THE FAMILIAL CLAN AND ITS EVOLUTION.
I. _The Clan among the Redskins._--Primitive form of the Tribe--The
Clan.
II. _The Family among the Redskins._--Classes of relations among
the Omahas--The family among the Iroquois-Senecas, the Omahas,
etc.--Primitive familial stage of the Redskins--Adoption and
its miracles--Rise and evolution of masculine filiation in
America--Exogamy and endogamy.
III. _The Family in Polynesia._--Maternal filiation--Rarity of
exogamy--Hawaian marriage--The terms of kinship--The father humbling
himself to the male child--Adoption in Polynesia.
IV. _The Family among the Mongols_.--Familial exogamy among the
Mongols--Kinship by classes--Evolution of kinship by classes.
V. _The Clan and the Family._--The European family has not been the
“cellule” of societies--The primitive clan.
I. _The Clan among the Redskins._
In the preceding chapter we have seen the nature of Redskin exogamy, on
which it has sometimes been attempted to construct theories of conjugal
evolution applicable to the entire human race. As a matter of fact, the
North American Indians marry within their tribe; they are therefore
endogamous as regards the tribe, but they do not take their wives from
their own clan, and consequently they are exogamous as regards this
clan. But the clan being composed of real or supposed blood-relations,
the exogamy of the Redskins is actually nothing more than our own
prohibition, very much extended, of marriages within certain degrees of
kinship.
There is really nothing here which resembles marriage by capture, so
often classed with exogamy; but the latter may very easily co-exist
with the former, and may even be the general rule in more savage
tribes. It prevailed, we are told, among the Caribs[928] to such a
degree that the wives did not speak the same language as their husbands.
How was the American tribe originally formed? Either consanguineous
hordes have ranged themselves side by side, or, which is more
probable, a horde, becoming too numerous, has swarmed. Analogous
groups, proceeding from it, have formed large families, remaining
all the while attached to the original stock, but constituting,
nevertheless, distinct communities, confederated with each other and
with the primitive clan, which at length became indistinguishable
from the others. The whole of these clans taken together represent a
tribe. If the clans are too numerous, they group themselves in twos,
or threes, etc., within the bosom of the tribe, and thus form what in
primitive Greece were called _phratries_, the bond between them being
a lesser degree of kinship. At first, marriage was prohibited within
the phratry, and afterwards exogamy was restricted to the clans. The
clans composing the phratry had festivals in common, and considered
themselves bound to aid each other in revenging wrongs.[929] The clan,
or _gens_, is a group of persons united by a closer consanguinity, but
in the female line. The children of the women of the clan remain in
the clan of their mother. “The woman bears the clan,” say the Wyandot
Indians,[930] just as our ancestors said, “The womb dyes the child.”
Each clan has its _totem_ (a tortoise, bear, eland, or fox, etc.). In
the “long houses” of the Iroquois, or in the Pueblos, the members of
each clan even had a common habitation, in which each family had its
own cell; but the members of this cell-family belonged to different
clans, as the husband was not of the same clan as his wife, and
sometimes did not inhabit the same dwelling. We have heard it said many
times that “the family is the social cellule.” Now this is evidently
false in regard to the American tribe, and to all tribes that are
organised on the same plan. In them it is the clan which is the social
unit, or cellule, to keep to the metaphor favoured by H. Spencer, and
it is feminine filiation which determines the kinship. What is this
kinship in the female line in its details? That is what we must now
proceed to inquire.
II. _The Family among the Redskins._
The manner in which the different degrees of kinship are understood
and named varies somewhat among the diverse Redskin tribes; but, in
general, the similarity is very great, and great also is the confusion
between real consanguinity and fictitious kinship. Among the Omahas,
for example, five classes of kinship are recognised--1st, the _nikie_
kinship, arising from a very distant common ancestor; 2nd, the clan
kinship; thus the families whose tents adjoin each other when the
tribe is assembled, are of this kinship; 3rd, kinship by the calumet
dance--that is to say, by adoption; 4th, kinship by marriage, including
the husband, wife, son, and daughter’s husband; 5th, kinship of
blood-relation, including the clans of the mother, grandmother, and
father.[931]
The Omahas admit, therefore, entire groups of so-called kinsfolk quite
unknown in our individualist societies; and moreover, the adopted
kinsmen are held exactly on the same footing as the others.
