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RARYQ/-. <e^UIBRARYGr. AWtUNIVERS//, .V

ANCIENT SOCIETY

RESEARCHES IN THE LINES OF HUMAN PROGRESS

FROM SAVAGERY, THROUGH BARBARISM

TO CIVILIZATION

LEWIS H. MORGAN, LL.D

Member of the National Academy of Sciences, A uthor of " The League of the Iroquois^''

"'The American Beaver and his Works,'''' ^''Systems of Consanguinity and

Affinity of the Human Family,'''' Etc.

Nescit vox missa revert i,

HORACE.

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1877

91022

TO THE REVEREND

J. H. McILVAINE, D. D.,

LATE PROFESSOR OF BELLES-LETTRES IN PRINCETON COLLEGE,
THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED,

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS GENIUS AND LEARNING,

AND IN APPRECIATION OF HIS FRIENDSHIP.

Cum prorepserunt primis animalia terris,
Mutum et turpe pecus, glandem atque cubilia propter
Unguibus et pugnis, dein fustibus, atque ita porro
Pugnabant armis, quae post fabncaverat usus :
Donee verba, quibus voces sensusque notarent,
Nominaque invenere : dehinc absistere belle,
Oppida coeperunt munire, et ponere leges,
Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter.

— Horace, Sat., I, iii, 99.

" Modern science claims to be proving, by the most careful and exhaustive study of man
and his works, that our race began its existence on earth at the bottom of the scale, instead of at
the top, and has been gradually working upward ; that human powers have had a history of
development ; that all the elements of culture — as the arts of life, art, science, language, relig-
ion, philosophy — have been wrought out by slow and painful efforts, in the conflict between the
soul and the mind of man on the one hand, and external nature on the other." — Whitney's
Oriental and Ling^uistic Studies, p. 341.

" These communities reflect the spiritual conduct of our ancestors thousands of times
removed. We have passed through the same stages of development, physical and moral, and
are what we are to-day because they lived, toiled, and endeavored. Our wondrous civilization
is the result of the silent efforts of millions of unknown men, as the chalk cliffs of England are
formed by contributions of myriads of foraminifera." — Dr. J. Kaines, Anihropologia, vol. i.
No. 2, p. 233.

PREFACE.

' The great antiquity of mankind upon the earth has been
conclusively established. It seems singular that the proofs
should have been discovered as recently as within the last
thirty years, and that the present generation should be the
first called upon to recognize so important a fact. I

Mankind are now known to have existed in E^urope in the
glacial period, and even back of its commencement, with
every probability of their origination in a prior geological
age. They have survived many races of animals with whom
they were contemporaneous, and passed through a process
of development, in the several branches of the human fam-
ily, as remarkable in its courses as in its progress.

Since the probable length of their career is connected with
geological periods, a limited measure of time is excluded.
One hundred or two hundred thousand years would be an
unextravagant estimate of the period from the disappear-
ance of the glaciers in the northern hemisphere to the pres-
ent time. Whatever doubts may attend any estimate of a
period, the actual duration of which is unknown/the exist- 1
ence of mankind extends backward immeasurably, and loses
itself in a vast and profound antiquity.

This knowledge changes materialfy the views which have
prevailed respecting the relations of savages to barbarians,
and of barbarians to civilized men. It can now be asserted
U£on convincing evidence that savagery preceded barbar-
ism in all the tribes of mankind, as barbarism is known to

vi . PREFACE.

have preceded civilization. The history of the human race
is one in source, one in experience, and one in progress^/

It is both a natural and a proper desire to learn, if possi-
ble, how all these ages upon ages of past time have been
expended by mankind ; how savages, advancing by slow,
almost imperceptible steps, attained the higher condition of
barbarians ; how barbarians, by similar progressive advance-
ment, finally attained to civilization ; and why other tribes
and nations have been left behind in the race of progress —
some in civilization, some in barbarism, and others in sav-
agery. It is not too much to expect that ultimately these
several questions will be answered.

Inveiitigns and discoveries stand -in serial relations along
the lines of human progress, and register its successive
stages ; while social and civil institutions, in virtue of their
connection with perpetual human wants, have been devel-
oped from a few primary germs of thought. They exhibit
a similar register of progress. These institutions, inven-
tions and discoveries have embodied and preserved the
principal facts now remaining illustrative of this experi-
ence. When collated and compared they tend to show the
unity of origin of mankind, the similarity of human wants
in the same stage of advancement, and the uniformity of
the operations of the human mind in similar conditions of
society.

Throughout the latter part of the period of savagery, and
the entire period of barbarism, mankind in general were
organized in gentes, phratries and tribes. These organiza-
tions prevailed throughout the entire ancient world upon
all the continents, and were the instrumentalities by means
of which ancient society was organized and held together.
Their structure, and relations as members of an organic
series, and the rights, privileges and obligations of the mem-
bers of the gens, and of the members of the phratry and
tribe, illustrate the growth of the idea of government in the
human mind. The principal institutions of mankind origi-
nated in savagery, were developed in barbarism, and are
maturing in civilization.

PREFACE. vii

In like manner, the family has passed through succes-
sive forms, and created great systems of consanguinity and
affinity which have remained to the present time. These
systems, which record the relationships existing in the
family of the period, when each system respectively was
formed, contain an instructive record of the experience of
mankind while the family was advancing from the consan-
guine, through intermediate forms, to the monogamian.

The idea of property has undergone a similar growth and
development. TTommencing at zero in savagery, the pas-
sion for the possession of property, as the representative of
accumulated subsistence, has now become dominant over
the human mind in civilized races.

The four classes of facts above indicated, and which ex-
tend themselves in parallel lines along the pathways of
human progress from savagery to civilization, form the
principal subjects of discussion in this volume.

There is one field of labor in which, as Americans, we
have a special interest as well as a special duty. Rich as
the American continent is known to be in material wealth,
it is also the richest of all the continents in ethnological,
philological and arch^plogical materials, illustrative of the
great period of barbarism. Since mankind' were one in
origin, their career has been essentially one, running in dif-
ferent but uniform channels upon all continents, and very
similarly in all the tribes and nations of mankind down to
the same status of advancement. It follows that the his-
tory and experience of the American Indian tribes repre-
sent, more or less nearly, the history and experience of our
own remote ancestors when in corresponding conditions.
Forming a, part of the human record, their institutions,
arts, inventions and practical experience possess a high
and special value reaching far beyond the Indian race itself.

When discovered, the American Indian tribes represented
three distinct ethnical periods, and more completely than
they were elsewhere then represented upon the earth.
Materials for ethnology, philology and archaeology were
offered in unparalleled abundance; but as these sciences

Viii PREFACE.

scarcely existed until the present century, and are but fee-
bly prosecuted among us at the, present time, the workmen
have been unequal to the work. Moreover, while fossil re-
mains buried in the earth will keep for the future student,
the remains of Indian arts, languages and institutions will
not. They are perishing daily, and have been perishing for
upwards of three centuries. The ethnic life of the Indian
tribes is declining under the influence of American civiliza-
tion, their arts and languages are disappearing, and their
institutions are dissolving. After a few more years, facts
that may now be gathered with ease will become impossi-
ble of discovery. These circumstances appeal strongly to
Americans to enter this great field and gather its abundant
harvest.

Rochester, New York, March, 1877.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PART I.

GROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE THROUGH INVENTIONS AND

DISCOVERIES. (

CHAPTER I.

ETHNICAL PERIODS.

Progress of Mankind from the Bottom of the Scale. — Illustrated by Inven-
tions, Discoveries and Institutions. — Two Plans of Government — one
Gentile and Social, giving a Society {Societas) ; the other Political,
giving a State {Civitas). — The former founded upon Persons and
Genlilism ; the Latter upon Territor}' and Property. — The First, the
Plan of Government of Ancient Society. — The Second, that of Modern
or Civilized Society. — Uniformity of Human Experience. — Proposed
Ethnical Periods — I. Lower Status of Savagery ; II. Middle Status
of Savagery ; III. Upper Status of Savagery ; IV. Lower Status of
Barbarism ; V. Middle Status of Barbarism ; VI. Upper Status of
Barbarism ; VIL Status of Civilization 3

CHAPTER IL

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE.

Supremacy of Mankind over the Earth. — Control over Subsistence the
Condition. — Mankind alone gained that Control. — Successive Arts of
Subsistence — I. Natural Subsistence ; II, Fish Subsistence ; III.
Farinaceous Subsistence ; IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence ; V. Unlim-
ited Subsistence through Field Agriculture. — Long Intervals of Time
between them 19

X CONTENTS.

CHAPTER III.

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

Retrospect on the Lines of Human Progress. — Principal Contributions of
Modern Civilization. — Of Ancient Civilization. — Of Later Period of
Barbarism.— Of Middle Period.— Of Older Period.— Of Period of
Savagery. — Humble Condition of Primitive Man. — Human Progress
in a Geometrical Ratio. — Relative Length of Ethnical Periods. —
Appearance of Semitic and Aryan Families 29

PART II.

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT.

CHAPTER I.

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY UPON THE BASIS OF SEX.

Australian Classes. — Organized upon Sex. — Archaic Character of the Organ-
ization.— Australian Gentes. — The Eight Classes. — Rule of Marriage.
— Descent in the Female Line. — Stupendous Conjugal System. — Two
Male and Two Female Classes in each Gens. — Innovations upon the
Classes. — Gens still Rudimentary 49

CHAPTER IL

THE IROQUOIS GENS.

The Gentile Organization. — Its Wide Prevalence. — Definition of a Gens.
—Descent in the Female Line the Archaic Rule.— Rights, Privileges
and Obligations of Members of a Gens.— Right of Electing and De-
posing its Sachem and Chiefs.— Obligation not to marry in the Gens.
— Mutual Rights of Inheritance of the Property of deceased Members.
— Reciprocal Obligations of Help, Defense and Redress of Injuries.—
Right of Naming its Members.— Right of Adopting Strangers into the
Gens. — Common Religious Rites, Query.— A Common Burial Place. —
Council of the Gens.— Gentes named after Animals. — Number of Per-
sons in a Gens "-

CONTENTS. xi

CHAPTER III.

THE IROQUOIS PHRATRY.

Definition of a Phratry. — Kindred Gentes Reunited in a Higher Organiza-
tion.— Phratry of the Iroquois Tribes. — Its Composition. — Its Uses
and Functions. — Social and Religious. — Illustrations. — The Analogue
of the Grecian Phratry ; but in its Archaic Form. — Phratries of the
Choctas. — Of the Chickasas. — Of the Mohegans. — Of the Thlinkeets.
— Their Probable Universality in the Tribes of the American Abo-
rigines 88

CHAPTER IV.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

The Tribe as an Organization. — Composed of Gentes Speaking the same
Dialect. — Separation in Area led to Divergence of Speech, and Seg-
mentation.— The Tribe a Natural Growth. — Illustrations. — Attributes
of a Tribe. — A Territory and Name. — An Exclusive Dialect. — The
Right to Invest and Depose its Sachems and Chiefs. — A Religious
Faith and Worship. — A Council of Chiefs. — A Head-Chief of Tribe
in some Instances. — Three successive Forms of Gentile Government :
First, a Government of One Power ; Second, of Two Powers ; Third,
of Three Powers 102

CHAPTER V.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

Confederacies Natural Growths. — Founded upon Common Gentes, and a
Common Language. — The Iroquois Tribes. — Their Settlement in Ne\T
York. — Formation of the Confederacy. — Its Structure and Principles.
— Fifty Sachemships Created. — Made Hereditary in certain Gentes. —
Number assigned to each Tribe. — These Sachems formed the Council
of the Confederacy. — The Civil Council. — Its Mode of Transacting
Business. — Unanimity Necessary to its Action. — The Mourning Coun-
cil.— Mode of Raising up Sachems. — General Military Commanders.
— This Office the Germ of that of a Chief Executive Magistrate. —
Intellectual Capacity of the Iroquois 122

CHAPTER VI.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE GANOWANIAN FAMILY.

Divisions of American Aborigines. — Gentes in Indian Tribes ; with their
Rules of Descent and Inheritance. — I. Hodenosaunian Tribes. — II.
Dakotian. — III. Gulf.— IV. Pawnee. — V. Algonkin. — VI. Athapasco-

xii CONTENTS.

Apache. — VII. Tribes of North-west Coast. — Eskimos, a Distinct
Family. — VIII. Salish, Sahaptin, and Kootenay Tribes. — IX. Sho-
shonee. — X, Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico and Central
America. — XI. South American Indian Tribes. — Probable Univer-
sality of the Organization in Gentes in the Ganowanian Family 151

CHAPTER VII.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

Misconception of Aztec Society. — Condition of Advancement. — Nahuatlac
Tribes. — Their Settlement in Mexico. — Pueblo of Mexico founded,
A.D. 1325. — Aztec Confederacy established, A.D. 1426. — Extent of
Territorial Domination. — Probable Number of the People. — Whether
or not the Aztecs were organized in Gentes and Phratries. — The
Council of Chiefs. — Its probable Functions. — Office held by Monte-
zuma.— Elective in Tenure. — Deposition of Montezuma. — Probable
Functions of the Office. — Aztec Institutions essentially Democratical.
— The Government a Military Democracy 186

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GRECIAN GENS.

Early Condition of Grecian Tribes. — Organized into Gentes. — Changes in
the Character of *the Gens. — Necessity for a Political System. — Prob-
lem to be Solved. — The Formatioii of a State. — Grote's Description
of the Grecian Gentes. — Of their Phratries and Tribes. — Rights, Privi-
leges and Obligations of the Members of the Gens. — Similar to those
of the Iroquois Gens.— The Office of Chief of the Gens. — Whether
Elective or Hereditary. — The Gens the Basis of the Social System. —
Antiquity of the Gentile Lineage. — Inheritance of Property. — Archaic
and Final Rule. — Relationships between the Members of a Gens. —
The Gens the Center of Social and Religious Influence 215

CHAPTER IX.

THE GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION.

The Athenian Phratry. — How Formed, — Definition of Dikaearchus.— Ob-
jects chiefly Religious. — The Phratriarch. — The Tribe. — Composed
of Three Phratries. — The Phylo Basileus. — The Nation. — Composed
of Four Tribes. — Boule, or Council of Chiefs. — Agora, or Assembly of
the People. — The Basileus. — Tenure of the Office. — Military and
Priestly Functions. — Civil Functions not shown. — Governments of the
Heroic Age, Military Democracies. — Aristotle's Definition of a Basil-
eus.— Later Athenian Democracy. — Inherited from the Gentes. — Its
Powerful Influence upon Athenian Development 235

CONTENTS. xiii

CHAPTER X.

THE INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

Failure of the Gentes as a Basis of Government. — Legislation of Theseus.
— Attempted Substitution of Classes. — Its Failure. — Abolition of the
Office of Basileus. — The Archonship. — Naucraries and Trittyes. —
Legislation of Solon. — The Property Classes. — Partial Transfer of
Civil Power from the Gentes to the Classes. — Persons unattached to
any Gens. — Made Citizens. — The Senate. — The Ecclesia. — Political
Society partially attained. — Legislation of Cleisthenes. — Institution
of Political Society. — The Attic Deme or Township. — Its Organiza-
• tion and Powers. — Its Local Self-government. — The Local Tribe or
District. — The Attic Commonwealth. — Athenian Democracy 25G

CHAPTER XL

THE ROMAN GENS.

Italian Tribes Organized in Gentes. — Founding of Rome. — Tribes Organ-
ized into a Military Democracy. — The Roman Gens. — Definition of
a Gentilis by Cicero. — By Festus. — By Varro. — Descent in Male Line.
— Marrying out of the Gens. — Rights, Privileges and Obligations of
the Members of a Gens. — Democratic Constitution of Ancient Latin
Society. — Number of Persons in a Gens 277

CHAPTER XII.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS.

Roman Gentile Society. — Four Stages of Organization. — i. The Gens ;
2. The Curia, consisting of TenGentes ; 3. The Tribe, composed of
Ten Curiae ; 4. The Populus Romanus, composed of Three Tribes. —
Numerical Proportions. — How Produced. — Concentration of Gentes
at Rome. — The Roman Senate. — Its Functions. — The Assembly of
the People. — Its Powers. — The People Sovereign. — Office of Military
Commander (Rex). — Its Powers and Functions. — Roman Gentile In-
stitutions essentially Democratical 300

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

The Populus. — The Plebeians. — The Clients. — The Patricians.— Limits of
the Order. — Legislation of Servius Tullius. — Institution of Property
Classes. — Of the Centuries. — Unequal Suffrage. — Comitia Centuriata.

xiv CONTENTS.

— Supersedes Comitia Curiata. — Classes supersede the Gentes. — The
Census. — Plebeians made Citizens. — Institution of City Wards.
— Of Country Townships. — Tribes increased to Four. — Made Local
instead of Consanguine. — Character of New Political System. — De-
cline and Disappearance of Genlile Organization. — The Work it
Accomplished 323

CHAPTER XIV.

CHANGE OF DESCENT FROM THE FEMALE TO THE MALE LINE.

How the Change might have been made. — Inheritance of Property the
Motive. — Descent in the Female Line among the Lycians. — The Cre-
tans.— The Etruscans. — Probably among the Athenians in the time of
Cecrops. — The Plundred Families of the Locrians. — Evidence from
Marriages. — Turanian System of Consanguinity among Grecian
Tribes. — Legend of the Danaidae 343

CHAPTER XV.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.

The Scottish Clan. — The Irish Sept. — Germanic Tribes. — Traces of a prior
Gentile System. — Gentes in Southern Asiatic Tribes. — In Northern. —
In Uralian Tribes. — Hundred Families of Chinese.- — Hebrew Tribes.
— Composed of Gentes and Phratries Apparently. — Gentes in African
Tribes. — In Australian Tribes. — Subdivisions of Fejees and Rewas. —
Wide Distribution of Gentile Organization 357

PART III.

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF THE FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

THE ANCIENT FAMILY.

