological field.

Although the home of the Negro race, it is well known that their numbers are limited and their areas small. Latham significantly remarks that “the negro is an exceptional African.”[437] The Ashiras, Aponos, Ishogos and Ashangos, between the Congo and the Niger, visited by Du Chaillu, are of the true negro type. “Each village,” he remarks, “had its chief, and further in the interior the villages seemed to be governed by elders, each elder with his people having a separate portion of the village to themselves. There was in each clan the ifoumou, fumou, or acknowledged head of the clan (ifoumou meaning the source, the father). I have never been able to obtain from the natives a knowledge concerning the splitting of their tribes into clans; they seemed not to know how it happened, but the formation of new clans does not take place now among them.... The house of a chief or elder is not better than those of his neighbors. The despotic form of government is unknown.... A council of the elders is necessary before one is put to death.... Tribes and clans intermarry with each other, and this brings about a friendly feeling among the people. People of the same clan cannot intermarry with each other. The least consanguinity is considered an abomination; nevertheless the nephew has not the slightest objection to take his uncle’s wives, and, as among the Balakai, the son takes his father’s wives, except his own mother.... Polygamy and slavery exist everywhere among the tribes I have visited.... The law of inheritance among the Western tribes is, that the next brother inherits the wealth of the eldest (women, slaves, etc.), but that if the youngest dies the eldest inherits his property, and if there are no brothers that the nephew inherits it. The headship of the clan or family is hereditary, following the same law as that of the inheritance of property. In the case of all the brothers having died, the eldest son of the eldest sister inherits, and it goes on thus until the branch is extinguished, for all clans are considered as descended from the female side.”[438]

All the elements of a true gens are embodied in the foregoing particulars, namely, descent is limited to one line, in this case the female, which gives the gens in its archaic form. Moreover, descent is in the female line with respect to office and to property, as well as the gentile name. The office of chief passes from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, that nephew being the son of a sister, as among the American aborigines; whilst the sons are excluded because not members of the gens of the deceased chief. Marriage in the gens is also forbidden. The only material omission in these precise statements is the names of some of the gentes. The hereditary feature requires further explanation.

Among the Banyai of the Zambezi river, who are a people of higher grade than the negroes, Dr. Livingstone observed the following usages: “The government of the Banyai is rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal republicanism. The chief is elected, and they choose the son of a deceased chief’s sister in preference to his own offspring. When dissatisfied with one candidate, they even go to a distant tribe for a successor, who is usually of the family of the late chief, a brother, or a sister’s son, but never his own son or daughter.... All the wives, goods, and children of his predecessor belong to him.”[439] Dr. Livingstone does not give the particulars of their social organization; but the descent of the office of chief from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, implies the existence of the gens with descent in the female line.

The numerous tribes occupying the country watered by the Zambezi, and from thence southward to Cape Colony, are regarded by the natives themselves, according to Dr. Livingstone, as one stock in three great divisions, the Bechuanas, the Basutos, and the Kafirs.[440] With respect to the former, he remarks that “the Bechuana tribes are named after certain animals, showing probably that in ancient times they were addicted to animal worship like the ancient Egyptians. The term Bakatla means ‘they of the Monkey’; Bakuona, ‘they of the Alligator’; Batlapi, ‘they of the Fish’; each tribe having a superstitious dread of the animal after which it is called.... A tribe never eats the animal which is its namesake.... We find traces of many ancient tribes in individual members of those now extinct; as Bátau, ‘they of the Lion’; Banoga, ‘they of the Serpent,’ though no such tribes now exist.”[441] These animal names are suggestive of the gens rather than the tribe. Moreover, the fact that single individuals are found, each of whom was the last survivor of his tribe, would be more likely to have occurred if gens were understood in the place of tribe. Among the Bangalas of the Cassange Valley, in Argola, Livingstone remarks that “a chief’s brother inherits in preference to his sons. The sons of a sister belong to her brother; and he often sells his nephews to pay his debts.”[442] Here again we have evidence of descent in the female line; but his statements are too brief and general in these and other cases to show definitely whether or not they possessed the gens.

Among the Australians the gentes of the Kamilaroi have already been noticed. In ethnical position the aborigines of this great island are near the bottom of the scale. When discovered they were not only savages, but in a low condition of savagery. Some of the tribes were cannibals. Upon this last question Mr. Fison, before mentioned, writes as follows to the author: “Some, at least, of the tribes are cannibals. The evidence of this is conclusive. The Wide Bay tribes eat not only their enemies slain in battle, but their friends also who have been killed, and even those who have died a natural death, provided they are in good condition. Before eating they skin them, and preserve the skins by rubbing them with mingled fat and charcoal. These skins they prize very highly, believing them to have great medicinal value.”

Such pictures of human life enable us to understand the condition of savagery, the grade of its usages, the degree of material development, and the low level of the mental and moral life of the people. Australian humanity, as seen in their cannibal customs, stands on as low a plane as it has been known to touch on the earth. And yet the Australians possessed an area of continental dimensions, rich in minerals, not uncongenial in climate, and fairly supplied with the means of subsistence. But after an occupation which must be measured by thousands of years, they are still savages of the grade above indicated. Left to themselves they would probably have remained for thousands of years to come, not without any, but with such slight improvement as scarcely to lighten the dark shade of their savage state.

Among the Australians, whose institutions are normal and homogeneous, the organization into gentes is not confined to the Kamilaroi, but seems to be universal. The Narrinyeri of South Australia, near Lacepede Bay are organized in gentes named after animals and insects. Rev. George Taplin, writing to my friend Mr. Fison, after stating that the Narrinyeri do not marry into their own gens, and that the children were of the gens of their father, continues as follows: “There are no castes, nor are there any classes, similar to those of the Kamilaroi-speaking tribes of New South Wales. But each tribe or family (and a tribe is a family) has its totem, or ngaitye; and indeed some individuals have this ngaitye. It is regarded as the man’s tutelary genius. It is some animal, bird, or insect.... The natives are very strict in their marriage arrangements. A tribe [gens] is considered a family, and a man never marries into his own tribe.”

Mr. Fison also writes, “that among the tribes of the Maranoa district, Queensland, whose dialect is called Urghi, according to information communicated to me by Mr. A. S. P. Cameron, the same classification exists as among the Kamilaroi-speaking tribes, both as to the class names and the totems.” With respect to the Australians of the Darling River, upon information communicated by Mr. Charles G. N. Lockwood, he further remarks, that “they are subdivided into tribes [gentes], mentioning the Emu, Wild Duck, and Kangaroo, but without saying whether there are others, and that the children take both the class name and totem of the mother.”[443]

From the existence of the gentile organization among the tribes named its general prevalence among the Australian aborigines is rendered probable; although the institution, as has elsewhere been pointed out, is in the incipient stages of its development.

Our information with respect to the domestic institutions of the inhabitants of Polynesia, Micronesia and the Papuan Islands is still limited and imperfect. No traces of the gentile organization have been discovered among the Hawaiians, Samoans, Marquesas Islanders or New Zealanders. Their system of consanguinity is still primitive, showing that their institutions have not advanced as far as this organization presupposes.[444] In some of the Micronesian Islands the office of chief is transmitted through females;[445] but this usage might exist independently of the gens. The Fijians are subdivided into several tribes speaking dialects of the same stock language. One of these, the Rewas, consists of four subdivisions under distinctive names, and each of these is again subdivided. It does not seem probable that the last subdivisions are gentes, for the reason, among others, that its members are allowed to intermarry. Descent is in the male line. In like manner the Tongans are composed of divisions, which are again subdivided the same as the Rewas.

Around the simple ideas relating to marriage and the family, to subsistence and to government, the earliest social organizations were formed; and with them an exposition of the structure and principle of ancient society must commence. Adopting the theory of a progressive development of mankind through the experience of the ages, the insulation of the inhabitants of Oceanica, their limited local areas, and their restricted means of subsistence predetermined a slow rate of progress. They still represent a condition of mankind on the continent of Asia in times immensely remote from the present; and while peculiarities, incident to their insulation, undoubtedly exist, these island societies represent one of the early phases of the great stream of human progress. An exposition of their institutions, inventions and discoveries, and mental and moral traits, would supply one of the great needs of anthropological science.

This concludes the discussion of the organization into gentes, and the range of its distribution. The organization has been found among the Australians and African Negroes, with traces of the system in other African tribes. It has been found generally prevalent among that portion of the American aborigines who when discovered were in the Lower Status of barbarism; and also among a portion of the Village Indians who were in the Middle Status of barbarism. In like manner it existed in full vitality among the Grecian and Latin tribes in the Upper Status of barbarism; with traces of it in several of the remaining branches of the Aryan family. The organization has been found, or traces of its existence, in the Turanian, Uralian and Mongolian families; in the Tungusian and Chinese stocks, and in the Semitic family among the Hebrews. Facts sufficiently numerous and commanding have been adduced to claim for it an ancient universality in the human family, as well as a general prevalence through the latter part of the period of savagery, and throughout the period of barbarism.

The investigation has also arrayed a sufficient body of facts to demonstrate that this remarkable institution was the origin and the basis of Ancient Society. It was the first organic principle, developed through experience, which was able to organize society upon a definite plan, and hold it in organic unity until it was sufficiently advanced for the transition into political society. Its antiquity, its substantial universality and its enduring vitality are sufficiently shown by its perpetuation upon all the continents to the present time. The wonderful adaptability of the gentile organization to the wants of mankind in these several periods and conditions is sufficiently attested by its prevalence and by its preservation. It has been identified with the most eventful portion of the experience of mankind.