If we confine ourselves to real kinship, we shall see that it is
understood in a very wide manner. I will simply give, as a detailed
example, a description of the family among the Iroquois Senecas and
the Omahas. With the Iroquois Senecas, the direct line, both ascending
and descending, is very short. It does not go farther than grandfather
and grandmother, and grandson and grand-daughter. The more distant
ancestors and descendants are all comprised without distinction in the
same categories; they form groups of grandfathers or grandsons. In a
collateral line, they proceed by groups, in the same manner. Thus, _for
a_ _woman_, the sons and daughters of a sister are reckoned as her
own sons and daughters, and their children are her grandchildren. The
collateral kinship is then confounded, at least in terminology, with
kinship in a direct line. On the contrary, the sons and daughters of
a woman’s brother are only her nephews and nieces. How can we explain
this familial confusion on one side, and this distinction on the other?
It may probably be attributed to the habit of the Redskins to marry a
lot of sisters at the same time. A woman counts her sister’s children
as her own, because the husband of that sister, whom we should call
her brother-in-law, is virtually her husband also. Inversely, _for a
man_, his brother’s children, or his fraternal nieces and nephews,
are reckoned as his own children; their children are his grandsons or
grand-daughters, whilst the children and grandchildren of his sister
are only his nephews and nieces.[932] Following our previous line of
reasoning, we are led to suppose that these denominations of kinship
go back to a distant epoch, when brothers had their wives in common,
but abstained from marrying their own sisters. This supposition is
confirmed by the examination of the collateral ascending kinship. Thus,
either in the case of a man or woman, the father’s brother, or the
paternal uncle, is reckoned as the father, and his sons and daughters
are reckoned as brothers and sisters.
The sisters of the father, or of any person bearing the title of
father, are called aunts. The children of these aunts are cousins.
For a man, the kinship of uncle is restricted to the brothers of the
mother, and the children of these uncles are cousins. The mother’s
sister, or the maternal aunt, is counted as a mother; her children are
not nephews and nieces, but sons and daughters. All sisters, real or
fictitious, are mutually mothers of all their children. The children
of a man’s brothers are not his nephews and nieces, but his sons and
daughters; his sisters’ children are his nephews and nieces,[933]
probably because these names have been given at an epoch when the
brothers married groups of sisters in common, but not their own sisters.
The Omaha Redskins distinguish the degrees of kinship almost in the
same way as the Iroquois Senecas. For them also the most distant
ascendants are all grandfathers or grandmothers. They class all their
relations in groups, formed of individuals virtually brought together
by similar degrees of consanguinity or alliance. Whole categories of
individuals, more or less numerous, are called brothers or fathers of
a man or woman; all those whom the father of a person calls brothers
are fathers to that person; all those whom the mother of a woman calls
husbands are also fathers to that woman. The name “mother” is given to
all the women reputed as sisters to the mother, to the aunts or nieces
of the mother, and also to the virtual wives of the father.
A man has virtually for wives all the wives of his brothers, and also
their widows, on account of the levirate.
If a man has a brother-in-law who is at the same time the husband of
a paternal aunt, the sister of that man is the grand-daughter of the
brother-in-law.
A man becomes your brother-in-law if he is merely the husband of a
paternal aunt, because he can marry your sister.
The husband of a daughter, of a niece, or of a grand-daughter, is a
son-in-law.[934]
All the sons and all the daughters of persons reputed as fathers and
mothers call each other brothers and sisters. All the wives, real or
virtual, of the grandfather are called grandmothers; so are also all
the mothers or grandmothers of the fathers and mothers, and all the
women that the fathers and mothers call sisters.
