st z S pa — ee o aR = ies 7 $. pradin A -S i M : maim na : ; 3 X ~ = upon P 7 EF ae. ; 7 ig = ï ies saishan 4 AE Soe fee ae ’ iins, (i ahh R Hi FLOA ESS dh Sy inte ae : r O DARWIN + |} + PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. see PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE AN INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. BY JOHN F. M‘LENNAN, MA, ADVOCATE. EDINBURGH: ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK. 1865. [The right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved.) PRE FACE —_~+ o In the course of some inquiries which I had been making into the early history of civil society, the meaning and origin of the Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies fell to be investigated. The Subject being in itself curious, as well as obscure, and one which has never hither- to, so far as I am aware, been handled; I venture to lay the result of my investi- gation before the public, hoping that it May to some extent interest by its novelty. To the philosophic reader, I humbly sub- mit my little book as an exercise in scien- tific history. If I am right in my con- vi : PREFACE. clusions as to the origin of the symbol of capture, my essay must be accepted as throwing new light on the primitive state. For it will be seen that the symbol is not peculiar to any of the families of mankind. It is at once Indo-European, Turanian, and Semitic; and the frequency of its oc” cutrence is such as strongly to suggest— what I incline to believe—that the phase of society in which it originated existed, at some time or other, almost every- where. Indeed, so far as my inquiries into early social phenomena have. ex- tended, I have found such similarity, so many correspondences, so much sameness in the forms of life prevailing among the races usually considered distinct, that I have come to regard the ethnological differences of the several families of man- PRERACE. vii kind as of little or no weight compared with what they have in common: The most that can be attributed to those diffe- rences is, that they have affected the rate of development of the families, and the character of the development itself, in some of its secondary aspects. | Apart from the interest attaching to the Form of Capture as pointing out what most probably was the primitive form of human association, it will be found to have an important bearing on several social problems which have hitherto remained unsolved. “I think that the most important portions of my work are Chapters VIII. and IX. in Which the solution of some of these pro- blems is attempted. These chapters, it will be seen, are. strictly pertinent to the viii PREPACE. main subject of inquiry. In order to explain the appearance of the Form of Capture among endogamous peoples, it was necessary that I should examine the systems of kinship which anciently prevailed, and their influence on the structure of the primitive groups, so as to obtain a true view of the rise of caste and of endogamy. I ought to mention that, in some cases, I have had much difficulty in ascertaining the proper names of places. For instance, Munniepore is sometimes written Munipur, and sometimes Manni- poor. In every such case I have followed the authority which I have had most fre- quent occasion to cite in regard to the place. I have farther to notice, that I have discarded the use of the signs PREFACE. A = Pe ee “, and so on, commonly em- ployed to indicate the orthoepy of foreign — words. Such signs are of no use to the unlearned ; and, in the run of cases, the learned may be presumed not to require their assistance. Besides, I have not found much agreement, among writers, in the use of such signs. The word Ra- mayana, for example, is written Rámáy- ana by Professor Monier Williams, Rā- mayana by Dr. Muir, and Ramayana by Professor Max Müller. In writing it Simply Ramayana, I follow Mr. Tagore, in his recent translation of the ‘ Vivada Chintamani,’ in which work, as in the Present, the signs referred to are wholly - discarded. EDINBURGH, Fan. 6, 1865. CONTENTS. 0 CHAPTER I. Legal Symbolism and Primitive Life - CHAPTER II. The Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies CHAPTER III. The Origin of the Form of Capture CHAPTER IV. On the Prevalence of the Practice of Capturing Wives, de facto - - - - CHAPTER V. Of the Rule against Marriage between mem- bers of the same Tribe—Of the coincidence of this rule with the Practice of Capturing Wives, de Sacto, and with the Form of Cap- ture in Marriage Ceremonies - " x CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. On the State of Hostility - CHAPTER VII. Exogamy : its Origin—Comparative Archaism of Exogamy and Endogamy 4 è GHAPTER VIII. Ancient Systems of Kinship, and their Influence on the Structure of the Primitive Groups- - CHAPTER IX. The Decay of Exogamy - a CHAPTER X. Conclusion - > g — —0—— APPENDIX. NoTE A.—Additional Examples of the Form of Capture í 2 2 g 7 NOTE B.—On the Practice of Capturing Women for Wives z % = te ta CRAPPER I INTRODUCTORY. Legal Symbolism and Primitive Life. TuE chief sources of information regard- ing the early history of civil society are, first, the study of races in their primitive condition ; and, second, the study of the symbols employed by advanced nations in the constitution or exercise of civil rights. From these studies pursued to- gether, we obtain, to a large extent, the Power of classifying social phenomena as more or less archaic, and thus of connect- ing and arranging in their order the Stages of human advancement. None of the usual methods of his- torical inquiry conduct us back to forms B LEGAL SYMBOLISM of life so nearly primitive as many that have come down into our own times. The geological record, of course, exhibits races as rude as any now living, some per- haps even more so, but then it goes no farther than to inform us what food they ate, what weapons they used, and what was the character of their ornaments. More than this was not to be expected from that record, for it was not in its nature to preserve any memorials of those aspects of human life in which the philosopher is chiefly interested—of the family or tribal groupings, the domestic and political organisation. Again, the facts disclosed by philology as to the civil condition of the Indo-European race be- fore its dispersion from its original head- quarters,—the earliest, chronologically — considered, which we possess respecting the social state of mankind,—cannot be AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 7 — Said to tell us anything of the origin or early progress of civilization. Assuming the correctness of the generalization by Which philologers have attempted to re- construct the social economy of the Aryans, we find that people, at an un- known date before the dawn of. tra- dition, occupying nearly the same point of advancement as that now occupied by the pastoral hordes of Kirghiz Tar- tary, and leading much the same sort of life. They had marriage laws re- Sulating the rights and obligations of husbands and wives, of parents and chil- dren; they recognised the ties of blood through both parents; they had great flocks and herds, in defence of which they often did battle, and they lived under à patriarchal government with monarchi- cal features. It is interesting—a short time ago we should have said surprising LEGAL SYMBOLISM —to find that such progress had been so early made. But in all other respects this so-called revelation of philology is void of instruction. Those Aryan institutions are ato use the language of geology—post- pliocene, separated by a long interval from the foundations of civil society, and throw- ing back upon them no light. Marriage laws, agnatic relationship, and kingly go- vernment, belong, in the order of develop- ment, to recent times. For the features of primitive life, we must look, not to tribes of the Kirghiz type, but to those of Central Africa, the wilds of America, the hills of India, and the islands of the Pacific ; with some of whom we find marriage laws unknown, the family system undeveloped, and even the only acknow- ledged blood-relationship that through . mothers. These facts of to-day are, in a sense, the most ancient history. In the Seen ee, E AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 9 — Sciences of law and society, old means not old in chronology, but in structure: that is most archaic which lies nearest to the beginning of human progress considered as a development, and that is most modern which is farthest removed from that be- ginning. And since the historical nations were so far advanced at the earliest dates to which even philology can lead us back, the Scientific investigation of the progress of mankind must not deal with them, in the first instance, but with the very rude forms of life still existing, and the rudest of which we have accounts. The preface of `- general history must be compiled from the Materials presented by barbarism. Hap- pily, if we may say so, these materials are abundant. So unequally has the species been developed, that almost every con- ceivable phase of progress may be studied, IO LEGAL SYMBOLISM as somewhere observed and recorded. And thus the philosopher, fenced from mistake, as to the order of development, by the in- terconnection of the stages and their shad- ing into one another by gentle gradations, may draw a clear and decided outline of the course of human progress in times long antecedent to those to which even philology can make reference. All honour to philology; but in the task of recon- structing the past, to which its professors declare themselves to be devoted, they must be contented to act as assistants rather than as principals. We have said that the preface of gene- ral history must be compiled from mate- rials presented by barbarism. Some may account it illogical to prefix a scheme of early progress formed on view of socie- ties that have not yet advanced far, if at all, from savagery, to a scheme of further AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. Progress deduced from the written histories of nations whose origin and early training we are unacquainted with. But, in point of fact, it is not so. It is the best proof of the propriety of such a course—as well as of the continuity and uniform charac- ter of human progress—that we can trace everywhere, disguised under a -variety of symbolical forms in the higher layers of civilization, the rude modes of life and forms of law with which the examination of the lower makes us familiar. Indeed, were these remarks not merely general and introductory to the investigation of the origin of one particular symbol, many in- Stances of this correspondence between the higher and lower levels might be cited, to show that the symbolism of law in the light of a knowledge of primi- tive life, is the best key to unwritten history. ; LEGAL SYMBOLISM Of the value of that symbolism—of that reverence for the past to which it owes its origin—there will be occasion to say something hereafter. Meantime, we ob- serve that, wherever we discover sym- bolical forms, we are justified in inferring that in the past life of the people em- ploying them, there were corresponding realities ; and if, among the primitive races which we examine, we find such realities as might naturally pass into such forms on - an advance taking place in civility, then we may safely conclude (keeping within the conditions of a sound inference) that what these now are, those employing the symbols once were. History is thus made to ratify conclusions derived from the observation of rude tribes ; while such observation, again, is made to fur- nish the key to many of the enigmas of history. AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. « Le e For it is not as regards unwritten history merely that the two sources of information specified at the outset are of importance. Apart from the tests of truth afforded by the minute knowledge .of Primitive modes of life and their classi- fication as more or less archaic, nothing could be more delusive than written his- tory itself. In Roman law, to take a con- venient example, Confarreatio has the foremost place among the modes of con- Stituting marriage. Usus is just men- tioned in the twelve tables, which contain a provision against the wife coming into the Manus of her husband through Usus. Coemptio does not appear in the old law of Rome at all, nor is there any mention of it earlier than that by Gaius. But it can easily be shown that Usus and Co- emptio come first in order of age, and Confarreatio later; that is to say, the two 14. LEGAL SYMBOLISM former are more archaic than the latter. Yet have recent learned writers, overlook- ing this fact and the meaning of legal symbolism, represented Usus and Co- emptio as forms invented and introduced by the legislators of Rome, whereby the plebeians might have their wives in Manu, and enjoy the other advantages of Juste Nuptiz; Usus as an invention; and the fictitious sale in Coemptio as merely a device of legislative ingenuity. The true explanation of the late appearance of both Usus and the fictitious sale in the Roman law, is this—that the law at first was not that of the whole people but of a limited aristocracy, who, with a Sabine king and priesthood, adopted the Sabine religious ceremony of marriage; that the law long totally ignored the life and usages of the mass, and that ¢#ezv modes of marrying and giving in marriage be- T ee AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 15 gan to appear, and to make their mark in the law, only on the popular element in the city becoming of importance. In- Stead of marriage per coemptionem being the invention of legislators, it was of spontaneous popular growth, and must have been as old as the establishment of peaceful relations between tribes and fami- lies. All fictions, or nearly all, have had their germs in facts; became fictions or merely symbolical forms afterwards. And that the fictitious sale was originally an actual sale and purchase, cannot be doubted by any one who knows that marriage by the form of actual sale has prevailed almost universally among rude popula- tions. We see in the case of the Roman law how incomplete must necessarily be the history of the law of a country, as written on the face of it. The law is at first that of 16 LEGAL SYMBOLISM the dominant and presumably the most ad- vanced classes—the literates, warriors, and statesmen ; the rest of the community are beyond its pale, a law unto themselves. When the levelling processes, by which the lower classes succeed in the long run in acquiring rights more or less equal, have gone on for some time, then the ruder cus- toms followed by them before and since the commencement of the State appear in a modified form in what is now for the first time really becoming the law of the people. Civility seems suddenly to as- sume the garb and the air, and to use the gutturals of barbarism ; legal pro- cesses are gone through with the frantic howls and gesticulations of armed Ojibe- ways; and while all this, to those who are ignorant of primitive times, seems mere idle pantomime, sometimes silly, some- times odd, sometimes: puzzling by its in- AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 17 tricacy, to those who are prepared to receive their suggestions, the forms em- ployed are pregnant with meaning and in- Struction. Fortunately all the nations in the world have not advanced in civility Pari passu; and what is pantomime with One people, we discern to be grimmest reality with another. Were it not for this inequality of development, in what mys- teries would the history of the race be enveloped! What Michelet calls the poetry of law would have to be received as such simply ; as so many grotesqueries Or graces introduced into the ways of life to satisfy the popular fancy. As it is, however, the so-called poetry of law, the Symbolic forms that appear in a code or in Popular customs, tell us as certainly of the carly usages of a people, as the rings in the transverse section of a tree tell of its age. The Libripens, with his scales, offi- 18 Fee ete A SYMBOLISM. ciating at a will or act of adoption, seems out of place; but his presence illustrates the source whence all ideas of formal dis- positions were derived—the sale of fun- gibles. So does an old form of process preserved by Gaius—the Legis Actio Sacramenti of the Romans—prove that cultivated people to have been at one time zv pari casu as regards the adminis- tration of justice with many races which we find ignorant of legal proceedings, and dependent for the settlement of their dis- putes on force of arms or the good offices of neutral parties interfering as arbiters. So far, briefly, of the importance of the symbolism of law and of the study of races in their primitive condition. What follows is an attempt at a practical exem- plification in a new direction of the aid derivable from these sources in the task of unveiling the past. FORM OF CAPTURE. CHAPTER II. The Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies. IN the whole range of legal symbolism _ there is no symbol more remarkable than that of capture in marriage ceremonies —the origin of which it is our purpose to investigate—nor is there any the Meaning of which has been less studied. So far as we know, neither has the extent to which it prevails been made the subject of inquiry; nor its signifi- Cance the subject of thought. In two Cases, indeed, the occurrence of the Symbol could not fail to receive some attention. But, naturally, it did not lie in the way of the historians of either Greece or Rome to examine the matter 20 THE FORM OF CAPTURE very minutely, or to follow up the sugges- tions which, upon examination, it might have yielded, as to the early condition of the Dorians or Latins. Accordingly, the custom has been accepted as meaning no more than Festus said it did among the Romans, than Muller says it did among the Spartans ; as indicating nothing at Rome but the popular appreciation of the good fortune of Romulus in the rape of the Sabines;* as indicating, at Sparta, the feel- ing that a young woman “could not sur- render her freedom and virgin purity unless compelled by the violence of the stronger sex.”t It is surprising that writers so acute should have rested con- tent with such explanations, and that their views should have been so gene- * Festus, De Verborum Significatione—Rapi. T Mullers “ Dorians,” Book iv. c. iv., sec. 2; and see “Rawlinson’s Notes,” Herod., Book vi. 65. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 21 i ge Panetta rally adopted. The theory of Festus we Shall have occasion to notice hereafter : of that of Muller we observe that before we can entertain it, we must suppose that in the exceedingly lax community of the Spartans, or at least within certain of the tribes composing that community, there had been an early period of austere Virtue, the tradition of which was still so influential as to compel the Spartans to Observe in their marriages this custom as the shadow of their former delicacy. Now, of the existence of such a period bt prudery among the ancient Dorians, or among the Pelasgi, or the Achzans, there is not a tittle of evidence. On the contrary, such evidence as we have, points to the Lacedzemonian customs as having been an improvement on ancient prac- tice, Savages are not remarkable for delicacy of feeling in matters of sex, and l > 22 THE FORM OF CAPTURE the wandering hordes, who in succession overran the Peloponessus, were no better than savages when they first come under our observation.* Again, no case can be cited of a primitive people among whom the seizure of brides is rendered neces- sary by maidenly coyness. On the con- trary, it might be shown, were it worth while to deal seriously with this view, that women among rude tribes are usu- ally depraved, and inured to scenes of depravity from their earliest infancy. In this state of the facts, it is remarkable that any one should have been satisfied with so improbable an explanation. Rejecting, then, the primitive prudery hypothesis, which requires for its basis a declension from ancient standards of * They were certainly as savage as the Khonds, . with whom they agreed in cultivating a religion requiring human sacrifices, IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 23 Snes Purity—of the existence of which we have no evidence—we proceed to examine the Various phases in which the symbol of capture is presented. We shall find it in Places far from classic ground, and point- ing, in all its varieties, so steadily to the true theory of its origin, that the mere exhibition of its phases will lead the reader to anticipate much of what we have to say on the subject. In order to see what is the precise state of the facts with which we have to deal, it is Necessary to say something of the nature Of the symbol, and to adduce at some length such accounts of it as we find in Our authorities. | The symbol of capture occurs when- “ver, after a contract of marriage, it is necessary for the constitution of the rela- tion of husband and wife that the bride- stoom or his friends should go through 24 THE FORM OF CAPTURE the form of feigning to steal the bride, or carry her off from her friends by superior force. The marriage is agreed upon by bargain, and the theft or abduc- tion follows as a concerted matter of form, to make valid the marriage. The test, then, of the presence of the symbol in any case is, that the capture is concerted, and is preceded by a contract of marriage. If there is no preceding contract, the case is one of actual abduction. So far of the nature of the symbol. We proceed to examine the instances of its occurrence. That the form was ob- served in the marriages of the Dorians, and was, equally with betrothal, requi- site as a preliminary of marriage, rests chiefly on the authority of Herodotus and Plutarch.* The evidence of Hero- dotus is indirect, and is contained in * Muller’s “ Dorians,” ut supra. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 25 the well-known passage in which he ex- plains how Demaratus robbed Lestychides of his bride Percalus, to whom he had been betrothed—/orestalling him in carry- ing her off and marrying her.* The case Was one of actual abduction : but the language of Herodotus implies that it remained for Lestychides, in order to make Percalus his wife, that he should 80 through the form of carrying her off. With this must be conjoined the express Statement of Plutarch,t+ that the Spartan bridegroom always carried off the bride by feigned violence. He says, indeed, dy violence; but at the same time he shews that the seizure was made by friendly concert between the parties. These pas- Sages must be held sufficiently to prove that the custom existed at Som ft is equally certain that it was observed “ Herodotus,” B. vi, 65. -f “Life of Lycurgus.” 26 IHL LORM OF CAP LIORE at Rome,* in the plebeian marriages which were not constituted by Confar- reatio or Coemptio. The bridegroom and his friends—the time agreed upon having arrived—invaded the house of the bride, and carried off the lady with feigned force from the lap of her mother, or of her nearest female relation if the mother were dead. or absent. The seizure is vividly described by Apuleius} in. the story of the Captive Damsel, in which he is understood to have had the ple- beian form of marriage in view. The lady, narrating how she had been carried off, says that her mother having dressed her becomingly in nuptial apparel, was loading her with kisses, and looking for- ward to a future line of descendants, when * Festus, #¢ supra—Rapi: Pothier, Pandecta, etc., - App,, Title I. book xxiii, t+ Apuleius, de Asino Aureo, Book iv. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 27 On a sudden a band of robbers, armed like gladiators, rushed in with glittering Swords, made straight for her chamber in a compact column, and, without any Struggle or resistance whatever on the part of the servants, tore her away half dead with fear from the bosom of her trembling mother. The custom is said Still to prevail to a great extent among the Hindus.* It may well do so, for we find what must, as we shall show, be held to be the form of capture, prescribed as a Marriage ceremony to the Hindus in the Sutras.t It prevails among the Khonds in the hill tracts of Orissa. The marriage being agreed upon, a feast, to which the families of the parties equally contribute, * M‘Pherson’s “Report upon the Khonds of the dis- tricts of Ganjam and Cullack,” p. 55. Calcutta, 1842. t “Indische Studien,” p. 325. Edited by Dr. Weber. Berlin, 1862. 28 bits FORM. OF GAPLORE is prepared at the dwelling of the bride. “To the feast,” says Major M‘Pherson,* “succeed dancing and song. When the night is far spent, the principals in the scene are raised by an uncle of each upon his shoulders, and borne through the dance. The burdens are suddenly ex- changed, and the uncle of the youth dis- appears with the bride. The assembly divides into two parties; the friends of the bride endeavour to arrest, those of the bridegroom to cover her flight, and men, women, and children, mingle in mock conflict, which is often carried to great lengths.” “ On one occasion,” says Major- General Campbell, “ I heard loud cries proceeding from a village close at hand. * M‘Pherson’s “ Report,” ut supra. t “ Personal Narrative of Service, etc, in Khond- istan,” 1864, p. 44. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 29 and there I saw a man bearing away upon his back something enveloped in an ample Covering of scarlet cloth; he was sur- rounded by twenty or thirty young fel- lows, and by them protected from the desperate attacks made upon him by a Party of young women. On seeking an explanation of this novel scene, I was told that the man had just been married, and his precious burden was his bloom- ing bride, whom he was conveying to his own village. Her youthful friends— as, it appears, is the custom—were seek- ing to regain possession of her, and hurled Stones and bamboos at the head of the devoted bridegroom, until he reached the confines of his own village.* Then the * The hurling of old shoes, etc. after the bride- groom among ourselves, may be a relic of a similar Custom. It is a sham assault on the person carrying off the lady; and in default of any more plausible 30 THE FORM OF CAPTURE tables were turned, and the bride was fairly won; and off her young friends scampered, screaming and laughing, but not relaxing their speed till they reached their own village.” The custom may be presumed to prevail among the Koles, the Ghonds, and the other congeners of the Khonds ; but we are without authority on the subject. According to De Hell,* the form of capture is observed in the marriages of the noble or princely class among the Kalmucks. The price to be paid for the _ bride to her father having been fixed, the bridegroom sets out on horseback, accom- panied by the chief nobles of the horde explanation, and we know of none such, it may fairly be considered as probable that it is the form of capture in its last stage of disintegration. * Xavier Hommaire de Hell, “ Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea.” Lond. 1847, p. 259. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 31 to which he belongs, to carry her off. “A sham resistance is always made by the people of her camp, in spite of Which she fails not to be borne away on a richly caparisoned horse, with loud Shouts and feux de joie.” Dr. Clarke describes the ceremony differently, and it is possible that it assumes different forms in the different nations of the Kal- Mucks. “The ceremony of marriage among the Kalmucks,” he says,” “is per- formed on horseback. A girl is first Mounted, who rides off in full speed. Her lover pursues; if he overtakes her, She becomes his wife, and the marriage is consummated on the spot; after this she returns with him to his tent. But it Sometimes happens that the woman does not wish to marry the person by whom TARTANE, étc., vol. i, p. 433. 32 LHEIPORM OF CAPTURE suffer him to overtake her. We were assured that no instance occurs of a Kal- muck girl being thus caught, unless she have a partiality to the pursuer. If she dislikes him, she rides, to use the language of English sportsmen, ‘ neck or nought,’ until she has completely effected her escape, or until her pursuer’s horse þe- comes exhausted, leaving her at liberty to return, and to be afterwards chased by some more favoured admirer.” This ride for a wife is never undertaken till after the price for her has been fixed between the friends of the parties, the lover hav- ing to pay for as well as to catch her. The custom is not mentioned in the ac- count of the Kalmucks by Pallas, who knew of their marriage customs only by hearsay. But it favours the sup- position that there are varieties of the form in use among this people, that IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 33 Bergman * describes the ceremony some- what differently from both Clarke and De Hell. The necessity for the appear- ance of using force is satisfied, according to Bergman, by the act of putting the bride by force upon horseback when she is about to be conducted to the hut pre- pared for her by the bridegroom. And, indeed, we find the form reduced to this minimum of pretence in not a few cases. Thus in North Friesland,t a young fellow, called the bride-lifter, lifts the bride and her two bridesmaids upon the waggon in which the married couple are to travel to their home. Among the Tunguzes and Kamcha- * Bergman’s “Streifereien.” Riga 1804, vol. 3, p. 145, et seg. t Weinhold, pp. 250, 251; and see the other au- thorities for like cases noted by Dr. Weber, “Indische Studien,” uż supra. 34 THE FORM OF CAPTURE dales, a matrimonial engagement is not considered to be definitely concluded until the suitor has overcome his beloved by force, and torn her clothes—the maiden being bound by custom to defend her liberty to the utmost.* Also among the Bedouin Arabs it is necessary for the bridegroom to force the bride to en- ter his tent.t A similar custom existed among the French, at least in some pro- vinces, in the 17th century.{ In all the cases just mentioned the form assumed by the custom was analogous to the rule prescribed in the Sutras, where it was provided that at a certain vital Stage of * «Travels in Siberia,” Erman, vol. ii, p. 442— 1848 (Cowley’s trans.) t Burckhardt’s “Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys.” Lond. 1830, vol. i, p. 108. ; : “Marriage Ceremonies,” etc., Gaya, 2ded. Lond. . 1698, p. 30. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 35 Sheree: the marriage ceremony, & strong man and the bridegroom should forcibly draw the bride and make her sit down on a red Ox-skin.* There is good ground for believing that the form of capture is observed in the Marriage ceremonies of the Nogay Tartars. The rule which prohibits a Kal- Muck bride from entering the yurt of her parents for a year or more after her Marriage, and which is undoubtedly con- nected with the form of capture, pre- Vails among the Nogais, as it does also “Mong the Kirghiz. At any rate, we find the custom in the Caucasus in the immediate neighbourhood of the Nogais. The form which it assumes among the Circassians, indeed, closely resembles that Observed in ancient Rome. The wedding is. celebrated with noisy feasting and * “Tndische Studien,” uz supra. 36 THE FORM OF CAPTURE revelry, “in the midst of which the bride- groom has to rush in, and with the help of a few daring young men, to carry off the lady by force; and by this process she becomes his lawful wife.’* The cus- tom also prevailed till a recent date in Wales. Lord Kamest says that the following marriage ceremony was in his day, or at least had till shortly before been customary among the Welsh. “On the morning of the wedding day, the bridegroom, accompanied with his friends on horseback, demands the bride. Her friends, who are likewise on horseback, give a positive refusal, upon which a mock scuffle ensues. The bride, mounted be- * Louis Moser, “The Caucasus and its People.” Lond. 1856, p. 31; and see Spencer's “Travels in Circassia.” Lond. 1837, vol. ii. p 375; and “Bell’s Journal,” vol. ii. p. 221. Lond. 1840. + “Sketches of the History of Man,” Book 1. sec. 6, p. 449. Edin. 1807. IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 37 hind her nearest kinsman, is carried off and is pursued by the bridegroom and his friends, with loud shouts. It is hot uncommon on such an occasion to see two or three hundred sturdy Cambro- Britons riding at full speed, crossing and jostling to the no small amuse- Ment of the spectators. When they have fatigued themselves and their horses, the bridegroom is suffered to overtake his bride. He leads her away in triumph, and the scene is concluded with feasting and festivity.” Some such picture we Should have had from De Hell had he expanded his account of the mock scuffle among the Kalmucks of the hordes of the bride and bridegroom. We have now found the custom in various parts of Europe and Asia; it Occurs also in Africa and in America. Lord Kames vouches for the custom D os RT Tat ae ee, a E EE E a po 38 THE FORM OF CAPTURE among the Inland Negroes.* “When the preliminaries of the marriage are adjusted, the bridegroom with a number of his companions set out at night and surround the house of the bride as if in- tending to carry her off by force; she and her female attendants pretending to make all possible resistance, cry aloud for help, but no person appears.” Speket men- tions an incident which he observed in Karague, and which may have been the sequel to a capture. “ At night,” he says, “ I was struck by surprise to see a long noisy procession pass by where I sat, led by some men who carried on their shoulders a woman covered up ina blackened skin. On inquiry, however, I heard she was being taken to the hut of * “Sketches,” etc., uz supra. ; t “Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile,” 1863, p. 198. PR ci ago IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 39 m her espoused, where bundling fashion She would be put to bed; but it is only with virgins they take so much trouble.” Traces of the custom are indeed frequently Met with in Africa, but in so distinct and Marked a form as that mentioned by Lord Kames, we have not found it. His lord- Ship has not given his authority. He Mentions the custom, however, merely for its singularity, and apparently in ig- Norance of its connecting itself with any Wide-spread practice of mankind, which demanded investigation. Among the pri- Mitive races throughout the whole con- tinent of America traces of the form of capture (that is, customs seemingly of no Significance, except in the light of this form) are of frequent occurrence. Among the people of Tierra del Fuego, however, the form itself appears almost in perfec- tion. “Ac soon, says Captain Fitzroy, 40 THE FORM OF CAPTURE speaking of the Fuegians,* “as a youth is able to maintain a wife by his exertions in fishing or bird-catching, he obtains the consent of her relations, and does some piece of work, such as helping to make a canoe, or prepare seal-skins, etc., for her parents. Having built or stolen a canoe for himself, he watches for an opportunity, and carries off his bride. If she is unwilling she hides herself in the woods, until her admirer is heartily tired of looking for her, and gives up the pursuit, but this seldom happens.” -= These are among the best marked in- stances of the Form with which we are ac- quainted.+ The instances fix our attention * “Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle.” Vol. ii., p. 182; 1839. t The reader will find in the Appendix A, a- marked example of the Form, occurring in Ireland, and several other examples occurring elsewhere, IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 41 “specially upon a few geographical points. But nothing in nature stands by itself. Each example of the Form leads us to contemplate a great area over which the custom once prevailed, just as a fossil fish in rock on a hill-side forces us to con- ceive of the whole surrounding country 4S at one time under water. Were we to enumerate and examine all the customs Which Seem to us connected with the Form, we should be led into discussions foreign to our purpose, and there would be few primitive races with which we Should not have to deal. Suffice it, that the Form which of old appeared so well defined in the peninsulas of Italy and Greece, may be traced thence, on the one hand, northwards through France and Britain, south-westwards through Which the author has not thought it necessary. to in- corporate in the text. 42 LEAT ORME. OF CAPT ORE: ETC. Spain, and north - eastwards through Prussia; on the other hand, northwards through ancient Thessaly and Macedonia, into the mountainous regions on the Black Sea and the Caspian; again, that the form which is perfect among the Kal- mucks shades away into faint and fainter traces throughout almost all the races of the Mongolidz ; that we may assume it of frequent occurrence in Africa, as it unquestionably was among the red men of America; that it occurs among the Hindus, and may be assumed to have been common among the aboriginal in- habitants of the plains of India, of whom we have a well-preserved specimen in the Khonds of Orissa. THE ORIGIN OF FORM OF CAPTURE. 43 CHAP FER sed: THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. Tur question now arises, what is the Meaning and what the origin of a cere- mony so widely spread, that already on the threshold of our inquiry, the reader Must be prepared to find it connected with some universal tendency of man- kind ? Those who approach the subject with minds undisturbed by the views of Festus and Muller will most naturally think, in the first instance, of an early period of lawlessness, in which it was with women aS with other kinds of property, that he Should take who had the power, and he should keep who could. And it is a trite fact, that women captured in war have 44 THE ORIGIN OF universally, in barbarous times and coun- tries, been appropriated as wives, or as worse. But little consideration is needed to see that the symbol implies much more than this; for it is impossible to believe that the mere lawlessness of savages should be consecrated into a legal symbol, or to assign a reason—could this be believed— why a similar symbol should not appear in transferences of other kinds of pro- perty. To a certain extent, indeed, the first impression must be held to be a cor- rect one. We cannot escape the conclu- sion that there was a stage in the history of tribes observing this custom when wives were usually obtained by theft or force. And unless the practice of get- ting wives by theft or force was so general where it prevailed that we may Say it was. almost invariable, it is incredible that such an association should be established in the THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 45 Popular mind between marriage and the. . act of rapine, as would afterwards require the pretence of rapine to give validity to the ceremony of marriage. It must have been the system of certain tribes to cap- ture women—necessarily the women of , Other tribes—for wives. But we may be Sure that such a system could not have Sprung out of the mere instinctive desire of Savages to possess objects cherished by a foreign tribe; it must have had a deeper source—to be sought for in their Circumstances, their ideas of kinship, their tribal arrangements. The fact that among savage tribes— Whose normal relations with each other are those of war—a man could get a woman of a foreign tribe for his wife only by Carrying her off, cannot, by itself, €x- Plain a symbolism which is so well estab- lished, so invariable, where it occurs at 40 THE ORIGIN OF all. Where savages had women of their own whom they might marry, captive women would naturally become slaves or concubines rather than wives; the men would find their wives, or their chief wives, within the tribe; and the capture of women could never become so impor- tant in connection with marriage as to furnish a symbolism for all marriages to a later time. It may be doubted whether, in the circumstances supposed, the form of capture would, in a great number of cases, be bequeathed to more peaceful and friendly generations, even in the case of intertribal marriages—in which only the form could be expected to appear; and at any rate these, when first made subjects of friendly compact, would be too infre- quent for their ceremonies to override. those which were indigenous, and to be transferred into the general marriage law. THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 47 Much more likely is it that indigenous Marriage forms should be employed in the celebration of intertribal marriages When they occurred. It is a fortiori, that in the circumstances which we have been Considering—those of tribes among which aS among civilized peoples, the law of Marriage is matrimonium hberum—no ‘ystem of capturing women for wives Could have arisen. What circumstances then, what social idea, existing among rude tribes, could Produce a system of capturing the women of foreign tribes for wives? It will be convenient, that before we make the answer we have to offer to this question, We should consider the condition, in re- Spect of Marriage, of a class of tribes with Which we believe this system did xof Tiginate. : It is clear, that if members of a family 48 Jie ORLON IOI or tribe ave forbidden to intermarry with members of other families or tribes, and free to marry among themselves, there is not room for fraud or force in the consti- tution of marriage. The bridegroom and bride will live together in amity among their common relatives. With the con- sent of her relations, a woman will be- come the wife of a suitor peaceably. If a suitor forces her, or carries her off against her will or that of her friends, he must separate from these to escape their vengeance. It follows that, among tribes of this class, which we shall call endogamous tribes,* betrothal followed by * As the words endogamy and exogamy are new, an apology must be made for employing them. In- stead of endogamy we might, after some explanations, have used the word caste. But caste connotes several ideas besides that on which we desire to fix attention. On the other hand, the rule which declares the union of persons of the same blood to be incest has been THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 49 Cohabitation at first, and, at a more ad- vanced stage, betrothal and a religious or Other formal ceremony of appropriation Of the spouses to one another, are the Natural modes of marriage. To the prac- tice of such tribes are to be referred the two modes of constituting marriage of which the Roman usus and confarreatio May be taken as the types. These are at any rate the forms appropriate to mar- Mages between members of the same family-group or tribe; and, so far as aPpears at present, they could only have Originated among endogamous tribes, or— in the case of marriage within the tribe— hitherto unnamed, and it was convenient to give it a name. The words endogamy and exogamy (for Which botanical science affords parallels) appear to be well suited to express the ideas which stood in need of names, and so we have ventured to use them, taking care in the text to make their meanings dis- tinct, 50 THE ORIGIN OF among tribes which allowed their mem- bers to marry among themselves or into other groups indifferently. The form of marriage by gift, or that by sale and purchase, could never have origi- nated with purely endogamous tribes. A tribe, in a primitive age, is just a group of kindred—more or less numerous, with common interests and possessions, where they have any other property besides their women; living together as an ungo- verned fraternity, or under the headship of a pater-familias. Obviously within such a group there can be neither barter nor sale—neither the selling nor the buy- ing of wives. On a marriage between two of its members, there is no foreign interest to be consulted or satisfied. It is different if we conceive a number of such tribes aggregated in a political union to which the caste principle of its ties eee a merman a LHE FORM OF CAPTURE. 51 Parts is extended: so that, while formerly the members of each could only marry among themselves, the members of all have acquired the right of intermarrying With one another. In forming this con- ception, we pass from Marriages within | the tribe to inter-tribal marriages. In an Inter-tribal marriage one tribe loses a Woman, the other acquires one; or, as Sometimes happens, one loses a man, the Other acquires one. In either case, there 'S room and a necessity for compensa- tion. Such a marriage must be a subject of bargain, a matter of sale and purchase. And we may now perceive that the mar- tages of which coemptio may be taken “S the civilised type, have their origin in intermarriages between distinct family Stoups or tribes. But it is not in a primitive age, not “ntil after a very considerable advance 52 THE ORIGIN OF has been made in civility, that tribes are ever found joined in a political union. Such union indicates a state of friendli- ness between the tribes, brought about by common action for common objects. And should inter-tribal marriages come to be permitted among endogamous tribes, they could from the first be carried through by friendly negotiation. On the other hand, the degree of political union presupposed to explain the intermarriages must be such as to exclude the idea of the members of any tribe resorting to violence to obtain wives from any other. We conclude that, among this class of tribes, marriage by capture could have had no place. Still more certain is it that they could never come to form such an association between marriage and the act of rapine as would lead them to adopt the symbol of capture in marriage ceremonies ; on the contrary, LHE FORM OF CAPTURE. 