Five successive Forms of the Family. — First, tlie Consanguine Family. — It
created the Malayan System of Consanguinity and Affinity. — Second,
the Punaluan. — It created the Turanian and Ganowanian System. —
Third, the Monogamian. — It created the Aryan, .Semitic, and Uralian
System. — Tiie .Syndyasmian and Patriarchal Families Intermediate. —

CONTENTS. ■ XV

Both failed to create a System of Consanguinity. — These Systems
Natural Growths. — Two Ultimate Forms. — One Classificatory, the
other Descriptive. — General Principles of these Systems. — Their Per-
sistent Maintenance 383

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY.

Former Existence of this Family. — Proved by Malayan System of Con-
sanguinity.— Hawaiian System used as Typical. — Five Grades of
Relations. — Details of System. — Explained in its origin by the Inter-
marriage of Brothers and Sisters in a Group. — Early State of Society
in the Sandwich Islands. — Nine Grades of Relations of the Chinese.
— Identical in Principle with the Hawaiian. — Five Grades of Rela-
tions in Ideal Republic of Plato. — Table of Malayan System of Con-
sanguinity and Affinity 401

CHAPTER III.

THE PUNALUAN FAMILY.

The Punaluan Family supervened upon the Consanguine. — Transition,
how Produced. — Hawaiian Custom of Punalua. — Its probable ancient
Prevalence over wide Areas. — The Gentes originated probably in
I Punaluan Groups. — The Turanian System of Consanguinity. — Created
by the Punaluan Family. — It proves the Existence of this Family when
the System was formed. — Details of System. — Explanation of its
Relationships in their Origin. — Table of Turanian and Ganowanian
Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity 424

CHAPTER IV.

THE SYNDYASMIAN AND THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES.

The Syndyasmian Family. — How Constituted. — Its Characteristics. — Influ-
ence upon it of the Gentile Organization. — Propensity to Pair a late
Development. — Ancient Society should be Studied where the highest
Exemplifications are found. — The Patriarchal Family. — Paternal Power
its Essential Characteristic. — Polygamy subordinate. — The Roman
■ Family similar. — Paternal Power unknown in previous Families 453

CHAPTER V.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY.

This Family comparatively Modern. — The Term Familia. — Family of An-
cient Germans. — Of Homeric Greeks. — Of Civilized Greeks. — Seclu-
sion of Wives. — Obligations of Monogamy not respected by the Males.

Xvi CONTENTS.

— The Roman Family. — Wives under Tower. — Aryan System of Con-
sanguinity.— It came in under Monogamy. — Previous System probably
Turanian. — Transition from Turanian into Aryan. — Roman and Ara-
bic Systems of Consanguinity. — Details of the Former. — Present Mo-
nogamian Family. — Table of Roman and Arabic Systems 468

CHAPTER VI.

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FAMILY.

Sequence in part Hypothetical. — Relation of these Institutions in the Order
of their Origination. — Evidence of their Origination in the Order
named. — Hypothesis of Degradation Considered. — The Antiquity of
Mankind 408

PART IV.

GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF PROPERTY.

CHAPTER I.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE.

Property in the Status of Savagery. — Slow Rate of Progress. — First Rule
of Inheritance. — Property Distributed among the Gentiles. — Property
in the Lower Status of Barbarism. — Germ of Second Rule of Inherit-
ance.— Distributed among Agnatic Kindred. — Improved Character of
Man. — Property in Middle Status. — Rule of Inheritance imperfectly
Known. — Agnatic Inheritance Probable 523

CHAPTER II.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE — CONTINUED.

Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism.— Slavery. — Tenure of Lands
in Grecian Tribes. — Culture of the Period. — Its Brilliancy. — Third
Rule of Inheritance. — Exclusively in Children. — Hebrew Tribes. —
Rule of Inheritance. — Daughters of Zelophehad. — Property remained
in the Phratry, and probably in the Gens. — The Reversion. — Athenian
Inheritance. — Exclusively in Children. — The Reversion. — Inheritance
remained in the Gens. — Heiresses. — Wills. — Roman Inheritance. —
The Reversion. — Property remained in the Gens. — Appearance of Aris-
tocracy.— Property Career of the Human Race. — Unity of Origin of
Mankind 537

PART I.

GROWTH OF INTELLIGENCE THROUGH INVEN-
TIONS AND DISCOVERIES.

ANCIENT SOCIETY

CHAPTER I.

ETHNICAL PERIODS.

Progress of Mankind from the Bottom of the Scale. — Illustrated
BY Inventions Discoveries and Institutions. — Two Plans of Govern-
ment— ONE Gentile and Social, giving a Society, {Societal); the other
Political, giving a State, {Civitas). — The former founded upon Persons
AND Gentilism ; the latter upon Territory and Property. — The First,
the Plan of Government of Ancient Society. — The Second, that of
Modern or Civilized Society. — Uniformity of Human Experience. —
Proposed Ethnical Periods — I. Lower Status of Savagery ; II. Middle
Status of Savagery ; III. Upper Status of Savagery; IV. Lower Status
OF Barbarism; V. Middle Status of Barbarism; VI. Upper Status of
Barbarism; VIL Status of Civilization.

The latest investigations respecting the early condition of
the human race, are tending to the conclusion that mankind
commenced their career at the bottom of the scale and
worked their way up from savagery to civilization through
the slow accumulations of experimental knowledge.

Aq \\ k -uadeniahle that_ portions of the human farnily
have existed in a state of savagery, other portions in a state
oT"~Earbarisjii. and still other portions^in a stcite of ci\iliza-
\\onj^jXr'-^%%ii^^^^^^Q^^'^^^^^^r^2it these three distinct conditions
are connected wijh,,^each other in a natural as well as neces-
sary sequence— of -progress. Moreover, that this sequence
has been historically true of the entire human family, up to

4 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the status attained by each branch respectively, is rendered
probable by the conditions under which all progress occurs,
and by the known advancement of several branches of the
family through two or more of these conditions.

An attempt will be made in the following pages to bring
forward additional evidence of the rudeness of the early
condition of mankind, of the gradual evolution of their men-,
tal and moral powers through experience, and of their pro-
tracted struggle with opposing obstacles while winning their
way to civilization. It will be drawn, in part, from the
great sequence of inventions and discoveries which stretches
along the entire pathway of human progress; but chiefly
from domestic institutions, which express the growth of certain
ideas and passions.

As we re-ascend along the several lines of progress toward
the primitive ages of mankind, and eliminate one after the
other, in the order in which they appeared, inventions and
discoveries on the one hand, and institutions on the other,
we are enabled to perceive that the former stand to each
other in progressive, and the latter in unfolding relations.
While the former class have had a connection, more or less
direct, the latter have been developed from a few primary
germs of thought. Modern institutions plant__theko-oots in
the period of barbarism, into which their germs were trans-
mitted from the previous period of sayagery. They " Kave
had a lineal descent through the ages, with the streams of
the blood, as well as a logical development.

Two independent lines of investigation thus invite our
attention. Tlie^_ojie^eads through inventions and discov-
eries, and -the other through prlrriary' institutions. With the
knowledge gained therefrom, we may hope to indicate the
principal stages of human development.'^ The proofs to be
adduced will be drawn chiefly from domestic institutions;
the references to achievements more strictly intellectual being
general as well as subordinate.

The facts indicate the gradual formation and subsequent
development of certain ideas, passions, and aspirations. Those
which hold the most prominent positions may be generaUzdd

ETHNICAL PERIODS.

as growths of the particular ideas with which they severally
stand connected. Apart from inventions and discoveries they
are the following:

I. Subsistence, V. Religion,

II. Government, VI. House Life and ArcJii-

III. Language, teeture,

IV. The Family, VII. Property.

First. Subsistence has been Increased and perfected by
a series of successive arts, introduced at long intervals of
time, and connected more or less directly with inventions
and discoveries.

Second. The germ,.^ government must be sought in the
organization intq^^^ntes^n the Status of savagery; and fol-
lowed down, through the advancing forms of this institu-
tion, to the establishment of political society.

Third. Human speecli seems to have been developed
from the rudest and simplest forms of expression. Gesture
or sign language, as intimated by Lucretius,^ must have pre-
ceded articulate language, as thought preceded speech. The
monosyllabical preceded the syllabical, as the latter did
that of concrete words. Human intelligence, unconscious
of design, evolved articulate language by utilizing the vocal
sounds. This great subject, a department of knowledge by
itself, does not fall within the scope of the present investigation.
Fourth. With respect to the farnily, the stages of its growth
are embodied iri systems_oj^consang_uinity^nd affinityj^ and^in
usages relating to marriage, by means of which, collectively,
theTamily can be dehnitely traced thrb"ugli several successive
forms. '^"••^-'".«,

Fifth. The growth of religious ideas is environed with such
intrinsic difficulties that it may never receive a perfectly satis-
factory exposition. Religion deals so largely with the imagina-
tive and emotional nature, and consequently with such uncer-
tain elements of knowledge, that all primitive religions are

' Et pueros commendarunt mulierbreque saeclum
Vocibus, et gestu, cum balbe significarent,
Imbecillorum esse aequm miserier omnium.

— De Rertim N'attim, lib. v, 1020.

6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

grotesque and to some extent unintelligible. This subject also
falls without the plan of this work excepting as it may prompt
incidental suggestions.

Sixth. House architecture, which connects itself with the
form of the family and the plan of domestic life, affords a tol-
erably complete illustration of progress from savagery to civili-
zation. Its growth can be traced from the hut of the savage, '
through the communal houses of the barbarians, to the house
of the single family of civilized nations, with all the successive
links by which one extreme is connected with the other. This
subject will be noticed incidentally.

^- Lastly. The idea of property was slowly formed in the
human mind, remaining nascent and feeble through immense
periods of time. Springing into life in savagery, it required all
the experience of this period and of the subsequent period of
barbarism to develop the germ, and to prepare the human
brain for the acceptance of its controlling influence. Its domi-
nance as a passion over all other passions marks the commence-
ment of civilization. It not only led mankind to overcome the
obstacles which delayed civilization, but to establish political
society on the basis of territory and of property. A critical
knowledge of the evolution of the idea of property would em-
body, in some respects, the most remarkable portion of the
mental history of mankind.

It will be my object to present some evidence of human prog-
ress along these several lines, and through successive ethnical
periods, as it is revealed by inventions and discoveries, and by
the growth of the ideas of government, of the family, and of
property. \

j^— It may be here premised that all forms of government are
reducible to two general plans, using the word plan ''n its sci-
entific sense. In their bases the two are fundamentally distinct.
The first, in the order of time, is founded upon persons, and
upon relations purely personal, and may be distinguished as a
fSociet^ (societas). The gens is the unit of this organization;
givmg as the successive__£lages of integratioij, in the archaic
period, thergens]\the ^hratry)-t!ie"triS'fi, and tlie^onfederacy of .
tribes, which constitutecTa people "oi^ nation (popiiTiis). At a

ETHNICAL PERIODS.

later period a coalescence of tribes in the same area into a na-
tion took the place of a confederacy of tribes occupying inde-
pendent areas. Such, through prolonged ages, after the gens
appeared, was the substantially universal organization of an-
cient society; and it remained among the Greeks and Romans
after civilization supervened. The second is founded upon ter-
ritory and upon property, and may be distinguished as a state
(civitas). The township or ward, circumscribed by metes and
bounds, with the property it contains, is the basis or unit of the
latter, and political society is the result. Political society is
orsfanized upon territorial areas, and deals wllh property as

relations.

as^xnttt— persotts-^h ro u glt-territaFiarTelatio ns. The suc--
cessiv?^lrtagcs-T3f4nte^rati©H-^re'thenf6wnih'ip or ward, which
is the unit of organization; the county or province, which is an
aggregation of townships or wards ; and the national domain
or territory, which is an aggregation of counties or provinces ;
the people of each of which are organized into a body politic.
It taxed the Greeks and Romans to the extent of their capaci-
ties, after they had gained civilization, to invent the deme or
township and the city ward ; and thus inaugurate the second
great plan of government, which remains among civilized
nations to the present hour. In ancient society this territorial
plan was unknown. When it camenTir'filJCTi^he Boundary
line between ancTehl; and modern society, as the distinction will
be recognized in these pages.

It may be further observed that the domestic institutions of
the barbarous, and even of the savage ancestors of mankind,
are still exemplified in portions of the human family with such
completeness that, with the exception of the strictly primitive
period, the several stages of this progress are tolerably well
preserved. They are seen in the organization of society upon
the basis of sex, then upon the basis of kin, and finally upon
the basis of territory ; through the successive forms of mayria.o-e
and of the family, with the systems of consanguinity thereby
created ; th£Ough_houseJife_jnd arr.hTFecture : ' and tlirough
progress in usages with "respect to the ownership and inherit-
ance of property.

The theory of human degradation to explain the existence

8 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of savages and of barbarians is no longer tenable. It came
in as a corollary from the Mosaic cosmogony, and was acqui-
esced in from a supposed necessity which no longer exists. As
a theory, it is not only incapable of explaining the existence
of savages, but it is without support in the facts of human ex-
perience.

The remote ancestors of the Aryan nations presumptively
passed through an experience similar to that of existing bar-
barous and savage tribes. Though the experience of these
nations embodies all the information necessary to illustrate the
periods of civilization, both ancient and modern, together with
a part of that in the Later period of barbarism, their anterior
experience must be deduced, in the main, from the traceable
connection between the elements of their existing institutions
and inventions, and similar elements still preserved in those of
savage and barbarous tribes.

It may bej'emarked finally that the experience of niajikind
has run in nearly uniform channels; that human~Tiecessitie5^ in
similar_.conditions liave been Substantially the same; and that
ihe_Qperations of the mental principle have been uniform i.a_
virtue of the specific identity of the brain of all the races of
mankind. This, however, is but a part of the explanation of
uniformity in results. The germs of the principal institutions
and arts of life were developed while man was still a savage.
To a very great extent the experience of the subsequent
periods of barbarism and of civilization have been expended in
the further developmeni oTlhese original conceptions. Wher-
ever a connection can be traced on different continents between
a present institution and a common germ, the derivation of the
people themselves from a common original stock is implied.

The discussion oTTliese several classes of facts will be facili-
tated by the establishment of a certain number of Ethnical
Periods ; each representing a distinct condition of society, and
distinguishable by a mode of life peculiar to itself The terms
"Age of Stone,'' "of Bronze^' and "of Iron,'' introduced by
Danish archaeologists, have been extremely useful for certain
purposes, and will remain so for the classification of objects
of ancient art; but the progress of knowledge has rendered

' Ji^^~^*^^ ETHNICAL PERIODS. 9

Other and dififerent subdivisions necessary. Stone implements
were not entirely laid aside with the introduction of tools of
iron, nor of those of bronze. The invention of the process of
smelting iron ore created an ethnical epoch, yet we could
scarcely date another from the production of bronze. More-
over, since the period of stone implements overlaps those of
bronze and of iron, and since that of bronze also overlaps that
of iron, they are not capable of a circumscription that would
leave each independent and distinct.

It is probable that the successive arts of subsistence which
arose at long intervals will ultimately, from the great influence
they must have exercised upon the condition of mankind,
afford the most satisfactory bases for these divisions. But in-
vestigation has not been carried far enough in this direction to
yield the necessary information. With our present knowledge
the main result can be attained by selecting such other inven-
tions or discoveries as will afford sufficient tests of progress to
characterize the commencement of successive ethnical periods.
Even though accepted as provisional, these periods will be
found convenient and useful. Each of those about to be pro-
posed will be found to cover a distinct culture, and to represent
a particular mode of life.

The period of savagery, of the early part of which very
little is known, may be divided, provisionally, into three sub-
periods. These may be named respectively the Older, the
Middle, and the Later period of savagery ; and the condition
of society in each, respectively, may be distinguished as the
Lower, the Middle, and the Upper Status of savagery.

In like manner, the period of barbarism divides naturally into
three sub-periods, which will be called, respectively, the Older,
the Middle, and the Later period of barbarism; and the con-
dition of society in each, respectively, will be distinguished as
the Lower, the Middle, and the Upper Status of barbarism.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to find such tests of progress
to mark the commencement of these several periods as will be
found absolute in their application, and without exceptions
upon all the continents. Neither is it necessary, for the pur-
pose in hand, that exceptions should not exist. It will be

JO ANCIENT SOCIETY.

sufficient if the principal tribes of mankind can be classified,
according to the degree of their relative progress, into con-
ditions which can be recognized as distinct.

I. Loiver Status of Savagery,.

This period commenced with the infancy of the human race,
and may be said to have ended with the acquisition of a fish
subsistence and of a knowledge of the use of fire. Mankind
were then living in their original restricted habitat, and subsist-
ing upon fruits and nuts. The commencement of articulate
speech belongs to this period. No exemplification of tribes of
mankind in this condition remained to the historical period.

II. Middle Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the acquisition of a fish subsistence and a
knowledge of the use of fire, and ended with the invention of
the bow and arrow. Mankind, while in this condition, spread
from their original habitat over the greater portion of the earth's
surface. Among tribes still existing it will leave in the Middle
Status of savagery, for example, the Australians and the greater
part of the Polynesians when discovered. It will be sufficient
to give one or more exemplifications of each status.

III. Upper Status of Savagery.

It commenced with the invention of the bow and arrow, and
ended with the invention of the art of pottery. It leaves in the
Upper Status of Savagery the Athapascan tribes of the Hud-
son's Bay Territory, the tribes of the valley of the Columbia,
and certain coast tribes of North and South America; but
with relation to the time of their discovery. This closes the
period of Savagery.

IV. Lozuer Status of Barbarism.

The invention or practice of the art of pottery, all things
considered, is probably the most effective and conclusive test
that can be selected to fix a boundary line, necessarily arbi-
trary, between savagery and barbarism. The distinctness of
the two conditions has long been recognized, but no criterion of
progress out of the former into the latter has hitherto been
brought forward. All such tribes, then, as never attained to
the art of pottery will be classed as savages, and those possess-
ing this art but who never attained a phonetic alphabet and
the use of writing will be classed as barbarians.