Whether the gens originates spontaneously in a given condition of society, and would thus repeat itself in disconnected areas; or whether it had a single origin, and was propagated from an original center, through successive migrations, over the earth’s surface, are fair questions for speculative consideration. The latter hypothesis, with a simple modification, seems to be the better one, for the following reasons: We find that two forms of marriage, and two forms of the family preceded the institution of the gens. It required a peculiar experience to attain to the second form of marriage and of the family, and to supplement this experience by the invention of the gens. This second form of the family was the final result, through natural selection, of the reduction within narrower limits of a stupendous conjugal system which enfolded savage man and held him with a powerful grasp. His final deliverance was too remarkable and too improbable, as it would seem, to be repeated many different times, and in widely separated areas. Groups of consanguinei, united for protection and subsistence, doubtless, existed from the infancy of the human family; but the gens is a very different body of kindred. It takes a part and excludes the remainder; it organized this part on the bond of kin, under a common name, and with common rights and privileges. Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited to secure the benefits of marrying out with unrelated persons. This was a vital principle of the organism as well as one most difficult of establishment. Instead of a natural and obvious conception, the gens was essentially abstruse; and, as such, a product of high intelligence for the times in which it originated. It required long periods of time, after the idea was developed into life, to bring it to maturity with its uses evolved. The Polynesians had this punaluan family, but failed of inventing the gens; the Australians had the same form of the family and possessed the gens. It originates in the punaluan family, and whatever tribes had attained to it possessed the elements out of which the gens was formed. This is the modification of the hypothesis suggested. In the prior organization, on the basis of sex, the germ of the gens existed. When the gens had become fully developed in its archaic form it would propagate itself over immense areas through the superior powers of an improved stock thus created. Its propagation is more easily explained than its institution. These considerations tend to show the improbability of its repeated reproduction in disconnected areas. On the other hand, its beneficial effects in producing a stock of savages superior to any then existing upon the earth must be admitted. When migrations were flights under the law of savage life, or movements in quest of better areas, such a stock would spread in wave after wave until it covered the larger part of the earth’s surface. A consideration of the principal facts now ascertained bearing upon this question seems to favor the hypothesis of a single origin of the organization into gentes, unless we go back of this to the Australian classes, which gave the punaluan family out of which the gens originated, and regard these classes as the original basis of ancient society. In this event wherever the classes were established, the gens existed potentially.

Assuming the unity of origin of mankind, the occupation of the earth occurred through migrations from an original center. The Asiatic continent must then be regarded as the cradle-land of the species, from the greater number of original types of man it contains in comparison with Europe, Africa and America. It would also follow that the separation of the Negroes and Australians from the common stem occurred when society was organized on the basis of sex, and when the family was punaluan; that the Polynesian migration occurred later, but with society similarly constituted; and finally, that the Ganowánian migration to America occurred later still, and after the institution of the gentes. These inferences are put forward simply as suggestions.

A knowledge of the gens and its attributes, and of the range of its distribution, is absolutely necessary to a proper comprehension of Ancient Society. This is the great subject now requiring special and extended investigation. This society among the ancestors of civilized nations attained its highest development in the last days of barbarism. But there were phases of that same society far back in the anterior ages, which must now be sought among barbarians and savages in corresponding conditions. The idea of organized society has been a growth through the entire existence of the human race; its several phases are logically connected, the one giving birth to the other in succession; and that form of it we have been contemplating originated in the gens. No other institution of mankind has held such an ancient and remarkable relation to the course of human progress. The real history of mankind is contained in the history of the growth and development of institutions, of which the gens is but one. It is, however, the basis of those which have exercised the most material influence upon human affairs.

I. THE ANCIENT FAMILY

FIVE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF THE FAMILY.—FIRST, THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY.—IT CREATED THE MALAYAN SYSTEM OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY.—SECOND, THE PUNALUAN.—IT CREATED THE TURANIAN AND GANOWÁNIAN SYSTEM.—THIRD, THE MONOGAMIAN.—IT CREATED THE ARYAN, SEMITIC, AND URALIAN SYSTEM.—THE SYNDYASMIAN AND PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES INTERMEDIATE.—BOTH FAILED TO CREATE A SYSTEM OF CONSANGUINITY.—THESE SYSTEMS NATURAL GROWTHS.—TWO ULTIMATE FORMS.—ONE CLASSIFICATORY, THE OTHER DESCRIPTIVE.—GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THESE SYSTEMS.—THEIR PERSISTENT MAINTENANCE.

We have been accustomed to regard the monogamian family as the form which has always existed; but interrupted in exceptional areas by the patriarchal. Instead of this, the idea of the family has been a growth through successive stages of development, the monogamian being the last in its series of forms. It will be my object to show that it was preceded by more ancient forms which prevailed universally throughout the period of savagery, through the Older and into the Middle Period of barbarism; and that neither the monogamian nor the patriarchal can be traced back of the Later Period of barbarism. They were essentially modern. Moreover, they were impossible in ancient society, until an anterior experience under earlier forms in every race of mankind had prepared the way for their introduction.

Five different and successive forms may now be distinguished, each having an institution of marriage peculiar to itself. They are the following:

I. The Consanguine Family.

It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group.

II. The Punaluan Family.

It was founded upon the intermarriage of several sisters, own and collateral, with each others’ husbands, in a group; the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other. Also, on the intermarriage of several brothers, own and collateral, with each others’ wives, in a group; these wives not being necessarily of kin to each other, although often the case in both instances. In each case the group of men were conjointly married to the group of women.

III. The Syndyasmian or Pairing Family.

It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation. The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties.

IV. The Patriarchal Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man with several wives; followed, in general, by the seclusion of the wives.

V. The Monogamian Family.

It was founded upon marriage between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation.

Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were radical; because they were sufficiently general and influential to create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the family and of marriage, with which they severally stand connected. The remaining two, the syndyasmian and the patriarchal, were intermediate, and not sufficiently influential upon human affairs to create a new, or modify essentially the then existing system of consanguinity. It will not be supposed that these types of the family are separated from each other by sharply defined lines; on the contrary, the first passes into the second, the second into the third, and the third into the fifth by insensible gradations. The propositions to be elucidated and established are, that they have sprung successively one from the other, and that they represent collectively the growth of the idea of the family.

In order to explain the rise of these several forms of the family and of marriage, it will be necessary to present the substance of the system of consanguinity and affinity which pertains to each. These systems embody compendious and decisive evidence, free from all suspicion of design, bearing directly upon the question. Moreover, they speak with an authority and certainty which leave no room to doubt the inferences therefrom. But a system of consanguinity is intricate and perplexing until it is brought into familiarity. It will tax the reader’s patience to look into the subject far enough to be able to test the value and weight of the evidence it contains. Having treated at length, in a previous work, the “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,”[446] I shall confine the statements herein to the material facts, reduced to the lowest number consistent with intelligibility, making reference to the other work for fuller details, and for the general Tables. The importance of the main proposition as a part of the history of man, namely, that the family has been a growth through several successive forms, is a commanding reason for the presentation and study of these systems, if they can in truth establish the fact. It will require this and the four succeeding chapters to make a brief general exhibition of the proof.

The most primitive system of consanguinity yet discovered is found among the Polynesians, of which the Hawaiian will be used as typical. I have called it the Malayan system. Under it all consanguinei, near and remote, fall within some one of the following relationships; namely, parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother, and sister. No other blood relationships are recognized. Beside these are the marriage relationships. This system of consanguinity came in with the first form of the family, the consanguine, and contains the principal evidence of its ancient existence. It may seem a narrow basis for so important an inference: but if we are justified in assuming that each relationship as recognized was the one which actually existed, the inference is fully sustained. This system prevailed very generally in Polynesia, although the family among them had passed out of the consanguine into the punaluan. It remained unchanged because no motive sufficiently strong, and no alteration of institutions sufficiently radical had occurred to produce its modification. Intermarriage between brothers and sisters had not entirely disappeared from the Sandwich Islands when the American missions, about fifty years ago, were established among them. Of the ancient general prevalence of this system of consanguinity over Asia there can be no doubt, because it is the basis of the Turanian system still prevalent in Asia. It also underlies the Chinese.

In course of time, a second great system of consanguinity, the Turanian, supervened upon the first, and spread over a large part of the earth’s surface. It was universal among the North American aborigines, and has been traced sufficiently among those of South America to render probable its equally universal prevalence among them. Traces of it have been found in parts of Africa; but the system of the African tribes in general approaches nearer the Malayan. It still prevails in South India among the Hindus who speak dialects of the Dravidian language, and also, in a modified form, in North India, among the Hindus who speak dialects of the Gaura language. It also prevails in Australia in a partially developed state, where it seems to have originated either in the organization into classes, or in the incipient organization into gentes, which led to the same result. In the principal tribes of the Turanian and Ganowánian families, it owes its origin to punaluan marriage in the group and to the gentile organization, the latter of which tended to repress consanguine marriages. It has been shown how this was accomplished by the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens, which permanently excluded own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation. When the Turanian system of consanguinity came in, the form of the family was punaluan. This is proven by the fact that punaluan marriage in the group explains the principal relationships under the system; showing them to be those which would actually exist in virtue of this form of marriage. Through the logic of the facts we are enabled to show that the punaluan family was once as wide-spread as the Turanian system of consanguinity. To the organization into gentes and the punaluan family, the Turanian system of consanguinity must be ascribed. It will be seen in the sequel that this system was formed out of the Malayan, by changing those relationships only which resulted from the previous intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, and which were, in fact, changed by the gentes; thus proving the direct connection between them. The powerful influence of the gentile organization upon society, and particularly upon the punaluan group, is demonstrated by this change of systems.