53 ites ANRE we should expect to find that they would, Sut of respect to immemorial usage in the case of marriages within the tribe, Celebrate even their intertribal mar- tages — though really brought about by Sale and purchase—by such cere- Monies as had been customary among them in marriages between members of the tribe. And if the symbol of capture be ever found in the marriage ceremonies of an endogamous tribe, we may be sure that it is a relic of an early time at which the tribe was organised on another prin- ciple than that of endogamy. - And now let us postulate the exist- “nce of tribes, organised on what we shall Call, for the want of a better name, the Principle of exogamy—that is, which ro- hibited marriage within the tribe—and Whose tribesmen were thus dependent on Other tribes for their wives. It is obvious E ka > THE ORIGIN OF that inter-tribal marriages could only be peaceably arranged between tribes whose relations were friendly. But peace and friendship were unknown between sepa- rate groups or tribes in early times, ex- cept when they were forced to unite against common enemies. The sections of the same family—when it fell into sec- tions—became enemies by the mere fact of separation. And while this state of enmity lasted, exogamous tribes never could get wives except by theft or force. If it can be shown, firstly, that exoga- mous tribes exist, or have existed; and secondly, that in rude times the relations of separate tribes are uniformly, or almost uniformly, hostile, we have found a set of | circumstances in which men could get wives only by capturing them—a social condition in which capture would be the necessary preliminary to marriage. And ` pe en ee Sanne THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 55 ee. if it be shown in a reasonable number of well-authenticated cases that these con- ditions — exogamy as tribal law, and hostility as the prevailing relation of Separate tribes towards each other—exist Or have existed, accompanied, as might have been expected, by a system of cap- turing wives, we shall be justified in con- cluding— failing the appearance of any Phenomena inconsistent with such an ex- Planation—that the same conditions have existed in every case where the system of capture prevailed, or where the form of “apture has been observed as a ceremony Of marriage. N othing more than this is Necessary to satisfy the conditions of a Sound hypothesis. We are in a position to do this and Nore. We shall be able to point to many tribes which habitually capture or cap- lured their wives from foreign tribes ; to 56 THE ORIGIN OF show that exogamy is or was the law of these tribes; also, that there are cases of exogamous tribes whose tribesmen, marry- ing women by compact, always go through the form of capturing such women ; that in all the modern instances where the symbol of capture is best marked, mar- riage within the tribe is prohibited as in- cestuous. We shall also find various cir- cumstances common to exogamous tribes, and traceable in their case to the prin- ciple of exogamy, appearing more or less marked in the case of historical tribes which have used the form of capture, sup- porting the conclusion that such tribes had once been exogamous. | It may easily be conceived how, among exogamous tribes, out of respect to immemorial usage, when friendly rela- tions came to be established between tribes and families, and their members THE FORM OF CAPTURE. ae intermarried by purchase instead of cap- ture, the form of invasion and capture Should become an essential ceremony at Weddings. It was unheard of from the | remotest times that a woman became a Man’s wife except through being made his captive, forced or stolen away from her _ friends by him or for him. Surely some- l thing shall bé wanting if there is not at | least the appearance of a capture! So the Roman youths rush in with drawn Swords, and feign to enact a tragedy; so the Kalmuck girl rides, as if for life, from her lord and master by pre-arrange- Ment | We now proceed to treat of the mat- ter, in order, under the three following heads Firstly, The prevalence of çap- turing wives de facto ; secondly, Whether, Where that practice prevails, marriage be- tween members of the same family-group, 58 LAE FORM OF CAPTURE. clan, or tribe, is forbidden, and the pre- valence of that limitation of the right of marriage; and, thirdly, How far the state of war prevails among primitive groups ? PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 59 —— ere: CHAPTER TV ON THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES, DE FACTO. THE tribes amongst which prevails or has prevailed, the practice of getting wives by theft or force, are both numerous and Widely distributed. We shall find them in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in many of the islands of the Pacific, and in various parts of Asia and Europe. It is among the tribes of American Indians that the practice is to be found in the greatest perfection. In particular, we find it fully displayed on the Ori- noco, on the Amazons, everywhere in fact, from the Caribbean Seach: ape Horn. The abject Fuegians, as we have 60 Ate of ed tae OF seen,” have the practice in a modified or symbolised form in the marriages of men and women belonging to groups at peace with one another. But they have the reality as well as the fiction. Between many of their tribes there is a chronic state of war. “Strangers,” reported Jemmy Button to Captain Fitzroy on one occasion,t “had been there, with whom he and his people had ‘ very much jaw; they fought, threw ‘great many stone, and stole two women (in exchange for whom Jemmy’s party stole one), but were obliged to retreat.” The Horse In- dians of Patagonia also, tribe against tribe, are commonly at war with one another, or with the Canoe Indians, the issues of victory in every case, being the m See Wie, Te Ae. + “Voyages of Adventure and Beagle,” uz supra, VOL MM, B.. 224. CAPTURING WIVES. 6I capture of women and the slaughter of men. But the Oens or Coin-men would appear to be the most systematic of these Savage marauders, for every year at the time of ‘red leaf’ they are said to make excursions from the mountains in the north to plunder the Fuegians of their women, dogs, and arms.* Farther north still than the Oens men, we come successively on the tribes of the Amazons and of the Orinoco, all of which, excepting those re- duced into missions, are continually at feud with one another, and in turns rich iN women or impoverished ; feelings of Mutual hate and the desire for means of Subsistence being concurring causes of War. Of the tribes on the Amazons the accounts are not very distinct; but the habits of the Manaos in the Rio Negro eer ase * Idem, p. 205. THE PRACTICE OF district—which, as reported by Mr Bates,” are similar to those of the Coin-men— may be assumed not to be exceptional. There is no doubt, however, that the pri- mitive habits of most of the Indian tribes have been much changed by the slave- hunting expeditions, at one time fostered by the Dutch and Portuguese. On slave- hunting being introduced in America, as in Africa, a market was found for captives of both sexes, and men as well as women became spoils of victory. No argument is needed to show that when women are systematically captured as in the above cited cases, they are captured with a view to the raising of children—in fact, with a view to their performing the part of wives. The fulness of the idea of a wife, according to our conceptions, is not, st. “ «The Naturalist on the Amazons.” Second Edition, 1864, p. 199. LL eee Ser ee ES = ; h s n= A Po -a CAPTURING WIVES. 63 SS r — SET we need scarcely say, to be looked for amongst such savages. That idea can nowhere þe fully realised till the circum- Stances of a people enable men and women to enjoy, or at least to look forward with confidence, to a permanent consortship. Of the tribes of the great Caribbean nation we have happily'a pretty full ac- count from the pen of Alexander Von Humboldt.* The Caribbees fall into Small tribes or family groups, often not S Eme merene oema mmea SS ——— ee eae ENESSSEESaaepaseaeneoee SS Numbering more than from 4o to 50 per- Sons; Humboldt, indeed, takes frequent Occasion to say that an Indian tribe is no Nore than a family. Where groups break Up into sections, as they tend to do, and * “Personal Narrative of T ravels, etc.” (1826). The Passages bearing on the capturing of women among the tribes of the Orinoco, from which our account is taken, will be found at vol. v., pp. 210, 293, 422, A256, 348, 565; vol. vi, pp. 20, 21, 26: vol, vii, p. 449. 64 re PRADO OF live apart from one another, the sections are found, though of one blood, and ori- ginally of one language, soon to speak dialects so different that they cannot un- derstand one another. Become strangers, they are enemies except when forced to unite to make common cause against some powerful tribe which has proved a scourge to them all; enemies, and being at least at the time when Humboldt wrote, can- nibals, not only disposed to slay but to eat one another. In their wars, we may imagine, that while their male captives furnished means of subsistence, the women were preserved to be wives and luxuries.* To such an extent, indeed, did all the tribes of the Caribbean nation practise the capture of women—depend on aggres- sion for their wives—that the women of any tribe were found to belong to different * Compare Erskine’s “Pacific,” p. 425 (1863). CAPTURING WIVES. 65 tribes, and to tribes of other nations, and that to such an extent, that nowhere were the men and. women of the Caribbean Tace found to speak in one tongue. Going northwards—to the wild In- dians everywhere, as far as we follow them, the same account is applicable in varying degrees. It would indeed be misleading to omit to notice that in both North and South America tribes are to be found Occupying much more elevated platforms Of civility than those to which, for obvious reasons, we have given our attention. As among friendly groups of the Fuegians we find marriages of consent and of pur- chase (by labour commonly),* so also Among friendly Patagonians ; so also with the nations of the Huron tongue and the Attakapas, among whom the position of litte * See ante, p. 40. 66 fate 2RACIICE OF the women is exceedingly good. Indeed, all the processes have been going on through which every species of marriage would in time be developed. Even the red men of America are far from being primitive. A really primitive people in fact exists nowhere. For many thou- sands of years now, the various races of men have been in the school of ex- perience, all making progress therein, though under different masters and in different forms. Hereafter we shall see how the old law of the red men, and of the natives of Australia, which counts blood relationship through females only, operates as an agent of civilization, and tends to supersede the barbarous practices of early savagery, and especially to obviate the necessity of capturing wives. The capture of women for wives is found to prevail among the aborigines fear” Ree as once St es Ay eee gave + CAPTURING WIVES. 67 Of the Deccan,* and in Affghanistan.t It prevailed, according to Olaus Mag- hus, in Muscovy, Lithuania, and Livo- nia} The form which it assumed among the peoples last named, so closely re- sembled what Kames describes as the Custom among the Welsh, that we must quote the Archbishop’s account of it :— “ Quicunque enim paganorum, sive rus- ticorum, filius suus uxorem ut ducat in animo habet, agnatos, cognatos, Céterosque vicinos in unum convocat, illisque talem isto in pago puellam nubi- lem versari, quam rapi, et suo filio in conjugem adduci proponit: hi commo- dum ad hoc tempus expectantes, ac tunc * Colonel Walter Campbell’s “Indian Journal,” ok P. 400. “Latham’s Descriptive Bibiaiaen? Vol. ii, P. sis “ Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus.” “Book xiv, » Cap. ix., p. 481. Rome, 1555. 68 Tite PRACT oe armati, equites suo more unius ad ædes conveniunt, posteaque ad eam rapiendam profisciscuntur. Puella autem quoad matrimonii contradictionem libera, ex in- sidiis opera exploratorum ubi moretur per eos direpta, plurimum eiulando opem consanguineorum amicorumque ad se libe- randam implorat: quod si consanguinei vicinique clamorem istum exaudierunt, ipso momento armati adcurrunt, atque pro ea liberanda proelium committunt ut qui victores ista in pugna extiterunt his puella cedat.” The difference between the Welsh and the Muscovite practice lay in this, that in Wales, in the celebra- tion of the marriage, betrothal came first, and the (sham) fight afterwards; while among the Muscovites an actual invasion came first, and if the bridegroom’s party succeeded in carrying off the lady, there followed the consent of parents and the CAPTURING WIVES. 69 sponsalia :—‘‘ Nec ante completam hanc celebritatem mutua carnali copula, pacto parentum interveniente, se commiscere Solent conjungendi ; quia immane cunctis gentibus crimen apparere dignoscitur si ante sponsalia sacra stupri illecebris virgo temeratur ; immo summoperé cavent _ Puellæ ne copulam anticepent quia per- petuam cum prole sic suscepta infamiam luent.”* The intervention of the spon- Salia and consent of parents before the consummation of the marriage, marks this aS a transitional form of the practice. But it is none the less a case of actual capture. Another advance and the spon- Salia will precede the capture, and the fight be a farce. According to Seignior Gaya,t this transitional form of the practice prevailed — * « Olaus Magnus,” ut supra, p. 482. = Marriage Ceremonies,” etc., ut supra, p. 35. F 70 LE PRACLIGE OF in his time in Poland, parts of Prussia, Samogithia and Lithuania. A lad’s father having found where a girl lived, who would make a suitable wife for his son, he assembled his kindred and carried the lady off, after which application was made to her father for consent to complete the marriage. There is ample reason to believe that the practice was general among the nations in the north of Europe and Asia. Olaus Magnus,* indeed, represents the tribes of the north as having been continually at war with one another either on account of stolen women, or with the object of stealing women, “ propter raptas virgines aut arripiendas.” His brother Johannest dilates on the same topic, and mentions * Uf supra, p. 328. | t History of the Goths, Book xviii.; and see “Kames,” ut supra, vol. i., p. 393. Sees Sor Rees ee aa ee CAPTURING WIVES. 71 humerous cases in which the plunderers were of the royal houses of Denmark or Sweden. As did the kings, so did their Subjects. Among the Scandinavians, be- fore they became Christians, wives were almost invariably fought for and wedded at the sword-point. In Sweden, even long after the introduction of Chris- tianity, women were often carried off When on the way to the church to be married. A wedding cortege was a party of armed men, and for greater security, Marriages were generally celebrated at night. -A pile of lances is said to be still Preserved in the ancient church of Husaby in Gothland, into which were fitted torches; these weapons were borne by the grooms- men, and served the double purpose of Siving light and protection.* Such a * “ Book of Days,” vol. i, p. 720. The grooms- Men are said to have been called “best men” in the 72 THE PRACTICE OF prevalence of lawlessness existing after the introduction of Christianity and com- parative civilization, helps us to conceive what the habits of these people were in a more primitive age. We find capture de facto coexistent with capture as a form, and not unfre- quent, among most of the rude tribes observing the form ; its frequency depend- ing partly on the degree of friendliness established between the tribes, and partly on the degree of fixity given by usage to the price to be paid for a bride. Where the parties cannot agree about the price, nothing is more common among the Kal- mucks, Kirghiz, Nogais, and Circassians, than to carry the lady off by actual force of arms. The wooer having once got the lady into his yurt, she is his wife by the north from the strongest and stoutest of the bride- groom’s friends being chosen for this duty. CAPTURING WIVES. 73 law, and peace is established by her rela- tions coming to terms as to the price, after the thing has gone so far that they cannot help themselves. It is important to ob- Serve, that among these races the capture, though an irfegular proceeding, makes Marriage, even previous to terms being Made between the capturer and the friends of the lady, and whether they are made Or not. ; That the practice of getting wives by capture de facto, prevails among the Natives of Australia, is a fact familiar to Most readers. It is not, however, uow the sole or regular mode of getting a wife among the Australian tribes ; and we do not claim to do more than show that there at present exists among them a practice of capturing wives so common as almost to bea system. And as we shall hereafter Show that they are exogamous, and also i. THE PRACTICE OF that exogamous tribes which begin with a system of capturing wives, may pro- gress—consistently with exogamy—to a system of betrothals, we shall ask the reader, conceding to us for the present that we shall be able to do SO, to agree with us that so general a practice of cap- ture, subsisting as it does among the Australians alongside of a system of | betrothals, points unmistakeably to a previous stage when wives were usually captured. Among the Australasians, according to one account,* when a man sees a woman whom he likes, he tells her to follow him, and when she refuses, he forces her to accompany him by blows, ending by knocking her down and carrying her * See Appendix B, for an account of the practice ` among the Australian Blacks, which has appeared as this work was going through the press, ° Saha far Sains. mei Se ee apg CAPTURING WIVES. 75 off." The same account (somewhat suspi- Clously) bears that this mode of courtship is rather relished by the ladies as a Species of rough gallantry. The cases Must indeed be rare in which a man finds a woman detached from her lord and protector, or the other members of her family; nor is it in human flesh and blood to take kicks and cuffs as compli- Ments, in whatever spirit they may be administered. The following is the ac- Count given by Sir George Grey—a good authority :—‘ Even supposing a woman to give no encouragement to her admirers,” he says,t “ many plots are always laid to Carry her off, and in the encounters which result from these, she is almost certain to * Turnbull, “Voyage Round the World,” 1805. Vol. i, » pp. 81, 82. t “Travels in North- Western Australia,” 1841. Vol. ii, p. 249. 76 THE PRACTICE OF receive some violent injury, for each of the combatants orders her to follow him, and in the event of her refusing, throws a spear at her. The early life of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty 1S generally one continued series of cap- tivity to different masters, of ghastly wounds, of wanderings in strange fami- lies, of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other females, amongst whom she is brought a stranger by her captor ; and rarely do you see a form of unusual grace and elegance, but it is marked and scarred by the furrows of old wounds ; and many a female thus wanders aa hundred miles from the home of her infancy, be- ing carried off successively to ‘distant and more distant points.” As an Aus- tralian woman is always a wife, being. betrothed after birth to some man of a different tribe or family-stock from her n — SI in a a nen HD Se e wr T Rape Or a = Xa ve _ Sa - s v-ati - te CAPTURING WIVES. Own, a stolen or captured wife is always Stolen or taken from a prior husband. And as men do not readily part with their Wives, and their tribesmen are bound to make common cause with them for the re- Paration of injuries, the capture of wives is a signal for war; and: as. the tribes have little property, except their weapons and their women, the women are at once the cause of war, and the spoils of victory.* The tribes, as might be expected, are exceedingly numerous, and exceedingly small,t being a species of family groups, and, chiefly from the causes specified, they are continually at. war with one another: The reader. may imagine the * “Turnbull,” uż supra, 22, : + Sir George Grey says that the largest number Of natives his party ever saw together, “numbered Nearly two hundred, women and children included,” “ supra. Vol, hy He Ah. t Grey's “ Travels,” wt supra. Vol. 1., p. 256. 78 LLLE RAL AGE OL extent to which, among these myriad hordes of savages, the women are being knocked about, and the men accustomed to associate the acquisition of a wife with acts of violence and rapine.* The native songs make frequent allu- sion to the practice of capturing wives. Here is the burden of one, sung by a heavy-hearted woman, upbraiding her lord, whose affections some recently ac- quired captive has drawn away from her,— Wherefore came you, Weerang, In my beauty’s pride, Stealing cautiously, Like the tawny boreang, On an unwilling bride, ’Twas thus you stole me From one who loved me tenderly. A better man he was than thee, * The reader will find, p. 318, vol. ii. of “ Grey’s Travels,” a curious illustrative instance of the Way in which a war about women may arise. - CAPTURING WIVES. Who having forced me thus to wed, Now so oft deserts my bed. Yang, yang, yang, yoh. Oh, where is he who won My youthful heart ; Who oft used to bless And call me loved one: You, Weerang, tore apart From his fond caress _ Her whom you desert and shun ; Out upon the faithless one! Oh, may the Boyl-yas bite and tear Her, whom you take your bed to share. Yang, yang, yang, yoh.* Concerning the New Zealanders, it Must suffice to say that the theft or Cap- ture of women plays a leading part in their popular legends, testifying to the Prevalence of the practice, at least in their Carly history.t In New Zealand, and 'n the Feejee and other islands of the * Grey’s “Travels,” vol. dij PE 98s. T “Polynesian Mythology, etc.” Sir George Grey, 1855, pp. 138, 147, 207, 235, 301. 80 TILI RAE PL OOF Pacific, the capture of wives appears to have been conjoined with cannibalism— the object of inter-tribal war being at once to procure women for wives and men for food, except in some districts where there was a special relish for the flesh of females.* In the Institutes of Menu we have marriage by capture enumerated among “the eight forms of the nuptial ceremony used by the four classes.” +t It is the marriage called Racshasa, and is thus defined mo ihe seizure of a maiden by force from.her house while she weeps and calls for assistance, after her kins- men and friends have been slain in battle or wounded, and their houses broken open, is the marriage called Racshasa.” * Erskine’s “Islands of the Western Pacific,” and Jackson’s “ Narrative.” + Chap. iii. 33 (Jones and Houghton), CAPTURING WIVES. SI Elsewhere* in the code it is mentioned aS appropriated to the military class. “For a military man the before-men- tioned marriages of Gandharvas and Racshases—whether Separate or mixed, as when a girl is made captive by her lover, after a victory over her kinsmen— are permitted by law.” The full scope and effect of this provision we shall have to consider hereafter. Meanwhile we Notice that we have here the exact pro- totype of the Roman and Spartan forms, embalmed in a code of laws a thousand years before the commencement of our ‘Ta; not as a form, but as living sub- Stance. This we hold to exclude any hypothesis except that which we are Maintaining.+ * Chap, iii, 26 (Jones and Houghton), ) Tt For the probable origin of the name Racshases, See Appendix B. ne = = rea = = ee PE PP RACIIOL OF We may notice, as further illustrating the subject, and as being in itself curi- ous, that by the Mosaic Code the mili- tary class were, in defiance of the gene- ral law which declared that there was no connubium between Jews and Gentiles, allowed to take to wife women whom they captured in war, to whatever races they belonged. In Deut. xx. 10-14, the reader will find forms and regulations provided for the constitution of this species of mar- riage, and if interested to know the mean- ing of the rules, he will find a copious and learned discussion of them in the works of Selden. * Thus far we have been dealing with facts. If we are right in our theory of the symbol of capture, it must be held that the Dorians, or at least some of the tribes * «De Jure Naturali et Gentium Juxta Disciplinam Ebreorum.” Lib. v., cap. xiii., fol. 617, CAPTURING WIVES. 