A man counts as his sons all the sons of his brothers or of his virtual
wives; but the sisters of these sons are his sisters. A woman calls
the sons and daughters of her brothers her nephews and nieces, but the
children of her sister are counted as her own children; because their
father is virtually her husband.
Among the Omahas a man calls his sister’s children nephews and nieces.
A person of either sex counts as grandchildren all those who are called
the children of his sons, daughters, nephews, and nieces, or reputed as
such.
A man counts as uncles all those whom his mothers call “brothers”; and
as aunts all the sisters of his father and the wives of his uncles. A
man has for brothers-in-law the husbands of his father’s sister; for
they are the real or virtual husbands of his sisters; a woman has them
for virtual husbands.[935]
Various prohibitions of marriage result from these conventional
kinships. A man may not marry the women that he calls daughters of a
sister, or grand-daughters, etc. A woman may not marry the men who are
her sons, the sons of her sister, of her aunt or of her niece, or who
are her brothers, etc.[936]
But an Omaha may marry any woman who is not a blood relation, provided
that she does not figure among the prohibited affinities.[937]
We have not such detailed information regarding the other Redskin
tribes; but we know enough of them to be certain that their systems of
kinship are very analogous to those of the Iroquois Senecas and the
Omahas. Filiation is everywhere maternal, except in certain tribes in
the course of evolution; nearly everywhere also it is a crime to marry
a woman having the same _totem_.[938]
Among the Mandans, Pawnies, and Arickaries, a man calls his brother’s
wife his wife also. Among the Crows a woman calls her husband’s
brother’s wife her “comrade”; but among the Winebagos she calls her
“sister.” In some tribes a man’s wife’s sister’s husband is called his
“brother.”[939]
Some very severe and inconvenient rules of decency have resulted from
these fictitious kinships, with their prohibitions of marriage.
Thus, among the Omahas, the young girls may only speak to their
father, brother, and grandfather. A woman avoids passing before her
daughter’s husband as much as possible; and, unless under extraordinary
circumstances, a woman does not speak directly to the father of her
husband. A man never addresses a word to the mother or grandmother of
his wife.[940] In the last century, among the Iroquois, a young man
was dishonoured if he stopped to converse in public with a young girl
who was certainly within the prohibited degree of kinship.[941] For a
young Iroquois girl to call the husband of her aunt by his personal
name was considered a grave act, indicating a culpable _liaison_.[942]
From the manner in which the Redskins understand kinship, we may infer
two things: first, that they must have passed through a familial stage,
in which groups of brothers married groups of sisters and possessed
them in common, thus combining polygamy and polyandry, since they
attach little value to real consanguinity, and their kinships are very
often fictitious; and secondly, that they make no difference between
real filiation and adoption, and in this they resemble savages and even
barbarians of all countries. Among the Omahas the word used to signify
adoption means literally “to take for one’s own son.”[943] The adopted
child is always treated as the first-born, and takes his place; the
father who adopts him refuses him nothing, and gives him a share in all
his wealth. The real father, on his side, makes presents to the adopted
father. And lastly, there is a prohibition of marriage during four
years between the two families, on account of the kinship created by
the adoption.[944]
Sometimes an entire clan adopts another. Thus the Wolf-Iroquois were
adopted by the Falcon-Iroquois, and the effect of this adoption was
that the two clans became completely assimilated, the new-comers taking
the kinships of the adoptive clan.[945]
The adoption of enemies, taken prisoners after a battle, is still more
curious. This adoption has almost miraculous effects; it extinguishes
the ferocious hatred which the Redskins always feel for men belonging
to rival tribes; more than that, it makes the captive warrior become
the husband of the woman whom he has perhaps rendered a widow, or
of the daughter whose father he may have killed. The Redskins have,
it should be said, very exaggerated ideas on the subject of warlike
valour. A combatant must never surrender unless very severely wounded.
Every warrior who is taken prisoner is dishonoured and held as
dead by his tribe, and his captors generally torture him to death.