ETHNICAL PERIODS. 1 1

The first sub-period of barbarism commenced with the man-
ufticture of pottery, whether by original invention or adoption.
In finding its termination, and the commencement of the
Middle Status, a difficulty is encountered in the unequal endow-
ments of the two hemispheres, which began to be influential
upon human afiairs after the period of savagery had passed.
It may be met, however, by the adoption of equivalents. In
the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of animals, and in
the Western, the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation,
together with the use of adobe-brick and stone in house build-
ing have been selected as sufficient evidence of progress to
work a transition out of the Lower and into the Middle Status
of barbarism. It leaves, for example, in the Lower Status, the
Indian tribes of the United States east of the Missouri River,
and such tribes of Europe and Asia as practiced the art of pot-
tery, but were without domestic animals.

V. Middle Status of Barbarism.

It commenced with the domestication of animals in the East-
ern hemisphere, and in the Western with cultivation by irriga-
tion and with the use of adobe-brick and stone in architecture,
as shown. Its termination may be fixed with the invention of
the process of smelting iron ore. This places in the Middle
Status, for example, the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico,
Central America and Peru, and such tribes in the Eastern
hemisphere as possessed domestic animals, but were without a
knowledge of iron. The ancient Britons, although familiar
with the use of iron, fairly belong in this connection. The
vicinity of more advanced continental tribes had advanced the
arts of life among them far beyond the state of development
of their domestic institutions.

VI. Upper Status of Barbarism.

It commenced with the manufacture of iron, and ended with
the invention of a phonetic alphabet, and the use of writing in
literary composition. Here civilization begins. This leaves
in the Upper Status, for example, the Grecian tribes of the
Homeric age, the Italian tribes shortly before the founding of
Rome, and the Germanic tribes of the time of Caesar.

12 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

VII. Status of CivilizatioJi.

It commenced, as stated, with the use of a phonetic alphabet
and the production of literary records, and divides into Ancieiit
and Modern. As an equivalent, hieroglyphical writing upon
stone may be admitted.

RECAPITULATION.

Periods. Conditions.

I.. Older Period of Savagery, I. Loivcr Status of Savagery,

II. Middle Period of Savagery, II. Middle Status of Savagery,

III. Later Period of Savage jy, III. Upper Status of Savagery,

IV. Older Period of Barbar- IV. Lozvcr Status of Barbar-

ism, ism,

V. Middle Period of Barbar- V. Middle Status of Barbar-

ism, ism,

VI. Later Period of Barbarism, VI. Upper Status of Barbarism^
VII. Status of Civilization.

I. Loiver Status of Savagery, From the Infancy of the Hu-
man Raee to the commence-
ment of the next Period.

II. Middle Status of Savagery, From the acquisition of a fish

subsistence and a knowledge
of the use of fire, to etc,

III. Upper Status of Savagery, From the Invention of the

Boiv and A rrotv, to etc.

IV. Lower Status of Barbarism, From the Invention of the

Art of Pottery, to etc.
V. Middle Status of Barbarism, From the Domestication of

animals on the Eastern hemi-
sphere, and in the Western
from the cultivation of maize
and p la Jits by Irrigation, with
the use of adobe -brick and
stone, to etc.

VI. Upper Status of Barbarism, From the Invention of the

process of Smelting Iron Ore,
with the use of iron tools, to
etc.

ETHNICAL PERIODS

VII. Status of Civili.zation, From the Invention of a Phonetic

Alphabet, with the use of
luriting, to the present time.

Each of these periods has a disthict culture and exhibits a
mode of life more or less special and peculiar to itself. This
specialization of ethnical periods renders it possible to treat a
particular society according to its condition of relative advance-
ment, and to make it a subject of independent study and dis-
cussion. It does not affect the main result that different tribes
and nations on the same continent, and even of the same
linguistic family, are in different conditions at the same time,
since for our purpose the condition of each is the material fact,
the time being immaterial.

Since the use of pottery is less significant, than that of do-
mestic animals, of iron, or of a phonetic alphabet, employed to
mark the commencement of subsequent ethnical periods, the
reasons for its adoption should be stated. The manufacture of,
pottery presupposes village life, and considerable progress in
the simple arts.^ Flint and stone implements are older than
pottery, remains of the former having been found in ancient
repositories in numerous instances unaccompanied by the latter.
A succession of inventions of greater need and adapted to a
lower condition must have occurred before the want of pottery
would be felt. The commencement of village life, with some
degree of control over subsistence, wooden vessels and uten-
sils, finger weaving with filaments of bark, basket making, and
the bow and arrow make their appearance before the art of
pottery. The Village Indians who v/ere in the Middle Status
of barbarism, such as the Zunians the Aztecs and the Cholu-
lans, manufactured pottery in large quantities and in many
forms of considerable excellence ; the partially Village Indians

' Ml-. Edwin B. Tylor observes that Goquet "first propounded, in the last cent-
ury, the notion that the way in which pottery came to be made, was that people
daubed such combustible vessels as these with clay to protect them from fire, till
they found that clay alone would answer the'purpose, and thus the art of pottery
came into the world." — Early History of Mankipd, p. 273. Goquet relates of
Capt. Gonneville who visited the southeast coast of South America in 1503, that
he found "their household utensils of wood, even their boiling pots, but plastered
with a kind of clay, a good finger thick, which prevented the fire from burning
them." — lb. 273.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of the United States, who were in the Lower Status of barbar-
ism, such as the Iroquois the Choctas and the Cherokees,
made it in smaller quantities and in a limited number of forms;
but the Non-horticultural Indians, who were in the Status of
savagery, such as the Athapascans the tribes of California and
of the valley of the Columbia, were ignorant of its use.^ In
Lubbock's Pre-Historic Times, in Tylor's Early History of
Mankind, and in Peschel's Races of Man, the particulars re-
specting this art, and the extent of its distribution, have
been collected with remarkable breadth of research. It was
unknown in Polynesia (with the exception of the Islands
of the Tongans and Fijians), in Australia, in California, and
in the Hudson's Bay Territory. Mr. Tylor remarks that
" the art of weaving was unknown in most of the Islands
away from Asia," and that "in most of the South Sea Islands
there was no knowledge of pottery."^ The Rev. Lorimer
Fison, an English missionary residing in Australia, informed
the author in answer to inquiries, that "the Australians had
no woven fabrics, no pottery, and were ignorant of the bow
and arrow." This last fact was also true in general of the
Polynesians. The introduction of the ceramic art produced a
new epoch in human progress in the direction of an improved
living and increased domestic conveniences. While flint and
stone implements — which came in earlier and required long
periods of time to develop all their uses — gave the canoe,
wooden vessels and utensils, and ultimately timber and plank
in house architecture,^ pottery gave a durable vessel for boiling
food, which before that had been rudely accomplished in

' Pottery has been found in aboriginal mounds in Oregon within a few years
past. — Foster's Pre-Historic Races of the United States, I, 152. The first vessels
of pottery among the Aborigines of the United States seem to have been made in
baskets of rushes or willows used as moulds which were burned off after the
vessel hardened. — Jones's Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 461. Prof.
Rau's article on Pottery. Smithsonian Report, 1866, p. 352.

2 Early History of Mankind, p. 181 ; Pre-Historic Times, pp. 437, 441, 462,
477. 533. 542.

3 Lewis and Clarke (1805) found plank in use in houses among the tribes of the
Columbia River. — Travels, Longman's Ed., 1814, p. 503. Mr. John Keast Lord
found "cedar plank chipped from the solid tree with chisels and hatchets made of
stone," in Indian houses on Vancouver's Island. — Naturalist in British Columbia,
I, 169.

ETHNICAL PERIODS. I 5

baskets coated with clay, and in ground cavities lined with
skin, the boiling being effected with heated stones.^

Whether the pottery of the aborigines was hardened by fire
or cured by the simple process of drying, has been made a
question. Prof. E. T. Cox, of Indianapolis, has shown by
comparing the analyses of ancient pottery and hydraulic
cements, " that so far as chemical constituents are concerned it
(the pottery) agrees very well with the composition of hy-
draulic stones." He remarks further, that "all the pottery be-
longing to the mound-builders' age, which I have seen, is com-
posed of alluvial clay and sand, or a mixture of the former
with pulverized fresh-water shells. A paste made of such a
mixture possesses in a high degree the properties of hydraulic
Puzzuolani and Portland cement, so that vessels formed of it
hardened without being burned, as is customary with modern
pottery. The fragments of shells served the purpose of gravel
or fragments of stone as at present used in connection with
hydraulic lime for the manufacture of artificial stone. "^ The
composition of Indian pottery in analogy with that of hydraulic
cement suggests the difficulties in the way of inventing the art,
and tends also to explain the lateness of its introduction in the
course of human experience. Notwithstanding the ingenious
suggestion of Prof Cox, it is probable that pottery was hard-
ened by artificial heat. In some cases the fact is directly at-
tested. Thus Adair, speaking of the Gulf Tribes, remarks
that " they make earthern pots of very different sizes, so as to
contain from two to ten gallons, large pitchers to carry water,
bowls, dishes, platters, basins, and a prodigious number of other
vessels of such antiquated forms as would be tedious to de-
scribe, and impossible to name. Their method of glazing

' Tylor's Early History of Mankind, p. 265, ct seq.

2 Geological Survey of Indiana, 1873, p. 1 19. He gives the following analysis :
Ancient Pottery, "Bone Bank," Posey Co., Indiana.

Moisture at 212° F., i.oo Peroxide of Iron, 5.50
Silica, 36.00 Sulphuric Acid, .20
Carbonate of Lime, 25.50 Organic Matter (alkalies
Carbonate of Magnesia, 3.02 and loss), 23.60
Alumina, 5.00

l6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

them is, they place them over a large fire of smoky pitch-pine,
which makes them smooth, black and firm."^

Another advantage of fixing definite ethnical periods is the
direction of special investigation to those tribes and nations
which afford the best exemplification of each status, with the
view of making each both standard and illustrative. Some
tribes and families have been left in geographical isolation to
work out the problems of progress by original mental effort ;
and have, consequently, retained their arts and institutions pure
and homogeneous ; while those of other tribes and nations
have been adulterated through external influence. Thus, while
Africa was and is an ethnical chaos of savagery and barbarism,
Australia and Polynesia were in savagery, pure and simple, with
the arts and institutions belonging to that condition. In like
manner, the Indian family of America, unlike any other exist-
ing family, exemplified the condition of mankind in three suc-
cessive ethnical periods. In the undisturbed possession of a
great continent, of common descent, and with homogeneous
institutions, they illustrated, when discovered, each of these con-
ditions, and especially those of the Lower and of the Middle
Status of barbarism, more elaborately and completely than any
other portion of mankind. The far northern Indians and some
of the coast tribes of North and South America were in the
Upper Status of savagery ; the partially Village Indians east of
the Mississippi were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the
Village Indians of North and South America were in the Mid-
dle Status. Such an opportunity to recover full and minute
information of the course of human experience and progress in
developing their arts and institutions through these successive
conditions has not been offered within the historical period. It
must be added that it has been indifferently improved. Our
greatest deficiencies relate to the last period named.

Differences in the culture of the same period in the Eastern
and Western hemispheres undoubtedly existed in consequence
of the unequal endowments of the continents; but the condi-

' History of the American India/is, Lond. ed., 1 775, p. 424. The Iroquois af-
firm that in ancient limes their forefathers cured their pottery before a fire.

ETHNICAL PERIODS.

tion of society in the corresponding status must have been, in
the main, substantially-srm-ilar. ,--^~~

The ancestors of the Grecian Roman and German tribes
passed through the stages we have indicated, in the midst of
the last of which the hght of history fell upon them. Their
differentiation from the undistinguishable mass of barbarians
did not occur, probably, earlier than the commencement of the
Middle Period of barbarism. The experience of these tribes
has been lost, with the exception of so much as is represented
by the institutions inventions and discoveries which they
brought with them, and possessed when they first came under
historical observation. The Grecian and Latin tribes of the
Homeric and Romiulian periods afford the highest exemplifica-
tion of the Upper Status of barbarism. Their institutions were
likewise pure and homogeneous, and their experience stands
directly connected with the final achievement of civilization.

Commencing, then, with the Australians and Polynesians,
following with the American Indian tribes, and concluding with
the Roman and Grecian, who aftbrd the highest exemplifica-
tions respectively of the six great stages of human progress,
the sum of their united experiences may be supposed fairly to
represent that of the human family from the Middle Status of
savagery to the end of ancient civilization. Consequently, the
Aryan nations will find the type of the condition of their re-
mote ancestors, when in savagery, in that of the Australians
and Polynesians; when in the Lower Status of barbarism in
that of the partially Village Indians of America; and when in
the Middle Status in that of the Village Indians, with which
their own experience in the Upper Status directly connects.
So essentially identical are the arts institutions and mode of
life in the_same status-upon all the continents, that the archaic
form of_the principal domestic institutions of the Greeks and
Romans must even now be sought in the corresponding institu-
tions of the American aborigines, as will be shown in the course
of this volume. This fact forms a part of the accumulating
evidence tending to show that the principal institutions of man-
kind have been developed from a few primary germs of
thought; and that the course and manner of their development
2

1 8 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

was predetermined, as well as restricted within narrow limits
of divergence, by the natural logic of the human mind and the
necessary limitations of its powers. Progress has been found
to be substantially the same in kind in tribes and nations inhab-
iting different and even disconnected continents, while in the
same status, with deviations from uniformity in particular in-
stances produced by special causes. The argument when
extended tends to establish the unity of origin of mankind.

In studying the condition of tribes and nations in these
several ethnical periods we are dealing, substantially, with the
ancient history and condition of our own remote ancestors.

CHAPTER 11.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE.

Supremacy ok Mankind over the Earth. — Control over Subsistence
THE Condition. — Mankind alone gained that Control. — Successive arts
OF Subsistence — I. Natural Subsistence; II. Fish Subsistence; III.
Farinaceous Subsistence; IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence; V. Unlim-
ited Subsistence through Field Agriculture. — Long Intervals of Time
between them.

The important fact that mankind commenced at the bottom
of the scale and worked up, is revealed in an expressive man-
ner by their successive arts of subsistence. Upon their skill in
this direction, the whole question of human supremacy on the
earth depended. Mankind are the only beings who may be
said to have gained an absolute control over the production of
food; which at the outset they did not possess above other an-
imals. Without enlarging the basis of subsistence, mankind
could not have propagated themselves into other areas not pos-
sessing the same kinds of food, and ultimately over the whole
surface of the earth ; and lastly, without obtaining an absolute
control over both its variety and amount, they could not have
multiplied into populous nations. It is accordingly probable
that the great epochs of human progress have been identified,
more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of
subsistence.

We are able to distinguish five of these sources of human
food, created by what may be called as many successive ^rts,
one superadded to the other, and brought out at long separated
intervals of time. The first two originated in the period of

20 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

savagery, and the last three, in the period of barbarism. They
are the following, stated in the order of their appearance:

I. Natural Subsistence upon Fruits and Roots on a Rcstrietcd
Hahital

^'his proposition carries us back to the strictly primitive
period of mankind, when few in numbers, simple in subsistence,
and occupying limited areas, they were just entering upon their
new career. There is neither an art, nor an institution, that
can be referred to this period; and but one invention, that of
language, which can be connected with an epoch so remote.
The kind of subsistence indicated assumes a tropical or sub-
tropical climate. In such a climate, by common consent, the
habitat of primitive man has been placed. In fruit and nut-
bearing forests under a tropical sun, we are accustomed, and
with reason, to regard our progenitors as having commenced
their existence.

The races of animals preceded the race of mankind, in the
order of time. We are warranted in supposing that they were
in the plenitude of their strength and numbers when the human
race first appeared. The classical poets pictured the tribes of
mankind dwelling in groves, in caves and in forests, for the pos-
session of which they disputed with wild beasts^ — while they
sustained themselves with the spontaneous fruits of the earth.
If mankind commenced their career without experience, with-
out weapons, and surrounded with ferocious animals, it is not
improbable that they were, at least partially, tree-livers, as a
means of protection and security.

The maintenance of life, through the constant acquisition of
food, is the great burden imposed upon existence in all species
of animals. As we descend in the scale of structural organiza-
tion, subsistence becomes more and more simple at each stage,
until the mystery finally vanishes. But, in the ascending scale,
it becomes increasingly difficult until the highest structural
form, that of man, is reached, when it attains the maximum.

' Necdum res igni scibant tractare, nee uti
• Pellibus, et spoliis corpus vestire ferarum :

Sed nemora, atque cavos montis, silvasque colebant,
Et frutices inter condebant squalida membra,
Verbera ventorum vitare imbrisque coacti.

— Lucr. De Re. Nai., lib. v, 951.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE. 21

Intelligence from henceforth becomes a more prominent factor.
Animal food, in all probability, entered from a very early
period into human consumption ; but whether it was actively
sought when mankind were essentially frugivorous in practice,
though omnivorous in structural organization, must remain a
matter of conjecture. This mode of sustenance belongs to the
strictly primitive period.

II. Fish Subsistence.

In fish must be recognized the first kind of artificial food,
because it was not fully available without cooking. Fire was
first utilized, not unlikely, for this purpose. Fish were univers-
al in distribution, unlimited in supply, and the only kind of food
at all times attainable. The cereals in the primitive period were
still unknown, if in fact they existed, and the hunt for game was
too precarious ever to have formed an exclusive means of human
support. Upon this species of food mankind became independ-
ent of climate and of locality ; and by following the shores of
the seas and lakes, and the courses of the rivers could, while in
the savage state, spread themselves over the greater portion of
the earth's surface. Of the fact of these migrations there is
abundant evidence in the remains of flint and stone implements
of the Status of Savagery found upon all the continents. In
reliance upon fruits and spontaneous subsistence a removal from
the original habitat would have been impossible.

Between the introduction of fish, followed by the wide mi- ">^
grations named, and the cultivation of farinaceous food, the in-
terval of time was immense. It covers a large part of the pe-
riod of savagery. But during this interval there was an impor-
tant increase in the variety and amount of food. Such, for ex-
ample, as the bread roots cooked in ground ovens, and in the
permanent addition of game through improved weapons, and
especially through the bow and arrow. This remarkable inven-
tion, which came in after the spear and war club, and gave the
first deadly weapon for the hunt, appeared late in savagery.'