83 TS Sie SR Composing the Spartan nation, and the Latins, or at least some of the tribes form- ing the commonalty of Rome, long had experience in the capturing of wives by force or stratagem. We leave to our Hellenists to consider how far the Doric legends may have new light thrown upon them by our view of the Spartan custom. How far, for instance, may the slaughter by Hercules of Eurylus and his sons, and the Carrying away of Iole to be the wife of Hyllus—of Hyllus, who never occurs in mythology except in connection with the Dorians—be a mythical tradition of a tape of women from another tribe? How far may the genealogies of Doric heroes Connected with the taking of Ephyra,— the Capture of Astyocheia,—the feat of Hercules at Thespize—the stories of Pluto and Proserpine, and of Boreas and Orithya be but traditions of a quasi Caribbean a LIM PRACLIL LE. Ge, prowess? It must be kept in mind, too, that the case cited from Herodotus in proof of the custom at Sparta is one of actual violence. At least, the lady was not carried off in terms of arrangement. Farther, to judge by what is reported of Theseus—even accepting the tradition as fabulous—we may conclude that the an- cient Greeks generally were very lawless in this matter. To that hero’s charge are laid numerous rapes of women whom he carried off to be his wives—his crimes of this description culminating in the seizure of Helen. Plutarch, indeed, in describing that affair, mentions a compact as having been entered into between Theseus and his companion in the seizure—Tyndarus —to the effect that he who should gain Helen by lot should have her to wife, but be obliged to assist in procuring a wife for the other; which shows that these CAPTURING WIVES. 85 Worthies trusted to their prowess to pro- Cure them wives.* As to the Romans— "pon our theory—the story of the rape of the Sabines must be accepted as a mere Mythical tradition of the ancient me- thod of getting wives. The story, as might be expected, is reproduced in the traditions of many tribes, in many places, baad in many forms. For instance, in the Irish Nennius+ there is a tradition * There is no evidence that the Doric hordes who °Verran and established themselves in the Peloponnesus, Were accompanied by their wives or children. It is Most unlikely that they were so attended; and, except à surmise founded on the degree of influence en- JOyed at a subsequent period by the women of Sparta, there is nothing in favour of the supposition, But that Surmise proceeds on the ground that wives of a tace alien to that of their husbands are not so likely to be well treated as they would be if they were of the same blood. Against this we must simply pro- Ounce as being contrary to evidence. T Pp, 245-2651, G 86 iE PRACTICE OF of such a rape of wives by the Picts from the Gael. In the very old poem, “The Cruithnians who propagated in the land of noble Alba,”* the Irish are represented as giving three hundred wives to the Picts, on the condition that the succession to the crown among the Picts should always be through their females :— “There were oaths imposed on them, By the stars, by the earth, That from the nobility of the mother Should always be the right to the sovereignty.” The story of the oaths is no doubt a fable to explain the descensus per umbilicum pi tke FPrS: pit ii ap Gircan- ash,” t a poem on the origin of the Goed- hel, reciting the same event, the Picts are represented as Stealing the three hundred Wives :— * Vv, 115-120. The Irish version of Nennius, 1848, p. 141. T Vv. 178-180, ut supra, p. 245. i CAPTURING WIVES. 87 “Cruithne, son of Cuig, took their women from them— It is directly stated— Except Tea, wife of Hermion, Son of Miledh.” And in consequence of the capture, the Gael, being left wifeless, had to form alliances with the aboriginal tribes of Ireland. “ There were no charming noble wives For their young men, Their women having been stolen, they made alliance With the Tuatha Dea.” We have the same story in the history of the Jews. Chapters xx. and xxi. of the Book of Judges contain highly instructive Matter on this point, in a Story, which, though laid in the time of the Judges, we Must hold to be of very old date—a Jewish tradition belonging to the earliest history Of Israel. The women of the tribe of Benjamin had been destroyed, and certain Of the tribes of Israel had sworn not to ae Ie Yaaro. OF give their daughters as wives to the men of Benjamin, who again could not take wives to themselves from the Gentiles, as by law they could marry only into one or other of the tribes of Israel. The difficulty | of procuring wives for Benjamin—which Israel made its own difficulty—was solved by the wholesale slaughter of the inhabi- tants of Jabez-Gilead, whose population yielded 400 virgins: and next by the men of Benjamin enacting a rape of the Sabines for themselves, each man seizing and carrying off one of the daughters of Shiloh to be his wife, on an occasion when the women met for a festival in certain vine- yards near Bethel.* * See Smiths Bible Dictionary—Art. MARRIAGE— where it is remarked, that the phrase in the Old Testament (eg, Num. xii. 1 ; 1 Chron. ii. 21), “taking a wife,” would seem to require to be taken in its literal meaning in the run of cases ; “the taking” being the CAPTURING WIVES. 89 We can now say we have found the capture of women very extensively prac- tised ; and there can be no doubt that in Most of the cases cited, the women cap- tured were kept to be used as wives. In a number of well-marked cases we have found a system of capture—in the case Of the Caribbean tribes of America, a System so general, that the women of a tribe were commonly not only not of the Same tribe with the men, but did not “ven speak the same language. We have Seen among tribes in a transition state, some cases, capture almost systemati- cally practised, alongside of more civi- lized institutions ; and in other cases, the chief ceremony in the constitution of marriage. If the Writer of that article is correct, we must believe that the Jews observed the form of capture, for in many cases where the phrase occurs we know the marriages Were preceded by contracts. rere) He PRAGTIC£ OF practice of capture in various stages of progress towards a symbolism. We have seen the marriage by capture embodied in the code of India as an institution in favour of the only class which could be benefited by it—the warrior class; and no argument is needed to show that such a rule must have been a generalisation founded upon practice. A similar rule subsisted in favour of warriors among the Israelites. The former of these cases is, perhaps, chiefly valuable as presenting in a distinct shape the ante-type of the form of capture—a description of marriage by an actual capture so vividly recalling incidents of fictitious capture, as practised at Rome and elsewhere, as (in our opinion) to set at rest the question in what way the fiction originated. The latter case shows a provision made for marriage with foreign women, if captured, among CAPTURING WIVES. QI tribes which, in no other case, allowed of Marriage with foreign women ; a provi- sion indicating a very remarkable asso- ciation between capture and marriage. It is not easy to believe that such a regu- lation, existing among endogamous tribes, is referable to the feeling that a victorious warrior should -have the full disposal of Spoils of war ; it is much more likely that it was a relic of a time when the tribes— Or rather the race from which they sprung were not endogamous; and, if so, it Carries us back to a remote antiquity When marriage and prowess in war were Closely associated. We have seen that the mythic legends of various races, of which hitherto no rational explanation has been Siven, can, with great appearance of pro- bability, be referred to the existence amongst such races in ancient times of a Systematic capture of wives. | 92: PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. Farther research, and the observation of tribes hitherto unreported upon—at present we have not been able to say any- thing that would be satisfactory of the races of the continent of Africa*—vwill, we confidently expect, afford much addi- tional evidence of the prevalence of this practice. But we have done enough to entitle us to affirm that there has existed amongst various races of mankind a system of capturing women for wives. | * See Appendix B. EXOGAMY. CHAPTER V OF THE RULE AGAINST MARRIAGE BETWEEN MEMBERS OF THE SAME TRIBE—OF THE COINCIDENCE OF THIS RULE WITH THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES DE FACTO, AND WITH THE FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. WE proceed to show the prevalence of the rule forbidding marriage within the tribe or group of kindred, and the con- Currence of this ban with the fact or Pretence of capturing wives. Here, still more than in our former investigation, we are made to feel how imperfect and unconnected is the record from which our facts have to be drawn; and farther, how difficult it is to brinig together such facts as have been observed, 94 EXOGAMY AND THE owing to the wide field over which they lie sparsely scattered. In many cases, the authorities are silent just on the points on which we are most eager for informa- tion ; while on matters of no moment they | enlarge ad nauseam. But, too often, they have nothing to tell. Skirting a coast- line the traveller sees natives at points here and there, and can describe their dress and personal appearance; of their habits he is as ignorant as a child of the free life of the beasts he sees in a caravan. Where the opportunities of observation are better, the observer often does not know what to look for. Of the jus connubit among the Kalmucks not one word is said by Clarke or Pallas or Strahlenberg ! and but for some remarks of Bergman’s we should be entirely in the dark on the subject. 3 | E We begin with the Khonds. This FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 95 People presents us with capture as a Jorm. Major-General Campbell says that the Khonds marry women from remote places, the reason of which he takes to be, that they have to buy their wives, and can Set them at lower prices at a distance. ‘They pretend, moreover,” he adds “to regard it as degrading to bestow their daughters in marriage on men of their own tribe; and consider it more Manly to seek their wives in a distant “ountry.” Major M‘Pherson—a more in- telligent witness—gives us the distinct Statement, that among the Khonds inter- Marriage between persons of the same tribe, however large or scattered, is con- Sidered incestuous, and punishable by death ;} a view more consistent with other | * Ut supra, p. 141. ee T “An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in aa SS lS PR me a 96 EXOGAMY AND THE known facts than that of General Camp- bell. ‘‘ Marriage,” Major M‘Pherson tells us, “can take place only betwixt members of different tribes, and not even with strangers who have been long adopted into or domesticated with a tribe, and a state of war or peace appears to make little difference as to the practice of inter- marriage between tribes. The people of Bara Mootah and of Burra Des, in Goomsur, have been at war time out of mind, and annually engage in fierce con- flicts, but they intermarry every day. The women of each tribe, after a fight, visit each other to condole on the loss of their nearest common relations.” No doubt these friendly intermarriages must in time alter the relations of the tribes to one another; no doubt also the time Orissa” p. 57; and see M‘Pherson’s Report on the Khonds, already referred to. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 97 was when the marriages were of effected in friendly fashion. | Let us now examine the cases of the Kalmucks and Circassians. To under- Stand that of the former, we must attend a little to their political system. The Kalmucks are divided into four great Nations or tribes under hereditary chiefs or khans;—the Khoskots, the Dzun- Sars, the Derbets, and the Torgots. Each Of these, according to Pallas,* is under the command of many little and nearly independent princes, called Noions. The horde commanded by a Noion is called an Oulouss, and is subdivided into Several Aimaks, each of which again is commanded by a noble called Sais- Sang. The Aimaks again are sub- * “Voyages dans Plusieurs Provinces de l'Empire de Russie, etc.,” Paris (no date), vol. ii., p. 191. Nou- velle Edition, 98 EXOGAMY AND THE divided into many companies or khatoun, consisting of from ten to twelve tents, for convenience in pasturing; and each kha- toun has its chief, but whether of the noble class we are not informed. It will thus be seen that there is among the Kalmucks a very large governing of princely class. Now, it appears that they have two systems of marriage law; one for the common people, and one for the nobles, or princely class. The common people, we are told by Bergman,* enter into no unions in which the parties are not dis- tant from one another by three or four degrees ; but how the degrees are counted we are not informed. We are told that they have great abhorrence for the mar- riages of near relatives, and have a pro- verb—‘‘ The great folk and dogs know * Bergman's “Streiferein.” Riga, 1804, vol. iii, Pp. 145, er seq. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 99 no relationship”—which Bergman says is due to members of the princely class some- times Marrying sisters-in-law. We find, however, that these sisters-in-law are uniformly women of an entirely different Stock from their husbands — different, Or what is taken for different. For no Man of the princely class (and it is in the marriages of the Kalmucks of this class, according to De Hell, that the form of capture is chiefly observed*), in any of | the tribes, can marry a woman of his own | tribe or nation. Not only must his wife bea noble, but she must be a noble of a different stock. For princely marriages, Says Bergman, “the bride is chosen from another people’s stock—among the Der- bets from the Torgot stock; and among the Torgots from the Derbet stock ; and 5o on.” Here, then, we have the principle Sent e * See ante, p. 30, EXOGAMY AND THE of exogamy in full force in regard to the marriages of the governing classes—a large body in each nation, as we have seen, and, which is most to our present purpose, the body in whose marriages the form of capture is said to be observed. Whether or not the commonalty, with whom the nobles have no intermarriage—the people of black birth, as they are called—were originally of an alien, inferior, and con- quered race; and whether or not the go- verning classes were originally independ- ent exogamous tribes, we have the pro- hibition against marriage within the stock here concurrent with the form of capture in the weddings of the nobility. How far the commonalty observe the form we have no information, but it is not un- likely that they mimic, after a fashion, the marriage ceremonies of their superiors. The case of the Circassians is simple, FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. IOI and quickly told:—“ The Circassian word for their societies or fraternities,” says Bell,* “is ‘tleish,’ which signifies also ‘seeds.’ The tradition with regard to them is, that the members of each all sprang from the same stock or ancestry ; and thus they may be considered as so many septs Or clans, with this peculiarity, that, like seeds, all are considered equal. These Cousins-german, or members of the same fraternity, are not only themselves inter- dicted from intermarrying, but their serfs, too, must wed with the serfs of another fraternity ; and where, as is generally the Case, many fraternities enter into one Seneral bond, this law in regard to mar- riage must be observed by all. The con- fidential dependant, or steward, of our host here is a tokao who fled to his pro- * James Stanislaus Bell. “Journal of a Residence in Circassia,” 1840, vol. i, p. 347. H se = I aR AS a ie 102 | EXOGAMY AND THE tection from Notwhatsh, because, having fallen in love with and married a woman of his own fraternity, he had become liable to punishment for this infraction of Cir- cassian law. Yet his fraternity contained perhaps several thousand members. For- merly, such a marriage was looked upon as incest, and punished by drowning ; now a fine of two hundred oxen, and the resti- tution of the wife to her parents, only are exacted.” Elsewhere,* Bell observes that these fraternities sometimes embrace thou- sands of persons, between whom marriage is by this ancient law totally prohibited. Here, too, ascin Khondistan, and among the Kalmucks, we find the form of capture as well as the principle of exogamy. Our next case is that of the Yurak Sa- moyeds (Siberia) among whom no man can a ac a N E * Ut supra, vol. il., 110. FACE & FORM OF CAPTURE. 103 take a wife from the tribe to which he be- | longs.* These Samoyeds hold kinsman- | Ship to be coextensive with the tribe. All. the members of the tribe, however large Or small, consider themselves relations, €ven where the common ancestor is un- known, and the evidence of consanguinity. is wholly wanting. They fall into three divisions; the members of any of which May take wives from either of the other two, but not from their own; and as these divisions occupy sites far removed from One another, the Samoyeds have to go Sreat distances for their wives. We find the same state of things among the Kafirs, the Sodhas of northern India, the Beduanda Kallung (Singapore), and many others, including the Kirghiz and the Nogais.t * Latham, “Descriptive Ethnology,” vol. ii. p. 455. + It must not be thought that the form of capture a ramae — o raea —————— a es aN Ter Se ee “a> — s e, | SSS it i a eT Sal a LO4 EXOGAMY AND THE The Warali (India) tribes fall into divi- sions, and no man may marry a woman of his own division; he must go for a wife to one of the others. The Magar tribes fall into thums, all the members of each of which are supposed to be de- scended from a common ancestor: the Magar husband and wife must belong to _ different thums; within one and the same thum there is no marriage. Latham, in noticing the Magars, says—‘ This is the first time* I have found occasion to men- tion this practice. It will not be the last ; on the contrary, the principle it suggests is so common as to be almost universal. occurs wherever exogamy prevails—that exogamy and the practice of capturing wives, which at a certain stage must be the resource of exogamous tribes, will in every case leave the form of capture behind them. We shall see the explanation of this hereafter. We have no information whether or not the Samoyeds ` practise the form of capture. * Vol. i. p. 80, “Descriptive Ethnology.” FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 105 ‘We find it in Australia, in North and South America, in Africa, in Europe; we Shall suspect and infer it in many places Where the actual evidence of its existence is incomplete.” This is a sweeping state- ment ; but before we conclude we hope to Show that it may fairly be accepted as Correct. In the institutes of Menu it is laid down that a twice-born man might elect for nuptials “a woman not descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors within the sixth degree, and who is not known dy her family name to be of the same primitive Stock with his father.”* This passage might * « Institutes of Menu,” cap. iii, sec. 5. The words “or mother” occur in the gloss of Calluca. The rule fixing the stock by the father is, as we hope to show, far from being archaic. The twice-born classes are the sacerdotal, military, and commercial (Menu x. 4). Meaty all the Indian ‘castes aré nok Hivided into Nations that do not intermarry ; the nations into sects, ERE GR SIPEG wa Sige 106 BA OGAM VY AND THE be taken as a text for the discussion of the whole question of prohibited marriages, and we must dwell upon it somewhat, as it has an important bearing on the present investigation. The object of the rule is to prevent marriages between members of the same primitive stock; and it points out the family name as the test whether persons are of the same stock or not. It isas if a Fraser might not marry a Fraser, nor a M‘Intosh a M‘Intosh. By compar- ing the former state of the Highlands of Scotland with their present condition, especially with the condition of the town populations, we may clear our ideas regard- some of which do not intermarry. All the nations are divided into certain families, called gotrams ,; a man cannot marry a woman of his own gotram. Buchanan's “Journey from Madras,” 1807, vol. i. pp- 273, 300, 354, 396, 419, 421, 423; Muir’s “Sanskrit: Texts,” Part II. 1859, pp. 378, 387; “Vivada Chinta- mani,” Calcutta, 1863, Preface, p. 45. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 107 ing the origin, meaning, and effect of this institution. Of old each clan inhabited its particular strath or glen, and had its Own well-defined hill ranges. In the Aird district there were none but Frasers; about Moy were none but M‘Intoshes. The mem- bers of the clans are now interfused even in the country districts, and in towns like Inverness or Dingwall may be found mem- bers of all the clans. Now, suppose that Originally a man was not allowed to marry a woman of his own clan, and that, sub- Sequent to the interfusion of the clans, that ancient prejudice remained; the rule for enforcing it—the question of degrees of affinity apart—would just be the rule of Menu. So, in considering the origin of that rule, are we not remanded from the Social state in which it was fixed in a code, to an earlier state, in which the population consisted of distinct clans or tribes organ- 108 EXOGAMY AND THE ised on the principle of exogamy, and liv- ing apart from one another, as all tribes do in early times, until they are brought, by conquest or.otherwise, under a com- mon government? We have already had examples of tribes with this rule, so that, in this conception of the early state of the Indian population, we are making no im- probable supposition. On the contrary, it is not only probable in itself, but it is the only supposition that will explain the fact; and if we accept it as indicating the origin of the rule of Menu, it gives us such an idea of the prevalence of this law of incest as we could never reach by the contemplation of the individual tribes among which it is the law. It will be re- collected that the form of capture is found among the Hindus.* * Ante, p. 27, and see Appendix A. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 109 We believe it may still be possible, in the case of some communities in which Marriage between persons of the same family name is prohibited, to analyse the Population into its constituent (stock) tribes, and to prove that the tribes had this law of incest. In one case, in par- ticular, investigation seems to be courted. The Munnieporees, and the following tribes inhabiting the hills round Munnie- Pore—the Koupooees, the Mows, the Murams, and’ the Murring—are each and all divided into four families—Koo- mul, Looang, Angom, and N ingthaja. 