However, in the last century, the most ferocious of the Redskins, the
Iroquois, sometimes spared a few prisoners to offer them to the wives
or daughters whose relations had been killed. The latter had the power
either to put them to death, in order that their shades might serve as
slaves to their father, brother, or husband, etc., who had fallen, or
to pardon them, and even adopt them. In this last case, the enemies of
the previous night took a place among the warriors of the clan, and
were no longer distinguished from the others.[946]
This system of kinship in the familial clan is curious, because it
holds real consanguinity very cheap, unhesitatingly confusing real with
fictitious kinship, and thus forming classes of fictitious relations.
It seems to prove the existence of an ancient period of promiscuity,
during which there was scarcely any thought of determining with
precision the degrees of consanguinity of individuals. Naturally,
the first form of the family which was more or less vaguely outlined
in the confused groups anterior to the familial clans, was the
maternal family; but this system of filiation by classes is in no way
incompatible with paternal filiation.
Up to the present time kinship in the female line prevails among most
of the Redskin tribes. Certain of them, however, are evolving in
the direction of masculine filiation, and this movement was already
commencing at the close of the last century.[947] The transformation
began with the chiefs and more powerful men. Among the Thlinkits of
Russian America the great men already give the paternal name to their
children; but the poorer people are still in the stage of uterine
filiation.[948] Certain tribes have quite recently adopted the system
of paternal filiation. It is owing to European influence that this
change is operating, and its accomplishment is only a question of time.
The Ojibways have only taken two generations to effect the adoption
of agnatic filiation.[949] A similar evolution was spontaneously
accomplished in the great states of Central America. In Peru maternal
filiation was still in general use, but the paternal family was
beginning to appear. In the mass of the nation, says Gomara, the
heritage was transmitted to nephews and not to sons; but in the family
of the Incas direct male descendants alone had the right to avail
themselves of their origin, and sons inherited.[950] It seems that in
Mexico the familial evolution may have been more advanced, for there
it is always the paternal personality which predominates, and it is
the father who dictates to the children rules of conduct and moral
precepts. The mothers exhort their daughters to be submissive to their
husbands, to obey them and strive to please them.
The familial customs which I have just described are general in
America; they are not universal as regards exogamy, for Hearne tells us
that many Chippeways frequently take to wife their sisters, daughters,
and even mothers.[951] We know, on the other hand, that the Peruvian
Incas married their sisters, and that throughout the Peruvian empire no
one married outside the administrative district.
In some parts of America the diversity is still greater. The Caribs
married their relatives, with the exception of sisters,[952]
indiscriminately; the Indians of Guiana, on the contrary, practised
totemic exogamy, like the Redskins.[953]
The Indians of Guatemala were unacquainted with maternal kinship. They
willingly married their sisters, provided they were not children of the
same father, and among them the children belonged to the class of the
father even when the mother was a slave.[954] Among the Mayas descent
was also reckoned in the male line.[955] In various savage tribes of
Mexico the women did not inherit. Among the Ityas and in Yucatan the
name of the child was formed by combining the names of the father and
mother; the mother’s name, however, had the precedence.[956]
The monk Thevet relates that the Indians of Brazil already pushed the
agnatic system, at least in theory, to its most extreme limits; for
they affirmed, he says, that in procreation the part of the father is
predominant, and that of the mother only secondary.[957] The general
conclusion to be drawn from these very dissimilar facts is, that we
should abstain from forming any absolute theories on these great
sociological questions of marriage and the family, which are still so
far from being elucidated.
III. _The Family in Polynesia._
Filiation by the female line seems to be generally adopted, not only in
Polynesia, but in many Melanesian or Micronesian archipelagoes. It has
been found in the Fiji Islands, at Tonga and the Carolines,[958] etc.
But exogamy, even the exogamy of the clan, after the American fashion,
appears rare. It existed at Samoa, but in any case it seems not to have
been a general custom.[959]
In New Zealand endogamy predominated, and marriage with a woman of
another tribe was even prohibited, unless an important political motive
could be given as an excuse.[960] Endogamy was also practised in the
Hawaian Islands. In the Mulgrave Islands every marriage required the
sanction of an assembly of all the friends and relatives, or rather of
the whole clan,[961] for the interest of the community was involved in
it.