The Turanian system is simply stupendous. It recognizes all the relationships known under the Aryan system, besides an additional number unnoticed by the latter. Consanguinei, near and remote, are classified into categories; and are traced, by means peculiar to the system, far beyond the ordinary range of the Aryan system. In familiar and in formal salutation, the people address each other by the term of relationship, and never by the personal name, which tends to spread abroad a knowledge of the system as well as to preserve, by constant recognition, the relationship of the most distant kindred. Where no relationship exists, the form of salutation is simply “my friend.” No other system of consanguinity found among men approaches it in elaborateness of discrimination or in the extent of special characteristics.

When the American aborigines were discovered, the family among them had passed out of the punaluan into the syndyasmian form; so that the relationships recognized by the system of consanguinity were not those, in a number of cases, which actually existed in the syndyasmian family. It was an exact repetition of what had occurred under the Malayan system, where the family had passed out of the consanguine into the punaluan, the system of consanguinity remaining unchanged; so that while the relationships given in the Malayan system were those which actually existed in the consanguine family, they were untrue to a part of those in the punaluan family. In like manner, while the relationships given in the Turanian system are those which actually existed in the punaluan family, they were untrue to a part of those in the syndyasmian. The form of the family advances faster of necessity than systems of consanguinity, which follow to record the family relationships. As the establishment of the punaluan family did not furnish adequate motives to reform the Malayan system, so the growth of the syndyasmian family did not supply adequate motives to reform the Turanian. It required an institution as great as the gentile organization to change the Malayan system into the Turanian; and it required an institution as great as property in the concrete, with its rights of ownership and of inheritance, together with the monogamian family which it created, to overthrow the Turanian system of consanguinity and substitute the Aryan.

In further course of time a third great system of consanguinity came in, which may be called, at pleasure, the Aryan, Semitic, or Uralian, and probably superseded a prior Turanian system among the principal nations, who afterwards attained civilization. It is the system which defines the relationships in the monogamian family. This system was not based upon the Turanian, as the latter was upon the Malayan; but it superseded among civilized nations a previous Turanian system, as can be shown by other proofs.

The last four forms of the family have existed within the historical period; but the first, the consanguine, has disappeared. Its ancient existence, however, can be deduced from the Malayan system of consanguinity. We have then three radical forms of the family, which represent three great and essentially different conditions of life, with three different and well-marked systems of consanguinity, sufficient to prove the existence of these families, if they contained the only proofs remaining. This affirmation will serve to draw attention to the singular permanence and persistency of systems of consanguinity, and to the value of the evidence they embody with respect to the condition of ancient society.

Each of these families ran a long course in the tribes of mankind, with a period of infancy, of maturity, and of decadence. The monogamian family owes its origin to property, as the syndyasmian, which contained its germ, owed its origin to the gens. When the Grecian tribes first came under historical notice, the monogamian family existed; but it did not become completely established until positive legislation had determined its status and its rights. The growth of the idea of property in the human mind, through its creation and enjoyment, and especially through the settlement of legal rights with respect to its inheritance, are intimately connected with the establishment of this form of the family. Property became sufficiently powerful in its influence to touch the organic structure of society. Certainty with respect to the paternity of children would now have a significance unknown in previous conditions. Marriage between single pairs had existed from the Older Period of barbarism, under the form of pairing during the pleasure of the parties. It had tended to grow more stable as ancient society advanced, with the improvement of institutions, and with the progress of inventions and discoveries into higher successive conditions; but the essential element of the monogamian family, an exclusive cohabitation, was still wanting. Man far back in barbarism began to exact fidelity from the wife, under savage penalties, but he claimed exemption for himself. The obligation is necessarily reciprocal, and its performance correlative. Among the Homeric Greeks, the condition of woman in the family relation was one of isolation and marital domination, with imperfect rights and excessive inequality. A comparison of the Grecian family, at successive epochs, from the Homeric age to that of Pericles, shows a sensible improvement, with its gradual settlement into a defined institution. The modern family is an unquestionable improvement upon that of the Greeks and Romans; because woman has gained immensely in social position. From standing in the relation of a daughter to her husband, as among the Greeks and Romans, she has drawn nearer to an equality in dignity and in acknowledged personal rights. We have a record of the monogamian family, running back nearly three thousand years, during which, it may be claimed, there has been a gradual but continuous improvement in its character. It is destined to progress still further, until the equality of the sexes is acknowledged, and the equities of the marriage relation are completely recognized. We have similar evidence, though not so perfect, of the progressive improvement of the syndyasmian family, which, commencing in a low type, ended in the monogamian. These facts should be held in remembrance, because they are essential in this discussion.

In previous chapters attention has been called to the stupendous conjugal system which fastened itself upon mankind in the infancy of their existence, and followed them down to civilization; although steadily losing ground with the progressive improvement of society. The ratio of human progress may be measured to some extent by the degree of the reduction of this system through the moral elements of society arrayed against it. Each successive form of the family and of marriage is a significant registration of this reduction. After it was reduced to zero, and not until then, was the monogamian family possible. This family can be traced far back in the Later Period of barbarism, where it disappears in the syndyasmian.

Some impression is thus gained of the ages which elapsed while these two forms of the family were running their courses of growth and development. But the creation of five successive forms of the family, each differing from the other, and belonging to conditions of society entirely dissimilar, augments our conception of the length of the periods during which the idea of the family was developed from the consanguine, through intermediate forms, into the still advancing monogamian. No institution of mankind has had a more remarkable or more eventful history, or embodies the results of a more prolonged and diversified experience. It required the highest mental and moral efforts through numberless ages of time to maintain its existence and carry it through its several stages into its present form.

Marriage passed from the punaluan through the syndyasmian into the monogamian form without any material change in the Turanian system of consanguinity. This system, which records the relationships in punaluan families, remained substantially unchanged until the establishment of the monogamian family, when it became almost totally untrue to the nature of descents, and even a scandal upon monogamy. To illustrate: Under the Malayan system a man calls his brother’s son his son, because his brother’s wife is his wife as well as his brother’s; and his sister’s son is also his son because his sister is his wife. Under the Turanian system his brother’s son is still his son, and for the same reason, but his sister’s son is now his nephew, because under the gentile organization his sister has ceased to be his wife. Among the Iroquois, where the family is syndyasmian, a man still calls his brother’s son his son, although his brother’s wife has ceased to be his wife; and so with a large number of relationships equally inconsistent with the existing form of marriage. The system has survived the usages in which it originated, and still maintains itself among them, although untrue in the main, to descents as they now exist. No motive adequate to the overthrow of a great and ancient system of consanguinity had arisen. Monogamy when it appeared furnished that motive to the Aryan nations as they drew near to civilization. It assured the paternity of children and the legitimacy of heirs. A reformation of the Turanian system to accord with monogamian descents was impossible. It was false to monogamy through and through. A remedy, however, existed, at once simple and complete. The Turanian system was dropped, and the descriptive method, which the Turanian tribes always employed when they wished to make a given relationship specific, was substituted in its place. They fell back upon the bare facts of consanguinity and described the relationship of each person by a combination of the primary terms. Thus, they said brother’s son, brother’s grandson; father’s brother, and father’s brother’s son. Each phrase described a person, leaving the relationship a matter of implication. Such was the system of the Aryan nations, as we find it in its most ancient form among the Grecian, Latin, Sanskritic, Germanic, and Celtic tribes; and also in the Semitic, as witness the Hebrew Scripture genealogies. Traces of the Turanian system, some of which have been referred to, remained among the Aryan and Semitic nations down to the historical period; but it was essentially uprooted, and the descriptive system substituted in its place.

To illustrate and confirm these several propositions it will be necessary to take up, in the order of their origination, these three systems and the three radical forms of the family, which appeared in connection with them respectively. They mutually interpret each other.

A system of consanguinity considered in itself is of but little importance. Limited in the number of ideas it embodies, and resting apparently upon simple suggestions, it would seem incapable of affording useful information, and much less of throwing light upon the early condition of mankind. Such, at least, would be the natural conclusion when the relationships of a group of kindred are considered in the abstract. But when the system of many tribes is compared, and it is seen to rank as a domestic institution, and to have transmitted itself through immensely protracted periods of time, it assumes a very different aspect. Three such systems, one succeeding the other, represent the entire growth of the family from the consanguine to the monogamian. Since we have a right to suppose that each one expresses the actual relationships which existed in the family at the time of its establishment, it reveals, in turn, the form of marriage and of the family which then prevailed, although both may have advanced into a higher stage while the system of consanguinity remained unchanged.

It will be noticed, further, that these systems are natural growths with the progress of society from a lower into a higher condition, the change in each case being marked by the appearance of some institution affecting deeply the constitution of society. The relationship of mother and child, of brother and sister, and of grandmother and grandchild have been ascertainable in all ages with entire certainty; but those of father and child, and of grandfather and grandchild were not ascertainable with certainty until monogamy contributed the highest assurance attainable. A number of persons would stand in each of these relations at the same time as equally probable when marriage was in the group. In the rudest conditions of ancient society these relationships would be perceived, both the actual and the probable, and terms would be invented to express them. A system of consanguinity would result in time from the continued application of these terms to persons thus formed into a group of kindred. But the form of the system, as before stated, would depend upon the form of marriage. Where marriages were between brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in the group, the family would be consanguine, and the system of consanguinity, Malayan. Where marriages were between several sisters with each other’s husbands in a group, and between several brothers with each other’s wives in a group, the family would be punaluan, and the system of consanguinity Turanian; and where marriage was between single pairs, with an exclusive cohabitation, the family would be monogamian, and the system of consanguinity would be Aryan. Consequently the three systems are founded upon three forms of marriage; and they seek to express, as near as the fact could be known, the actual relationship which existed between persons under these forms of marriage respectively. It will be seen, therefore, that they do not rest upon nature, but upon marriage; not upon fictitious considerations, but upon fact; and that each in its turn is a logical as well as truthful system. The evidence they contain is of the highest value, as well as of the most suggestive character. It reveals the condition of ancient society in the plainest manner with unerring directness.