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. In explana- tion, so far, of these family divisions,* 3 “Account of the Valley of Munniepore and of the Hill Tribes.” M‘Culloch, 1859, pp. 49-69. IIO EXOGAMY AND THE we have the fact, well authenticated in the history of Munniepore, that the Koomul and Looang formerly existed as distinct and powerful tribes, and that the Koomul, in particular, at one time pre- ponderated in the valley. Presuming that these tribes held intermarriages of their members to be incestuous, the origin of two of the family divisions, and of the marriage law, is plain enough, at least so far as the hill tribes are concerned ; and it is in the hills alone that the law is strictly enforced. Most of the members of the tribes would remain in the valley and mix with the Meithei, by whose prowess they were vanquished; but we can conceive that bands of the Koomul and Looang might escape to the hills, and mix with each other and with the tribes of the Angom and Ningthaja, whose ex- istence in former times we must postulate, LACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. III in explanation of the family divisions of the same names. Is it beyond hope that the farther examination of local tradi- tions, or exploration of the wilds to the South and north-east of Munniepore, may yet furnish us with information regarding the Angom and Ningthajà, or with data from which their existence in former times may be legitimately inferred, apart from the present speculation ? The conclusion at which we have ar- rived as to the origin of the rule of Menu, will also explain the case of the native populations of Australia, North and South America, and the islands in the Pacific. In these quarters we obtain light regarding the causes which lead to the break up of the primitive exogamous Sroups, and to the intermixture in local tribes of people recognised as being of dif- ferent bloods. Let us first attend to the mA EXOGAMY AND THE Australians, whom we find divided into small tribes named after the districts which they inhabit; for though they are nomads, their wanderings, like those of the nomadic agriculturists of the Indian hills, are circumscribed within well-defined bounds. It appears that the tribe inhabit- ing a particular district regards itself as the owner thereof, and the intrusion of any other tribe upon that district as an invasion to be resented and punished; and that within the district individuals have por- tions of land appropriated to them.* Thus the tribal system is in force, with an ap- parent perfect separation and independ- ence of the tribes. But, on close exami- nation, the tribes are found to be fused and welded together by blood-ties in the most extraordinary manner. According * Letter, Dr. Laing to Dr. Hodgkin, 1840. “ Re- ports of the Aboriginal Protection Society.” FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 113 to credible accounts,” the natives of dif- ferent tribes extending over a great por- tion of the continent, are divided into a few families, and all the members of 4 family, in whatever local tribes they May be, bear the same name as a second Or family name. These family names and divisions are perpetuated and Spread | throughout the country by the operation Of two laws: first, that the children of €ither sex always take the name of the Mother; and second, that a man cannot Marry a woman of his own family name. The members of these families, though Scattered over the country, are yet to some intents as much united as if they formed Separate and independent tribes ; in par- ticular, the members of each family are bound to unite for the purposes of de- * « Grey’s Journals,” etc., vol. ua chap. xi. 114 EXOGAMY AND THE fence and vengeance, the consequence being that every quarrel which arises be- tween the tribes is a signal for so many young men to leave the tribes in which they were born, and occupy new hunting grounds, or ally themselves with tribes in which the families of their mothers may happen to be strong, or which con- tain their own and their mother’s nearest relatives. This secession, if we may so call it, is not always possible, but it is of frequent occurrence notwithstanding ; where it is impossible, the presence of so many of the enemy within the camp affords ready means of satisfying the call for ven- geance ; it being immaterial, according to the native code, by whose blood the blood- feud is satisfied, provided it be blood of the offender’s kindred. Thus, as the Aus- tralians are polygamists, and a man often has wives belonging to different families, FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 115 "itis not in quarrels uncommon to find chil- dren of the same father arranged against One another; or, indeed, against their father himself, for by their peculiar law the father can never be a relative of his children.* Among the Kamilaroi, a nume- * Mr. Maine has been unable to conceive how human beings could be grouped on any principle more Primitive than that of the patriarchal system, or be bound together by any ruder blood-ties than those of agnation derived from the patria potestas, € think his mistake has arisen from a too exclusive attention, in his researches, to those systems of an- cient law which, like the Hindoo, Roman, and Jewish, belonged to races which were far advanced at the earliest dates to which their history goes back. Had he examined the primitive races now extant, he cer- tainly would not have written the following passage :* “It is obvious that the organisation of primitive so- Cleties would have been confounded if men had called themselves relatives of their mother’s relatives, The ference would have been that a person might be Subject to two distinct patriz potestates ; but distinct Patriæ potestates implied distinct jurisdictions, so that * « Ancient Law,” 1861, p- 149. EEO. - EXOGAMY AND THE rous tribe residing to the north-west of Sidney, the rules in force are very complex and peculiar. These tribesmen fall into anybody amenable to two of them at the same time would have lived under two dispensations, As long as the family was an imperium in imperio, a com- munity within the commonwealth, governed by its own institutions, of which the parent was the source, the limitation of relationship to the agnates was a necessary security against a conflict of laws in the domestic forum.” Here we see the ingenious thinker trammelled by notions derived from Roman jurispru- dence. Among the Australian Blacks—to confine our- selves to a single instance—we have seen that men are relatives of their mother’s relatives, and of none other; and that their societies are, aliunde, held together, notwithstanding the conflict of laws in the domestic forum, engendered by polygamy, exogamy, and female kinship. Kinship depends, in fact, not at all on con- venience. The first kinship is the first possible—that through mothers, about whose parental relation to children there can be no mistake. And the system of kinship through mothers only, operates to throw difficulties in the way of the rise of the patria potestas, and of the system of agnation. But of this here- after. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 17 divisions resembling castes, and at the Same time observe the rule against mar- riages between members of the same family.* Our information is so imperfect that we do not know whether there exist any- where in Australia tribes whòse distinc- tive names are those of the families into Which the population is divided. But we should not expect to find such tribes. The constant tendency of groups to fall to pieces, and of the parts to separa- tion and independence of one another, and the practice of naming groups from their lands, would tend to obliterate the traces of the original stock-groups, except So far as they have been preserved in the names of families to keep the blood pure by avoidance of marriage between mem- * Mr. Ridley’s account quoted, p. 491, vol. ii, Pritchard’s “Natural History of Man.” Norris’ edition. I 118 ELXOGAMY AND THE bers of the same stock. But we cannot doubt that such stock-groups at one time existed, organised on the principle of exo- gamy, and were the germs of the native population. Whencesoever they were derived, it was inevitable, that the law which recognised blood relationship as existing only through females, conspir- ing with the primitive instinct of the race against marriage between members of the same stock, should tend in the process of time to transfuse the blood of each stock through all the tribal divisions. The men of the group A marrying women of the group B; and the men of the group B marrying women of the group A; and all the children of the women of B being counted of the stock of B; and all the children of the women of A being counted of the stock of A; we at once have so many B’s within A, and so FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 119 Many A’s within B. And so on, until in time A’s from the northmost point appear in the homes of Z at the southmost - and Z’s in the homes of A. Each local tribe would thus contain within itself members between whom there was connubium ; the original tribal divisions would be lost sight of, and nothing would remain of the stock- groups but the family names to which they gave birth. Should the process of transfusion go far enough, the state of matters which would lead to the practice of capturing wives would be modified, but hot extinct. The system of polygamy of itself, and any want of balance between the sexes of different families within a tribe, would long tend to maintain this Practice; which, moreover, like every other Practice connected with marriage or reli- Sion, must be credited with a special tenacity of existence. As we have seen 120 EXOGAMY AND THE there prevails among the Australians a system of betrothals—always between | persons of different stocks—along with an extensive practice of capturing wives. This is just what might be expected if our theory of the origin of capture be a sound one. Since the tribes of Austra- lians, while exogamous in principle, con- tain persons who regard each other as of different descent and free to intermarry, marriage can be, and is, made the subject of bargain. Again, habits formed in pre- vious times of necessity—and no doubt occasional necessity still existing—keep up the practice of capture. We now take the case of the Ameri- can Indians—North and South. They have political and district divisions;* but besides these the nations among them * « Archeologia Americana,” vol. ii. p. 109. ~ + = p> r tile. rte ee oe = < — Sy j Sn eee M aa ME E eee Sonam ne ee ee eee wia Sg e n none mpra a E a ai z - q Varre FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. I2I have had from time immemorial divisions into families or clans. “At present, or till very lately’—we quote from the Ar- chzeologia Americana—“ every nation was divided into a number of clans, varying in the several nations from three to eight or ten, the members of which respectively Were dispersed indiscriminately through- Out the whole nation. It has been fully | ascertained that the inviolable regulations by which these clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations were, first, that no man could marry in his own clan: Secondly, that every child should belong to his or her mother’s clan. Among: the Choctaws there are two great divisions, €ach of which is subdivided into four Clans, and no man can marry in any of the four clans belonging to his division. The restriction among the Cherookees, the Creeks, and the Natches, does not extend 122 EXOGAMY AND THE beyond the clan to which the man belongs. There are sufficient proofs that the same division into clans,commonly called tribes, exists among almost all the other primi- tive nations. But it is not so clear that they are subject to the same regulations which prevail amongst the southern In- dians.” At the root of these divisions and prohibitions we find here, as in Austra- lia, the feeling that marriage between persons of the same blood is incestuous. “They profess to consider it highly cri- minal for a man to marry a woman whose totem (family name) is the same as his own, and they relate instances when young men, for a violation of this rule, have been put to death by their own relatives.”* The * From a circular letter by Mr. L. H. Morgan of Rochester, New York, issued by the United States. Government to its diplomatic agents and consuls in foreign countries, and which contains much interesting FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. T28 Indian nations, they say, were divided into tribes just lest any one might, through information regarding the laws of primitive relation- ship, we quote the following passage as the most recent and authoritative statement regarding the tribal divisions of the red men :— “ Nearly all, if not all, of the Indian Nations upon this continent were anciently subdivided into Tribes ot Families. These tribes, with a few exceptions, were named after animals. Many of them are now thus ‘subdivided. . It is so with the Iroquois, Delawares, lowas, Creeks, Mohaves, Wyandottes, Winnebagoes, Otoes, Kaws, Shawnees, Choctaws, Otawas, Ojibewas, Potowottomies, etc. “The following tribes are known to exist, or to have existed in the several Indian Nations—the number ranging from three to eighteen in each: The Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk, Crane, Duck, Loon, Turkey, Musk-rat, Sable, Pike, Cat-fish, Sturgeon, Carp, Buffalo, Elk, Rein-deer, Eagle, Hare, Rabbit, and Snake; also, the Reed- grass, Sand, Water, Rock, and Tobacco-plant. “ Among the Iroquois—and the rule is the same to the present day in most of the nations enumerated— ho man is allowed to marry a woman of his own tribe, all the members of which are consanguinii, This was 124. EXOGAMY AND THE temptation or accident, marry a near rela- tion, which ‘‘at present is scarcely possible, unquestionably the ancient law. It follows that hus- band and wife were always of different tribes. The children are of the tribe of the mother, in a majority of the nations ; but the rule, if anciently universal, is not so at the present day. Where descent in the female line prevailed, it was followed by several im- portant results, of which the most remarkable was the perpetual disinheritance of the male line. Since all titles as well as property descended in the female line, and were hereditary, in strictness, in the tribe itself, a son could never succeed to his father’s title of Sachem, nor inherit even his medal or his tomahawk. If the Sachem, for example, was of the Wolf tribe, the title must remain in that tribe, and his son, who was neces- sarily of the tribe of his mother, would be out of the line of succession ; but the brothers of the deceased Sachem would be of the Wolf tribe, being of the same mother, and so would the sons of his sisters: hence we find that the succession fell either upon a brother of the deceased ruler or upon a nephew. Between a brother of the deceased, and the son of a sister, there was no law establishing a preference: neither as þe- . tween several brothers on one side, or several sisters on the other, was there any law of primogeniture. FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 125 for whoever intends to marry must take a Person of a different tribe,”* and the same feeling has been remarked by Dobuzhof- fer in South America.t ; What we have said of the Australians May be assumed to have been true, at One time at least, of the New Zealanders. In “The Curse of Mania” and several other of the New Zealand legends we have evidence that the wife never belonged to the tribe of her husband, and that the children belonged to the family of their mother. So among the Feejees, who appear to count They were all equally eligible, and the law of election ‘ame in to decide between them.”—Camébrian Fournal, Vol. iii, second series, p. 149. * Tanners “Narrative,” p. 313, quoted in Arch. Amer, and by Grey, ut supra. T “ Account of the Abipones,” vol. i. p. 69. f “ Polynesian Mythology,” wz supra, p. 162. In “ The Curse of Mania” the reader will find an instance of children fleeing from the tribe of birth to that of the mother’s kindred, : 126, EXOGAMY AND THE blood relationship through the mother only. In the system of vasu-ing, which determines the claims of children upon the tribe of their mother, we have evi- dence that the mother always belongs to adifferent tribe from the father, and that the children are held to be of the family or tribe of their mother.* At any rate, vasu-ing is a relic of a stage in the development of the Feejees wherein that was the rule. Curiously enough, there is reason for believing that exogamy prevailed among the Picts ; in other words, according to the most approved doctrine, among the Gael or Highlanders; which fact bears at once on the rapes of the Cruithnians, the old Welsh and French customs, and the plebeian marriage-ceremonies of Rome, for the Celtic element was strong © in * Erskine’s “Pacific,” ut supra, pp. 153-215. rr Se eae me =A z ee - <—4 SR, ae m E ee ae = oA CS FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 127 Rome. That the Celts were anciently lax in their morals, and recognised relation- ‘Ship through mothers only, are facts well vouched ;* and of such facts it is the usual concomitant, that the children Should be named after the mother. The facts brought out by the distinguished antiquary, Mr. Skene, from a study of the list of Pictish kings down to 731, when Bede says that the law of succession through females was still in force, may to some extent be explained by the sons taking the names of their mothers; but they point to something beyond this. By favour of Mr. Skene, we are at liberty to give here the results at which he has ar- rived, and which have not hitherto been published. * Cæsar, “De Bello Gallico,” lib. v. § 14. Xiphiline, Monum. Histor. Ixi. Solinus, idem. Irish Nennius, liv, ; CA OG AMY: AND THE ist, That brothers always succeeded each other. 2d, That in no case does a son suc- ceed a father; after the brothers have reigned a new family comes in. 3d, That the names of the fathers and of the sons are quite different. In no case does the name borne by any of the sons appear among the names of the fathers, nor conversely is there an instance of a father’s name appearing among the sons. 4th, The names of the sons consist of a few Pictish names borne by sons of dif- ferent fathers: These are—6 Drusts, 2 Talorgs, 3 Nectans, 2 Galans, 6 Gart- naidhs, 4 Brudes. In no case does the name of a father occur twice in the list of fathers. 5th, In the list there are two cases of sons bearing Pictish names whose fathers FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 129 are known to have been strangers, and these ave the only fathers of whom we have any account. They are—1.Talorg Macainfrit. His father was undoubtedly Ainfrit, son of Aethelfrith, King of N orthumbria, who took refuge among the Picts, and after- Wards became King of Northumbria; 2. Brude Mac Bile. His father was a Welsh- _ Man, King of the Strath-Clyde Britons. In an old poem Brude Mac Bile is called Son of theKing of Ailcluaide, ż.e., Dumbar- ton; and when, by the battle of Drunichen, he became King of the Picts, another old Poem says, “ to-day Brude fights a battle about the land of his grandfather.” The fact that the only fathers of whom We have any account are known to have been strangers—especially when taken along with the other facts which we pos- Sess about the Picts—raises a strong pre- sumption that all the fathers were men of 130 EXOGAMY AND THE other tribes. At any rate there remains the fact, after every deduction has been made, that the fathers and mothers were in no case of the same family name. We have now, by an irresistible array of instances, established the fact of exo- gamy being a most widely prevailing principle of marriage-law among primitive races. We have found the areas to be, for the chief part, conterminous within which exogamy and the practice of captur- ing wives de facto prevails. Farther, in all the modern instances in which the symbol of capture is most marked, we have found that marriage within the tribe is prohibited as incest, as among the Khonds, the Fuegeans, the Kalmucks, and Circassians; also that in several cases where traces of the symbol appear, as among the Nogais and the Kirghiz, exo- gamy is more or less perfectly observed. RA iaa e ee ot era een SS ae aces Se i ee SS Sete = - Sa z a sna a a in j ce a ae THE GROWTH OF would have arisen a sense of property in children. Hence, additional features of the patria potestas. And when a woman had been so/d to her husband by her father, and had thus come to be con- sidered the husband’s property, it is easy to see how neither her original family, nor that into which she had married, should be able to inherit any property through her. But the right of inheritance, as property became abundant, tended to become, and did become, the test of kinship. And in course of time, the notion of kinship de- rived through females would disappear among a people who cared nothing for a kinship barren as regarded patrimonial advantages. The result would be the system of agnation. It is not necessary for us here to do more than repeat that we have, in nume- rous cases, found agnation, or at least AGNATION. 249 kinship through males, preceded by the system of kinship through females only. It was so in the cases of the Hebrews, Hindus, Celts, and Greeks ; it was pre- sumably so in all those cases in which we find kinship through males accom- panied by that relic of polyandry—the obligation laid on younger brothers in turn to marry the widow of the elder brother deceased. And since we have shown special cause for believing that all the exogamous races had originally the system of kinship through females only, we are entitled to assume that it was so among those exogamous peoples with which, as with the Khonds, the Circas- sians, and the Kalmucks, we find rela- tionship to be agnatic. V.—The system of kinship through males tended to vear up homogeneous 250 LITLE! EF PECL OF groups, and thus to restore the original condition of affairs among exogamous vaces, as regards both the practice of capturing wives and the evolution of the Jorm of capture. The first effect of kinship through males must have been to arrest the pro- gress of heterogeneity. The introduc- tion of foreign women into a tribe no longer brought into it children accounted foreigners ; for either the children were no longer of the mother’s stock, but of the father’s, or, if of the mother’s, they were yet of the father’s also. Where, then, in a tribe, a balance of persons of different stocks had not been reached, it was henceforth unattainable. Farther, with kinship through males would arise the habit of feigning a common descent from some distinguished man—a fiction which would lead in many cases to the de- a en ee eee e AGNATION. nial or neglect of such heterogeneity as existed. Of the new groups that were formed, the homogeneity was perfectly secured. The family now tended to grow into the tribe of kinsfolk. The , children born to a polygamist husband were all kinsfolk, of whatever stocks their mothers were. The children of brothers, though they married women of different stocks, were kinsfolk. And however the family increased by the addition of generations, its members — were all within the kindred. And that, as well where the exogamous prejudice survived as where it perished. Where it survived the women of a family could find no mates within its bounds, and marrying into other groups would fol- low, and their children with them, the kindred of their husbands. They would be out of the group. Thus, within such LHIGERPRPECTS OF exogamous groups as were remodelled, and within such new exogamous groups as were formed, under this species of kinship there could be no marriage with- in the group. There would be no place for a system of betrothals; and except where friendly relations subsisted be- tween the groups to allow of marriage by purchase, their members would once more be able to get wives only by cap- turing them. Thus, even if, in the first stage, the system of capture had—as we see in Australia that it partially has— been superseded, the exogamous races, in entering on a new phase of advance- ment, had reserved for them a farther experience of that system, to confirm or re-establish the old association between marriage and the act of rapine. And we cannot doubt that many exogamous peoples have had this twofold experience. AGNATION. 