1 As a combination of forces it is so abstruse that it not unlikely owed its origin
to accident. The elasticity and toughness of certain kinds of wood, the tension
of a cord of sinew or vegetable fibre by means of a bent bow, and finally their
combination to propel an arrow by human muscle, are not very obvious sugges- '

22 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

It has been used to mark the commencement of its Upper Sta-
tus. It must have given a powerful upward influence to ancient
society, standing in the same relation to the period of savagery,
as the iron sword to the period of barbarism, and fire-arms to
the period of civilization.

From the precarious nature of all these sources of food, out-
side of the great fish areas, cannibalism became the dire resort
of mankind. The ancient universality of this practice is being
gradually demonstrated.

III. Farinaceous Subsistence through Cultivation.

We now leave Savagery and enter the Lower Status of barbar-
ism. The cultivation of cereals and plants was unknown in the
Western hemisphere except among the tribes who had emerged
from savagery; and it seems to have been unknown in the
Eastern hemisphere until after the tribes of Asia and Europe
had passed through the Lower, and had drawn near to the
close of the Middle Status of barbarism. It gives us the sin-
gular fact that the American aborigines in the Lower Status
of barbarism were in possession of horticulture one entire eth-
nical period earlier than the inhabitants of the Eastern hemi-
sphere. It was a consequence of the unequal endowments of
the two hemispheres; the Eastern possessing all the animals
adapted to domestication, save one, and a majority of the
cereals ; while the Western had only one cereal fit for cultiva-
tion, but that the best. It tended to prolong the older period
of barbarism in the former, to shorten it in the latter; and
with the advantage of condition in this period in favor of the
American aborigines. But when the most advanced tribes in
the Eastern hemisphere, at the commencement of the Middle
Period of barbarism, had domesticated animals which gave
them meat and milk, their condition, without a knowledge of the
cereals, was much superior to that of the American aborigines
in the corresponding period, with maize and plants, but without
domestic animals. The differentiation of the Semitic and

tions to the mind of a savage. As elsewhere noticed, the bow and arrow are un-
known to the Polynesians in general, and to the Australians. From this fact
alone it is shown that mankind were well advanced in the savage state when the
bow and arrow made their first appearance.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE. 23

Aryan families from the mass of barbarians seems to have
commenced with the domestication of animals.

That the discovery and cultivation of the cereals by the \
Aryan family was subsequent to the domestication of animals
is shown by the fact, that there are common terms for these
animals in the several dialects of the Aryan language, and no
common terms for the cereals or cultivated plants. Mommsen,
after showing that the domestic animals have the same names in
the Sanskrit Greek and Latin (which Max Miiller afterwards ex-
tended to the remaining Aryan dialects^) thus proving that they
w^ere known and presumptively domesticated before the sepa-
ration of these nations from each other, proceeds as follows :
" On the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the
existence of agriculture at this period. Language rather favors
the negative view. Of the Latin- Greek names of grain none
occur in the Sanskrit with the single exception of <?ta', which
philologically represents the Sanskrit yavas, but denotes in
Indian, barley ; in Greek, spelt. It must indeed be granted
that this diversity in the names of cultivated plants, which so
strongly contrasts with the essential agreement in the appella-
tions of domestic animals, does not absolutely preclude the sup-
position of a common original agriculture. The cultivation of
rice among the Indians, that of wheat and spelt among the
Greeks, and that of rye and oats among the Germans and Celts,
may all be traceable to a common system of original tillaa-e."^
This last conclusion is forced. Horticulture preceded field cult- \
ure, as the garden (hortos) preceded the field (ager); and al-
though the latter impUes boundaries, the former signifies di-
rectly an "inclosed space." Tillage, however, must have been
older than the inclosed garden; the natural order being first,
tillage of patches of open alluvial land, second of inclosed
spaces or gardens, and third, of the field by means of the plow
drawn by animal power. Whether the cultivation of such
plants as the pea, bean, turnip, parsnip, beet, squash and melon,
one or more of them, preceded the cultivation of the cereals,
we have at present no means of knowing. Some of these have

' Chips from a Germa7t Workshop, Comp. Table, ii, p. 42.
* History of Rome, Scribner's ed., 1871, I, p. 38.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

common terms in Greek and Latin; but I am assured by our
eminent philologist, Prof. W. D. Whitney, that neither of them
has a common term in Greek or Latin and Sanskrit.

Horticulture seems to have originated more in the necessi-
ties of the domestic animals than in those of mankind. In the
Western hemisphere it commenced with maize. This new era,
although not synchronous in the two hemispheres, had immense
influence upon the destiny of mankind. Tiiere are reasons
for believing that it required ages to establish the art of culti-
vation, and render farinaceous food a principal reliance. Since
in America it led to localization and to village life, it tended,
especially among the Village Indians, to take the place of fish
and game. From the cereals and cultivated plants, moreover,
mankind obtained their first impression of the possibility of an
abundance of food.

The acquisition of farinaceous food in America and of domes-
tic animals in Asia and Europe, were the means of delivering
the advanced tribes, thus provided, from the scourge of canni-
balism, which as elsewhere stated, there are reasons for believ-
ing was practiced universally throughout the period of savagery
upon captured enemies, and, in time of famine, upon friends and
kindred. Cannibalism in war, practiced by war parties in the
field, survived among the American aborigines, not only in the
Lower, but also in the Middle Status of barbarism, as, for ex-
ample, among the Iroquois and the Aztecs ; but the general
practice had disappeared. This forcibly illustrates the great
importance which is exercised by a permanent increase of food
in ameliorating the condition of mankind.

IV. Meat and Milk Subsistence.
-"--The absence of animals adapted to domestication in the
Western hemisphere, excepting the llama,^ and the specific dif-
ferences in the cereals of the two hemispheres exercised an im-
portant influence upon the relative advancement of their inhab-

1 The early Spanish writers speak of a "dumb dog" found domesticated in the
West India Islands, and also in Mexico and Central America. (See figures of
the Aztec dog in pi. iii, vol. I, of Clavigero's History of Mexico). I have seen
no identification of the animal. They also speak of poultry as well as turkeys on
the continent. The aborigines had domesticated the turkey, and the Nahuatlac
tribes some species of wild fowl.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE. 25

itants. While this inequahty of endowments was immaterial
to mankind in the period of savagery, and not marked in its
effects in the Lower Status of barbarism, it made an essential
difference with that portion who had attained to the Middle
Status. The domestication of animals provided a permanent
meat and milk subsistence which tended to differentiate the
tribes which possessed them from the mass of other barbarians.
In the Western hemisphere, meat was restricted to the precari-
ous supplies of game. This limitation upon an essential species
of food was unfavorable to the Village Indians; and doubtless
sufficiently explains the inferior size of the brain among them
in comparison with that of Indians in the Lower Status of bar-
barism. In the Eastern hemisphere, the domestication of ani-
mals enabled the thrifty and industrious to secure for them-
selves a permanent supply of animal food, including milk ; the
healthful and invigorating influence of which upon the race,
and especially upon children, was undoubtedly remarkable. It
is at least supposable that the Aryan and Semitic families owe
their pre-eminent endowments to the great scale upon Avhich,
as far back as our knowledge extends, they have identified
themselves with the maintenance in numbers of the domestic
animals. In fact, they incorporated them, flesh, milk, and mus-
cle into their plan of life.^ No other family of mankind have
done this to an equal extent, and the Aryan have done it to a
greater extent than the Semitic.

The,,4gP^stication of am mals^jra^iiaUy^JBtxodu^ed^
mode of life, the pastoral, upon the_-plains of theTjinhrates
amTof tiidia, and upurrthe" steppes of Asia ; on the confines of
"onF'Or-ihe-other-of -whiet^-^he dumesticat of animals was
probably first accomplished. To these areas, their oldest tradi-
tions and their histories alike refer them. They were thus
drawn to regions which, so far from being the cradle lands of
the human race, were areas they would not have occupied as
savages, or as barbarians in the Lower Status of barbarism, to

1 We learn from the Iliad that the Greeks milked their sheep, as well as their
cows and goats :

oS'e'r' o'iEi TtoXvitdiiovoi dvdpoi kv avX-g
Hvpiai edrr/Hadiv djiiely6/.ievai ydXa Xevhov.— Iliad, iv, 433.

26 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

whom forest areas were natural homes. After becoming habit-
uated to pastoral life, it must have been impossible for either of
these families to re-enter the forest areas of Western Asia and
of Europe with their flocks and herds, without first learning to
cultivate some of the cereals with which to subsist the latter at
a distance from the grass plains. It seems extremely probable,
therefore, as before stated, that the cultivation of the cereals
originated in the necessities of the domestic animals, and in
connection with these western migrations; and that the use of
farinaceous food by these tribes was a consequence of the
knowledge thus acquired.

In the Western hemisphere, the aborigines were enabled to
advance generally into the Lower Status of barbarism, and a
portion of them into the Middle Status, without domestic ani-
mals, excepting the llama in Peru, and upon a single cereal,
maize, with the adjuncts of the bean, squash, and tobacco, and
in some areas, cacao, cotton and pepper. But maize, from its
growth in the hill — v/hich favored direct cultivation — from its
useableness both green and ripe, and from its abundant yield
and nutritive properties, was a richer endowment in aid of early
human progress than all other cereals put together. It serves
to explain the remarkable progress the American aborigines
had made without the domestic animals ; the Peruvians having
produced bronze, which stands next, and quite near, in the
order of time, to the process of smelting iron ore.

V. Unlimited Subsistence through Field Agriculture.

The domestic animals supplementing human muscle with
animal power, contributed a new factor of the highest value.
In course of time, the production of iron gave the plow with
an iron point, and a better spade and axe. Out of these, and
the previous horticulture, came field agriculture; and with it,
for the first time, unlimited subsistence. The plow drawn by
animal power may be regarded as inaugurating a new art.
, Now, for the first time, came the thought of reducing the for-
est, and bringing wide fields under cultivation.^ Moreover,

' Inque dies magis in montem succedere silvas
Cogebant, infraque locum concedere cultis ;
Prata, lacus, rivas, segetes, vinetaque laeta
Collibus et campis ut habcrent. — Lticr. De Re. Nat., v, 1369.

ARTS OF SUBSISTENCE.

dense populations in limited areas now became possible.
Prior to field agriculture it is not probable that half a million
people were developed and held together under one govern-
ment in any part of the earth. If exceptions occurred, they
must have resulted from pastoral life on the plains, or from
horticulture improved by irrigation, under peculiar and excep-
tional conditions.

In the course of these pages it will become necessary to
speak of the family as it existed in different ethnical periods;
its form in one period being sometimes entirely different from
its form in another. In Part III these several forms of the
family will be treated specially. But as they will be frequently
mentioned in the next ensuing Part, they should at least be de-
fined in advance for the information of the reader. They are
the following:

I. The Consanguine Family.

It was founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sisters
in a group. Evidence still remains in the oldest of existing
systems of Consanguinity, the Malayan, tending to show that
this, the first form of the family, was anciently as universal as
this system of consanguinity which it created.

II. The Pnnaluan Family.

Its name is derived from the Hawaiian relationship of Pu-
naliia. It was founded upon the intermarriage of several
brothers to each other's wives in a group; and of several sis-
ters to each other's husbands in a group. But the term
brother, as here used, included the first, second, third, and even
more remote male cousins, all of whom were considered
brothers to each other, as we consider own brothers ; and the
term sister included the first, second, third, and even more
remote female cousins, all of whom were sisters to each other,
the same as own sisters. This form of the family supervened
upon the consanguine. It created the Turanian and Gano-
wanian systems of consanguinity. Both this and the previous
form belong to the period of savagery,'

III. The Syndyasmian Family.

The term is from avvdva8,Qo, to pair, ffvvdvaffjxrU, a join-

28 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ing two together. It was founded upon the pairing of a male
with a female under the form of marriage, but without an ex-
clusive cohabitation. It was the germ of the Monogamian
Family. Divorce or separation was at the option of both
husband and wife. This form of the family failed to create a
system of consanguinity.

IV. TJie Patriarchal Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man to several
wives. The term is here used in a restricted sense to define
the special family of the Hebrew pastoral tribes, the chiefs and
principal men of which practiced polygamy. It exercised but
little influence upon human affairs for want of universality.

V. The Monogamian Family.

It was founded upon the marriage of one man with one
woman, with an exclusive cohabitation ; the latter constituting
the essential element of the institution. It is pre-eminently the
family of civilized society, and was therefore essentially modern,
'This formof the family also created an independent system of
^^consanguinity.

Evidence will elsewhere be produced tending to show both
the existence and the general prevalence of these several forms
of the family at different stages of human progress.

CHAPTER III.

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

Retrospect on the Lines of Human Progress. — Principal Contribu-
tions OF Modern Civilization. — Of Ancient Civilization. — Of Later
Period of Barbarism. — Of Middle Period. — Of Older Period. — Of Pe-
riod of Savagery. — Humble Condition of Primitive Man. — Human Prog-
ress IN a Geometrical R.\tio. — Relative Length of Ethnical Periods. —
Appearance of Semitic and Aryan Families.

It is well to obtain an impression of the relative amount and
of the ratio of human progress in the several ethnical periods
named, by grouping together the achievements of each, and
comparing them with each other as distinct classes of facts.
This will also enable us to form some conception of the relative
duration of these periods. To render it forcible, such a survey
must be general, and in the nature of a recapitulation. It
should, likewise, be limited to the principal works of each
period.

Before man could have attained to the civilized state it
was necessary that he should gain all the elements of civihza-
tion. This implies an amazing change of condition, first from
a primitive savage to a barbarian of the lowest type, and then
from the latter to a Greek of the Homeric period, or to a
Hebrew of the time of Abraham. The progressive develop-
ment which history records in the period of civilization was not
less true of man in each of the previous periods. ,

By re-ascending along the several lines of human progress r"
toward the primitive ages of man's existence, and removing
one by one his principal institutions inventions and discoveries,

30 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

in the order in which they have appeared, the advance made
in each period will be realized.

The principal contributions of modern civilization are the
electric telegraph ; coal gas; the spinning-jenny; and the power
loom ; the steam-engine with its numerous dependent machines,
including the locomotive, the railway, and the steam-ship ; the
telescope; the discovery of the ponderability of the atmos-
phere and of the solar system; the art of printing; the canal
lock; the mariner's compass; and gunpowder. The mass of
other inventions, such, for example, as the Ericsson propeller,
will be found to hinge upon one or another of those named as
antecedents: but there are exceptions, as photography, and
numerous machines not necessary to be noticed. With these
also should be removed the modern sciences; religious free-
dom and the common schools; representative democracy;
constitutional monarchy with parliaments; the feudal kingdom;
modern privileged classes; international, statute and common
law.

\/ Modern civilization recovered and absorbed whatever was
valuable in the ancient civilizations; and although its contribu-
tions to the sum of human knowledge have been vast, brilliant
and rapid, they are far from being so disproportionately large as
to overshadow the ancient civilizations and sink them into com-
parative insignificance.

-i Passing over the mediaeval period, which gave Gothic archi-
tecture, feudal aristocracy with hereditary titles of rank, and
a hierarchy under the headship of a pope, we enter the Roman
and Grecian civilizations. They will be found deficient in
great inventions and discoveries, but distinguished in art, in
philosophy, and in organic institutions. ^VT'he principal contri-
butions of these civilizations were imperial and kingly govern-
-ment; the civil law; Christianity; mixed aristocratical and
democratical government, with a senate and consuls; demo-
cratical government with a council and popular assembly ; the
organization of armies into cavalry and infantry, with military
discipline; the establishment of navies, with the practice of
naval warfare; the formation of great cities, with municipal
law; commerce on the seas; the coinage of money; and the

RA TIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 3 i

state, founded upon territory and upon property; and among
inventions, fire-baked brick, the crane,^ the water-wheel for
driving mills, the bridge, acqueduct and sewer; lead pipe used
as a conduit with the faucet; the arch, the balance scale; the
arts and sciences of the classical period, with their results, in-
cluding the orders of architecture; the Arabic numerals, and
alphabetic writing.

These civilizations drew largely from, as well as rested upon,
the inventions and discoveries and the institutions of the previ-
ous period of barbarism. The achievements of civilized man,
although very great and remarkable, are nevertheless very far
from sufficient to eclipse the works of man as a barbarian. As
such he had wrought out and possessed all the elements of
civilization, excepting alphabetic writing. His achievements
as a barbarian should be considered in their relation to the sum
of human progress; and we may be forced to admit that they
transcend, in relative importance, all his subsequent works.

The use of writing, or its equivalent in hieroglyphics upon
stone, affords a fair test of the commencement of civilization.^
Without literary records neither history nor civilization can
properly be. said to exist. The production of the Homeric
poems, whether transmitted orally or committed to writing at
the time, fixes with sufficient nearness the introduction of civili-
zation among the Greeks. These poems, ever fresh and ever
marv^elous, possess an ethnological value which enhances im-
mensely their other excellences. This is especially true of the
Iliad, which contains the oldest as well as the most circum-
stantial account now existing of the progress of mankind up to
the time of its composition. Strabo compliments Homer as

* The Egyptians may have invented the crane (See Herodotus, ii, 125). They
also had the balance scale.

* The phonetic alphabet came, like other great inventions, at the end of succes-
sive efforts. The slovir Egyptian, advancing the hieroglyph through its several
forms, had reached a syllabus composed of phonetic characters, and at this stage
was resting upon his labors. He could write in permanent characters upon stone.
Then came in the inquisitive Phoenician, the first navigator and trader on the sea,
who, whether previously versed in hieroglyphs or otherwise, seems to have entered
at a bound upon the labors of the Egyptian, and by an inspiration of genius to
have mastered the problem over which the latter was dreaming. He produced
that wondrous alphabet of sixteen letters which in time gave to mankind a written
language and the means for hterary and historical records.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the father of geographical science; ^ but the great poet has given,
perhaps without design, what was infinitely more important to
succeeding generations: namely, a remarkably full exposition
of the arts, usages, inventions and discoveries, and mode of life
of the ancient Greeks. It presents our first comprehensive
picture of Aryan society while still in barbarism, showing the
progress then made, and of what particulars it consisted.
Through these poems we are enabled confidently to state that
certain things were known among the Greeks before they en-
tered upon civilization. They also cast an illuminating light
far backward into the period of barbarism.