These systems resolve themselves into two ultimate forms, fundamentally distinct. One of these is classificatory, and the other descriptive. Under the first, consanguinei are never described, but are classified into categories, irrespective of their nearness or remoteness in degree to Ego; and the same term of relationship is applied to all the persons in the same category. Thus my own brothers, and the sons of my father’s brothers are all alike my brothers; my own sisters, and the daughters of my mother’s sisters are all alike my sisters; such is the classification under both the Malayan and Turanian systems. In the second case consanguinei are described either by the primary terms of relationship or a combination of these terms, thus making the relationship of each person specific. Thus we say brother’s son, father’s brother, and father’s brother’s son. Such was the system of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, which came in with monogamy. A small amount of classification was subsequently introduced by the invention of common terms; but the earliest form of the system, of which the Erse and Scandinavian are typical, was purely descriptive, as illustrated by the above examples. The radical difference between the two systems resulted from plural marriages in the group in one case, and from single marriages between single pairs in the other.

While the descriptive system is the same in the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, the classificatory has two distinct forms. First, the Malayan, which is the oldest in point of time; and second, the Turanian and Ganowánian, which are essentially alike and were formed by the modification of a previous Malayan system.

A brief reference to our own system of consanguinity will bring into notice the principles which underlie all systems.

Relationships are of two kinds: First, by consanguinity or blood; second, by affinity or marriage. Consanguinity is also of two kinds, lineal and collateral. Lineal consanguinity is the connection which subsists among persons of whom one is descended from the other. Collateral consanguinity is the connection which exists between persons who are descended from common ancestors, but not from each other. Marriage relationships exist by custom.

Not to enter too specially into the subject, it may be stated generally that in every system of consanguinity, where marriage between single pairs exists, there must be a lineal and several collateral lines, the latter diverging from the former. Each person is the centre of a group of kindred, the Ego from whom the degree of relationship of each person is reckoned, and to whom the relationship returns. His position is necessarily in the lineal line, and that line is vertical. Upon it may be inscribed, above and below him, his several ancestors and descendants in a direct series from father to son, and these persons together will constitute his right lineal male line. Out of this trunk line emerge the several collateral lines, male and female, which are numbered outwardly. It will be sufficient for a perfect knowledge of the system to recognize the main lineal line, and a single male and female branch of the first five collateral lines, including those on the father’s side, and on the mother’s side, and proceeding in each case from the parent to one only of his or her children, although it will include but a small portion of the kindred of Ego, either in the ascending or descending series. An attempt to follow all the divisions and branches of the several collateral lines, which increase in number in the ascending series in a geometrical ratio, would not render the system more intelligible.

The first collateral line, male, consists of my brother and his descendants; and the first, female, of my sister and her descendants. The second collateral line, male, on the father’s side, consists of my father’s brother and his descendants; and the second, female, of my father’s sister and her descendants: the second, male, on the mother’s side, is composed of my mother’s brother and his descendants; and the second, female, of my mother’s sister and her descendants. The third collateral line, male, on the father’s side, consists of my grandfather’s brother and his descendants; and the third, female, of my grandfather’s sister and her descendants: on the mother’s side the same line, in its male and female branches, is composed of my grandmother’s brother and sister and their descendants respectively. It will be noticed, in the last case, that we have turned out of the lineal line on the father’s side into that on the mother’s side. The fourth collateral line, male and female, commences with great-grandfather’s brother and sister, and great-grandmother’s brother and sister: and the fifth collateral line, male and female, with great-great-grandfather’s brother and sister; and with great-great-grandmother’s brother and sister, and each line and branch is run out in the same manner as the third. These five lines, with the lineal, embrace the great body of our kindred, who are within the range of practical recognition.

An additional explanation of these several lines is required. If I have several brothers and sisters, they, with their descendants, constitute as many lines, each independent of the other, as I have brothers and sisters; but altogether they form my first collateral line in two branches, a male and a female. In like manner, the several brothers and sisters of my father, and of my mother, with their respective descendants, make up as many lines, each independent of the other, as there are brothers and sisters; but they all unite to form the second collateral line in two divisions, that on the father’s side, and that on the mother’s side; and in four principal branches, two male, and two female. If the third collateral line were run out fully, in its several branches, it would give four general divisions of ancestors, and eight principal branches; and the number of each would increase in the same ratio in each successive collateral line.

With such a mass of divisions and branches, embracing such a multitude of consanguinei, it will be seen at once that a method of arrangement and of description which maintained each distinct and rendered the whole intelligible would be no ordinary achievement. This task was perfectly accomplished by the Roman civilians, whose method has been adopted by the principal European nations, and is so entirely simple as to elicit admiration.[447] The development of the nomenclature to the requisite extent must have been so extremely difficult that it would probably never have occurred except under the stimulus of an urgent necessity, namely, the need of a code of descents to regulate the inheritance of property.

To render the new form attainable, it was necessary to discriminate the relationships of uncle and aunt on the father’s side and on the mother’s side by concrete terms, an achievement made in a few only of the languages of mankind. These terms finally appeared among the Romans in patruus and amita, for uncle and aunt on the father’s side, and in avunculus and matertera for the same on the mother’s side. After these were invented, the improved Roman method of describing consanguinei became established.[448] It has been adopted, in its essential features, by the several branches of the Aryan family, with the exception of the Erse, the Scandinavian, and the Slavonic.

The Aryan system necessarily took the descriptive form when the Turanian was abandoned, as in the Erse. Every relationship in the lineal and first five collateral lines, to the number of one hundred and more, stands independent, requiring as many descriptive phases, or the gradual invention of common terms.

It will be noticed that the two radical forms—the classificatory and the descriptive—yield nearly the exact line of demarkation between the barbarous and civilized nations. Such a result might have been predicted from the law of progress revealed by these several forms of marriage and of the family.

Systems of consanguinity are neither adopted, modified, nor laid aside at pleasure. They are identified in their origin with organic movements of society which produced a great change of condition. When a particular form had come into general use, with its nomenclature invented and its methods settled, it would, from the nature of the case, be very slow to change. Every human being is the centre of a group of kindred, and therefore every person is compelled to use and to understand the prevailing system. A change in any one of these relationships would be extremely difficult. This tendency to permanence is increased by the fact that these systems exist by custom rather than legal enactment, as growths rather than artificial creations, and therefore a motive to change must be as universal as the usage. While every person is a party to the system, the channel of its transmission is the blood. Powerful influences thus existed to perpetuate the system long after the conditions under which each originated had been modified or had altogether disappeared. This element of permanence gives certainty to conclusions drawn from the facts, and has preserved and brought forward a record of ancient society which otherwise would have been entirely lost to human knowledge.

It will not be supposed that a system so elaborate as the Turanian could be maintained in different nations and families of mankind in absolute identicalness. Divergence in minor particulars is found, but the radical features are, in the main, constant. The system of consanguinity of the Tamil people, of South India, and that of the Seneca-Iroquois, of New York, are still identical through two hundred relationships; an application of natural logic to the facts of the social condition without a parallel in the history of the human mind. There is also a modified form of the system, which stands alone and tells its own story. It is that of the Hindi, Bengali, Marâthi and other people of North India, formed by a combination of the Aryan and Turanian systems. A civilized people, the Brahmins, coalesced with a barbarous stock, and lost their language in the new vernaculars named, which retain the grammatical structure of the aboriginal speech, to which the Sanskrit gave ninety per cent. of its vocables. It brought their two systems of consanguinity into collision, one founded upon monogamy or syndyasmy, and the other upon plural marriages in the group, resulting in a mixed system. The aborigines, who preponderated in number, impressed upon it a Turanian character, while the Sanskrit element introduced such modifications as saved the monogamian family from reproach. The Slavonic stock seems to have been derived from this intermixture of races. A system of consanguinity which exhibits but two phases through the periods of savagery and of barbarism and projects a third but modified form far into the period of civilization, manifests an element of permanence calculated to arrest attention.

It will not be necessary to consider the patriarchal family founded upon polygamy. From its limited prevalence it made but little impression upon human affairs.

The house life of savages and barbarians has not been studied with the attention the subject deserves. Among the Indian tribes of North America the family was syndyasmian; but they lived generally in joint-tenement houses and practiced communism within the household. As we descend the scale in the direction of the punaluan and consanguine families, the household group becomes larger, with more persons crowded together in the same apartment. The coast tribes in Venezuela, among whom the family seems to have been punaluan, are represented by the discoverers as living in bell-shaped houses, each containing a hundred and sixty persons.[449] Husbands and wives lived together in a group in the same house, and generally in the same apartment. The inference is reasonable that this mode of house life was very general in savagery.

An explanation of the origin of these systems of consanguinity and affinity will be offered in succeeding chapters. They will be grounded upon the forms of marriage and of the family which produced them, the existence of these forms being assumed. If a satisfactory explanation of each system is thus obtained, the antecedent existence of each form of marriage and of the family may be deduced from the system it explains. In a final chapter an attempt will be made to articulate in a sequence the principal institutions which have contributed to the growth of the family through successive forms. Our knowledge of the early condition of mankind is still so limited that we must take the best indications attainable. The sequence to be presented is, in part, hypothetical; but it is sustained by a sufficient body of evidence to commend it to consideration. Its complete establishment must be left to the results of future ethnological investigations.

II. THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY

FORMER EXISTENCE OF THIS FAMILY.—PROVED BY MALAYAN SYSTEM OF CONSANGUINITY.—HAWAIIAN SYSTEM USED AS TYPICAL.—FIVE GRADES OF RELATIONS.—DETAILS OF SYSTEM.—EXPLAINED BY THE INTERMARRIAGE OF BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN A GROUP.—EARLY STATE OF SOCIETY IN THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.—NINE GRADES OF RELATIONS OF THE CHINESE.—IDENTICAL IN PRINCIPLE WITH THE HAWAIIAN.—FIVE GRADES OF RELATIONS IN IDEAL REPUBLIC OF PLATO.—TABLE OF MALAYAN SYSTEM OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY.

The existence of the Consanguine family must be proved by other evidence than the production of the family itself. As the first and most ancient form of the institution, it has ceased to exist even among the lowest tribes of savages. It belongs to a condition of society out of which the least advanced portion of the human race have emerged. Single instances of the marriage of a brother and sister in barbarous and even in civilized nations have occurred within the historical period; but this is very different from the intermarriage of a number of them in a group, in a state of society in which such marriages predominated and formed the basis of a social system. There are tribes of savages in the Polynesian and Papuan Islands, and in Australia, seemingly not far removed from the primitive state; but they have advanced beyond the condition the consanguine family implies. Where, then, it may be asked, is the evidence that such a family ever existed among mankind? Whatever proof is adduced must be conclusive, otherwise the proposition is not established. It is found in a system of consanguinity and affinity which has outlived for unnumbered centuries the marriage customs in which it originated, and which remains to attest the fact that such a family existed when the system was formed.

That system is the Malayan. It defines the relationships that would exist in a consanguine family; and it demands the existence of such a family to account for its own existence. Moreover, it proves with moral certainty the existence of a consanguine family when the system was formed.

This system, which is the most archaic yet discovered, will now be taken up for the purpose of showing, from its relationships, the principal facts stated. This family, also, is the most archaic form of the institution of which any knowledge remains.

Such a remarkable record of the condition of ancient society would not have been preserved to the present time but for the singular permanence of systems of consanguinity. The Aryan system, for example, has stood near three thousand years without radical change, and would endure a hundred thousand years in the future, provided the monogamian family, whose relationships it defines, should so long remain. It describes the relationships which actually exist under monogamy, and is therefore incapable of change, so long as the family remains as at present constituted. If a new form of the family should appear among Aryan nations, it would not affect the present system of consanguinity until after it became universal; and while in that case it might modify the system in some particulars, it would not overthrow it, unless the new family were radically different from the monogamian. It was precisely the same with its immediate predecessor, the Turanian system, and before that with the Malayan, the predecessor of the Turanian in the order of derivative growth. An antiquity of unknown duration may be assigned to the Malayan system which came in with the consanguine family, remained for an indefinite period after the punaluan family appeared, and seems to have been displaced in other tribes by the Turanian, with the establishment of the organization into gentes.

The inhabitants of Polynesia are included in the Malayan family. Their system of consanguinity has been called the Malayan, although the Malays proper have modified their own in some particulars. Among the Hawaiians and other Polynesian tribes there still exists in daily use a system of consanguinity which is given in the Table, and may be pronounced the oldest known among mankind. The Hawaiian and Rotuman[450] forms are used as typical of the system. It is the simplest, and therefore the oldest form, of the classificatory system, and reveals the primitive form on which the Turanian and Ganowánian were afterwards engrafted.

It is evident that the Malayan could not have been derived from any existing system, because there is none, of which any conception can be formed, more elementary. The only blood relationships recognized are the primary, which are five in number, without distinguishing sex. All consanguinei, near and remote, are classified under these relationships into five categories. Thus, myself, my brothers and sisters, and my first, second, third, and more remote male and female cousins, are the first grade or category. All these, without distinction, are my brothers and sisters. The word cousin is here used in our sense, the relationship being unknown in Polynesia. My father and mother, together with their brothers and sisters, and their first, second, and more remote cousins, are the second grade. All these, without distinction, are my parents. My grandfathers and grandmothers, on the father’s side and on the mother’s side, with their brothers and sisters, and their several cousins, are the third grade. All these are my grandparents. Below me, my sons and daughters, with their several cousins, as before, are the fourth grade. All these, without distinction, are my children. My grandsons and granddaughters, with their several cousins, are the fifth grade. All these in like manner are my grand-children. Moreover, all the individuals of the same grade are brothers and sisters to each other. In this manner all the possible kindred of any given person are brought into five categories; each person applying to every other person in the same category with himself or herself the same term of relationship. Particular attention is invited to the five grades of relations in the Malayan system, because the same classification appears in the “Nine Grades of Relations” of the Chinese, which are extended so as to include two additional ancestors and two additional descendants, as will elsewhere be shown. A fundamental connection between the two systems is thus discovered.

There are terms in Hawaiian for grandparent, Kupŭnă; for parent, Mäkŭa; for child, Kaikee; and for grandchild, Moopŭnă. Gender is expressed by adding the terms Käna, for male, and Wäheena, for female; thus, Kupŭnă Käna = grandparent male, and Kupŭnă Wäheena, grandparent female. They are equivalent to grandfather and grandmother, and express these relationships in the concrete. Ancestors and descendants, above and below those named, are distinguished numerically, as first, second, third, when it is necessary to be specific; but in common usage Kupŭnă is applied to all persons above grandparent, and Moopŭnă is applied to all descendants below grandchild.

The relationships of brother and sister are conceived in the twofold form of elder and younger, and separate terms are applied to each; but it is not carried out with entire completeness. Thus, in Hawaiian, from which the illustrations will be taken, we have:

Elder Brother, Male Speaking, Kaikŭaäna. Female Speaking, Kaikŭnäna. Younger Brother, ” ” Kaikaina. ” ” Kaikŭnäna. Elder Sister, ” ” Kaikŭwäheena. ” ” Kaikŭaäna. Younger Sister, ” ” Kaikŭwäheena. ” ” Kaikaina.[451]

It will be observed that a man calls his elder brother Kaikŭaäna, and that a woman calls her elder sister the same; that a man calls his younger brother Kaikaina, and a woman calls her younger sister the same: hence these terms are in common gender, and suggest the same idea found in the Karen system, namely, that of predecessor and successor in birth.[452] A single term is used by the males for elder and younger sister, and a single term by the females for elder and younger brother. It thus appears that while a man’s brothers are classified into elder and younger, his sisters are not; and, while a woman’s sisters are classified into elder and younger, her brothers are not. A double set of terms are thus developed, one of which is used by the males and the other by the females, a peculiarity which reappears in the system of a number of Polynesian tribes.[453] Among savage and barbarous tribes the relationships of brother and sister are seldom conceived in the abstract.

The substance of the system is contained in the five categories of consanguinei; but there are special features to be noticed which will require the presentation in detail of the first three collateral lines. After these are shown the connection of the system with the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group, will appear in the relationships themselves.

First collateral line. In the male branch, with myself a male, the children of my brother, speaking as a Hawaiian, are my sons and daughters, each of them calling me father; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren, each of them calling me grandfather.

In the female branch my sister’s children are my sons and daughters, each of them calling me father; and their children are my grandchildren, each of them calling me grandfather. With myself a female, the relationships of the persons above named are the same in both branches, with corresponding changes for sex.

The husbands and wives of these several sons and daughters are my sons-in-law and daughters-in-law; the terms being used in common gender, and having the terms for male and female added to each respectively.

Second collateral line. In the male branch on the father’s side my father’s brother is my father, and calls me his son; his children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger; their children are my sons and daughters; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren, each of them in the preceding and succeeding cases applying to me the proper correlative. My father’s sister is my mother; her children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger; their children are my sons and daughters; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren.

In the same line on the mother’s side my mother’s brother is my father; his children are my brothers and sisters; their children are my sons and daughters; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren. My mother’s sister is my mother; her children are my brothers and sisters; their children are my sons and daughters; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren. The relationships of the persons named in all the branches of this and the succeeding lines are the same with myself a female.

The wives of these several brothers, own and collateral, are my wives as well as theirs. When addressing either one of them, I call her my wife, employing the usual term to express that connection. The husbands of these several women, jointly such with myself, are my brothers-in-law. With myself a female the husbands of my several sisters, own and collateral, are my husbands as well as theirs. When addressing either of them, I use the common term for husband. The wives of these several husbands, who are jointly such with myself, are my sisters-in-law.

Third collateral line. In the male branch of this line on the father’s side, my grandfather’s brother is my grandfather; his children are my father’s and mother’s; their children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger; the children of the latter are my sons and daughters; and their children are my grandchildren. My grandfather’s sister is my grandmother; and her children and descendants follow in the same relationships as in the last case.

In the same line on the mother’s side, my grandmother’s brother is my grandfather; his sister is my grandmother; and their respective children and descendants fall into the same categories as those in the first branch of this line.

The marriage relationships are the same in this as in the second collateral line, thus increasing largely the number united in the bonds of marriage.

As far as consanguinei can be traced in the more remote collateral lines, the system, which is all-embracing, is the same in its classifications. Thus, my great-grandfather in the fourth collateral line is my grandfather; his son is my grandfather also; the son of the latter is my father; his son is my brother, elder or younger; and his son and grandson are my son and grandson.