In the Hawaian Islands there existed a confused kinship by classes,
analogous to that of the familial clan among the Redskins, but much
more gross. Group-marriage of brothers and sisters prevailed, but
generally the brothers did not marry their own sisters. As for the
names expressing the degrees of kinship, they were names of classes.
The Hawaians had no words to express “father” or “mother.” They used
the word “_mkûa_,” which signifies “parents.” To say “father,” they
added the word “_kana_,” which signifies “male”: _Mkûa kana_, male
parent. To say “mother,” they used the combination, _Mkûa ouahina_,
female parent. There was no expression for “son” or “daughter.” They
used the word _keiki_, child, or little one, to which they added _kana_
or _ouahina_, as before, according as the child was male or female. The
language had no terms for “brother” or “sister.”[962] The word employed
to express “wives” is collective; it applies to the wife’s sister as
well as to the wife proper, and signifies literally “female”; in the
same way, for “husband” they used the word _kana_ (male), and applied
it also to the husband’s brother and sister’s husband. All the sisters
of a woman were called “the wives of the husband of that woman,” even
when they were not actually so.[963] The Hawaians had no expressions
for “grandfather” or “grandmother.” Their word _kapuna_ signifies an
ancestor of any degree beyond the father and mother (_mkûa_). Neither
had they any special denomination for “grandson” or “grand-daughter.”
As brothers and sisters did not generally intermarry, the women called
the husband or husbands of their sisters, not “husbands,” but “intimate
companions” (_punalua_).[964]
It was possible for either the paternal or maternal family to evolve
from this confused system of kinship, based at first apparently on the
promiscuity of brothers and sisters; but it was the latter which at
first arose, and in the time of Cook the rank and dignity of the chiefs
were transmitted in the female line.[965] A singular custom noticed
by Cook in the Society Isles may perhaps be interpreted in the sense
of maternal filiation. They spoke of the transmission of the title
and dignity of the chiefs to their first-born, and that even at the
moment of birth. As soon as the wife of a chief had given birth to a
son, the father was reckoned as deposed, and became a simple regent; he
owed homage to his son, and might not remain in his presence without
uncovering to the waist.[966] At Tonga maternal filiation was well
established; rank was transmitted by the women, who sometimes even
reigned,[967] and the father was not counted as the parent of his
child.[968]
Of late years, and manifestly under European influence, the familial
system has become modified in Polynesia. At Tonga masculine filiation
is being substituted by degrees for feminine filiation.[969] The Maoris
of New Zealand have also adopted agnatic filiation, but this new system
still jars against ancient usages, which formerly harmonised with the
maternal family.
This evolution of the family in Polynesia has probably had for its
starting-point a confused promiscuity, and afterwards a system of
classification of relations, in which real and fictitious ties were
hardly distinguished from each other. With the slight importance
attached to real consanguinity might very naturally coexist a great
facility to practise adoption. This was abused to such a degree in
the Marquesas Islands that it was not uncommon to see aged persons
getting themselves adopted by children, and even animals were adopted
also. Thus a chief had adopted a dog, to which he had ceremoniously
offered ten pigs and some precious ornaments; he had him constantly
carried by a _kikino_; and at the banquets of the chiefs, the animal
had his appointed place by the side of his adoptive father.[970] There
was no distinction generally made between the real and the adoptive
parent,[971] and we may hence conclude that the degrees and bonds of
kinship were not well distinguished.
IV. _The Family among the Mongols._
The family of the Polynesians, and more especially of the Hawaians, may
well have been, as L. Morgan supposes, the primitive familial type of
the American Redskins. It has for its basis a marriage which is at once
polyandric and polygynic, between groups of sisters and corresponding
groups of brothers, and it results quite naturally in a system of
kinship by classes, holding real consanguinity very cheap.