Using the Homeric poems as a guide and continuing the
retrospect into the Later Period of barbarism, let us strike off
from the knowledge and experience of mankind the invention
of poetry; the ancient mythology in its elaborate form, with
the Olympian divinities; temple architecture; the knowledge
of the cereals, excepting maize and cultivated plants, with field
agriculture;^ cities encompassed with walls of stone, with bat-
tlements, towers and gates; the use of marble in architecture;^
ship-building with plank and probably with the use of nails ;^
the wagon and the chariot;^ metallic plate armor;® the copper-

1 (i^XVy^''^V'^ ^'i^ocT- ^'/S y EQoy pacpiKvi £/.i7tsipiai"Olurfpov. — St7-abo, I, 2.

2 Barley xpTBi^, white barley Hpi Xevkov. — Iliad, v, 196; viii, 564: barley
flour aXq>iTov. — //., xi, 631 : barley meal, made of barley and salt, and used as
an oblation ovXoxvrai. — //., i, 449: wheat Ttvpoi. — //., xi, 756: rye oXvpoc.
— //., V, 196, viii, 564: bread dltoi. — //., xxiv, 625: an inclosed 50 acres oC
land TtEvrrpiovoyvoi. — //., ix, 579: a fence apxoi. — //., v, 90: a field dXaoa.
— //., V, 90: stones set for a field boundary. — //., xxi, 405 : plow aporpov. — //.,
X, 353 ; xiii, 703.

3 The house or mansion S6jiio'>. — //., vi, 390: odoriferous chambers of cedar,
lofty roofed. — //., vi, 390: house of Priam, in which were fifty chambers of pol-
ished stones avrdp iv avTc2 TtEVTi'/MorT^ £VE6av ^dXa,uoi ^Edroio XiOoid.
— //., vi, 243.

■* Ship yrfvi. — //., i, 4S5J white sail Xevkov idriov. — //., i, 480: cable or
hawser TtpvjLivr/dto?. — //., i, 476: oar ipETjiio?. — Odysse}', iv, 782: mastz'cjro'?.
— Od., iv, 781 : keel drsipr/. — //., i, 482: ship plank dovpoi. — //., iii, 61 : long
plank f-iaupd dovpara. — Od., v, 162: nail rfXoi. — //., xi, 633: golden nail
Xpsdvioi J/Xo?. — //., xi, 633.

6 Chariot or vehicle oXO'S. — //., viii, 3S9, 565 : four-wheeled wagon TETpd-
HVuXri dni]vi]. — //., xxiv, 324: chariot dicppo?. — //., v, 727, 837; viii, 403:
the same d'pjiia. — //., ii, 775 ; vii, 426.

8 Helmet Kopv?. — //., xviii, 6ll; xx, 398: cuirass or corselet $Gjpa^. — //., xvi,
133; xviii, 610: greaves HVTfjuii. — //., xvi, 131.

RA TIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

pointed spear and embossed shield;^ the iron sword;- the
manufacture of wine, probably;^ the mechanical powers ex-
cepting the screw; the potter's wheel and the hand-mill for
grinding grain;* woven fabrics of linen and woolen from the
loom;^ the iron axe and spade; ** the iron hatchet and adz;"
the hammer and the anvil ;^ the bellows and the forge ;^ and
the side-hill furnace for smelting iron ore, together with a knowl-
edge of iron. Along with the above-named acquisitions must
be removed the N^offogafmam-^mily; military democracies of
the heroic age; thebH^r pha^ of the organization into gentes
phratries and tribes; the agora or popular assembly, probably;
a knowledge of individual property in houses and lands; and
the advanced form of municipal life in fortified cities. When
this has been done, the highest class of barbarians will have
surrendered the principal portion of their marvelous works,
together with the mental and moral growth thereby acquired.
From this point backward through the Middle Period of bar-
barism the indications become less distinct, and the relative
order in which institutions, inventions and discoveries appeared
is less clear; but we are not without some knowledge to guide
our steps even in these distant ages of the Aryan family. For
reasons previously stated, other families, besides the Aryan,
may now be resorted to for the desired information.

* Spear iyxoi. — //., xv, 712; xvi, 140: shield of Achilles 6dK0'3. — //., xviii,
478, 609: round shield ci6itii. — //., xiii, 611.

* Sword ^i(po<. — //., vii, 303 ; xi, 29 : silver-studded sword ^icpoi dpyvpoi]-
Xov. — //., vii, 303: the sword q)d6yavov. — //., xxiii, 807; xv, 713: a double-
edged sword aiJ.q)7]>c£i q)d6yavov. — //., x, 256.

3 Wine oivoi. — //., viii, 506: sweet wine ju£Xi7/8ea oivov. — //., x, 579.
■* Potter's wheel rpoxo?. — //., xviii, 600: hand-mill for grinding grain jicvXo?.
— Od., vii, 104; XX, 106.

5 Linen Xi?. — //., xviii, 352 ; xxiii, 254: linen corselet XivoQoSpr]c,- — -^^m ii> 529 :
robe of Minerva TtEitXoi. — //., v, 734: tunic ;(;zr(ij>'. — //., x, 131 : woolen cloak
XXaXva. — //., x, 133; xxiv, 280: rug or coverlet rditTji. — //., xxiv, 280, 645:
mat pfjyo<>. — //., xxiv, 644: veil xpTJdejuvov. — //., xxii, 470.

6 Axe TteXXexvi. — //., iii, 60; xxiii, 114, 875: spade or mattock judHeXXov
— //., xxi, 259.

^ Hatchet or battle-axe d^ivrj. — //., xiii, 612; xv, 711: knife /<aja?pa. — //.,
xi, 844; xix, 252: chip-axe or adz dxsTtapvov. — Od., v, 273.

'Hammer paidrrfp. — //., xviii, 477: anvil aHjuoov. — //., xviii, 476: tongs
Ttvpdypa. — //., xviii, 477.

3 Bellows <pv6a. — //., xviii, 372, 468: furnace, the boshes xoocvo<^. — //., xviii,
470.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Entering next the Middle Period, let us, in like manner,
strike out of human experience the process of making bronze;
flocks and herds of domestic animals;^ communal houses with
walls of adobe, and of dressed stone laid in courses with mortar
of lime and sand; cyclopean walls; lake dwellings constructed on
piles; the knowledge of native metals,^ with the use of charcoal
and the crucible for melting them; the copper axe and chisel; the
shuttle and embryo loom; cultivation by irrigation, causeways,
reservoirs and irrigating canals; paved roads; osier suspension
bridges; personal gods, with a priesthood distinguished by a
costume, and organized in a hierarchy; human sacrifices; mili-
tary democracies of the Aztec type; woven fabrics of cotton
and other vegetable fibre in the Western hemisphere, and of
wool and flax in the Eastern; ornamental pottery; the sword
of wood, with the edges pointed with flints; polished flint and
stone implements; a knowledge of cotton and flax; and the
domestic animals.
\- -The aggregate of achievements in this period was less than
in that which followed; but in its relations to the sum of hu-
man progress it was very great. It includes the domestication
of animals in the Eastern hemisphere, which introduced in time
a permanent meat and milk subsistence, and ultimately field
agriculture; and also inaugurated those experiments with the
native metals which resulted in producing bronze,^ as well

' Horse 'iitito'i. — //., xi, 6So : distinguished into breeds : Thracian. — //., x, 588 ;
Trojan, v, 265 : Erechthomus owned three thousand mares rpidxi^ioci iitTtoi. —
//., XX, 221 : collars, bridles and reins. — //., xix, 339: ass ovoi. — //., xi, 558:
mule r/fitovoZ. — //., x, 352; vii, 333: ox fiovi. — //., xi, 678; viii, 333: bull
Tavpo<i\ cow ftovi. — Od., xx, 251 : goat ai%. — //., xi, 679: dog hvoov. — v,
476 ; viii, 338 ; xxii, 509 : sheep oH. — //., xi, 678 : boar or sow 6vi. — //., xi, 679 ;
viii, 338 : milk yXdyvi. — //., xvi, 643 : pails full of milk itEpiyXayiaZ TtiXXai.
— //., xvi, 642.

^ Homer mentions the native metals ; but they were known long before his time,
: and before iron. The use of charcoal and the crucible in melting them prepared
the way for smelting iron ore. Gold xP^do?. — Iliad, ii, 229: silver apyvpol.
— //., xviii, 475 : copper, called brass ;<;aA?<o'S. — //.,iii, 229; xviii, 460: tin, possi-
bly pewter, KaddevipoZ. — //., xi, 25; xx, 271 ; xxi, 292: lead juoXi^oi. — //., ii,
, 237 : iron di8r]poi. — //., vii, 473 : iron axle-tree. — //., v, 723 : iron club. — //., vii,
.141 : iron wagon-tire. — //., xxiii, 505.

3 The researches of Beckmann have left a doubt upon the existence of a true
bronze earlier than a knowledge of iron among the Greeks and Latins. He thinks
. electrtun, mentioned in the Iliad, was a mixture of gold and silver {^History of In-

RA TIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 3 5

as prepared the way for the higher process of smelting iron
ore. In the Western hemisphere it was signahzed by the dis-
covery and treatment of the native metals, which resulted in
the production independently of bronze; by the introduction
of irrigation in the cultivation of maize and plants, and by the
use of adobe-brick and stone in the construction of great joint
tenement houses in the nature of fortresses.

Resuming the retrospect and entering the Older Period of
barbarism, let us next remove from human acquisitions the con-
federacy, based upon gentes, phratries and tribes under the
government of a council of chiefs which gave a more highly
organized state of society than before that had been known.
Also the discovery and cultivation of maize and the bean,
squash and tobacco, in the Western hemisphere, together with
a knowledge of farinaceous food; finger weaving with warp
and woof; the kilt, moccasin and leggin of tanned deer-skin;
the blow-gun for bird shooting; the village stockade for de-
fense; tribal games; element worship, with a vague recognition
of the Great Spirit; cannibalism in time of war; and lastly,
the art of pottery.

As we ascend in the order of time and of development, but
descend in the scale of human advancement, inventions become
more simple, and more direct in their relations to primary
wants; and institutions approach nearer and nearer to the ele-
mentary form of a gens composed of consanguine!, under a
chief of their own election, and to the tribe composed of kindred
gentes, under the government of a council of chiefs. The
condition of Asiatic and European tribes in this period, (for the

ventions, Bohn's ed., ii, 212); and that the stanniim of the Romans, which con-
sisted of silver and lead, was the same as the kassiteron of Homer (7(5., ii, 217).
This word has usually been interpreted as tin. In commenting upon the compo-
sition called bronze, he remarks : "In my opinion the greater part of these things
were made of staimitm, properly so called, which by the admixture of the noble
metals, and some difficulty of fusion, was rendered fitter for use than pure copper."
{lb., ii, 213). These observations were hmited to the nations of the Mediterra-
nean, within whose areas tin was not produced. Axes, knives, razors, swords,
daggers, and personal ornaments discovered in Switzerland, Austria, Denmark,
and other parts of Northern Europe, have been found, on analysis, composed of
copper and tin, and therefore fall under the strict definition of bronze. They were
also found in relations indicating priority to iron.

36 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Aryan and Semitic families did not probably then exist), is
substantially lost. It is represented by the remains of ancient
art between the invention of pottery and the domestication of
animals; and includes the people who formed the shell-heaps
on the coast of the Baltic, who seem to have domesticated the
dog, but no other animals.

In any just estimate of the magnitude of the achievements
of mankind in the three sub-periods of barbarism, they must
be regarded as immense, not only in number and in intrinsic
value, but also in the mental and moral development by which
they were necessarily accompanied.

Ascending next through the prolonged period of savagery,
let us strike out of human knowledge th^_organization into
gentes^ phratries and tribes; th« jyriHyasmian family; the wor-
ship of the elements in its lowest form; syllabical language;
the bow and arrow; stone and bone implements; cane and
splint baskets; skin garments; the punaluan family; the or-
ganization upon the basis of sex; the village, consisting of
clustered houses; boat craft, including the bark and dug-out
canoe; the spear pointed with flint, and the war club; flint im-
plements of the ruder kinds; the consanguine family; mono-
syllabical language; fetishism; cannibalism; a knowledge of
the use of fire; and lastly, gesture language.^ When this work

1 The origin of language has been investigated far enough to find the grave diffi-
culties in the way of any solution of the problem. It seems to have been abandoned,
by common consent, as an unprofitable subject. It is more a question of the laws of
human development and of the necessary operations of the mental principle, than
of the materials of language. Lucretius remarks that with sounds and with gest-
ure, mankind in the primitive period intimated their thoughts stammeringly to
each other (Vocibus, et gestu, cum balbe significarent. — v, 1021). He assumes
that thought preceded speech, and that gesture language preceded articulate lan-
guage. Gesture or sign language seems to have been primitive, the elder sister
of articulate speech. It is still the universal language of barbarians, if not of sav-
ages, in their mutual intercourse when their dialects are not the same. The Amer-
ican aborigines have developed such a language, thus showing that one may be
formed adequate for general intercourse. As used by them it is both graceful and
expressive, and affords pleasure in its use. It is a language of natural symbols,
and therefore possesses the elements of a universal language. A sign language is
easier to invent than one of sounds ; and, since it is mastered with greater facility,
a presumption arises that it preceded articulate speech. The sounds of the voice
would first come in, on this hypothesis, in aid of gesture ; and as they gradually
assumed a conventional signification, they would supersede, to that extent, the Ian-

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 37

of elimination has been done in the order in which these sev-
eral acquisitions were made, w'e shall have approached quite
near the infantile period of man's existence, when mankind
were learning the use of fire, which rendered possible a fish
subsistence and a change of habitat, and when they were at-
tempting the formation of articulate language. In a condition
so absolutely primitive, man is seen to be not only a child in
the scale of humanity, but possessed of a brain into which not
a thought or conception expressed by these institutions inven-
tions and discoveries had penetrated; — in a word, he stands at
the bottom of the scale, but potentially all he has since be-
come.

With the production of inventions and discoveries, and with
the grd\\i:h of institutions, the human mind necessarily grew
and expanded ; and we are led to recognize a gradual enlarge^
ment of the brain itself, particularly of the cerebral portion.
The slowness of this mental growth was inevitable, in the
period of savagery, from the extreme difficulty of compassing
the simplest invention out of nothing, or with next to nothing
to assist mental effort; and of discovering any substance or
force in nature available in such a rude condition of life. It
was not less difficult to organize the simplest form of society
out of such savage and intractable materials. The first inven-
tions and the first social organizations were doubtless the
hardest to achieve, and were consequently separated from each
other by the longest intervals of time. A striking illustration
is found in the successive forms of the family. In this law ofi
progress, which works in a geometrical ratio, a sufficient ex-

guage of signs, or become incorporated in it. It would also tend to develop the
capacity of the vocal organs. No proposition can be plainer than that gesture has
attended articulate language from its birth. It is still inseparable from it; and
may embody the remains, by survival, of an ancient mental habit. If language
were perfect, a gesture to lengthen out or emphasize its meaning would be a fault.
As we descend through the gradations of language into its ruder forms, the gest-
ure element increases in the quantity and variety of its forms until we find lan-
guage so dependent upon gestures that without them they would be substantially
unintelligible. Growing up and flourishing side by side through savagery, and far
into the period of barbarism, they remain, in modified forms, indissolubly united.
Those who are curious to solve the problem of the origin of language would do
well to look to the possible suggestions from gesture language.

91U22

38 . ANCIENT SOCIETY.

planation is found of the prolonged duration of the period of
savagery. •

That the early condition of mankind was substantially as
above indicated is not exclusively a recent, nor even a modern
opinion. Some of the ancient poets and philosophers recog-
nized the fact, that mankind commenced in a state of extreme
rudeness from which they had risen by slow and successive
steps. They also perceived that the course of their develop-
ment was registered by a progressive series of inventions and
discoveries, but without noticing as fully the more conclusive
argument from social institutions.

The important question of the ratio of this progress, which
has a direct bearing upon the relative length of the several
ethnical periods, now presents itself. Human progress, from
first to last, has been in a ratio not rigorously but essentially
geometrical. This is plain on the face of the facts; and it
could not, theoretically, have occurred in any other way.
Every item of absolute knowledge gained became a factor in
further acquisitions, until the present complexity of knowledge
was attained. Consequently, while progress was slowest in
time in the first period, and most rapid in the last, the relative
amount may have been greatest in the first, when the achieve-
ments of either period are considered in their relations to the
sum. It may be suggested, as not improbable of ultimate
recognition, that the progress of mankind in the period of
savagery, in its relations to the sum of human progress, was
greater in degree than it was afterwards in the three sub-periods
of barbarism; and that the progress made in the whole period
of barbarism was, in like manner, greater in degree than it has •
been since in the entire period of civilization.

What may have been the relative length of these ethnical
periods is also a fail- subject of speculation. An exact measure
is not attainable, but an approximation may be attempted.
On the theory of geometrical progression, the period of savage-
ry was necessarily longer in duration than the period of barbar-
ism, as the latter was longer than the period of civilization. If
we assume a hundred thousand years as the measure of man's
existence upon the earth in order to find the relative length of

RATIO OF HUxMAN PROGRESS. 39

each period, — and for this purpose, it may have been longer or
shorter, — it will be seen at once that at least sixty thousand
years must be assigned to the period of savagery. Three-fifths
of the life of the most advanced portion of the human race, on
this apportionment, were spent in savagery. Of the remaining
years, twenty thousand, or one-fifth, should be assigned to the
Older Period of barbarism. For the Middle and Later Periods
there remain fifteen thousand years, leaving five thousand,
more or less, for the period of civilization.