It will be observed that the several collateral lines are brought into and merged in the lineal line, ascending as well as descending; so that the ancestors and descendants of my collateral brothers and sisters become mine as well as theirs. This is one of the characteristics of the classificatory system. None of the kindred are lost.

From the simplicity of the system it may be seen how readily the relationships of consanguinei are known and recognized, and how a knowledge of them is preserved from generation to generation. A single rule furnishes an illustration: the children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters; the children of the latter are brothers and sisters; and so downward indefinitely. It is the same with the children and descendants of sisters, and of brothers and sisters.

All the members of each grade are reduced to the same level in their relationships, without regard to nearness or remoteness in numerical degrees; those in each grade standing to Ego in an identical relationship. It follows, also, that knowledge of the numerical degrees formed an integral part of the Hawaiian system, without which the proper grade of each person could not be known. The simple and distinctive character of the system will arrest attention, pointing with such directness as it does, to the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group, as the source from whence it sprung.

Poverty of language or indifference to relationships exercised no influence whatever upon the formation of the system, as will appear in the sequel.

The system, as here detailed, is found in other Polynesian tribes besides the Hawaiians and Rotumans, as among the Marquesas Islanders, and the Maoris of New Zealand. It prevails, also, among the Samoans, Kusaiens, and King’s Mill Islanders of Micronesia,[454] and without a doubt in every inhabited island of the Pacific, except where it verges upon the Turanian.

From this system the antecedent existence of the consanguine family, with the kind of marriage appertaining thereto, is plainly deducible. Presumptively it is a natural and real system, expressing the relationships which actually existed when the system was formed, as near as the parentage of children could be known. The usages with respect to marriage which then prevailed may not prevail at the present time. To sustain the deduction it is not necessary that they should. Systems of consanguinity, as before stated, are found to remain substantially unchanged and in full vigor long after the marriage customs in which they originated have in part or wholly passed away. The small number of independent systems of consanguinity created during the extended period of human experience is sufficient proof of their permanence. They are found not to change except in connection with great epochs of progress. For the purpose of explaining the origin of the Malayan system, from the nature of descents, we are at liberty to assume the antecedent intermarriage of own and collateral brothers and sisters in a group; and if it is then found that the principal relationships recognized are those that would actually exist under this form of marriage, then the system itself becomes evidence conclusive of the existence of such marriages. It is plainly inferable that the system originated in plural marriages of consanguinei, including own brothers and sisters; in fact commenced with the intermarriage of the latter, and gradually enfolded the collateral brothers and sisters as the range of the conjugal system widened. In course of time the evils of the first form of marriage came to be perceived, leading, if not to its direct abolition, to a preference for wives beyond this degree. Among the Australians it was permanently abolished by the organization into classes, and more widely among the Turanian tribes by the organization into gentes. It is impossible to explain the system as a natural growth upon any other hypothesis than the one named, since this form of marriage alone can furnish a key to its interpretation. In the consanguine family, thus constituted, the husbands lived in polygyny, and the wives in polyandry, which are seen to be as ancient as human society. Such a family was neither unnatural nor remarkable. It would be difficult to show any other possible beginning of the family in the primitive period. Its long continuance in a partial form among the tribes of mankind is the greater cause for surprise; for all traces of it had not disappeared among the Hawaiians at the epoch of their discovery.

The explanation of the origin of the Malayan system given in this chapter, and of the Turanian and Ganowánian given in the next, have been questioned and denied by Mr. John F. McLennan, author of “Primitive Marriage.” I see no occasion, however, to modify the views herein presented, which are the same substantially as those given in “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc. But I ask the attention of the reader to the interpretation here repeated, and to a note at the end of Chapter VI, in which Mr. McLennan’s objections are considered.

If the recognized relationships in the Malayan system are now tested by this form of marriage, it will be found that they rest upon the intermarriage of own and collateral brothers and sisters in a group.

It should be remembered that the relationships which grow out of the family organization are of two kinds: those of blood determined by descents, and those of affinity determined by marriage. Since in the consanguine family there are two distinct groups of persons, one of fathers and one of mothers, the affiliation of the children to both groups would be so strong that the distinction between relationships by blood and by affinity would not be recognized in the system in every case.

I. All the children of my several brothers, myself a male, are my sons and daughters.

Reason: Speaking as a Hawaiian, all the wives of my several brothers are my wives as well as theirs. As it would be impossible for me to distinguish my own children from those of my brothers, if I call any one my child, I must call them all my children. One is as likely to be mine as another.

II. All the grandchildren of my several brothers are my grandchildren.

Reason: They are the children of my sons and daughters.

III. With myself a female the foregoing relationships are the same.

This is purely a question of relationship by marriage. My several brothers being my husbands, their children by other wives would be my step-children, which relationship being unrecognized, they naturally fall into the category of my sons and daughters. Otherwise they would pass without the system. Among ourselves a step-mother is called mother, and a step-son a son.

IV. All the children of my several sisters, own and collateral, myself a male, are my sons and daughters.

Reason: All my sisters are my wives, as well as the wives of my several brothers.

V. All the grandchildren of my several sisters are my grandchildren.

Reason: They are the children of my sons and daughters.

VI. All the children of my several sisters, myself a female, are my sons and daughters.

Reason: The husbands of my sisters are my husbands as well as theirs. This difference, however, exists: I can distinguish my own children from those of my sisters, to the latter of whom I am a step-mother. But since this relationship is not discriminated, they fall into the category of my sons and daughters. Otherwise they would fall without the system.

VII. All the children of several own brothers are brothers and sisters to each other.

Reason: These brothers are the husbands of all the mothers of these children. The children can distinguish their own mothers, but not their fathers, wherefore, as to the former, a part are own brothers and sisters, and step-brothers and step-sisters to the remainder; but as to the latter, they are probable brothers and sisters. For these reasons they naturally fall into this category.

VIII. The children of these brothers and sisters are also brothers and sisters to each other; the children of the latter are brothers and sisters again, and this relationship continues downward among their descendants indefinitely. It is precisely the same with the children and descendants of several own sisters, and of several brothers and sisters. An infinite series is thus created, which is a fundamental part of the system. To account for this series it must be further assumed that the marriage relation extended wherever the relationship of brother and sister was recognized to exist; each brother having as many wives as he had sisters, own or collateral, and each sister having as many husbands as she had brothers, own or collateral. Marriage and the family seem to form in the grade or category, and to be coextensive with it. Such apparently was the beginning of that stupendous conjugal system which has before been a number of times adverted to.

IX. All the brothers of my father are my fathers; and all the sisters of my mother are my mothers.

Reasons, as in I, III, and VI.

X. All the brothers of my mother are my fathers.

Reason: They are my mother’s husbands.

XI. All the sisters of my mother are my mothers.

Reasons, as in VI.

XII. All the children of my collateral brothers and sisters are, without distinction, my sons and daughters.

Reasons, as in I, III, IV, VI.

XIII. All the children of the latter are my grandchildren.

Reasons, as in II.

XIV. All the brothers and sisters of my grandfather and grandmother, on the father’s side and on the mother’s side, are my grandfathers and grandmothers.

Reason: They are the fathers and mothers of my father and mother.

Every relationship recognized under the system is thus explained from the nature of the consanguine family, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Relationships on the father’s side are followed as near as the parentage of children could be known, probable fathers being treated as actual fathers. Relationships on the mother’s side are determined by the principle of affinity, step-children being regarded as actual children.

Turning next to the marriage relationships, confirmatory results are obtained, as the following table will show:

TONGAN. HAWAIIAN.

My Brother’s Wife, Male speaking. Unoho, My Wife. Waheena, My Wife.

” Wife’s Sister, ” ” Unoho, ” ” Waheena, ” Wife.

” Husband’s Brother, Female ” Unoho, ” Husband. Kane, ” Husband.

” Father’s Brother’s} Male ” Unoho, ” Wife. Waheena, ” Wife. Son’s Wife }

” Mother’s Sister’s } ” ” Unoho, ” ” Waheena, ” ” Son’s Wife }

” Father’s Brother’s} Female ” Unoho, ” Husband. Kaikoeka, ” Bro.-in-law. Daughter’s Husb.}

” Mother’s Sister’s } ” ” Unoho, ” ” Kaikoeka, ” ” Daughter’s Husb.}

Wherever the relationship of wife is found in the collateral line, that of husband must be recognized in the lineal, and conversely.[455] When this system of consanguinity and affinity first came into use the relationships, which are still preserved, could have been none other than those which actually existed, whatever may have afterwards occurred in marriage usages.

From the evidence embodied in this system of consanguinity the deduction is made that the consanguine family, as defined, existed among the ancestors of the Polynesian tribes when the system was formed. Such a form of the family is necessary to render an interpretation of the system possible. Moreover, it furnishes an interpretation of every relationship with reasonable exactness.

The following observation of Mr. Oscar Peschel is deserving of attention: “That at any time and in any place the children of the same mother have propagated themselves sexually, for any long period, has been rendered especially incredible, since it has been established that even in the case of organisms devoid of blood, such as the plants, reciprocal fertilization of the descendants of the same parents is to a great extent impossible.”[456] It must be remembered that the consanguine group united in the marriage relation was not restricted to own brothers and sisters; but it included collateral brothers and sisters as well. The larger the group recognizing the marriage relation, the less the evil of close interbreeding.

From general considerations the ancient existence of such a family was probable. The natural and necessary relations of the consanguine family to the punaluan, of the punaluan to the syndyasmian, and of the syndyasmian to the monogamian, each presupposing its predecessor, lead directly to this conclusion. They stand to each other in a logical sequence, and together stretch across several ethnical periods from savagery to civilization.