It seems probable that analogous systems of kinship may have been
adopted by the greater number of the Asiatic Mongols. This may at
least be inferred from the fragmentary but significant accounts with
which explorers have supplied us. Among the Yourak Samoyedes, it is
forbidden to marry a woman of the same tribe (or rather clan).[972]
The people among the Kalmucks are subject to restrictions of the same
kind in regard to marriage, which must not take place within three or
four degrees of kinship. The great men, however, for whom the laws
are more lenient in all countries, sometimes obtain immunity from
these inconvenient obligations, but the populace is very much shocked
at their laxity. “Great men and dogs,” they say, “have no kin.”
Nevertheless, the sons of the great men, who often also marry their
sisters-in-law, always take a wife in another clan.[973] Kinship by
classes surely existed among the Mongols only a few centuries ago,
for Baber, the founder of the Mongol Empire of Delhi, speaks in his
_Memoirs_ of one of his lieutenants, named Lenguer Khan, who possessed
a whole tribe of maternal uncles, the Djendjouhah, forming a people who
lived in the mountains of the Punjaub.[974]
V. _The Evolution of the System of Kinship by Classes._
These facts, and the inferences they suggest, enable us to solve a
difficulty which has embarrassed an eminent sociologist, L. Morgan, to
whom we owe our acquaintance with the details of the curious systems of
kinship by classes prevailing among the Polynesians and the Redskins.
Morgan, in comparing, term for term, the denominations indicating
kinship among the Iroquois-Senecas and the Tamils of India, found
them identical as to meaning and number, and he admits, but not
without hesitation, that there has been, in both races, a parallel and
spontaneous evolution.[975] This way of explaining ethnic similarities
is certainly in general very legitimate. At first sight it often
appears trustworthy, and saves the trouble of inventing fantastic
migrations. In thousands of cases men of every period, every country,
every race have conducted themselves in the same way, had the same
ideas, realised the same inventions, adopted the same practices,
without knowing each other, without even supposing the existence of
the other peoples, and this simply because all of them were part of
the great human family. But between the Mongoloids of North America,
their cousins of Northern Asia, and the Hawaians, there is probably
the bond of a distant and common origin, and, besides this, the nomad
Mongols of Asia have more than once penetrated into India. Up to the
present time, half-savage Mongol tribes occupy entire regions of the
Himalaya. Mongols and Tamils have had wide and long communications with
each other during prehistoric ages; it has therefore been possible
for them to borrow mutually their system of kinship. There exists
quite a chain of peoples, including the Tamils of India, the least
civilised Mongols, the American Redskins, and lastly the greater
number of the Polynesians, all of whom have formerly adopted, or still
practise systems of kinship, based, not on consanguinity, but on a
classification more or less fictitious.
The fact is interesting; but it is somewhat bold to attach to it, as
Morgan has done, a universal value, and to pretend that all human
races have passed through this phase of kinship by classes. Even in
the countries where this familial form prevails, it is subject to more
than one exception, and it is probable that each great human type,
having had its special centre of creation, has evolved physically
and psychically in its own manner, sometimes unconsciously imitating
the others, but quite as often deviating from them, according as the
environment, the difficulties to be overcome, and the necessities
of the struggle for existence imposed on it such or such a line of
conduct.
However it may be, if we condense, by classification, all the notions
that have been collected in relation to kinship by classes among the
Australians, the Tamils, the primitive Mongols, the Mongoloids of North
America and those of Polynesia, we may retrace the evolution of kinship
by classes with sufficient appearance of truth.
To begin with, there must have existed hordes, which, though doubtless
human, were still very bestial as regards their instincts and
intelligence. In these hordes, which were not very numerous, the women
being taken possession of by the most robust old males, the young ones
were obliged either to quit the group or to remain in it by ravishing
one or two women from rival hordes; for exogamy was a necessity. The
least advanced of the Australian tribes seem to be still in this
primitive stage. At length a little order was put into this disorder
by the horde breaking up into clans; it was then decided that all the
men and all the women of each clan should be brothers and sisters, and
should not intermarry, and that on the other hand, all the men of a
clan should be the husbands of all the women of the neighbouring clan,
simply by right of birth. The Kamilaroi of Australia may represent the
second stage.