The relative length of the period of savagery is more likely
under than over stated. Without discussing the principles on
which this apportionment is made, it may be remarked that in
addition to the argument from the geometrical progression
under which human development of necessity has occurred, a
graduated scale of progress has been universally observed in
remains of ancient art, and this will be found equally true of
institutions. It is a conclusion of deep importance in ethnology
that the experience of mankind in savagery was longer in dura-
tion than all their subsequent experience, and that the period
of civilization covers but a fragment of the life of the race.

Two families of mankind, the Aryan and Semitic, by thel;
commingling of diverse stocks, superiority- of subsistence orU
advantage of position, and possibly from all together, were the'
first to emerge from barbarism. They were substantially the
founders of civilization.^ But their existence as distinct fami-
lies was undoubtedly, in a comparative sense, a late event.
Their progenitors are lost in the undistinguishable mass of
earlier barbarians. The first ascertained appearance of the
Aryan family was in connection with the domestic animals, at
which time they were one people in language and nationality.
It is not probable that the Aryan or Semitic families were
developed into individuality earlier than the commencement
of the Middle Period of barbarism, and. that their differentiation -"''
from the mass of barbarians occurred through their acquisition
of the domestic animals.

The most advanced portion of the human race were halted, \1
so to express it, at certain stages of progress, until some great <>
1 The Egyptians are supposed to affiliate remotely with the Semitic family.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

f invention or discovery, such as the domestication of animals
\ or the smehing of iron ore, gave a new and powerful impulse
\ forward. While thus restrained, the ruder tribes, continually-
advancing, approached in different degrees of nearness to the
same status; for wherever a continental connection existed, all
i '^the tribes must have shared in some measure in each other's
progress. All great inventions and discoveries propagate them-
selves; but the inferior tribes must have appreciated their value
before they could appropriate them. In the continental areas
certain tribes would lead; but the leadership would be apt tq
shift a number of times in the course of an ethnical period.
The destruction of the ethnic bond and life of particular tribes,
followed by their decadence, must have arrested for a time, in
many instances and in all periods, the upward flow of human
progress. From the Middle Period of barbarism, however, the
Aryan and Semitic families seem fairly to represent the central
" threads of this progress, which in the period of civilization has
been gradually assumed by the Aryan family alone.

The truth of this general position may be illustrated by the
condition of the American aborigines at the epoch of their
discovery. They commenced their career on the American
continent in savagery; and, although possessed of inferior
' mental endo^ymeftts, the body of thenTTiad emerged from
savagery and attained to the Lower Status of barbarism;
whilst a portion of them, the Village Indians of North and South
America, had risen to the Middle Status. They had domesti-
cated the llama, the only quadruped native to the continent
which promised usefulness in the domesticated state, and had
produced bronze by alloying copper with tin. They needed
but one invention, and that the greatest, the art of smelting
iron ore, to advance themselves into the Upper Status. Con-
sidering the absence of all connection with the most advanced
portion of the human family in the Eastern hemisphere, their
progress in unaided self- development from the savage state
must be accounted remarkable. While the Asiatic and Eu-
ropean were waiting patiently for the boon of iron tools, the
American Indian was drawing near to the possession of bronze,
which stands next to iron in the order of time. During this

RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 4 1

period of arrested progress in the Eastern hemisphere, the
American aborigines advanced themselves, not to the status in
which they were found, but sufficiently near to reach it while
the former were passing through the last period of barbarism,
and the first four thousand years of civilization. It gives us a
measure of the length of time they had fallen behind the Aryan
family in the race of progress: namely the duration of the
Later Period of barbarism, to which the years of civilization
must be added. The Aryan and Ganowanian families to-
gether exemplify the entire experience of man in five ethnical
periods, with the exception of the first portion of the Later
Period of savagery.

Savagery was the formative period of the human race. ^^
Commencing at zero in knowledge and experience, without
fire, without articulate speech and without arts, our savage
progenitors fought the great battle, first for existence, and then
for progress, until they secured safety from ferocious animals,
and permanent subsistence! Out of these efforts there came
gradually a developed speech, and the occupation of the entire
surface of the earth. But society from its rudeness was still
incapable of organization in numbers. When the most ad-
vanced portion of mankind had emerged from savagery, and
entered the Lower Status of barbarism, the entire population
of the earth must have been small in numbers. The earliest
inventions were the most difficult to accomplish because of the
feebleness of the power'of abstract reasoning. Each substan-
tial item of knowledge gained would form a basis for further
advancement; but this must have been nearly imperceptible
for ages upon ages, the obstacles to progress nearly balancing
the energies arrayed against them. The achievements of
savagery are not particularly remarkable in character, but
they represent an amazing amount of persistent labor with
feeble means continued through long periods of time before
reaching a fair degree of completeness. The bow and arrow-
afford an illustration.

The inferiority of savage man in the mental and moral
scale, undeveloped, inexperienced, and held down by his low
animal appetites and passions, though reluctantly recognized.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

is, nevertheless, substantially demonstrated by the remains of
ancient art in flint stone and bone implements, by his cave life
in certain areas, and by his osteological remains. It is still fur-
ther illustrated by the present condition of tribes of savages in
a low state of development, left in isolated sections of the
earth as monuments of the past. And yet to this great period
of savagery belongs the formation of articulate language and
its advancement to the syllabical stage, the establishment of
two forms of the family, and possibly a third, and the organi-
zation into gentes which gave the first form of society worthy
of the name. All these conclusions are involved in the propo-
sition, stated at the outset, that mankind commenced their
career at the bottom of the scale; which "modern science claims
to be proving by the most careful and exhaustive study of man
^ and his works." ^
\^ In like manner, the great period of barbarism was signaHzed
by four events of pre-eminent importance: namely, the do-
mestication of animals.'^ie discovery of the cereals, 4he use of
stone in architecture, ^nd the invention of the process of smelt-
ing iron ore. Commencing probably with the dog as a com-
panion in the hunt, followed at a later period by the capture of
the young of other animals and rearing them, not unlikely,
from the merest freak of fancy, it required time and experience
to discover the utility of each, to find means of raising them in
numbers and to learn the forbearance necessary to spare them
in the face of hunger. Could the special history of the domes-
tication of each animal be known, it would exhibit a series of
marvelous facts. The experiment carried, locked up in its
doubtful chances, much of the subsequent destiny of mankind.
Secondly, the acquisition of farinaceous food by cultivation
must be regarded as one of the greatest events in human expe-
rience. It was less essential in the Eastern hemisphere, after the
domestication of animals, than in the Western, where it became
the instrument of advancing a large portion of the American
aborigines into the Lower, and another portion into the Mid-
dle Status of barbarism. If mankind had never advanced be-
yond this last condition, they had the means of a comparatively

'Whitney's Oriental and Linguistic Studies, p. 341.

RA TIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 43

easy and enjoyable life. Thirdly, with the use of adobe-brick
and of stone in house building, an improved mode of life was in-
troduced, eminently calculated to stimulate the mental capaci-
ties, and to create the habit of industry, — the fertile source of im-
provements. (But, in its relations to the high career of mankind,
the fourth invention must be held the greatest event in human
experience, preparatory to civilization. ^ When the barbarian,
advancing step by step, had discovered the native metals, and
learned to melt them in the crucible and to cast them in
moulds; when he had alloyed native copper with tin and pro-
duced bronze; and, finally, when by a still greater effort of
thought he had invented the furnace, and produced iron from
the ore, nine-tenths of the battle for civilization was gained.^
Furnished with iron tools, capable of holding both an edge and
a point, mankind were certain of attaining to civilization. The
production of iron was the event of events in human experi-
ence, without a parallel, and without an equal, beside which
all other inventions and discoveries were inconsiderable, or at
least subordinate. Out of it came the metallic hammer and
anvil, the axe and the chisel, the plow with an iron point, the
iron sword; in fine, the basis of civilization, which may be said
to rest upon this metal. The want of iron tools arrested the
progress of mankind in barbarism. There they would have
remained to the present hour, had they failed to bridge the
chasm. It seems probable that the conception and the process
of smelting iron ore came but once to man. It would be a
singular satisfaction could it be known to what tribe and family
we are indebted for this knowledge, and with it for civilization.

* M. Quiquerez, a Swiss engineer, discovered in the canton of Berne the re-
mains of a number of side-hill furnaces for smelting iron ore ; together with tools,
fragments of iron and charcoal. To construct one, an excavation was made in
the side of a hill in which a bosh was formed of clay, with a chimney in the form
of a dome above it to create a draft. No evidence was found of the use of the
bellows. The boshes seem to have been charged with alternate layers of pulverized
ore and charcoal, combustion being sustained by fanning the flames. The result
was a spongy mass of partly fused ore which was afterwards welded into a com-
pact mass by hammering. A deposit of charcoal was found beneath a bed of peat
twenty feet in thickness. It is not probable that these furnaces were coeval with
the knowledge of smelting iron ore; but they were, not unhkely, close copies
of the original furnace. — Vide Figuier's Primitive Man, Putnam's ed., p. 301.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The Semitic family were then in advance of the Aryan, and in
the lead of the human race. They gave the phonetic alphabet
to mankind and it seems not unlikely the knowledge of iron as
well.

At the epoch of the Homeric poems, the Grecian tribes had
made immense material progress. All the common metals
were known, including the process of smelting ores, and possi-
bly of changing iron into steel; the principal cereals had been
discovered, together with the art of cultivation, and the use of
the plow in field agriculture; the dog, the horse, the ass, the
cow, the sow, the sheep and the goat had been domesticated
and reared in flocks and herds, as has been shown. Architect-
ure had produced a house constructed of durable materials,
containing separate apartments,^ and consisting of more than a
single story ;^ ship building, weapons, textile fabrics, the man-
ufacture of wine from the grape, the cultivation of the apple,
the pear, the olive and the fig,^ together with comfortable ap-
parel, and useful implements and utensils, had been produced
and brought into human use.* But the early history of man-

' Palace of Priam. — //., vi, 242.

* House of Ulysses. — Od., xvi, 448. * Od., vii, 115.

* In addition to the articles enumerated in the previous notes the following may
be added from the Iliad as further illustrations of the progress then made : The
shuttle mpuiZ. — xxii, 448 : the loom idro?. — xxii, 44D : a woven fillet TtXEHVi)
(X vaSe6i.n]. — xxii, 469 : silver basin apyvpsa Tiptjrijp. — xxiii, 741 : goblet, or
drinking cup dsTta's. — xxiv, 285: golden goblet XP^<^£ov dertai. — xxiv, 285:
basket, made of reeds, Hctveov. — xxiv, 626: ten talents in gold xpovdov Sexa
Ttdvra. rdXavra. — xix, 247: a harp (p6pi.ny^. — ix, 1S6, and xiOapa. — xiii,
731 : a shepherd's pipe 6vpiyc,. — xviii, 526: sickle, or pruning knife, dpsTtavrj.
— xviii, 551 : fowler's net Ttccvaypoi-i. — v, 487: mesh of a net dipi?. — v, 487:
a bridge yecpvpa. — v, 89: also a dike. — xxi, 245: rivets Se'djiiot. — xviii, 379:
the bean xva/iioi. — xiii, 589 : the pea kpefiivOoi. — xiii, 5S9 : the onion npojuvov.
— xi, 630: the grape dracpvXTJ. — xviii, 561: a vineyard dXooij. — xviii, 561:
wine oivo?. — viii, 506; x, 579: the tripod rpiTCovi. — ix, 122: a copper boiler
or caldron Ae'/J^?. — ix, 123: a.hY00c\i everi]. — xiv, 180 : ezx -ring r pi yXTjyoi. —
xiv, 183: a sandal or buskin TtediXov. — xiv, 186: leather pivoi. — xvi, 636: a
gate TtvXrj. — xxi, 537: bolt for fastening gate oj£i;'?. — xxi, 537. And in the Odys-
sey : a silver basin dpyvpsiov Xefjij'i. — i, 137: a table rpaTte^a. — i, 138:
golden cups xpvdeia xvTCeXXa. — Od., i, 142 : rye or spelt ^£Z«'. — iv, 41 : a bath-
ing tub dddjiiivOo's. — iv, 48: cheese Tvpo?: milk ydXa. — iv, 88: distaff or
spindle T/AaHofr?;. — iv, 131; vii, 105; xvii, 97: silver basket dpyvpsoi rdXa-
po's. — iv, 125 : bread dito?. — iv, 623 ; xiv, 456: tables loaded with bread, meat and
wine Ivisdroi de rpditEZ,ai dirov xai Mpszcsv ijS^ oivov fisfipiOadiv. — xv.

RA TIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS. 45

kind was lost in the oblivion of the ages that had passed away.
Tradition ascended to an anterior barbarism through which it
was unable to penetrate. Language had attained such devel-
opment that poetry of the highest structural form was about to
embody the inspirations of genius. (The closing period of bar-
barism brought this portion of the human family to the thresh-
old of civilization, animated by the great attainments of the
past, grown hardy and intelligent in the school of experience,
and with the undisciplined imagination in the full splendor of
its creative powers. Barbarism ends with the production of
grand barbarians. yWhilst the condition of society in this
period was understood by the later Greek and Roman writers,
the anterior state, with its distinctive culture and experience,
was as deeply concealed from their apprehension as from our
own; except as occupying a nearer stand-point in time, they
saw more distinctly the relations of the present with the past.
It was evident to them that a certain sequence existed in the
series of inventions and discoveries, as well as a certain order
of development of institutions, through which mankind had
advanced themselves from the status of savagery to that of the
Homeric age; but the immense interval of time between the
two conditions does not appear to have been made a subject
even of speculative consideration.

333: shuttle KipKi%. — V, 62: bed XsKTpov. — viii, 337: brazier pmnging an axe
or adz in cold water for the purpose of tempering it

a?? 3' or' dvr)p ;i;a/lK£u? TtsXEKw /.liyav t/s duETtapvov

Eiv vSccTi ipvxp^ liccTtrx} HEydXa idxovra

(pap/udddooy to yap avTE diS?jpov ye xparoi kdriv. — ix, 391 :
salt «!?. — xi, 123; xxiii, 270 : bow TOqov. — xxi, 31, 53: quiver yoopvvoi. —
xxi, 54: sickle dpencivrj. — xviii, 368.

PART II.
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF GOVERNMENT.

CHAPTER I.

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY UPON THE BASIS OF SEX.

Australian Classes. — Organized upon Sex. — Archaic Character of
THE Organization. — Australian Gentes. — The Eight Classes. — Rule of
Marriage. — Descent in the Female Line. — Stupendous Conjugal System.
— Two Male and Two Female Classes in each Gens. — Innovations upon
THE Classes. — Gens still Rudimentary.

In treating the subject of the growth of the idea of govern-
ment, the organization into gentes on the basis of kin natu-
rally suggests itself as the archaic frame- work of ancient so-
ciety; but there is a still older and more arthaic organization,
that into classes on the basis of sex, which first demands atten-
tion. It will not be taken up because of its novelty in human
experience, but for the higher reason that it seem.s to contain '
the germinal principle of the gens. If this inference is war-
ranted by the facts it will give to this organization into male
and female classes, now found in full vitality among the Aus-
tralian aborigines, an ancient prevalence as wide spread, in the
tribes of mankind, as the original organization into gentes.

It will soon be perceived that low down in savagery com-
munity of husbands and wives, within prescribed limits, was
the central principle of the social system. The marital rights V
and privileges, (jura conjiigialia}) established in the group,
grew into a stupendous scheme, which became the organic
principle on which society was constituted. From the nature
of the case these rights and privileges rooted themselves so

' The Romans made a distinction between connubium, which related to marriage
considered as a civil institution, and conjugium, which was a mere physical union.

^O ANCIENT SOCIETY.

firmly that emancipation from them was slowly accomplished
through movements which resulted in unconscious reformations.
Accordingly it will be found that the family has advanced from
a lower to a higher form as the range of this conjugal system
was gradually reduced. The family, commencing in the con-
sanguine, founded upon the intermarriage of brothers and sis-
ters in a group, passed into the second form, the punaluan, un-
der a social system akin to the Australian classes, which'broke
up the first species of marriage by substituting groups of
brothers who shared their wives in common, and groups of sis-
ters who shared their husbands in common, — marriage in both
cases being in the group. The organization into classes upon
sex, and the subsequent higher organisation into gentes upon
kin, must be regarded as the results of great social movements
worked out unconsciously through natural selection. For
these reasons the Australian system, about to be presented, de-
serves attentive consideration, although it carries us into a low
grade of human life. It represents a striking phase of the an-
cient social history of our race.

The organization into classes on the basis of sex, and the
inchoate organization into gentes on the basis of kin, now pre-
vail among that portion of the Australian aborigines who
speak the Kamilaroi language. They inhabit the Darling
River district nortli of Sydney. Both organizations are also
found in other Australian tribes, and so wide spread as to ren-
der probable their ancient universal prevalence among them.
It is evident from internal considerations that the male and
female classes are older than the gentes: firstly, because the
gentile organization is higher than that into classes; and sec-
ondly, because the former, among the Kamilaroi, are in process
of overthrowing the latter. The class in its male and female
branches is the unit of their social system, which place right-
fully belongs to the gens when in full development. A re-
markable combination of facts is thus presented; namely, a
sexual and a gentile organization, both in existence at the
same time, the former holding the central position, and the
latter inchoate but advancing to completeness through en-
croachments upon the former.

ORGANIZA TION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 5 i

This organization upon sex has not been found, as yet, in
any tribes of savages out of Australia, but the slow develop-
ment of these islanders in their secluded habitat, and the more
archaic character of the organization upon sex than that into
gentes, suggests the conjecture, that the former may have been
universal in such branches of the human family as afterwards
possessed the gentile organization. Although the class system,
when traced out fully, involves some bewildering complica-
tions, it will reward the attention necessary for its mastery.
As a curious social organization among savages it possesses
but little interest; but as the most primitive form of society
hitherto discovered, and more especially with the contingent
probability that the remote progenitors of our own Aryan
family were once similarly organized, it becomes important,
and may prove instructive.