In like manner the three great systems of consanguinity, which are connected with the three radical forms of the family, stand to each other in a similarly connected series, running parallel with the former, and indicating not less plainly a similar line of human progress from savagery to civilization. There are reasons for concluding that the remote ancestors of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families possessed a system identical with the Malayan when in the savage state, which was finally modified into the Turanian after the establishment of the gentile organization, and then overthrown when the monogamian family appeared, introducing the Aryan system of consanguinity.

Notwithstanding the high character of the evidence given, there is still other evidence of the ancient existence of the consanguine family among the Hawaiians which should not be overlooked.

Its antecedent existence is rendered probable by the condition of society in the Sandwich Islands when it first became thoroughly known. At the time the American missions were established upon these Islands (1820), a state of society was found which appalled the missionaries. The relations of the sexes and their marriage customs excited their chief astonishment. They were suddenly introduced to a phase of ancient society where the monogamian family was unknown, where the syndyasmian family was unknown; but in the place of these, and without understanding the organism, they found the punaluan family, with own brothers and sisters not entirely excluded, in which the males were living in polygyny, and the females in polyandry. It seemed to them that they had discovered the lowest level of human degradation, not to say of depravity. But the innocent Hawaiians, who had not been able to advance themselves out of savagery, were living, no doubt respectably and modestly for savages, under customs and usages which to them had the force of laws. It is probable that they were living as virtuously in their faithful observance, as these excellent missionaries were in the performance of their own. The shock the latter experienced from their discoveries expresses the profoundness of the expanse which separates civilized from savage man. The high moral sense and refined sensibilities, which had been a growth of the ages, were brought face to face with the feeble moral sense and the coarse sensibilities of a savage man of all these periods ago. As a contrast it was total and complete. The Rev. Hiram Bingham, one of these veteran missionaries, has given us an excellent history of the Sandwich Islands, founded upon original investigations, in which he pictures the people as practicing the sum of human abominations. “Polygamy, implying plurality of husbands and wives,” he observes, “fornication, adultery, incest, infant murder, desertion of husband and wives, parents and children; sorcery, covetousness, and oppression extensively prevailed, and seem hardly to have been forbidden by their religion.”[457] Punaluan marriage and the punaluan family dispose of the principal charges in this grave indictment, and leave the Hawaiians a chance at a moral character. The existence of morality, even among savages, must be recognized, although low in type; for there never could have been a time in human experience when the principle of morality did not exist. Wakea, the eponymous ancestor of the Hawaiians, according to Mr. Bingham, is said to have married his eldest daughter. In the time of these missionaries brothers and sisters married without reproach. “The union of brother and sister in the highest ranks,” he further remarks, “became fashionable, and continued until the revealed will of God was made known to them.”[458] It is not singular that the intermarriage of brothers and sisters should have survived from the consanguine family into the punaluan in some cases, in the Sandwich Islands, because the people had not attained to the gentile organization, and because the punaluan family was a growth out of the consanguine not yet entirely consummated. Although the family was substantially punaluan, the system of consanguinity remained unchanged, as it came in with the consanguine family, with the exception of certain marriage relationships.

It is not probable that the actual family, among the Hawaiians, was as large as the group united in the marriage relation. Necessity would compel its subdivision into smaller groups for the procurement of subsistence, and for mutual protection; but each smaller family would be a miniature of the group. It is not improbable that individuals passed at pleasure from one of these subdivisions into another in the punaluan as well as consanguine family, giving rise to that apparent desertion by husbands and wives of each other, and by parents of their children, mentioned by Mr. Bingham. Communism in living must, of necessity, have prevailed both in the consanguine and in the punaluan family, because it was a requirement of their condition. It still prevails generally among savage and barbarous tribes.

A brief reference should be made to the “Nine Grades of Relations of the Chinese.” An ancient Chinese author remarks as follows: “All men born into the world have nine ranks of relations. My own generation is one grade, my father’s is one, that of my grandfather’s is one, that of my grandfather’s father is one, and that of my grandfather’s grandfather is one; thus, above me are four grades: My son’s generation is one, that of my grandson’s is one, that of my grandson’s son is one, and that of my grandson’s grandson is one; thus, below me are four grades; including myself in the estimate, there are, in all nine grades. These are brethren, and although each grade belongs to a different house or family, yet they are all my relations, and these are the nine grades of relations.”

“The degrees of kindred in a family are like the streamlets of a fountain, or the branches of a tree; although the streams differ in being more or less remote, and the branches in being more or less near, yet there is but one trunk and one fountain head.”[459]

The Hawaiian system of consanguinity realizes the nine grades of relations (conceiving them reduced to five by striking off the two upper and the two lower members) more perfectly than that of the Chinese at the present time.[460] While the latter has changed through the introduction of Turanian elements, and still more through special additions to distinguish the several collateral lines, the former has held, pure and simple, to the primary grades which presumptively were all the Chinese possessed originally. It is evident that consanguinei, in the Chinese as in the Hawaiian, are generalized into categories by generations; all collaterals of the same grade being brothers and sisters to each other. Moreover, marriage and the family are conceived as forming within the grade, and confined, so far as husbands and wives are concerned, within its limits. As explained by the Hawaiian categories it is perfectly intelligible. At the same time it indicates an anterior condition among the remote ancestors of the Chinese, of which this fragment preserves a knowledge, precisely analogous to that reflected by the Hawaiian. In other words, it indicated the presence of the punaluan family when these grades were formed, of which the consanguine was a necessary predecessor.

In the “Timæus” of Plato there is a suggestive recognition of the same five primary grades of relations. All consanguinei in the Ideal Republic were to fall into five categories, in which the women were to be in common as wives, and the children in common as to parents. “But how about the procreation of children?” Socrates says to Timæus. “This, perhaps, you easily remember, on account of the novelty of the proposal; for we ordered that marriage unions and children should be in common to all persons whatsoever, special care being taken also that no one should be able to distinguish his own children individually, but all consider all their kindred; regarding those of an equal age, and in the prime of life, as their brothers and sisters, those prior to them, and yet further back as their parents and grandsires, and those below them, as their children and grandchildren.”[461] Plato undoubtedly was familiar with Hellenic and Pelasgian traditions not known to us, which reached far back into the period of barbarism, and revealed traces of a still earlier condition of the Grecian tribes. His ideal family may have been derived from these delineations, a supposition far more probable than that it was a philosophical deduction. It will be noticed that his five grades of relations are precisely the same as the Hawaiian; that the family was to form in each grade where the relationship was that of brothers and sisters; and that husbands and wives were to be in common in the group.

Finally, it will be perceived that the state of society indicated by the consanguine family points with logical directness to an anterior condition of promiscuous intercourse. There seems to be no escape from this conclusion, although questioned by so eminent a writer as Mr. Darwin.[462] It is not probable that promiscuity in the primitive period was long continued even in the horde; because the latter would break up into smaller groups for subsistence, and fall into consanguine families. The most that can safely be claimed upon this difficult question is, that the consanguine family was the first organized form of society, and that it was necessarily an improvement upon the previous unorganized state, whatever that state may have been. It found mankind at the bottom of the scale, from which, as a starting point, and the lowest known, we may take up the history of human progress, and trace it through the growth of domestic institutions, inventions, and discoveries, from savagery to civilization. By no chain of events can it be shown more conspicuously than in the growth of the idea of the family through successive forms. With the existence of the consanguine family established, of which the proofs adduced seem to be sufficient, the remaining families are easily demonstrated.

System of Relationship of the Hawaiians and Rotumans.