In Polynesia the principle is the same, but the idea has become
restricted and defined. Groups of real brothers marry groups of women
actually sisters, thus forming households at once polyandric and
polygamic; but traces of the antique marriage by fictitious groups
of brothers and sisters appear again in the terms used to designate
the various degrees of kinship. These terms are in reality purely
classificatory, and take little account of real consanguinity.
Among the Redskins a new and important restriction has been
established. Marriage outside the clan is continued, but not marriage
by groups of sisters and brothers. That this was done in primitive
times, however, is proved by the familial vocabulary. On the other
hand, they have clearly renounced polyandry, and adopted polygamy with
not less clearness; but this polygamy is special, and it is generally a
group of sisters who marry the polygamous husband.
As for the terms of kinship, they are always general and
classificatory. The relations are denominated by groups, and the titles
of kinship do not in the least correspond to the ties of blood.
Lastly, among certain nomad Mongols of Asia, the strict prohibition to
marry within the clan, and the terms of kinship applying to groups,
show that formerly a familial system, analogous to that of the American
Redskins, has been in use.
Moreover, this classificatory system is preserved entire in the
denominations of kinship by the Tamils of India. But among these last,
and also among certain Mongol populations of Thibetan Himalaya, the
primitive family, at once polygamic and polyandric, that of the Hawaian
islanders, has evolved after its own manner, which it is interesting to
notice.
The Polynesian, or rather the Hawaian family, formed essentially by
the conjugal union of a group of brothers with a group of sisters,
may evidently be restricted in two ways. Either, in the long run,
polyandry is found irksome; the men will no longer share their wives,
even with brothers, but find polygamy very convenient; in this case the
brothers contract isolated marriages, preserving nothing of the old
ways but the custom of marrying, when possible, a group of sisters:
the Redskins have done and still do this. Or, on the contrary, for
one reason or another, and most often on account of the relative
scarcity of women, the Hawaian marriage evolves in another direction.
The brothers continue to marry in a group; but, instead of marrying
simultaneously several sisters, they take only one wife and possess her
in common: this time it is in the direction of polyandry that primitive
group-marriage has evolved. From the Himalaya to Ceylon we find a long
track of ethnic groups who have thus transformed their marriage. The
mountaineers of Bhootan, the Naïrs, certain other aboriginal tribes
of India, and a part of the population of Ceylon, where the Tamils
have largely immigrated, are all of them the remains or landmarks of
an ancient layer of polyandric population traversing the whole of
Hindostan.
All these facts can be classed in a satisfactory manner. Thus united,
and placed in a series, they complete and throw a light on each other,
and show us the reason of customs which before appeared inexplicable.
All this evolution is quite admissible, but it is important to restrict
it to the populations with which it actually appears to be connected,
and not to make of it a universal law, applicable to the whole human
race.
VI. _The Clan and the Family._
Independently of their intrinsic interest, the facts that I have so
rapidly enumerated have a very wide bearing. Taken alone, they suffice
to destroy altogether the generally accepted ideas as to the origin
of human societies. The current doctrine, so often asserted, and
manifestly inspired by the Edenic tradition of a terrestrial Paradise
and by the memory of the Roman family, insists that human societies
have always and everywhere started with the family, and by this word is
understood the patriarchal family, essentially composed of the father
and the mother, or at most the mothers and the children. From this
first family, grouped submissively around one august chief, the father,
similar families are supposed to have sprung, which, side by side,
constituted tribes, cities, and states. This familial unit, supposed to
be primordial, this “cellule” of societies, is held to be particularly
respectable; the chief who governs it despotically, the father, has
something enchanting about him. At his voice the celestial wrath bursts
without mercy on the child bold enough to brave it. Even as late as
the last century, the paternal malediction had the effect of a moral
thunderbolt; in romances and theatrical plays the writers often had
recourse to it in order to effect the catastrophes of their plots.
We are forced in the present day to renounce this traditional notion.
We must bid adieu to the primitive patriarchate. The patriarchal, or
even simply paternal family, does not date, at least in most cases,
from the origin of societies.