The Australians rank below the Polynesians, and far below
the American aborigines. They stand below the African
negro and near the bottom of the scale. Their social institu-
tions, therefore, must approach the primitive type as nearly as
those of any existing people.^

Inasmuch as the gens is made the subject of the next suc-
ceeding chapter, it will be introduced in this without discus-
sion, and only for the necessary explanation of the classes.

The Kamilaroi are divided into six gentes, standing Avith
reference to the right of marriage, iojiwo divisions, as follows:

I. I. Iguana, (Duli). 2. Kangaroo, (Murriira).^ 3. Opos-
sum, (Mute).

II. 4. Emu, (Dinoun). 5. Bandicoot, (Bilba). 6. Black-
snake, (Nurai).

1 For the detailed facts of the Austrahan system I am indebted to the Rev.
Lorimer Fison, an Enghsh missionary in AustraHa, who received a portion of
them from the Rev. W. Ridley, and another portion from T. E. Lance, Esq., both
of whom had spent many years among the Australian aborigines, and enjoyed
excellent opportunities for observation. The facts were sent by Mr. Fison with a
^critical analysis and discussion of the system, which, with observations of the
writer, were published in the Proceedings of the Am. Acad, of Arts and Sciences
for 1872. See vol. viii, p. 412. A brief notice of the Kamilaroi classes is given
in McLennan's Primitive Marriage, p. 118; and in Tylor's Early History of
Mankind, p. 288.
' Padymelon : a species of kangaroo.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Originally the first three gentes were not allowed to inter-
marry with each other, because they were subdivisions of an
original gens; but they were permitted to marry into either of
the other gentes, and vice versa. This ancient rule is now
modified, among the Kamilaroi, in certain definite particulars,
but not carried to the full extent of permitting marriage into
any gens but that of the individual. Neither males nor fe-
males can marry into their own gens, the prohibition being
absolute. Descent is in the female line, which assigns the
children to the gens of their mother. These are among the
essential characteristics of the gens, wherever this institution is
found in its archaic form. In its external features, therefore, it
is perfect and complete among the Kamilaroi.

But there is a further and older division of the people into
eight classes, four of which are composed exclusively of males,
and four exclusively of females. It is accompanied with a
regulation in respect to marriage and descent which obstructs
the gens, and demonstrates that the latter organization is in
process of development into its true logical form. One only
of the four classes of males can marry into one only of
the four classes of females. In the sequel it will be found
that all the males of one class are, theoretically, the husbands
of all the females of the class into which they are allowed to
marry. Moreover, if the male belongs to one of the first three
gentes the female must belong to one of the opposite three.
Marriage is thus restricted to a portion of the males of one
gens, with a portion of the females of another gens, which is
opposed to the true theory of the gentile institution, for all the
members of each gens should be allowed to marry persons of
the opposite sex in all the gentes except their own.

The classes are the following:

Male. Female.

1. Ippai. I. Ippata.

2. Kumbo. 2. Buta.

3. Murri. 3. Mata.

4. Kubbi. 4. Kapota.

All the Ippais, of whatever gens, are brothers to each other.
Theoretically, they are descended from a supposed common

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 53

female ancestor. All the Kumbos are the same; and so are
all the Murris and Kubbis, respectively, and for the same rea-
son. In like manner, all the Ippatas, of whatever gens, are
sisters to each other, and for the same reason; all the Butas are
the same, and so are all the Matas and Kapotas, respectively.
In the next place, all the Ippais and Ippatas are brothers and
sisters to each other, whether children of the same mother or
collateral consanguine!, and in whatever gens they are found.
The Kumbos and Butas are brothers and sisters; and so are
the Murris and Matas, and the Kubbis and Kapotas respect-
ively. If an Ippai and Ippata meet, who have never seen each
other before, they address each other as brother and sister.
The Kamilaroi, therefore, are organized into four great primary
groups of brothers and sisters, each group being composed of
a male and a female branch; but intermingled over the areas of
their occupation. Founded upon sex, instead of kin, it is older
than the gentes, and more archaic, it may be repeated, than
any form of society hitherto known.

The classes embody the germ of the gens, but fall short of
its realization. In reality the Ippais and Ippatas form a single
class in two branches, and since they cannot intermarry they
would form the basis of a gens but for the reason that they fall
under two names, each of which is integral for certain pur-
poses, and for the further reason that their children take dif-
ferent names from their own. The division into classes is
upon sex instead of kin, and has its primary relation to a rule
of marriage as remarkable as it is original.

Since brothers and sisters are not allowed to intermarry, the
classes stand to each other in a different order with respect to
the right of .marriage, or rather, of cohabitation, which better
expresses the relation. Such was the original law, thus:
Ippai can marry Kapota, and no other.
Kumbo " " Mata, " " "
Murri " " Buta, " " "
Kubbi " " Ippata, " " "
This exclusive scheme has been modified in one particular,
as will hereafter be shown : namely, in giving to each class of
males the right of intermarriage with one additional class of

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

females. In this fact, evidence of the encroachment of the
gens upon the class is furnished, tending to the overthrow of
the latter.

It is thus seen that each male in the selection of a wife, is
Hmited to one-fourth part of all the Kamilaroi females. This,
however, is not the remarkable part of the system. Theoretic-
ally every Kapota is the wife of every Ippai; every Mata is
the wife of every Kumbo; every Buta is the wife of every
Murri; and every Ippata of every Kubbi. Upon this material
point the information is specific. Mr. Fison, before mentioned,
after observing that Mr. Lance had "had much intercourse
with the natives, having lived among them many years on
frontier cattle-stations on the Darling River, and in the trans-
Darling country," quotes from his letter as follows: "If a
Kubbi meets a stranger Ippata, they address each other as
Golccr = Spouse. ... A Kubbi thus meeting an Ippata, even
though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife,
and his right to do so would be recognized by her tribe."
Every Ippata within the immediate circle of his acquaintance
would consequently be his wife as well.

Here we find, in a direct and definite form, punaluan mar-
riage in a group of unusual extent; but broken up into lesser
groups, each a miniature representation of the whole, united
for habitation and subsistence. Under the conjugal system
thus brought to light, one-quarter of all the males are united in
marriage with one-quarter of all the females of the Kamilaroi
tribes. This picture of savage life need not revolt the mind,
(because to them it was a form of the marriage relation, and
/therefore devoid of impropriety. It is but an extended form
\)f polygyny and polyandry, which, within nariKDwer limits,
have prevailed universally among savage tribes. The evidence
of the fact still exists, in unmistakable form, in their systems
of consanguinity and affinity, which have outlived the customs
and usages in which they originated. It will be noticed that
this scheme of intermarriage is but a step from promiscuity,
because it is tantamount to that with the addition of a method.
Still, as it is made a subject of organic regulation, it is far re-
moved from general promiscuity. Moreover, it reveals an ex-

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 55

isting state of marriage and of the family of which no adequate
conception could have been formed apart from the facts. It
affords the first direct evidence of a state of society which had
previously been deduced, as extremely probable, from systems
of consanguinity and affinity.^

Whilst the children remained in the gens of their mother,
they passed into another class, in the same gens, different from
that of either parent. This will be made apparent by the fol-
lowing table:

Male. Female. Male. FetJiale.

Ippai marries Kapota. Their children are Murri and Mata.
Kumbo " Mata. " " " Kubbi " Kapota.

Murri " Buta. " " " Ippai " Ippata.

Kubbi " Ippata. " " " Kumbo" Buta.

If these descents are followed out it will be found that, in
the female line, Kapota is the mother of Mata, and Mata in
turn is the mother of Kapota; so Ippata is the mother of Buta,
and the latter in turn is the mother of Ippata. It is the same
with the male classes; but since descent is in the female line,
the Kamilaroi tribes derive themselves from two supposed
female ancestors, which laid the foundation for two original
gentes. By tracing these descents still further it will be found
that the blood of each class passes through all the classes.

Although each individual bears one of the class names above
given, it will be understood that each has in addition the single
personal name, which is common among savage as well as bar-
barous tribes. The more closely this organization upon sex is
scrutinized, the more remarkable it seems as the work of
savages. When once established, and after that transmitted
through a few generations, it would hold society with such
power as to become difficult of displacement. It would re-
quire a similar and higher system, and centuries of time, to ac-
complish this result; particularly if the range of the conjugal
system would thereby be abridged.

The gentile organization supervened naturally upon the
classes as a higher organization, by simply enfolding them un-

' Systems of Consangtnnity and Affinity of the Himan Family, (Smithsoiiian
Contributions to Knowledge), vol. xvii, p. 420, et sea.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

changed. That it was subsequent in point of time, is shown
by the relations of the two systems, by the inchoate condition
of the gentes, by the impaired condition of the classes through
encroachments by the gens, and by the fact that the class is
still the unit of organization. These conclusions will be made
apparent in the sequel.

From the preceding statements the composition of the gentes
will be understood when placed in their relations to the classes.
The latter arc in pairs of brothers and sisters derived from each
other; and the gentes themselves, through the classes, are in
pairs, as follows:

Gentes. Male. Female. Male. Female.

1. Iguana. All are Murri and Mata, or Kubbi and Kapota.

2. Emu. " " Kumbo " Buta, " Ippai " Ippata.

3. Kangaroo.

" " Murri " Mata,

" Kubbi " Kapota.

4. Bandicoot.

" " Kumbo " Buta,

" Ippai " Ippata.

5. Opossum. " " Murri " Mata, " Kubbi " Kapota.

6. Blacksnake. " " Kumbo " Buta, " Ippai " Ippata.

The connection of children with a particular gens is proven
by the law of marriage. Thus, Iguana- Mata must marry
Kumbo; her children are Kubbi and Kapota, and necessarily
Iguana in gens, because descent is in the female line. Iguana-
Kapota must marry Ippai; her children are Murri and Mata,
and also Iguana in gens, for the same reason. In like manner
Emu- Buta must marry Murri; her children are Ippai and
Ippata, and of the Emu gens. So Emu-Ippata must marry
Kubbi ; her children are Kumbo and Buta, and also of the
Emu gens. In this manner the gens is maintained by keeping
in its membership the children of all its female members. The
same is true in all respects of each of the remaining gentes.
It will be noticed that each gens is made up, theoretically, of
the descendants of two supposed female ancestors, and contains
four of the eight classes. It seems probable that originally
there were but two male, and two female classes, which were
set opposite to each other in respect to the right of marriage;
and that the four afterward subdivided into eight. The

. ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 57

classes as an anterior organization were evidently arranged
within the gentes, and not formed by the subdivision of the
latter.

Moreover, since the Iguana, Kangaroo and Opossum gentes
are found to be counterparts of each other, in the classes they
contain, it follows that they are subdivisions of an original
gens. Precisely the same is true of Emu, Bandicoot and
Blacksnake, in both particulars; thus reducing the six to two
original gentes, with the right in each to marry into the other,
but not into itself It is confirmed by the fact that the members
of the first three gentes could not originally intermarry; neither
could the members of the last three. The reason which pre-
vented intermarriage in the gens, when the three were one,
would follow the subdivisions because they were of the same
descent although under different gentile names. Exactly the
same thing is found among the Seneca-Iroquois, as will here-
after be shown.

Since marriage is restricted to particular classes, when there
were but two gentes, one-half of all the females of one were,
theoretically, the wives of one-half of all the males of the other.
After their subdivision into six the benefit of marrying out of
the gens, which was the chief advantage of the institution, was
arrested, if hot neutralized, by the presence of the classes to-
gether with the restrictions mentioned. It resulted in contin-
uous in-and-in marriages beyond the immediate degree of
brother and sister. If the gens could have eradicated the
classes this evil would, in a great measure, have been removed.'

' If a diagram, of descents is made, for example, of Ippai and Kapota, and
carried to the fourth generation, giving to each intermediate pair two children, a
male and a female, the following results will appear. The children of Ippai and
Kapota are Murri and Mata. As brothers and sisters the latter cannot marry.
At the second degree, the children of Murri, married to Buta, are Ippai and
Ippata, and of Mata married to Kumbo, are Kubbi and Kapota. Of these, Ippai
marries his cousin Kapota, and Kubbi marries his cousin Ippata. It will be
noticed that the eight classes are reproduced from two in the second and third
generations, with the exception of Kumbo and Buta. At the next or third
degree, there are two Murris, two Matas, two Kumbos, and two Butas ; of whom
the Murris marry the Butas, their second cousins, and the Kubbis the Matas, their
second cousins. At the fourth generation there are four each of Ippais Kapotas
Kubbis and Ippatas, who are third cousins. Of these, the Ippais marry the
Kapotas, and the Kubbis the Ippatas ; and thus it runs from generation to genera-

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The organization into classes seems to have been directed to
the single object of breaking up the intermarriage of brothers
and sisters, which affords a probable explanation of the origin
of the system. But since it did not look beyond this special
abomination it retained a conjugal system nearly as objectiona-
ble, as well as cast it in a permanent form.

A_It remains to notice an innovation upon the original consti-
tution of the classes, and in favor of the gens, which reveals a
movement, still pending, in the direction of the true ideal of the
gens. It is shown in two particulars: firstly, in allowing each
triad of gentes to intermarry with each other, to a limited ex-
tent ; and secondly, to marry into classes not before permitted.
Thus, Iguana-Murri can now marry Mata in the Kangaroo
gens, his collateral sister, whereas originally he was restricted
to Buta in the opposite three. So Iguana- Kubbi can now marry
Kapota, his collateral sister. Emu-Kumbo can now marry Buta,
and Emu-Ippai can marry Ippata in the Blacksnake gens, con-
trary to original hmitations. Each class of males in each triad
of gentes seems now to be allowed one additional class of
females in the two remaining gentes of the same triad, from
which they were before excluded. The memoranda sent by
Mr. Fison, however, do not show a change to the full extent
here indicated.^

This innovation would plainly have been a retrograde move-
ment but that it tended to break down the classes. The line
of progress among the Kamilaroi, so far as any is observable,
was from classes into gentes, followed by a tendency to make
the gens instead of the class the unit of the social organism,
In this movement the overshadowing system of cohabitation
was the resisting element. Social advancement was impossible

tion. A similar chart of the remaining marriageable classes will produce like
results. These details are tedious, but they make the fact apparent that in this
condition of ancient society they not only intermarry constantly, but are compelled
to do so through this organization upon se.x. Cohabitation would not follow this
invariable course because an entire male and female class were married in a group ;
but its occurrence must have been constant under the system. One of the primary
objects secured by the gens, when fully matured, was thus defeated : namely, the
segregation of a moiety of the descendants of a supposed common ancestor under
a prohibition of intermarriage, followed by a right of marrying into any other gens.
• Proc. Am. Acad. Arts and Sciences, viii, 436.

ORGANIZA TION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 59

without diminishing its extent, which was equally impossible
so long as the classes, with the privileges they conferred, re-
mained in full vitality. The jiira coujugialia, which apper-
tained to these classes, were the dead weight upon the Kamila-
roi, without emancipation from which they would have re-
mained for additional thousands of years in the same condition,
substantially, in which they were found.

An organization somewhat similar is indicated by the puna-
lua oi the Hawaiians which will be hereafter explained.
Wherever the middle or lower stratum of savagery is un-
covered, marriages of entire groups under usages defining the
groups, have been discovered either in absolute form, or such
traces as to leave little doubt that such marriages were normal
throughout this period of man's history. It is immaterial
whether the group, theoretically, was large or small, the neces-
sities of their condition would set a practical limit to the size
of the group living together under this custom. If then
community of husbands and wives is found to have been a law
of the savage state, and, therefore, the essential condition of
society in savagery, the inference would be conclusive that
our own savage ancestors shared in this common experience of
the human race.

In such usages and customs an explanation of the low con- )(^
dition of savages is found. If men in savagery had not been
left behind, in isolated portions of the earth, to testify concern-
ing the early condition of mankind in general, it would have
been impossible to form any definite conception of what it
must have been. An important inference at once arises,
namely, that the institutions of mankind have sprung up in a
progressive connected series, each of which represents the result
of unconscious reformatory movements to extricate society
from existing evils. The wear of ages is upon these institu- \^
tions, for the proper understanding of which they must be
studied in this light. It cannot be assumed that the Austra-
lian savages are now at the bottom of the scale, for their arts
and institutions, humble as they are, show the contrary; neither
is there any ground for assuming their degradation from a
higher condition, because the facts of human experience afford

6o ANCIENT SOCIETY.

no sound basis for such an hypothesis. Cases of physical and
mental deterioration in tribes and nations may be admitted,
for reasons which are known, but they never interrupted the
general progress of mankind. All the facts of human knowl-
edge and experience tend to show that the human race, as a
whole, have steadily progressed from a lower to a higher con-
dition. The arts by which savages maintain their lives are re-
markably persistent. They are never lost until superseded by
others higher in degree. By the practice of these arts, and by
the experience gained through social organizations, mankind
have advanced under a necessary law of development, although
their progress may have been substantially imperceptible for
centuries. It was the same with races as with individuals, al-
though tribes and nations have perished through the disruption
of their ethnic life.

The Australian classes afford the first, and, so far as the
writer is aware, the only case in which we are able to look
down into the incipient stages of the organization into gentes,
and even through it upon an anterior organization so archaic
as that upon sex. It seems to afford a glimpse at society when
it verged upon the primitive. Among other tribes the gens
seems to have advanced in proportion to the curtailment of the
conjugal system. Mankind rise in the scale and the family
advances through itr"5ucces5TVe~fofms,'~ as these rights sink
down before the efforts of society to improve its internal or-
ganization.

The Australians might not have effected the overthrow, of
the classes in thousands of years if they had remained undis-
covered; while more favored continental tribes had long before
perfected the gens, then advanced it through its successive
phases, and at last laid it aside after entering upon civilization.
Facts illustrating the rise of successive social organizations, such
as that upon sex, and that upon kin arc of the highest ethno-
logical value. A knowledge of what they indicate is eminently"^
1 desirable, if the early history of mankind is to be measurably
I recovered.

f| Among the" Polynesian tribes the gens was unknown; but
"jr traces of a system analogous to the Australian classes appear in

ORGANIZATION OF SOCIETY ON BASIS OF SEX. 6 1

the Hawaiian custom of punalua. Original ideas, absolutely
independent of previous knowledge and experience, are nec-
essarily few in number. Were it possible to reduce the sum
of human ideas to underived originals, the small numerical re-
sult would be startling. Development is the method of human
progress.