253 We know of several exogamous races which, after having had kinship through females, had kinship through males; and we cannot doubt that the same was the case with the other exogamous races that have had the form of capture and ag- natic relationship. And indeed, as in the later “stage, the experience”: ainsi have been more uniform and continuous, there being nothing, in the absence of friendliness between the groups, to inter- fere with the system of capture, so it is observable that the form of capture is now most distinctly marked and impres- sive just among those races which have male kinship. It might be doubted, but for the case of the Fuegians and traces of the symbol, as if of a thing decayed, oc- curring in America, whether the expe- rience of the earlier stage could generate the form. There is no doubt it can, and ae ee ee a x ~ agg Re e z á } 254 THE RISE OF has frequently done so; but the question whether it could have done so, might, on mere general reasoning, have been de- cided in the negative. = VI.—Under the combined influence of exogamy and the system of female kin- ship, a local tribe might attain a balance of persons regarded as being of different descent, and tts members might thus be able to intermarry with one another, and wholly within the tribe, tn consistency with the principle of exogamy. This sufficiently appears from what has preceded; and it farther appears from what has preceded, that such a balance of the sexes as would render a group independent of other groups in the matter of marriage would more speedily be reached in respect of ‘the practice of polyandry. CASTE. 255 VII—A local tribe having reached the stage contemplated in the last pro- Position, and having grown proud through successes in war, might become a caste. It is obvious that the feeling of supe- riority to other tribes, concurring with independence of them as regards mar- riage, might lead a tribe first to avoid, and then to decline and prohibit, inter- marriage with the tribes which it es- teemed inferior. And a tribe with a marriage-law restricted by such a pro- hibition is a caste, or has made an ap- proach towards being acaste. That castes have, in fact, been produced in this way, is rendered certain by the fact already referred to—that nearly all the Indian castes, from the highest to the lowest, are divided into gotrams or families, and that marriage is prohibited between persons of the same gotram, who, according to the 256 . THE RISE OF rule of Menu, are shown by their common name to be of the same original stock. We hold that this at once shows the caste to have been composed of members of different original stocks, and the stocks themselves to have been originally exo- gamous. There can, we think, be little doubt that all castes of this description were formed by the processes which we have been explaining. The Kamilaroi among the Australians appear to be such a caste. And were the natives of Aus- tralia to be left to themselves, their system of kinship remaining what it is, we might expect hereafter to find among them numerous caste tribes of this de- scription.* * It is worth mentioning that many of the rude caste tribes in the hills of India,—such as the Kocch,—have the blood-tie through mothers only. Whether mar- riage is subject to any, or what, restrictions within CASTE. 257 It is a rider on what has preceded that caste may appear at that stage of a people's progress while they are yet poly- androus. And of caste among people at that stage we have several instances. VIII.—Ox kinship becoming agnatic, the members of a caste, formed as above explained, might—yielding to a common tendency of rude vraces—feign themselves fo be all descended from a common an- cestor, and thus become endogamous. On the appearance of kinship through these caste tribes, we have no information. The reader will understand that, in speaking of castes, we distinguish between castes proper—the divisions of a people as determined by the right of intermarriage —and the classical subdivisions of castes proper, which are often met with, and which are also frequently called castes. We believe with Dr. Roth that the di- vision into classes resulted from the growth and es- tablishment of professions, and was of later date than the division into castes proper. 258 THE RISE OF males, much confusion must for a time have prevailed in the application of the principle of exogamy. Some marriages that were formerly allowable would be- come illegal: as, for instance, the marriage of brother and sister-german, or of the children of brothers; on the other hand, some marriages that were before illegal would become allowable, as for instance the marriages of sisters’ children. At least the marriages last mentioned would be consistent with exogamy where rela- tionship became agnatic. And as the old rules thus became inapplicable new rules would be formed, which in some cases might ignore the principle upon which the old proceeded. At any rate it is manifest that, while the application of the principle in the new circumstances was zn duðto, the fiction of a common descent from an illustrious ancestor, should it be put for- ENDOGAMY. 259 ward, would come in aid of the confu- sion to destroy or render obsolete the principle of exogamy. The members of the caste already restricted to marriages among themselves, and now feigning themselves all to be kindred, would be- come endogamous. Indeed, all that is necessary for the production of an endogamous tribe is, that a caste tribe composed of members of dif- ferent stocks should, anyhow, at any time, yield to the tendency to eponomy. We see, however, that in the stage of transi- tion from the system of female kinship to agnation, or to a system of male kinship, there must have been a time highly favour- able for the introduction of the fiction of a common descent, and of the destruction thereby of exogamy. Of the tendency of rude races to employ that fiction, it is un- necessary that we should say anything ; it 3o THE RISE OF is familiar to all students of early history. Nothing is more common than to find the belief in a common descent among peoples obviously heterogeneous ; sometimes the belief is found even in communities which are not only heterogeneous, but the com- position of which is known to be entirely artificial.* And if we anywhere find the form of capture among an endogamous race, as we do among the Bedouin Arabs, and appear to do among the Hebrews, it is not, we think, too much to say that the presence of the form is confirmatory of the supposi- tion that the race became endogamous through employing this fiction, and by the processes which we have been explain- ing. At least this is the only explanation which we can offer of the appearance * « Ancient Law,” 1861, p. 263. ENDOGAMY. 261 among an endogamous people of the form of capture.* We have now gone over the ground laid out at the close of the last chapter. It will be seen that some of the proposi- tions mutually support one another. For example, the observed heterogeneity of certain castes which are subject to the rule of exogamy, goes to show that their ancestors must have had the system of * As to the unity of physical characteristics ob- served in most castes, we notice that even in the stage when exogamy is yet observed, they were, owing to their intermarriages and the close connections per- mitted by a system of kinship which ignored half of the natural blood-ties, steadily advancing to one type, as consanguinii. Where the caste became properly endogamous the circumstances were only just more favourable to the production of that type. There is nothing in the observed unity discordant with the as- sumption of original heterogeneity ; nothing, especially when we consider the periods of time at our disposal, to allow for the production of a uniform type among a people strictly limited to marriages among themselves. S 262 THE LAW OF kinship through females only; for exo- gamy, by itself, will not explain the welding together, in a group, of persons of different original stocks. And to those who, from the earlier chapters, have formed the opinion that we are right in our theory of the origin of the form of capture, the appearance of the form among an endo- gamous race will strengthen the supposi- tion that many endogamous races, which have not—or which we do not know to have—the form, may originally have been exogamous. We may fitly close this chapter with some surmises—thrown out for what they are worth—as to some of the effects on early society of the law of blood-feud which exists everywhere, so far as we know, among rude races, and which of course grew up with, and out of kinship. So far as the law of blood-feud retarded BLOOD-FEUD. 263 the production of heterogeneity within the groups in any district, it was un- friendly to progress. From another point | of view it appears that it must have fa- voured progress, especially among exo- gamous races, at that stage when kinship was through females only. It bound all the kindred to avenge the death of any one, and the obligation was a point of religion. At first, probably, the protec- tion to the person which this law af- forded may have extended only to adults, but in time it came to be extended even to infants. This extension indeed was a logical necessity. And when infants came within the benefit of the law, their lives must often have been spared to avoid the blood-feud with their mother’s kin- dred—a body of protectors, as we have seen, usually living outside and foreign to the gens or house of birth. Thus the 264 THE LAW OF law of blood-feud must be credited with a mitigation, perhaps in some cases with the suppression, of infanticide, male as well as female, in exogamous societies, at that stage when kinship is through mothers only. And by checking this practice it tended to restore the balance of the sexes, to allow of the rise of poly- gunia and the decay of polyandry. It is a curious fact that nowhere now, that we are aware of, is infanticide a system where exogamy and the earliest form of kinship co-exist. When, however, with agnation, groups became homogeneous, containing none but kindred, and containing in fact all the kindred, this beneficial action of the blood-feud must have ceased. Where necessity or convenience prompted to in- fanticide among agnatic groups, the law of blood-feud opposed no impediment to the BLOOD-FEUD. 265 practice. If the children perished it was at the hands of their kindred. Accord- ingly the most impressive systems of in- fanticide—chiefly systems of female in- fanticide—now existing, occur among exogamous races which have male kin- ship. On the one hand, then, the law of blood-feud would seem to have played an important part in introducing monogamy, polygunia, and the patriarchal system ; on the other hand, it would seem at a later stage to have favoured the perpetuation of exogamy, and of systems of infanticide. 266 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY CHAPTER “ie THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. Ir will complete the view of early society, to which we have been led by our investi- gation of the origin of the form of cap- ture, if we point out the principal causes of the breakdown of exogamy in advanc- ing communities. We have seen the liability of the principle to decay in the confusion incident to the growth of the system of kinship through males; and have found reason to think that it gave place to endogamy in many tribes which had, previous to the revolution in kinship, nearly attained a balance—sufficient for the purposes of marriage—of persons ac- counted of different stocks. It remains, IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 267 then, that we should consider the causes of the neglect of the principle where it perished gradually, and without the people becoming endogamous. To indicate the causes in any case will be sufficient for our purpose. We select the cases of Greece and Rome as being those which, to the generality of readers, are most familiar. That the Greeks and the Romans were originally exogamous may be inferred from three distinct grounds, separately, and in com- bination. (1), They present us with the Form of Capture in marriage ceremonies. (2), Many of their mythic traditions are incapable of a rational explanation, except on the hypothesis that they anciently had the system of capturing women for wives. (3), The composition and organization of their tribes and commonwealths cannot well be explained, except on the hypothe- 268 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY sis that they resulted from the joint ope- ration, in early times, of exogamy, and the system of kinship through females only. The two first grounds we have already noticed; on the third, we must now dwell somewhat. It not only affords new evidence of the prevalence of exo- gamy, but introduces us to the chief causes of its decay in advancing communities. The old theory of the composition of States, was based upon the tendency of families to multiply round a central fa- mily, whose head represented the original progenitor of them all. The family, under the government of a father, was assumed to be the primary group—the elementary social unit ; in it were found at once the germs of the State, and of sove- reign authority. Many circumstances re- commended this theory, and none more than its apparent simplicity. It was easy IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 269 to find abundant analogies for the pro- longation of the family into the State. A family tends to multiply families around it, till it becomes the centre of a tribe, just as the banyan tends to surround itself with a forest of its own offshoots. And it is obvious, to follow up this figure, by remarking that the feelings of kindred which hold families together in tribes, tend to bind together, in nations, tribes which, like the Greek races, trace back their descent to kinsmen. The origin of the State on this view is so simple, that a child may comprehend it. But it is very easily shown that the theory cannot be supported. In the first place, it is not borne out by history. The tribes are numerous whose members claim to be descended from a common progeni- tor. Inquiry, however, everywhere dis- closes the fact, that the common progenitor 270 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY is a fiction—a hero or god, called into being to explain the tribe—from whom the tribe did not derive its being. In many cases, not only the fact that the genealogy is fictitious, but even the time when it was invented, can be shown ;* and nowhere can tribes or nations be traced back to individuals. Also, the theory turns on a fundamental error as to the primitive state. It postulates that human history opens with perfect marriage, con- jugal fidelity, and certainty of male parent- age—that, from the first, all the necessary conditions of the rise of a perfect family system were satisfied. Demonstrably, history did not so begin; and hence, demonstrably, the family—the social unit of the theory—is not the primary unit it is assumed to be. Farther, and * This can be done in regard to the Greek races which traced their descent to the sons of Helen. IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 271 apart from these objections, the theory is wanting in this essential quality of a good theory, viz., that it should ex- plain, or be capable of being made to appear to explain, the facts. The more acute thinkers who have adopted it, and who at the same time have rejected, as they felt constrained to do, the prin- ciple of contiguity, as a principle on which. groups in early times united,” have discerned serious difficulties in the way of entertaining the theory. Mr. Maine especially seems to have been im- pressed with these difficulties, and to have been unable to find any proper solution of them. * Aristotle kept clear of many of the difficulties which surround the theory of the derivation of the state from the family, by making the combination of families of different stocks depend on contiguity of residence, and on convenience. oe a2. THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY “In most of the Greek States, and in Rome,” says Mr. Maine,* “ there long re- mained vestiges of an ascending series of groups, out of which the State was at first constituted. The family, house, and tribe of the Romans, may be taken as the type of them; and they are so described to us, that we can scarcely help conceiv- ing them as a system of concentric circles, which have gradually expanded from the same point. The elementary group is the family connected by common subjection to the highest male ascendant. The ag- gregation of families (which elsewheret he calls the fictitious extension of the family) forms the gens or house. The aggrega- tion of houses makes the tribe. The ag- gregation of tribes forms the common- wealth.” * « Ancient Law,” p. 128. 1 P. 200. IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 273 Obviously, this is not an explanation of the growth of the commonwealth. It does not show how, consistently with the assumption of the family as the elemen- tary unit, the various aggregations spoken of were effected. The gens, clan, or house, which occurs in early tribes wherever we look, was in India, Greece, and Rome, as elsewhere, composed of all the persons in the tribe (included in families, of course), bearing the same name, and accounted of the same stock. Were the gentes really of different stocks, as their names would imply, and as the people believed ? If so, how came clans of different stocks to be united in the same tribe? The pro- duction of a tribe of one stock—of a homogeneous agnatic group—is readily conceivable on the family hypothesis. But how came a variety of such groups —of different stocks—to coalesce in a 274. THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY local tribe? On the other hand, how came a tribe of descent to be divided into clans situated in different local tribes ; how came such a tribe to beat all divided into clans or houses ? To these questions no proper answer has, so far as we know, been given. The common supposition is, that the hetero- geneity of the local tribes was somehow brought about by the fiction of adoption. It is supposed that the agnatic groups must have united through this fiction, the one adopting the other on the pre- tence of kinship; although, after their union, they preserved their distinctive names. Mr. Maine does not expressly say that the observed combination of heterogeneous elements in tribes, and hence in the commonwealth—often as- sumed to be composed wholly of kindred —was due to the employment of the IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 275 fiction of adoption; but he leaves that conclusion to be drawn by his readers. “Tf,” he says, “adoption had never existed, I do not see how any one of the primitive groups (zż.e., the agnatic brother- hoods, for he contemplates none other), whatever were their nature, could have absorbed one another ; or, on what terms any two of them could have combined, except those of absolute superiority on the one side, and absolute subjection on the other.” Here the difficulty is dis- tinctly perceived; but, is it overcome? What is the evidence that the fiction of adoption was ever employed on so grand a scale as we must suppose, to explain the heterogeneity of such groups as the tribes of Rome, Greece, or India? We say that there is none.. It is a case of error, induced by the maxim “causa æquat effectum.” As the fiction of adoption 276 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY was the only cause conceived of, that might have produced the observed phe- nomena, it has been assumed to have been employed on the scale required by its supposed effects. But, we repeat, there is no evidence that it was so employed. And there is no likelihood that it was so employed. Our belief is, that adoption has been much more extensively employed by philosophers to explain, than it was by rude races to produce, heterogeneity. It is of no consequence how families and gentes were adulterated by the practice of adoption. The difficulty to be got over does not lie so much in any want of purity of the so-called stocks, as in the union of different stocks—admittedly different—in the same tribe. The phenomena we have been con- templating offer no difficulty when re- garded from the point of view to which IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 277 we have been led by our investigation. To satisfy the reader of this, we must to some extent recapitulate. . We started in the last chapter from the conception of populations, the units of which were homogeneous groups or tribes, which, on the introduction of kinship, became the stock groups of each particular district or country, and gave their names to the variety of stocks subsequently known to the district or country. And we saw how, into the groups, and into their sec- tions, if they divided, exogamy con- jointly with the system of kinship through females only, while it endured, systemati- cally imported strangers, and thus in time rendered the groups heterogeneous, and the general population to the same* * That is to the same recognised extent, but really to a much greater, half the blood-ties being over- looked. pack Ny 278 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY extent homogeneous. We saw how thus every local tribe came to consist of per- sons of different stocks; also how all of the same stock, in each, were bound to- gether by rights and obligations spring- ing out of kinship; and how they were also united—though to less practical effect—to all others of the same stock in whatever local tribes residing. Farther, we saw that, when kinship became agnatic, the character of the local tribes became stereotyped, the causes of heterogeneity ceasing to operate. In each local tribe all the men of the same stock and name were bound by kinship to common action, in certain cases, against the men of other stocks, both in the tribe and elsewhere. Here we have the gentes in the local tribe. And gentes of the same stock and name would exist in different neighbouring IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 279 local tribes. We shall learn from this how the causes which led to the diffusion of the stocks throughout the population, favoured the union of the population in the commonwealth. Most probably con- tiguous tribes would be composed of pre- cisely the same stocks — would contain gentes of precisely the same names, and thus be in the strictest sense akin—kin- dred. There is no difficulty in conceiv- ing equal unions taking place between such tribes under the influence of kin- ship, similarity of elements and struc- ture, contiguity and convenience. And on the union of several local tribes under a common government, the gentes of each stock in the combination would be recog- nised as forming together a ¢vzbe of de- scent, as in reality they would do. Thus, the tribes of descent in the common- wealth would each embrace several gentes ag a tig NE — eee Goa eens - — > ae e _ ee e 280- THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY which had taken shape, and acquired special rights and property in the local tribes in which they respectively were, before the union in the State. As the gens (or the germ thereof) would arise under the influence of female kinship, it would precede—probably long precede— agnatic kinship and the family system as they existed in Rome. And we have already seen something of the processes by which the gentes would be resolved into rude family groups, and the family system gradually advance into the patri- archal, till the gentes would be resolved into a series of families of the Roman type. The order of social development, in our view, is then, that the tribe stands first; the gens or house next; and last of all, the family. We are satisfied that the more the reader studies the phenomena of early tribal composition—the phratries IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 281 and such-like unions. of persons in dif- ferent tribes—the more he will be con- vinced that this was the order of the genesis of tribes, gentes, and families ; and that in no other way can the pheno- mena of the composition of early states be satisfactorily explained.