Vowel Sounds.—a, as in ale; ă, as in at; ä, as in father; ǐ, as in it; ŭ, as oo in food; kä′-na = male; wä-hee′-na = female. ms = Male speaking fs = Female speaking ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————+—————————————————————————————————————————————————————+——————————————————————————————————————————————— │ By Hon. Thomas Miller. │ By Rev. John Osborne. Description of Persons. │ Relationship in Hawaiian. Translation. │ Relationship in Translation. │ │ Rotuman. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————+—————————————————————————————————————————————————————+——————————————————————————————————————————————— 1 My great-grandfather │ kŭ-pŭ′-na My grandparent │ mä-pǐ-ga fä My grandparent, male 2 ” ” grandfather’s brother │ ” ” ” │ ” ” ” ” ” 3 ” ” ” sister │ ” ” ” │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 4 ” ” grandmother │ ” ” ” │ ” ” ” ” ” 5 ” ” grandmother’s sister │ ” ” ” │ ” ” ” ” ” 6 ” grandfather │ ” ” ” │ ” fä ” ” male 7 ” grandmother │ ” ” ” │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 8 ” father │ mä-kŭ′-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” father 9 ” mother │ mä-kŭ-ă wä-hee′-na ” parent, female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” mother 10 ” son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 11 ” daughter │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 12 ” grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kă′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 13 ” granddaughter │ moo-pŭ′-nă wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 14 ” great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 15 ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 16 ” great-great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 17 ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 18 ” older brother (ms) │ käi-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, older │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother, older 19 ” ” ” (fs) │ käi-kŭ-nä′-na ” ” ” │ sag′-ve-ven′-ǐ ” ” ” 20 ” ” sister (ms) │ käi-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” sister, ” │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister, ” 21 ” ” ” (fs) │ käi-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” ” ” │ sa-sǐ-gǐ ” ” ” 22 ” younger brother (ms) │ käi-ka-i′-na ” brother, younger │ sa-sǐ-gǐ ” brother, younger 23 ” ” ” (fs) │ käi-kŭ-nä′-na ” ” ” │ sag′-ve-ven′-ǐ ” ” ” 24 ” ” sister (ms) │ käi-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” sister, ” │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister ” 25 ” ” ” (fs) │ käi-ka-i′-na ” ” ” │ sa-sǐ-gǐ ” ” ” 26 ” brother’s son (ms) │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 27 ” ” son’s wife ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” son-in-law │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 28 ” ” daughter ” │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e-hon′-ǐ ” ” ” 29 ” ” daughter’s husband ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” daughter-in-law │ le′-e fä ” ” male 30 ” ” grandson ” │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 31 ” ” granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 32 ” ” great-grandson ” │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 33 ” ” ” granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 34 ” sister’s son ” │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 35 ” ” son’s wife ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” daughter-in-law │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 36 ” ” daughter ” │ käi-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e-hon′-ǐ ” ” ” 37 ” ” daughter’s husband ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” son-in-law │ le′-e fä ” ” male 38 ” ” grandson ” │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 39 My sister’s granddaughter (ms) │ moo-pŭ′-nă wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ mä-pǐ-ga hon′-ǐ ” ” female 40 ” ” great-grandson ” │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 41 ” ” ” granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 42 ” brother’s son (fs) │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 43 ” ” son’s wife ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” daughter-in-law │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 44 ” ” daughter ” │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” ” 45 ” ” daughter’s husband ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” son-in-law │ le′-e fä ” ” male 46 ” ” grandson ” │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 47 ” ” granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 48 ” ” great-grandson ” │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 49 ” ” great-granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 50 ” sister’s son ” │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 51 ” ” son’s wife ” │ hŭ-no′-nă ” daughter-in-law │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 52 ” ” daughter ” │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” ” 53 ” ” daughter’s husband ” │ hŭ-no′-na ” son-in-law │ le′-e fä ” ” male 54 ” ” grandson ” │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 55 ” ” granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 56 ” ” great-grandson ” │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 57 ” ” great-granddaughter ” │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 58 ” father’s brother │ mä-kŭ′-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 59 ” ” brother’s wife │ mä-kŭ′-a wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 60 ” ” ” son (older, ms) │ käi′-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, older │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 61 ” ” ” ” (younger, ms) │ käi′-ka-i-na ” ” younger │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” ” 62 ” ” ” son’s wife │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 63 ” ” ” daughter, (older, ms) │ käi′-ku-wä-hee′-na ” sister │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” ” 64 ” ” ” ” (younger, ms) │ käi′-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” ” │ ” ” ” 65 ” ” ” daughter’s husband │ käi′-ko-ee′-kä ” brother-in-law │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 66 ” ” ” son’s son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 67 ” ” ” ” daughter │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 68 ” ” ” daughter’s son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” ” male │ le′-e fä ” ” male 69 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 70 ” ” ” great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 71 ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 72 ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 73 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 74 ” father’s sister │ mä-kŭ′-ă wä-hee′-na ” parent, female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” parent, female 75 ” ” sister’s husband │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ oi-fä ” ” male 76 ” ” ” son (older, ms) │ käi′-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, older │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 77 ” ” ” ” (younger, ms) │ käi′-ka-i-na ” ” younger │ ” ” ” 78 ” ” ” son’s wife │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 79 ” ” ” daughter │ käi′-kŭ wä-hee′-na ” sister │ ” ” ” 80 ” ” ” daughter’s husband │ kai-ko-ee′-kä ” brother-in-law │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 81 ” ” ” son’s son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 82 My father’s sister’s son’s daughter │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 83 ” ” ” daughter’s son │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 84 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 85 ” ” ” great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 86 ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 87 ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 88 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 89 ” mother’s brother │ mä-kŭ-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 90 ” ” brother’s wife │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 91 ” ” ” son (older, ms) │ käi′-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, older │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 92 ” ” ” ” (younger, ms) │ käi′-ka-i′-na ” ” younger │ ” ” ” 93 ” ” ” son’s wife │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 94 ” ” ” daughter │ käi′-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” sister │ ” ” ” 95 ” ” ” daughter’s husband │ käi′-ko-ee′-kä ” brother-in-law │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 96 ” ” ” son’s son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 97 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 98 ” ” ” daughter’s son │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 99 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 100 ” ” ” great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 101 ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 102 ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 103 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 104 ” mother’s sister │ mä-kŭ-ă wä-hee′-na ” parent, female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” parent, female 105 ” ” sister’s husband │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ oi-fä ” ” male 106 ” ” ” son (older, ms) │ käi′-ku-ä-ä′-na ” brother, older │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 107 ” ” ” ” (younger, ms) │ käi′-ka-i-na ” ” younger │ ” ” ” 108 ” ” ” son’s wife │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 109 ” ” ” daughter │ käi′-kŭ wä-hee′-na ” sister │ ” ” ” 110 ” ” ” daughter’s husband │ käi′-ko-ee′-kä ” brother-in-law │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 111 ” ” ” son’s son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 112 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 113 ” ” ” daughters son │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 114 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 115 ” ” ” great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 116 ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 117 ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ ” kä′-na ” ” male │ ” fä ” ” male 118 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 119 ” father’s father’s brother │ kŭ-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandparent, male │ ” fä ” grandparent, male 120 ” ” ” brother’s son │ mä-kŭ′-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 121 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 122 ” ” ” ” grandson (older) │ käi′-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, elder │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 123 ” ” ” ” granddaughter ( ” ) │ käi′-kŭ wä-hee′-na ” sister, elder │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 124 ” ” ” ” great-grandson │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 125 My father’s father’s brother’s great-granddaughter │ käi′-kee wä-hee′-na ” child, female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 126 ” ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ moo-pŭ-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 127 ” ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter│ ” wä-hee′na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 128 ” father’s father’s sister │ kŭ-pŭ′-nă wä-hee′-na ” grandparent female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” grandparent, female 129 ” ” ” sister’s son │ mä-kŭ-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 130 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 131 ” ” ” ” grandson (older) │ käi′-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, elder │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 132 ” ” ” ” granddaughter ” │ käi′-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” sister, ” │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 133 ” ” ” ” great-grandson │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 134 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 135 ” ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nä kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 136 ” ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 137 ” mother’s mother’s brother │ kŭ-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandparent, male │ ” fä ” grandparent, male 138 ” ” ” brother’s son │ mä-kă-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 139 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 140 ” ” ” ” grandson (older) │ käi-kŭ-a-ä′-na ” brother, elder │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 141 ” ” ” ” granddaughter ” │ käi′-kŭ-wä-hee-na ” sister, ” │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 142 ” ” ” ” great-grandson │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 143 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e honi-ǐ ” ” female 144 ” ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 145 ” ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter│ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ ” hon′-ǐ ” ” female 146 ” mother’s mother’s sister │ kŭ-pŭ-nă wä-hee-na ” grandparent, male │ ” hon′-ǐ ” grandparent, male 147 ” ” ” sister’s son │ mä-kŭ-ă kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 148 ” ” ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 149 ” ” ” ” grandson (older, ms) │ käi′-kŭ-ă-ä-na ” brother, elder │ sä-sǐ-gǐ ” brother 150 ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ käi′-kŭ-wä-hee′-na ” sister, ” │ sag-hon′-ǐ ” sister 151 ” ” ” ” great-grandson │ käi′-kee-kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 152 ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 153 ” ” ” ” great-great-grandson │ moo-pŭ′-nă kä′-na ” grandchild, male │ mä-pǐ-ga fä ” grandchild, male 154 ” ” ” ” ” ” granddaughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ mä-pǐ-ga hon′-ǐ ” ” female 155 ” husband │ kä′-na ” husband │ ve-ven′-ǐ ” husband 156 ” wife │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ hoi-e-nä, and hen ” wife 157 ” husband’s father │ mä-kŭ′-ă-hŭ-nä-ai ” father-in-law │ oi-fä ” father 158 ” ” mother │ ” ” mother-in-law │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” mother 159 ” wife’s father │ ” ” father-in-law │ oi-fä ” father 160 ” ” mother │ ” ” mother-in-law │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” mother 161 ” son-in-law │ hŭ-no′-nă kä′-na ” son-in-law │ le′-e fä ” child, male 162 ” daughter-in-law │ ” wä-hee′-na ” daughter-in-law │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female 163 ” brother-in-law (husband’s brother) │ kä′-na ” husband │ hom-fu′-e ” brother-in-law 164 ” ” ” ” (sister’s husband, fs) │ ” ” ” │ me-i ” ” ” ” 165 ” ” ” ” (wife’s sister’s husband) │ pŭ-na-lŭ-ä ” intimate companion │ 166 ” ” ” ” (wife’s brother) │ käi-ko-a′-kä ” brother-in-law │ me-i ” ” ” ” 167 ” sister-in-law (wife’s sister) │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ hom-fu′-e ” sister-in-law 168 My sister-in-law (husband’s sister) │ käi-ko-a′-kä ” sister-in-law │ me-i ” ” ” ” 169 ” ” ” ” (brother’s wife) │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ hom-fu′-e ” ” ” ” 170 ” ” ” ” ( ” ” fs) │ käi-ko-a′-kä ” sister-in-law │ ” ” ” ” ” 171 ” ” ” ” (husband’s brother’s wife) │ pŭ-na-lŭ-ä ” intimate companion │ 172 ” ” ” ” (wife’s brother’s wife) │ wä-hee′-na ” wife │ 173 ” step-father │ mä-kŭ′-a kä′-na ” parent, male │ oi-fä ” parent, male 174 ” ” mother │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ oi-hon′-ǐ ” ” female 175 ” ” son │ käi′-kee kä′-na ” child, male │ le′-e fä ” child, male 176 ” ” daughter │ ” wä-hee′-na ” ” female │ le′-e hon′-ǐ ” ” female