The truly primitive stock is no other than the clan, that is, a small
consanguine group in which the kinship is still very much confused.
It was not in a day that the first men succeeded in constructing
genealogical trees, or even in determining with any precision the
degrees of consanguinity. Not only does the father not stand out as
a principal personage from the background of the familial clan; he
has not even yet any recognised social existence in the little group;
in short, the actual physiological father has had in principle no
ascertainable relationship with his children, for marriage was anything
but monandric.
Within the primitive social unit, the familial clan, every one was
consanguine, but in a confused way; the wives had several husbands, and
the husbands several wives; the degrees of kinship were not individual,
but applied to classes of individuals. At this period of social
development it was difficult to distinguish as yet the real from the
possible, fictitious consanguinity from real consanguinity. Every one
had groups of fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters: filiation and
the true ties of consanguinity in numerous cases could not be discerned.
In these groups of consanguine individuals, these clans with
kinship still confused, the first thing that became most habitually
differentiated was not the paternal family, for that could scarcely
exist, seeing that the father of a child was not easy to designate; it
was the maternal family, which we will now proceed to examine.
FOOTNOTES:
[928] McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 71.
[929] A. Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, p. 170-172.
[930] Powell, _Reports of Smithsonian Institution_, 1881.
[931] Owen Dorsey, _Omaha Sociology_, p. 252, in _Reports of
Smithsonian Institution_, 1885.
[932] Lewis Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 436.
[933] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 438.
[934] Owen Dorsey, _loc. cit._, p. 255.
[935] Owen Dorsey, _loc. cit._, pp. 254, 255.
[936] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 256.
[937] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 257.
[938] McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 97.
[939] L. Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 440.
[940] Owen Dorsey, _loc. cit._, pp. 262, 263.
[941] _Lettres édifiantes_, t. xii. p. 130.
[942] _Ibid._ p. 144.
[943] Owen Dorsey, _loc. cit._, p. 265.
[944] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 281.
[945] Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 81.
[946] _Voyages du baron de Lahontan_, etc., t. ii. pp. 203, 204 (1741).
[947] A. Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, p. 196.
[948] Holmberg, _Skizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika_, p. 32.
[949] L. Morgan, _loc. cit._, pp. 166, 344.
[950] H. Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 340.
[951] _Id._, _ibid._, vol. ii. p. 218.
[952] Squier, _States of Central America_, p. 237.
[953] Brett, _Indian Tribes of Guiana_, p. 98.
[954] Bancroft, _loc. cit._, pp. 664, 665.
[955] L. Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 538.
[956] Bancroft, _loc. cit._, vol. ii. p. 680.
[957] Thevet, _Singularités de la France antarctique_, p. 215.
[958] A. Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, p. 167.
[959] Hubner, _Six semaines en Polynésie_ in _Revue des Deux Mondes_,
1886.
[960] Yate, _New Zealand_, p. 99.
[961] Paulding, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xvi. p. 459.
[962] L. Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 374.
[963] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 428.--McLennan, _Primitive Marriage_, p. 375.
[964] L. Morgan, _Ancient Societies_, p. 428.
[965] De Varigny, _Quatorze ans aux îles Sandwich_, p. 14.
[966] Cook (Second Voyage), _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. vii. p.
417.--Moerenhout, _Voy. aux îles_, etc., t. ii. pp. 13, 15.
[967] Th. West, _Ten Years in South Central Polynesia_, p. 260.
[968] Mariner, _Voy. to the Friendly Islands_, etc., vol. ii. p. 165.
[969] Erskine, _Islands of the Western Pacific_.
[970] M. Radiguet, _Derniers Sauvages_, p. 181.
[971] Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, vol. ii. p. 98.
[972] Latham, _Descriptive Ethnology_, vol. ii. p. 455.
[973] McLennan, _loc. cit._, pp. 78, 79.
[974] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. du Mariage_, p. 268.
[975] L. Morgan, _Conjectural Solution of the Origin of the
Classificatory System of Relationship_, in _Proceedings of the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences_, 1868.