* | Assuming that we have given the true + We recommend to the reader a perusal of. the Translator’s Preface to the Oxford translation (1830) of C. O. Muller’s “ History and Antiquities of the Doric Race”—the translators being Henry Tufnell and Sir George Cornwall Lewis. If the reader keeps in view that we have good evidence of the existence at one time of the system of kinship through females only among the Dorians, we believe he will not be able to peruse the passage of Diczearchus translated in that preface, and the Editors comments thereon, without being strongly impressed that our views are the only views on which the phenomena of early Doric communities can be made intelligible. And if he farther study Chap. x. Part ii of Mr. Grote’s “ History of Greece,” we believe his impression of the correctness of our views will be deepened. ; EENE am linea i lias, a Se ee ee 282 . THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY account of the origin of clans of different names and stocks in local tribes, and of the appearance of distinct houses of the Same name in tribes of descent, in ancient commonwealths, we might greatly extend the area of exogamy. But todo so is not our present purpose. We observe that the breakdown of exogamy in advancing communities must have been most inti- mately connected with this evolution of clans and families, and of clan and family estates within the tribe. As we have already had occasion to point out, the only species of property known anywhere originally appears to have been pro- perty in common. Everywhere it would appear that the groups were at the first the only owners. And the history of the right of property, as we have it, is just that of the growth zzséde groups of. pro- prietary rights distinct from the tribal. IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 283 It was an advance when clan estates were recognised as distinct from the tribal ; was a farther advance when family estates were recognised as distinct from those of the clan. Barbarism was already far in the rear when individual property made its appearance. ` Now, when the authentic hee of Rome begins, marriage-laws had not only become stringent, but modern in char- acter, conjugal fidelity had become com- ‘mon, and, as the consequence, relationship had become agnatic. The tribal system, moreover, had been stripped of several of - its leading features. Property had long been localized in families as distinct from gentes; and this localization had cut the families off from one another, and to a large extent from the gentes. Families were still associated in gentes ; the gentes in tribes, for political purposes ; and there 284 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY remained to the gentiles the right and Spes successionis to family estates, failing legitimate heirs. But already the laws of succession which had sprung up with family property—which were springing up with individual property—were train- ing the people to consider a few persons only as their kinsmen in any special sense. And the course of decadence of the recognition of extended kinships in Greece followed much the same path. However strongly implanted the principle of exogamy may have originally been, it must have succumbed to the influences which thus disintegrated the old bonds of kinship. So complete was the disintegra- tion, that in Rome while the right of suc- cession still remained in the gentiles as evidence of kinship, and its rights and obligations, having been originally . co- extensive with the gens, we find this so IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 285 far lost sight of in the nebulosities of legal terminology, that the lawyers de- clared that all consanguinity ended with their names for its seven degrees—names invented with a view to the regulation of successions ; ended there, “ quia ulterius per rerum naturam nec nomina inveniri nec vita succedentibus prorogari potest.”* A maxim, by the way, which proved very convenient to those pontiffs who maintained that the Levitical rule pro- hibited marriage between all blood relations, and which is probably found very convenient now in Russia where the Greek church still asserts that view of the Levitical rule. For the rest, it must be enough to say that exogamy died out with the blood-ties on which its existence depended, and that the process -* Paulus, Senten. Recept., Lib. iv., Tit ii. 286 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. of destruction of those ties which the laws of succession inaugurated, was carried on and completed by the law of Testaments. If to this general view anything should be added, perhaps it is that the earliest viola- tions of the rule of exogamy would appear to have been called for in the case of fe- male heiresses. Such ladies, if they made proper marriages according to old law—at that stage of progress when a wife was usually what they call in Ceylon a deega wife, z.¢., passed from her own family into the family and village of her husband— must have carried their estates into other tribes or gentes, and so have cut off their own gentiles from the prospect of succeed- ing them. Numbers xxxvi. contains an account of the origin among the Israelites of the rule prohibiting a female heiress from marrying out of the tribe of the family of her father. And the prohibition is not uncommon. CONCLUSION. CHAPTER xX. CONCLUSION. HERE our argument ends. Apparently simple as was the problem to be solved, it has now received a solution for the first time. That solution opens a new series of problems for the consideration of the philosopher; of some of which, indeed, we have offered solutions, which, in the fervour of the first conception, may have been put forward in too sanguine a spirit. It will be something, however, if, in pro- posing and trying to solve such problems, we have at least succeeded, in showing their importance, by displaying them on the level of the foundations of civil society. The chief of these questions respect the origin of exogamy and of endogamy. As 288 — CONCLUSION. to the origin of the former, it will be re- marked that we have not spent time on the consideration of the question, whether it may not have been due to a natural feel- ing against the union of near kinsfolk. Its general description might dispose one to think that it might have been due to such a feeling. But, owing to the nature of ancient kinship, as we have seen it, exo- gamy afforded no proper security against the intermixture of persons near of kin. It permitted, in reality, many marriages which we now disallow. Ties of blood that were not recognised—though that they were ties of blood must have been vaguely perceived—were practically non- existent. And, in the first stages of human development, it was agreeable to exogamy that brothers and sisters of the half-blood should marry, while’ uncles might marry nieces, and nephews aunts. CONCLUSION. 289 Afterwards, unions equally incestuous, as we should say, were allowable in con- sequence of the limitation in blood-ties derived from agnation. One thing is very clear, that in ancient times such questions as have been raised by modern science, as to the propriety of the mar- riages of near relatives, were never consi- dered. On the whole; the account which we have given of the origin of exogamy, appears the only one which will bear examination. The scarcity of women | within the group led to a practice of | stealing the women of other groups, and in time it came to be considered im- proper, because it was unusual, for a man to marry a woman of his own group. Another important question respects the universality of kinship through females only. The strong a riori presump- tions in favour of that, as the most a a ee ae = ae 5 =- cesar NT ee 290 CONCLUSION. archaic system of kinship, backed by so much evidence as we have been able to adduce, seem to us satisfactorily to establish the position which we have taken up. On the other hand, much labour and investigation will yet be needed to show clearly that that kinship was not merely a concomitant of exo- gamy and polyandry, should cases occur in which it must be held that neither poly- andry nor exogamy was primitive custom. Assuming the universality of that kinship, the question remains: What were the stages of development of the family sys- tem, founded on the principle of agnation, asat Rome? Some of these questions we have grappled with; at others. we have done little more than glance. Are we too sanguine if we venture to predict that their solution will yet be reached, and will exhibit early human history in a very CONCLUSION. 291 different light from that in which it has hitherto been regarded, by what Dugald Stewart calls “that indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle whatever ap- pearance both in the natural and moral worlds it is unable to explain ”? Boh eo OO ee 0-— Note A.—ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. Ir is to be remarked of the examples of the Form of Capture in the text, as of those which follow, that they have never before been collated or made the subject of serious speculation. They are just noted as matters of curiosity where they occur, the authorities ven- turing no explanation, except in one or two cases, of their meaning or origin; and only in some cases noticing similar customs as having prevailed elsewhere than in the district reported upon. They are thus presented to us in a’ trustworthy shape as materials for an induction. It may be added, as regards the additional examples of the Form of Capture here appended, that, like the examples in the text, they, with two exceptions, show that the central idea in the symbol was the carrying off of the woman, U 204 APPENDIX. in defiance of her kindred and of their efforts to protect her. The first of the following examples of the form is in some respects the most striking of any of which we have an account. 1. “ In their marriages,” says Sir Henry Piers of the Irish, “ especially in those countries where cattle abound, the parents and friends on each side meet on the side of an hill, or, if the weather be cold, in some place of shelter, about midway between both dwellings. If agreement ensue, they drink the agreement bottle, as they call it, which is a bottle of good usquebaugh, and this goes merrily round. For payment of the por- tion—which is generally a determinate number of cows—little care is taken. The father or next of kin to the bride sends to his neighbours and friends sub mutue victssttudinis obtentu, and every one gives his cow or heifer, and thus the portion is quickly paid. Nevertheless, caution is taken from the bridegroom on the day of delivery for restitution of the cattle, in case the bride die childless within a certain day, limited by agreement ; and, in this case, every man’s own beast is restored. Thus, care is APPENDIX. 205 taken that no man shall grow rich by frequent marriages. On the day of bringing home,*the bridegroom and his friends ride out and‘meet the bride and her friends at the place of 'meet- ing. Being come near each other, the custom was of old to cast short darts at the company that at- tended the bride, but at such distance that seldom any hurt ensued. Yet it is not out of the memory of man that the Lord of Hoath on such an occasion lost an eye. This custom of casting darts is now obsolete.”—Vallency’s “ Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis,’ vol. i. p. 122, 1786, No. 1, Description of Westmeath, by Sir Henry Piers—written A.D. 1682. 2. We have an account from M: Huc of the constitution of marriage among the Mongols of the Ortous. After stating that marriage is with the Mongols a matter of sale and purchase; that this is clearly expressed, in their language, in such phrases as—“ I have bought for my son the daughter of So-and-so ;” “ We have sold our daughter to such-and-such a family ;” and that the lady for some time after the sale remains with her family, M. Huc proceeds to say that the day having arrived, “ the bridegroom sends hee i ich AN sn as ci E te Soe se gp 206 APPENDIX. early in the morning a deputation to fetch the girl who has been betrothed to him, or rather whom he has bought. When the envoys draw near, the relations and friends of the bride place themselves in a circle before the door, as tf to oppose the departure of the bride, and then begins a feigned fight, which of course terminates in the bride being carried off. She is placed on a horse, and having been thrice led round her paternal house, she is then taken at full gallop to the tent which has been prepared for the purpose, near the dwelling of her father-in-law. Mean- time, all the Tartars of the neighbourhood, the relations and friends of both families, repair to the wedding-feast, and offer their presents to the newly-married pair.”—Hazlitt’s Translation of Hucs -* Travels,” vol. i. p. 185, illustrated library edition. 3. We find the following account of the con- stitution of marriage among the Toorkomans :— “The most singular customs of these people (the Toorkomans) relate to marriage. The Toorkomans do not shut up their women, and there being no restraint on the social inter- course between the sexes, as in most Mussul- APPENDIX. 297 man countries, love matches are common. A youth becomes acquainted with a girl; they are mutually attached, and agree to marry ; but the young man does not dare to breathe his wishes to the parents of his beloved, for such is not etiquette, and would be resented as an in- sult. What does he do? He elopes with the girl and carries her to some neighbouring obah, where, such is the custom, there is no doubt of a kind reception; and there the young couple live as man and wife for some six weeks, when the Reish-suffeeds, or elders of the protecting obah, deem it time to talk over the matter with the parents.. Accordingly they represent the wishes of the young couple, and, joined by the elders of the father’s obah, endeavour to recon- cile him to the union, promising on the part of the bridegroom, a handsome dashlogue, or price, for his wife. In due time the consent is given, on which the bride returns to her father’s house, where, strange to say, she is retained for six months or a year, and sometimes two years, according, as it appears, to her caprice or the parents will, having no communication with her husband, unless by stealth. The meaning 298 APPENDIX. of this strange separation I never could ascer- wib oie s ii Afterwards othe marriage presents and price of the wife are interchanged, and she goes finally to live with her husband.” —Fraser’s “Journey” (1838), vol. ii. p.372. ` “ Matches are also made occasionally by the parents themselves, with or without the inter- vention of the Reish-suffeeds, but the order and ceremonies of the nuptials are the same. There is a regular contract and a stipulated price; the young people are permitted to enjoy each other's society for a month or six weeks; and the bride then returns, as in the former case, to spend a year or more with her parents.” —Zdem., vol. ii. P- 375. This case illustrates a stage of transition fromthe system of actual capture to a symbolism, of which stage traces remained in Sparta in his- toric times. In Sparta the young wife was not, immediately after the marriage, domiciled in her husband’s house, but cohabited with him for some time clandestinely, till he brought her, and frequently her mother also, to his home. (Xenophon, Rep. Lac. 1-5). And the same custom prevailed in Crete. (Strabo, x., p. ee rr ee i o APPENDIX. 299 432.) In example No. 7 we shall again see these peculiarities in combination with the Form of Capture. 4. Among the Soligas (India), “when a girl consents to marry, the man runs away with her to some neighbouring village, and they live there until the honeymoon is over. They then return home, and give a feast to the people of their village.’—Buchanan’s “ Journey from Madras,” vol. ii. p. 178. 5. “ The marriage ceremony is very simple among the Aenezes. . . The marriage-day being appointed (usually five or six days after the betrothing), the bridegroom comes with a lamb in his arms to the tent of the girl’s father, and there cuts the lamb’s throat before wit- nesses. As soon as the blood falls upon the ground the marriage ceremony is regarded as complete. The men and girls amuse them- selves with feasting and singing. Soon after sunset, the bridegroom retires to a tent pitched for him at a distance from the camp; there he shuts himself up, and awaits the arrival of his bride. The bashful girl meanwhile runs from the tent. of one friend to another 300 APPENDIX. till she is caught at last, and conducted in triumph by a few women to the bridegroom’s tent; he receives her at the entrance, and forces her into it; the women who had accompanied her then depart.”—Burckhardt’s “ Notes,” vol. Left 607; 6. Burckhardt, after noticing that, among the Bedouins of Mount Sinai, marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, in which the inclinations of the bride are not consulted, proceeds :—“ Among the Arabs of Sinai the young maid comes home in the evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends, and carried off by force to her father’s tent. If she entertains any suspicion of their designs, she defends herself with stones, and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she does not dislike the lover; for, according to custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded ever after by her own companions.” She is then taken to her father’s tent. There follows. the throwing over her of the abba, or man’s cloak, anda formal announcement of the name of APPENDIX, 301 her future husband; after this she is dressed in bridal apparel, and mounted on a camel, “although still continuing to struggle in a most unruly manner, and held by the bride- groom’s friends on both sides.” She is led in this way to, and three times round, and finally into, the bridegroom’s tent. The resistance is continued till the last. The marriage, of course, ends in a feast, and presents to the bride.— Burckhardt’s “ Notes,” vol. i. p. 263. 7. Among the Mezeyne, marriage appears to be a matter of sale and purchase, and to be con- stituted, as among the Aenezes, through capture as a form. It is attended, however, by a peculiar custom, which we have already met, though not in so striking a shape. “A singular custom,” says Burckhardt (“ Notes,” vol. i. p. 269), “ prevails among the Mezeyne tribe, within the limits of the Sinai peninsula, but not among the other tribes of that province. A girl having been wrapped in the abba at night (z. e., after the capture as in the preceding case), is per- mitted to escape from her tent and fly into the neighbouring mountains, The bridegroom goes in search of her next day, and remains often 302 APPENDIX. many days before he can find her out, while her female friends are apprised of her hiding-place, and furnish her with provisions. If the husband finds her at last (which is sooner or later, accord- ing to the impression that he has made upon the girl’s heart), he is bound to consummate the marriage in the open country, and to pass the night with her in the mountains. The next morn- ing the bride goes home to her tent, that she may have some food; but again runs away in the evening, and repeats these flights several times, till she finally returns to her tent. She does not go to live in her husband’s tent till she is far advanced in pregnancy; if she does not become pregnant she may not join her husband till after a full year from the wedding-day.” Burckhardt says the same custom is observed among the Mezeyne Arabs elsewhere. ! Note B.—Own THE PRACTICE oF CAPTURING WIVEs. 1. AN anonymous writer in “ Chambers’ Jour- nal,” October 22, 1864, gives the following ac- APPENDIX. 303 count of the position of women, and of the practice of capturing wives, among the Austra- lian Blacks. The writer would appear to have had good opportunities of being acquainted with the native customs :— “Tn nothing is the brutality of their nature more clearly shown than in their treatment of their females. Amongst them, women are con- sidered as an inferior class, and are used almost as beasts of burden; so that it is not at all un- common to meet a huge black fellow travelling merrily along. with no load but his spear or war- club, whilst his unfortunate Æuġræ is panting under the weight of their goods and chattels, which she is compelled to carry from camp to camp. Courtship, as the precursor to marriage, is unknown amongst them. When a young warrior is desirous of procuring a wife, he gene- rally obtains one by giving in exchange for her a sister, or some other female relative of his own; but if there should happen to be no eli- gible damsel disengaged in the tribe to which he belongs, then he hovers round the encamp- ment of some other blacks until he gets an op- portunity of seizing one of their leubras, whom 304 APPENDIX. perhaps he has seen and admired when attend- ing one of the grand corroborries. His mode of paying his addresses is simple and efficacious. With a blow of his nulla-nulla (war-club), he stuns the object of his ‘affections, and drags her insensible body away to some retired spot, whence, as soon as she recovers her senses, he brings her home to his own gunyah in triumph. Sometimes two join in an expedition for the same purpose, and then for several days they watch the movements of their intended victims, using the utmost skill in concealing their pre- sence. When they have obtained the know- ledge they require, they wait for a dark, windy night; then quite naked, and carrying only their long ‘jag-spears,’ they crawl stealthily through the bush until they reach the immediate vicinity of the camp-fires, in front of which the girls they are in search of are sleeping. Slowly and silently, they creep close enough to distinguish the figure of one of those leubras; then one of the intruders stretches out his spear, and inserts its barbed point amongst her thick flowing locks ; turning the spear slowly round, some of her hair speedily becomes entangled with it; then, with APPENDIX. | 305 a sudden jerk, she is aroused from her slumber, and as her eyes open, she feels the sharp point of another weapon pressed against her throat. She neither faints nor screams; she knows well that the slightest attempt at escape or alarm will cause her instant death, so, like a sensible woman, she makes a virtue of necessity, and rising silently, she follows her captors. They lead her away to a considerable distance, tie her to a tree, and return to ensnare their other victim in like manner. Then, when they have accomplished their design, they hurry off to their own camp, where they are received with universal applause, and highly honoured for their gallant exploit. Occasionally an alarm is given, but even then the wife-stealers easily escape amidst the confusion, to renew their attempt at some future period. When a dis- tinguished warrior carries off a bride from a strange tribe, he will frequently volunteer to undergo ‘the trial of spears,’ in order to prevent the necessity of his people going to war in his defence; then both the tribes meet, and ten of their smartest and strongest young men are picked out by the aggrieved party. These are 306 APPENDIX. each provided with: three reed-spears, and a wommera, or throwing-stick; and the offender, armed only with his heckman (a bark-shield eighteen inches long by six wide), is led out in front, and placed at the distance of forty yards. Then, at a given signal, the thirty spears are launched at him in rapid succession; these he receives and parries with his shield, and so skil- ful are the blacks in the use of their own wea- pons, that very seldom is any wound inflicted. Having successfully passed through this ordeal, the warrior is considered to have fairly earned his leubra, and to have atoned for his offence in carrying her. off; so the ceremony generally concludes by the two tribes feasting together in perfect harmony.” ; It is impossible, in reading this account of the Australian mode of capturing women, not to recall what Plutarch says of the ceremonies of Roman marriage, apropos of the Rape of the Sabines :—“ It is a custom still observed for the bride not to go over the threshold of her husband’s house herself, but to be carried over ; (compare additional example of the Form No. 5, p. 300), because the Sabine virgins did not APPENDIX. 307 go in voluntarily, but were carried in by vio- lence. Some add that the brides hair ts parted with the point of a spear, in memory of the first marriages being brought about in a warlike manner.” 2, Probable Origin of the Name Racshasa. —We saw (pp. 80-81) that, in the code of Menu, one of the eight legal forms of the mar- riage ceremony was that by capture de facto, and called Racshasa, and that this marriage was permitted to the military class. It is curi- ous that the name of this species of martiage should be that of a race of beings—the Rak- shasas—whom we find playing an important part, and that connected with a legend of a capture, in the mythic history of the Hindus. The story of the Ramayana may be said to be that of the carrying off of Rama’s wife, Sita, by the Rakshasa, Ravana, and of the consequent war carried on by Rama against the Rakshasas, ending in their defeat and the recovery of Sita. (See Williams’s “Indian Epic Poetry,” pp. 74- 76.) Wilson (“India Three Thousand Years Ago; Bombay, 1858, p. 20) speaks of the 308 APPENDIX. Rakshasas as “a people, often alluded to, from whom the Aryas suffered much, and who, by their descendants, were transferred in idea to the most distant south, and .treated by them as a race of mythical giants.” He ranks them with the Dasyus, Ugras, Pishachas, and Asuras, as indigenous barbarian races or tribes, which had to be overcome before the Aryans could effect a settlement in part of Hindustan. Lassen takes the same view. “The Ramayana,’ he says (Lassen, vol. i. p. 535; we quote from Muir's “Sanscrit Texts,” vol. ii. p. 425) “contains the narrative of the first attempt of the Aryans to extend themselves to the south by conquest; but it presupposes the peaceable extension of Brahmanical missions in the same direction as having taken place still earlier. . . . The Rakshasas, who are represented as disturbing the sacrifices and devouring the priests, signify here, as often elsewhere, merely the ‘savage tribes which placed themselves in hostile oppo- sition to the Brahmanical institutions. The only other actors who appear in the legend, in addition to these inhabitants, are the monkeys, which ally themselves to Raima and render him “APPENDIX. 309 assistance. This can only mean that, when the Arian Kshatriyas first made hostile incursions into the south, they were aided by another por- tion of the indigenous tribes.” Dr. Muir can find no authority for saying that the word Rakshasa was originally the name of a tribe. At the same time (“ Texts,” vol. ii. p. 434), he inclines to hold the descriptions we have of them as having more probably originated in hostile contact with the savages of the south, than as the simple off- spring of the poet’s imagination. He notices (“ Texts,” vol. ii. p. 426) that, even in the Vedic period, the Rakshasas “had been magnified into demons and giants by the poetical and supersti- tious imaginations of the early (Arian) bards.” He quotes from the Ramayana a passage which represents them as cannibals—feeding on blood, men-devouring, changing their shapes, etc. ; and another, in which they are described as “ of fearful swiftness and unyielding in battle;” while Ravana, the most terrible of all the Rakshasas, is stigmatised as a “destroyer of religious du- ties, and ravisher of the wives of others.” Dr. Muir adds, that the description of the Rak- shasas in the Ramayana “corresponds in many X | a} i 1 Bhi if) VW | Bei ae ai) 3 i Hl 1 li | Ẹ F 1i | 4} 310 APPENDIX. respects with the epithets applied to the same class of beings (whether we take them for men or for demons) who are so often alluded to in the Rigveda,” and that it is quite possible that the author of the Ramayana may have bor- rowed therefrom many of the traits which he ascribes to the Rakshasas. But how came the name of a legal mode of marriage to be that of such a race of beings? The only answer that we can make is a surmise —viz., that while the system of capture had not as yet died out among the Kshatriyas, or war- rior caste of the Aryans, it was perfect among the races to which the name Rakshasas was applied ; and that what was ¢hezy system gave its designation to the exceptional, although per mitted, marriage by capture among the Kshat- riyas. This is the more probable, since, so far as we can ascertain, there is nothing in the name ——Rakshasa—itself, descriptive of the mode of marriage. From another point of view, it may be ob- served that the Rakshasas hold nearly the same place in Hindu tradition that giants, ogres, and trolls occupy in Scandinavian and Celtic legends. „APPENDIX. 311 Dees yl eee ee ee They are supernatural beings—robbers and plunderers of human habitations —men-devour- ers and women-stealers. The giants and ogres of the north share the characteristics of Ravana. The cruel monsters are always carrying off kings’ daughters. As Rama’s exploits culmi- nate in the recovery of Sita, so the northern giant-slayer is crowned with the greatest glory when he has rescued the captive princesses and restored them in safety to the king’s—their father’s—palace. Are we to hold all such beings —giants, ogres, trolls, etc. wherever they occur, as representing savage races, between whom and the peoples in whose legends they appear, as supernatural beings, there was chronic hos- tility ? 3. Africa.—The following is the account which poor Speke received from the Queen of Uganda regarding marriage there :—“ There are no such things as marriages in Uganda: there are no ceremonies attached to it. If any Mkun- gu possessed of a pretty daughter committed an offence, he might give her to the king as a peace-offering ; if any neighbouring king had a 342 ALPEN DIX., pretty daughter, and the king of Uganda wanted her, she might be demanded as a fitting tribute. The Wakungu in Uganda are supplied with women by the king, according to their merits, from seizures in battle abroad, or seizures from refractory officers at home. The women are not regarded as property according to the Wan- yamtiézi practice, though many exchange their daughters; and some women, for misdemean- ours, are sold into slavery; whilst others are flogged, or are degraded to do all the menial services of the house”—(Speke’s “Journal,” etc., 1863, p.. 361). END) BX ——— 0 O ABIPONES, Dobuzhoffer’s account of the, 125 Abraham married his sister-german, 219 Acheeans, 21 Achilles Tatius, 220 Adoption, Libripens present at, 18 ; fiction of, 236; sup- posed explanation of the heterogeneity of primitive groups, 274 Aenezes, form of capture, 299 Affghanistan, practice of capturing wives, 67 Africa, form of capture, 38 ; defective information respect- ing, 92; marriage in Equatorial, 311 Agathyrsi, said to have had wives in common, 175 Agnation, system of, explained, 234; the growth of the system of, 240 ; effect on the structure of the primitive groups, 250 Aimaks, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 Aleutian Islands, polyandry, 179, 183 ~ American Indians, traces of the form of capture, 39; prac- tice of capturing wives, 59-66 ; exogamous, 120 ; system of kinship through females only, 124, 211; anciently polyandrous, 211 Amram married his father’s sister, 220 « Ancient law,” Maine’s, 115, 152, 227, 235 Ansarians, said to have wives in common, 176 Apuleius, De Asino Aureo, 26 Aquapim, kinship through females only, 214 aig 314 INDEX. Arabs, Bedouin, form of capture, 34, 300 “ Archelogia Americana,” 120 Archer’s “ Upper India,” 180, 196 Aristotle, Theory of the origin of the State, 271 Asiatic Researches, 181, 185, 207 Aryans, earliest account of, 7 ; anciently polyandrous, 207, 214 Ashantee, kinship through females only, 214 Aswini-Kumaras, 216 Australian Blacks, system of capturing women for wives, 73, 303 ; exogamous, 113; system of kinship through females only, 115 ; effects of exogamy and female kin- ship, 118 ; caste, 256 Avaroes, polyandry, 195 BANYAI, system of kinship through females only, 214 Bates’ “ Naturalist on the Amazons,” 62 Bedouin Arabs, form of capture, 34, 300; frequency of divorce, 177. | Beduanda Kallung, exogamous, 103 Beena husband, 186. Bell, James Stanislaus, “ Journal of a Residence in Cir- cassia,” IOI Benjamin, tribe of, tradition respecting, 88 Bergman’s “ Streifereien,” 33, 98 Betrothals, 74, 120, 252 Blood feud, the law of, effect on the structure of the primi- tive groups, 114, 262 Bodo, endogamous, 147 “ Book of Days,” 71 Boreas and Orithya, the story of, 83 Britons, ancient, polyandry, 182, 185 INDEX. 318 Buchanan’s “ Journey from Madras,” 178, 180, 185, 187, 213, 299 bi Bunsen “ De Jure Hereditario Atheniensium,” 221. Buntar, Talava, system of kinship through females only, 213 Burckhardt, “ Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys,” 34, 177, 207, 309, 302 But (Bodo), the system of kinship through females only, 213 CacHar, traces of polyandry, 179 Cæsar de Bello Gallico, 127, 182 Caindu, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 “Cambrian Journal,” 125, 211 Campbell, Col. Walter, “ Indian Journal,” 67 Campbell, Major-General, ‘“ Personal Narrative,” 28 Capture, form of. See Form of Capture. Capture, system or practice of capturing women for wives, oy y=: Capture. See under following heads: Affghanistan, Aus- tralian Blacks, Caribbean Tribes, Coin-men, Deccan, Feejees, Fuegians, Greeks, Hebrews, Hindus, Lith- uania, Livonia, Manaos, Muscovy, New Zealanders, Patagonians, Picts, Poland, Prussia, Romans, Scandi- navians. Capture. Instances of the system of capture in transition towards a symbolism, 67-70, 298. Caribbean tribes, system of capture, 63-65 Cascar, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 Caste, 255, 257, 261 Caucasus, tribes of, have the Levirate obligation, 207 Cecrops, tradition of, 175, 220 Celts, anciently had kinship through females only, 127, 214; anciently exogamous, 126. Ceylon, polyandry among the Kandyans, 179. 316 Cherookees, 121 Chinese, their tradition regarding the origin of matriage, 175 ; the frequency of divorce among the, 177 ; infan- ticide, 177 ; kinship through the mother only, 177, 214 Choctaws, 121 Chukchi, system of lending wives, 176 Caucasians, form of capture, 35 ; exogamous, 100; capture de facto, 72 Clarke, Dr., “ Travels,” 32 Cochrane’s “ Journey,” 176 Coemptio, Roman form of marriage, 13 Coin-men, practice of capturing women, 61 Comparative archaism of coemptio and confarreatio, 13 ; of exogamy and endogamy, 136-150 Confarreatio, Roman form of marriage, 13 Congo, system of kinship through females only, 214, 2 38 Continuity of human progress, 11 Coorgs of Mysore, polyandry, 179 Creeks, 121 Cruithnians, the, 86 Cumana, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 Cunningham’s “ Ladak,” 180 Decay of Tibetan polyandry, 198 ; of exogamy in advancing communities, 266. Deccan, practice of capturing women, 67 Deega wife, 186 De Hell, Xavier Hommaire, “ Travels,” 30 Demaratus, 25 ` Deuteronomy, Levirate obligation, 200, 207 Dhumal, caste or endogamous, 147 Dorians, ancient state of, 22, 267 ; form of capture, 24 Doric hordes, 85 INDEX. Druses, Levirate obligation, 207 Duan Gircanash, 86 EIMAUK, system of lending wives, 176 Elphinstone’s “ Caubul,” 176 Egyptian tradition respecting the origin of marriage, 175 Eponomy, tendency to, 259 Erkman’s “ Travels in Siberia,” 34, 176, 180 Erskine’s “Islands of the Western Pacific,” 80, 126 Endogamy defined, 48 Endogamy, the growth of, 257, 261 Exogamous peoples. See American Indians, Australian Blacks, Beduanda Kallung, Circassians, Hindus, Kafirs, Kalmucks, Kirghiz, Khonds, Koupooees, Magars, Mows, Munnieporees, Murams, Murring, New Zea- landers, Nogais, Sodhas, Somoyeds, Warali; and see 267 Exogamy defined, 48, 53 Exogamy, its decay in advancing communities, 266 Exogamy and Endogamy, comparative archaism of, 136, 150 FERJEES, practice of capture, 79 ; system of kinship, 126 Female infanticide, 165 Females only, system of kinship through, 154, 230 Fisher’s “ Memoir of Sylhet,” 181 Fitzroy, “ Adventure and Beagle,” 40, 60 Fohi, tradition of, 175 Forbes’s “Ceylon,” 186 Form of capture, definition of, 23 ; the origin of, 43, 58; its coincidence with exogamy, 93, 131 Form of capture, examples of. See Aenezes, Africa, Bedouin Arabs, Circassians, Dorians, France, Friesland, 318 INDEX. Fuegians, Hebrews, Hindus, Irish, Kamchadales, Kal- mucks, Khonds, Mezeyne Arabs, Mongols, Rome, Toorkomans, Tunguzes, Soligas Fraser’s “ Journey,” 298 Friesland, form of capture, 33 Fuegians, form of capture, 40; practice of capture de Jacto, 60 GAIUS, 18 Gaya “ Marriage Ceremonies,” 69, 180 Generalization respecting the early Aryans, 7 Geological record, 6 Getes of Transaxiana, 182 Goquet, “ Origin of Laws,” 181, 220 Gotrams, Indian, 106, 255 Grant “Origin and Descent of the Gael,” 154 Greeks, tradition of the origin of marriage, 175 Grey’s “Travels in North-Western Australia,” 75, £132; “Polynesian Mythology,” 79, 180 Grote, “ History of Greece,” 281 Groups, men in earliest times found in, 162 Grooah (Kooloo) polyandry, 166 Gurwhal, traces of polyandry, 179 Hamuiuton’s “ New Account of the East Indies,” 180, 184 Hanthausen, “ Trans-Caucasia,” 207 Hebrews, form of capture among the, 88 Hebrews, traces of the system of capture, 82, 87 Hebrews, Levirate obligation, 207 Helen, capture of, 34 Hercules, traditions respecting, $3 Herodotus, 25 Heterogeneity of the primitive groups, how produced, 233 Himalayan tribes, 147 Hindus, form of capture among, 27, 34; exogamous, 105 ; traditions respecting marriage, 175, 182; anciently polyandrous, 207 ; ancient Hindu kinship, 207, éf seg. Ho, the, endogamous, 147 Homogeneity of the primitive groups, 230 Homogeneity of the primitive groups destroyed by exogamy and female kinship, 233 Homogeneity of the groups restored by agnation, 250 Hostility, the state of, 132 Huc’s “ Travels,” 178, 295 Humboldt, Alex. Von, “ Personal Narrative,” etc., 63, 180 Hurling shoes at bridegroom, the custom of, 29 Husaby, Gothland, traces of the practice of capture, 71 Hyllus, 83 “¢ INDISCHE STUDIEN,” Dr Weber, 27 Indo-European race, 6 Iole, capture of, 83 Irish, the form of capture, 294 “ Trish Nennius,” 85, 127, 182 Jews, 82, 87, 88, 260 KaFIRS, exogamous, 103 Kalmucks, form of capture, 30, 31 ; exogamous, 99 ; poli- tical system, 97 Kames’s, Lord, “Sketches of the History of Man,” 26 Kamilaroi, exogamous, 115, 256 Kamul, loose morality, 176 Kamschatka, 178 Kandyans lend wives, 176 ; polyandrous, 186 ; their chiefs monogamists, 245 320 Karague, 38 Kashmir, polyandry, 178, 195 Kasias, polyandrous, 179, 183, 196 Keiaz system of lending wives, 176 Kinship, ancient systems of, 151, ef seg.; system of through females only, 154, e¢ seg.; instances of the system of kinship through females only, 209, eż seq. Kirghiz, 35, 78, 207 : Kistewar, polyandry, 178, 195 Khonds, form of capture, 27 Khonds, exogamous, 94 Khonds, female infanticide, 165 Kinship through males, conditions of, 158, 161 Kleuker, “ Zendavesta,” 207 Kocch, peculiar family system, 189, 213 Kocch, endogamous, 147, 256 Koryaks, lend wives, 176 ; polyandrous, 176, 179 Koupooees, exogamous, 109 Krusenstern’s “ Voyage,” 178 LADAK, polyandry, 178, 195, 198 Laing, Letter to Dr. Hodgkin, 112 Lancerota, Canary Islands, polyandry, 180 La Perouse’s “ Voyage,” 178 Latham’s “ Descriptive Ethnology,” 67, 176, 180, 189, 206 Legis Actio Sacramenti, 18 Lestychides, 25 Lewis’ “ Hebrew Republic,” 203 Libripens at act of adoption, 18 Lithuania, transitional form of capture, 67 Levir, originally co-husband with, and heir of, deceased brother, 203 Livingstone’s “ Travels,” 177, 207, 214 INDEX. Livonia, transitional form of capture, 67 Loanda, low state of marriage, 177 Loohoopas, peculiar custom, 198 Lycurgus, 25 MaccuLLocą, Col., “Account of Munniepore,” etc., 109, 198 Macpherson, Major, “ Report on the Khonds,” 27; “ Re- ligion of the Khonds,” 95 Magar tribes exogamous, 104 Magnus Olaus, “ Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,” 67 Magnus Johannes, “ History of the Goths,” 70 Mahabharata, tradition of polyandry, 215 Maine, “ Ancient Law,” 115, 235 Maine, on kinship through the mother, 115, 227 Makololo, brother must marry brother’s widow, 207 Malabar polyandry. See Nairs, Maleres, and Poleres Maleres of Malabar, polyandry, 179 “Mania, the Curse of,” 125 Manaos, the, 61 Marco Polo, 176, 177 Marriage, fulness of the idea of, 62 Martawan, tribe of Ansarians, lend wives, 176 Maypures, polyandry, 195 . Massagetee, said to have practised promiscuity, 175 Maundeville, 178 Media, polyandry, 181 Meithei, the, rro Menu, Institutes of, 80, 105, 201, 207 Mezeyne, form of capture, 301 Mongols, form of capture, 295 : levirate obligation, 207 Montesquieu, “ The Spirit of Laws,” 176, 221 « Monumenta Historica,” 127 Moorcroft and Trebeck’s “ Travels,” 198 322 INDEX. Morgan, Mr. L. H., Rochester, New York, circular letter from, 123, 211 Moser, Louis, “ The Caucasus and its People,” 36 Mows, exogamous, 109 Mpongme lend wives, 176 Murs “ Sanskrit Texts,” 106, 175, 216 Muller’s “ Dorians,” 20, 281 Muller, Max, “History of Sanscrit Ancient Literature, oa, 255 * Munnieporees exogamous, 109 Murring exogamous, 109 Muscovites, transitional form of capture, 67 Mysore, polyandry, 179 Myths referable to system of capture, 33, 84 NAHOR married his brother’s daughter, 219 Nairs, Malabar, polyandry, 179; 184, 196 Natches, the, 121 New Zealanders exogamous, 125 ; practice of capture, 79 Nogay Tartars, 35 Normandy, old law of succession, 238 OBLIGATION on younger brother to marry widow of elder, Levirate, 200, 207 Oens or Coin-men, practice of capture, 61 Orinoco, practice of capture, 63 ; polyandry, 180 Orissa, form of capture, 27 Ostiaks, brother marries brother’s widow, 207. Outline may be drawn of the course of human progress, 10 PALLas, “ Voyages dans Plusieurs Provinces,” etc., 32, 97 Pandava princes, wife in common, 215 Pandu, son of a levir, 217 Patagonians, 60, 65 Patan, wantonness of women, 176 Patria potestas, the growth of, 246 Paulus, “ Sententize Recepte,” 285 Pawning wives, 178 Pelasgi, 21 Percalus, the carrying off of, 25 Persians, obligation on brother to marry his brother’s widow, 207; Persian incest, 223 Philo, 221 Philology, its function in history, 8-10 Phweelongmai, female infanticide, 139 Piers, Sir Henry, “ Account of Westmeath,” 294 Pictish kings, analysis of list of, 127 Picts, tradition of the system of capture, 85-87; exogamous, 126-129 ; polyandrous, 182 Plutarch, 25, 84, 306 Pluto and Proserpine, the story of, 83 Poetry of law, the, 17 Poland, transitional form of capture, 70 Poleres, Malabar, polyandry, 179 Polyandry, 178 e seg. Pothier, “ Pandectz,” 25 Preface of general history, the, 9, 10 Primitive groups, the, were homogeneous, 230 Primitive life, importance of the knowledge of, 11 Primitive prudery hypothesis, 22 Primitive races, 67 Progress of mankind, 158 Promiscuity, the state of, 168, ef seg. Prussia, transitional form of capture, 70 Puharies of Gurwhal, 176 324 RacsHAsas, 80, 307 Rajputs, 213 Rape of the Sabines, 30, 35 Reade, “ Savage Africa,” 176, 180, 214 Ridley’s account of the Kamilaroi, 117 Roman law, view of its growth, 15, 16 Rome, form of capture, 26, 306 Ruth, book of—Levirate obligation, 200, 207 SABINE origin of confarreatio, 15 Sabines, rape of the, 85 Samoyeds, exogamous, 102 Saporogian Cossacks, polyandry, 179, 183 Scandinavians, traces of practice of capture, 71 Selden “ Jus Naturale et Gentium,” 82, 223 Sexes, the union of the, among savages, 167 Siam, marriages for a term, 177 Sirmor, polyandry, 178 Sivalik mountains, polyandry, 179 Skene. Note on the Pictish Kings, 127 Sodhas exogamous, 103, 147 Solinus, 127 Soligas, form of capture, 299 Sounan, marriages for a term, 177 _ Sources of information regarding early civil society, 5 Spartans, form of capture among, 24 ; said to have practised promiscuity, 175, 222 Speke, “ Journal of Discovery,” etc., 38, 312 State, the, theories of the origin of, 269 Stocks, formation of conception of, 163 Strabo, 181, 298 Struggle for existence, 163, 164 Suidas, 220 INDEX. “ Summer Ramble in the Himalayas,” 180 Sutras of Gautama, 214 Svetaketu, tradition of, 175, 217 Sylhet, polyandry, 179 Symbolism of law, 11 System of capture, traces of, in the north, 70, 71 System of kinship through females only, Ta, et seg. Tacitus, “ Germania,” 181 Tamul and Telugu, 212, 218 Tanners “ Narrative,” 125 Telingese polyandry, 178 Tennent’s “ Ceylon,” 180 Theseus, traditions of, 34 Tibet, polyandry, 178, 193 Tibetan type of polyandry, prevalence of, 194 Terra del Fuego, form of capture, 39 ; practice of capture, 60 Tod’s “ Annals, etc. of Rajasthan,” 182, 213 Tod’s “ Travels,” 182 Transitional stages of system of capture, 67-70 Tribal systems, view of, 142-144 Tudas, Nilgherry hills, polyandry, 179 Tulava, kinship through females only, 213 Tunguses, 33 Toorkomans, form of capture, 296 Turner’s “ Tibet,” 178, 180 Turnbull’s “ Voyage round the World,” 75 Uganda, marriages in, 312 Usus. Roman mode of marriage, 13 VARRO, 220 Vasu-ing, 126 Vigne’s “ Kashmir,” 180 326 = INDEX. “ Vivada Chintamani,” 106 Volney’s “ Travels,” 176, 207 Wa tes, form of capture, 36 Warali, exogamous, 104 Weber, Dr., “ Indische Studien,” 33 Williams’ “ Indian Epic Poetry,” 216, 218 Wilson, “ Report on the Puharies,” 176, 212 XENOPHON, 298 Xiphaline, 127 THE END. Printed by R. & R. CLARK, Edinburgh. fegra dii by eer RAE” vias : eee ee