In the light of these facts some of the excrescences of mod-
ern civilization, such as Mormonism, are seen to be relics of the
old savagism not yet eradicated from the human brain. We
have the same brain, perpetuated by reproduction, which
worked in the skulls of barbarians and savages in by-gone ages;
and it has come down to us ladened and saturated with the
thoughts aspirations and passions, with which it was busied
through the intermediate periods. It is the same brain grown
older and larger with the experience of the ages. These out-
crops of barbarism are so many revelations of its ancient pro-
clivities. They are explainable as a species of mental atavism.

Out of a few germs of thought, conceived in the early ages,
have been evolved all the principal institutions of mankind.
Beginning their growth in the period of savagery, fermenting
through the period of barbarism, they have continued their ad-
vancement through the period of civilization. The evolution
of these germs of thought has been guided by a natural logic
which formed an essential attribute of the brain itself So un-
erringly has this principle performed its' functions in all condi-
tions of experience, and in all periods of time, that its results
are uniform, coherent and traceable in their courses. These re-
sults alone will in time yield convincing proofs of the unity of or-
igin of mankind. The mental history of the human race, which
is revealed in institutions inventions and discoveries, is pre-
sumptively the history of a single species, perpetuated through
individuals, and developed through experience. Among
the original germs of thought, which have exercised the most
powerful influence upon the human mind, and upon human
destiny, are these which relate to government, to the family,
to language, to religion, and to property. They had a definite
beginning far back in savagery, and a logical progress, but can
have no final consummation, because they are still progressing,
and must ever continue to progress.

CHAPTER II.

THE IROQUOIS GENS.

The Gentile Organization. — Its Wide Prevalence. — Definition of a
Gens. — Descent in the Female Line the Archaic Rule. — Rights, Priv-
ileges and Obligations of Members of a Gens. — Right of Electing and
Deposing its Sachem and Chiefs. — Obligation not to marry in the Gens.
— Mutual Rights of Inheritance of the Property of deceased Mem-
bers.— Reciprocal Obligations of Help, Defense and Redress of In-
juries.—Right of Naming its Members. — Right of Adopting Strangers
into the Gens. — Common Religious Rites, Query.— A Common Burial
Place. — Council of the Gens. — Gentes named after Animals. — Number
of Persons in a Gens.

The experience of mankind, as elsewhere remarked, has de-
veloped but two plans of government, using the word plan in
its scientific sense. Both were definite and systematic organi-
zations of society. The first and most ancient was a social_or-
ganization, founded upon gentes, phratries and tribes. The
second and latest in time was a political organisation^ founded
upon territory and upon property. TJiTder the first a gentile
society was created, in which the government dealt with per-
sons through their relations to a gens and tribe. These rela-
tions were purely personal. Under the second a political
society was instituted, in which the government dealt with
I persons through their relations to territory, e. g. — the town-
! ship, the county, and the state. These relations were purely
territorial. The two plans were fundamentally different. One
belongs to ancient society, and the other to modern.

The gentile organization opens to us one of the oldest and
most widely prevalent institutions of mankind. It furnished

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 63

the nearly universal plan of government of ancient society,
Asiatic, European, African, American and Australian. It was
the instrumentality by means of which society was organized
and held together. Commencing in savagery, and continuing
through the three sub-periods of 'barbarism, it remained until
the establishment of political society, which did not occur until
after civilization had commenced. The Grecian gens, phratry
and tribe, the Roman gens, curia and tribe find their analogues
in the gens, phratry and tribe of the American aborigines. In
like manner, the Irish sept, the Scottish clan, the phrara of the
Albanians, and the Sanskrit gaiias, without extending the com-
parison further, are the same as the American Indian gens,
which has usually been called a clan. As far as our knowl-
edge extends, this organization runs through the entire ancient
world upon all the continents, and it was brought down to the
historical period by such tribes as attained to civilization. Nor
is this all. Gentile society wherever found is the same in struct-
ural organization and in principles of action; but changing
from lower to higher forms with the progressive advancement
of the people. These changes give the history of development
of the same original conceptions.

Gcjis, y€v6?, and ganas in Latin, Greek and Sanskrit have
alike the primary signification of kin. They contain the same
element as gigno, yiyr'Of.iai, and ganamai, in the same lan-
guages, signifying to beget; thus implying in each an immedi-
ate common descent of the members of a gens. A gens,
therefore, is a body of consanguinei descended from the same
common ancestor, distinguished b)^ a gentile name, and bound
together by affinities" of "t)rood. It includes a moiety only of
such descendants. Where descent is in the female line, as it
was universally in the archaic period, the gens is composed
of a supposed female ancestor and her children, together with
the children of her female descendants, through females, in
perpetuity; and where descent is in the male line — into which
it was changed after the appearance of property in masses — of
a supposed male ancestor and his children, together with the
children of his male descendants, through males, in perpetuity.
The family name among ourselves is a survival of the gentile

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

name, with descent in the male Hne, and passing in the same
manner. The modern family, as expressed by its name, is an
unorganized gens; with the bond of kin broken, and its mem-
bers as widely dispersed as the family name is found.

Among the nations named, the gens indicated a social organ-
ization of a remarkable character, which had prevailed from an
antiquity so remote that its origin was lost in the obscurity of
far distant ages. It was also the unit of organization of a so-
cial and governmental system, the fundamental basis of ancient
society. This organization was not confined to the Latin
Grecian and Sanskrit speaking tribes, with whom it became
such a conspicuous institution. It has been found in other
branches of the Aryan family of nations, in the Semitic, Ura-
lian and Turanian families, among the tribes of Africa and
Australia, and of the American aborigines.

An exposition of the elementary constitution of the gens,
with its functions, rights, and privileges, requires our first atten-
tion; after which it will be traced, as widely as possible, among
the tribes and nations of mankind in order to prove, by com-
parisons, its fundamental unity. It will then be seen that it
must be regarded as one of the primary institutions of man-
kind.

The gens has passed through successive stages of develop-
ment in its transition from its archaic to its final form with the
progress of mankind. These changes were limited, in the
main, to two: firstly, changing descent from the female line,
which was the archaic rule, as among the Iroquois, to the male
line, which was the final rule, as among the Grecian and Roman
gentes; and, secondly, changing the inheritance of the property
of a deceased member of the gens from his gentiles, who took
it in the archaic period, first to his agnatic kindred, and finally
to his children. These changes, slight as they may seem, indi-
cate very great changes of condition as well as a large degree
of progressive development.

The gentile organization, originating in the period of sav-
agery, enduring through the three sub-periods of barbarism,
finally gave way, among the more advanced tribes, when they
attained civilization, the requirements of which it was unable

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 65

to meet. Among the Greeks and Romans, political society
supervened upon gentile society, but not until civilization had
commenced. The township (and its equivalent, the city ward),
Avith its fixed property, and the inhabitants it contained, organ-
ized as a body politic, became the unit and the basis of a new
and radically different system of government. After political
society was instituted, this ancient and time-honored organiza-
tion, with the phratry and tribe developed from it, gradually
yielded up their existence. It will be my object, in the course of
this volume, to trace the progress of this organization from its rise
in savagery to its final overthrow in civilization; for it was
under gentile institutions that barbarism was won by some of
the tribes of mankind while in savagery, and that civilization
was won by the descendants of some of the same tribes while
in barbarism. Gentile institutions carried a portion of man-
kind from savagery to civilization.

j This organization may be successfully studied both in its
living and in its historical forms in a large number of tribes
and races. In such an investigation it is preferable to com-
mence with the gens in its archaic form, and then to follow it
through its successive modifications' among advanced nations,
in order to discover both the changes and the causes which
I produced" them. I shall commence, therefore, with the gens
as it now exists among the American aborgines, where it is
found in its archaic form, and among whom its theoretical con-
stitution and practical workings can be investigated more suc-
cessfully than in the historical gentes of the Greeks and Romans.
In fact to understand fully the gentes of the latter nations a
f knowledge of the functions, and of the rights, privileges and
obligations of the members of the American Indian gens is
imperatively necessary.

In American Ethnography tribe and clan have been used in
I the place of gens as an equivalent term, from not perceiving its
universality. In previous works, and following my predeces-
sors, I have so used them.^ A comparison of -the Indian clan

' In Letters on the Iroquois by Skenandoa/i, published in the American Review
in 1847; in the League of the Lroquois, published in 185 1 ; and in Systems of Con-
sanguinity and AfUnity of the Ilutnan Fattiily, published in 1871. {StnithsoniaH

55 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

with the gens of the Greeks and Romans reveals at once their
identity in structure and functions. It also extends to the
phratry and tribe. If the identity of these several organiza-
tions can be shown, of which there can be no doubt, there is a
manifest propriety in returning to the Latin and Grecian ter-
minologies which are full and precise as well as historical. I
have made herein the substitutions required, and propose to
show the parallelism of these several organizations.

The plan of government of the American aborigines com- ^
menced with the gens and ended with the confederacy, the lat-
ter being the highest point to which their governmental insti-
tutions attained. It gave for the organic series: first, the gens,
a body of consanguinei having a common gentile name ; sec-
ond, the phratry, an assemblage of related gentes united in a
higher association for certain common objects ; third, the tribe,
I an assemblage of gentes, usually organized in phratries, all the
members of which spoke the same dialect ; and fourth, a con-
federacy of tribes, the members of which respectively spoke
dialects of the same stock language. It resulted in a gentile
society (socictas), as distinguished from a political society or
state (civitas). The difference between the two is wide and
fundamental. There was neither a political society, nor a citi-
zen, nor a state, nor any civilization in America when it was
discovered. One entire ethnical period intervened between the
highest American Indian tribes and the beginning of civiHza-
tion, as that term is properly understood.

In like manner the plan of government of the Grecian tribes,
anterior to civilization, involved the same organic series, wi-tli
,the exception of the last member: first, the gens, a body of
consanguinei bearing a common gentile name; second, the
phratry, an assemblage of gentes, united for social and religious
objects ; third, the tribe, an assemblage of gentes of the same
lineage organized in phratries; and fourth, a nation, an assem-
blage of tribes who had coalesced in a gentile society upon one
common territory, as the four tribes of the Athenians in Attica,
and the three Dorian tribes at Sparta. Coalescence was a

Contributions to Knotvledge, vol. xvii.) I have used tribe as the equivalent oi gens,
and in its place ; but with an exact definition of the group.

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 6/

higher process than confederating. In the latter case the tribes
occupied independent territories.

The Roman plan and series were the same : First, the gens,
a body of consanguinei bearing a common gentile name ; sec-
ond, the curia, an assemblage of gentes united in a higher as-
sociation for the performance of religious and governmental
functions; third, the tribe, an assemblage of gentes organized
in curiae ; and fourth, a nation, an assemblage of tribes who had
coalesced in a gentile society. The early Romans styled them-
selves, with entire propriety, the PopiilmRomciniis^

Wherever gentile institutions prevailed, and prior to the es-
tablishment of political society, we find peoples or nations in
gentile societies, and nothing beyond. The state did not exist.
Their governments were essentially democratical, because the
principles on which the gens, phratry and tribe were organized
were democratical. This last proposition, though contrary to
received opinions, is historically important. The truth of it
can be tested as the gens phratry and tribe of the American
aborigines, and the same organizations among the Greeks and
Romans are successively considered. As the gens, the unit of
organization, was essentially democratical, so necessarily was the
phratry composed of gentes, the tribe composed of phratries,
and the gentile society formed by the confederating, or coales-
cing of tribes.

The gens, though a very ancient social organization founded
upon kin, does not include all the descendants of a common
ancestor. It was for the reason that when the gens came in,
marriage between single pairs was unknown, and descent
through males could not be traced with certainty. Kindred
were linked together chiefly through the bond of their mater-
nity. In the ancient gens descent was limited to the female
line. It embraced all such persons as traced their descent from
a supposed common female ancestor, through females, the evi-
dence of the fact being the possession of a common gentile
name. It would include this ancestor and her children, the
children of her daughters, and the children of her female
descendants, through females, in perpetuity ; whilst the children
of her sons, and the children of her male descendants, through

68 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

males, would belong to other gentes ; namely, those of their
respective mothers. Such was the gens in its archaic form,
when the paternity of children was not certainly ascertainable,
and when their maternity afforded the only certain criterion of
descents.

This state of descents, which can be traced back to the Mid-
dle Status of savagery, as among the Australians, remained
among the American aborigines through the Upper Status of
savagery, and into and through the Lower Status of barbarism,
with occasional exceptions. In the Middle Status of barbarism,
the Indian tribes began to change descent from the female line
to the male, as the syndyasmian family of the period began to
assume monogamian characteristics. In the Upper Status of
barbarism, descent had become changed to the male line among
the Grecian tribes, with the exception of the Lycians, and
among the Italian tribes, with the exception of the Etruscans.
I The influence of property and its inheritance in producing the
monogamian family which assured the paternity of children,
and in causing a change of descent from the female line to the
male, will be considered elsewhere. Between the two extremes,
represented by the two rules of descent, three entire ethnical
periods intervene, covering many thousands of years.

With descent in the male line, the gens embraced all persons
who traced their descent from a supposed common male ances-
tor, through males only, the evidence of the fact being, as in
the other case, the possession of a common gentile name. It
would include this ancestor and his children, the children of his
sons, and the children of his male descendants, through males,
in perpetuity; whilst the children of his daughters, and the
children of his female descendants, through females, would be-
long to other gentes ; namely, those of theii* respective fathers.
Those retained in the gens in one case were those excluded in
the other, and vice versa. Such was the gens in its final form,
■ after the paternity of children became ascertainable through the
'rise of monogamy. The transition of a gens from one form in-
to the other was perfectly simple, without involving its over-
throw. All that was needed was an adequate motive, as will
elsewhere be shown. The same gens, with descent changed to

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 69

the male line, remained the unit of the social system. It could
not have reached the second form without previously existing
in the first.

As intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, it withdrew its
members from the evils of consanguine marriages, and thus
tended to increase the vigor of the stock. The gens came into
being upon three principal conceptions, namely ; the bond of
kin, a pure lineage through descent in the female line, and
non-intermarriage in the gens. When the idea of a gens was
developed, it would naturally have taken the form of gentes in
pairs, because the children of the males were excluded, and be-
cause it was equally necessary to organize both classes of de-
scendants. With two gentes started into being simultaneously
the whole result would have been attained ; since the males and
females of one gens would marry the females and males of the
other ; and the children, following the gentes of their respective
mothers, would be divided between them. Resting on the
bond of kin as its cohesive principle the gens afforded to each
individual member that personal protection which no other ex-
isting power could give.

After considering the rights privileges and obligations of its
members it will be necessary to follow the gens in its organic
relations to a phratry tribe and confederacy, in order to find
the uses to which it was applied, the privileges which it con-
ferred, and the principles which it fostered. The gentes of the
Iroquois will be taken as the standard exemplification of this
institution in the Ganowanian family. They had carried their
scheme of government from the gens to^the confederacy, mak-
ing it complete in each of its parts, and an excellent illustration
of the capabilities of the gentile organization in its archaic
form. When discovered the Iroquois were in the Lower Status
of barbarism, and well advanced in the arts of life pertaining to
this condition. They manufactured nets twine and rope from
filaments of bark ; wove belts and burden straps, with warp and
woof, from the same materials; they manufactured earthern
vessels and pipes from clay mixed with siliceous materials and
hardened by fire, some of which were ornamented with rude
medallions; they cultivated maize, beans, squashes, and to-

70 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

bacco, in garden beds, and made unleavened bread from
pounded maize which they boiled in earthern vessels;^ they
tanned skins into leather with which they manufactured kilts
leggins and moccasins; they used the bow and arrow and war-
club as their principal weapons; used flint stone and bone im-
plements, wore skin garments, and were expert hunters and
fishermen. They constructed long joint-tenement houses large
enough to accommodate five, ten, and twenty families, and
each household practiced communism in living; but they were
unacquainted with the use of stone or adobe-brick in house
architecture, and with the use of the native metals. In mental
capacity and in general advancement they were the representa-
tive branch of the Indian family north of New Mexico. Gen-
eral F, A. Walker has sketched their military career in two
paragraphs: "The career of the Iroquois was simply terrific.
They were the scourge of God upon the aborigines of the con-
tinent."^

From lapse of time the Iroquois tribes have come to differ
slightly in the number, and in the names of their respective
gentes. The largest number being eight, as follows:

Scnecas. — I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5.
Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron. 8. Hawk.

Cayugas. — i. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5.
Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Hawk.

Onondagas. — i. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Turtle. 4. Beaver. 5.
Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Ball.

Oncidas. — i. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.

MoJia%vks.— \. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Turtle.

Tuscaroras. — i. Gray Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Great Turtle. 4.
Beaver. 5. Yellow Wolf 6. Snipe. 7. Eel. 8. Little Tur-
tle.

These changes show that certain gentes in some of the tribes
have become extinct through the vicissitudes of time; and that
others have been formed by the segmentation of over-fuU
gentes.

With a knowledge of the rights privileges and obligations

' These loaves or cakes were about six inches in diameter and an inch thick.
' North American Review, April No., 1873, p. 370 Note.

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 71

of the members of a gens, its capabilities as the unit of a social
and governmental system will be more fully understood, as
well as the manner in which it entered into the higher organi-
zations of the phratry, tribe, and confederacy.

The gens is individualized by the following rights, privileges,
land obligations conferred and imposed upon its members, and
hich made up the jus gentiliciinn.

I. The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.
II. The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs.

III. The obligation not to marry in the gens.

IV. Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of de-

ceased members.
V. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of
injuries.

VI. The rigJit of bcstoiving names upon its members.
VII. TJie right of adopting strangers into t lie gens.
VIII. Common religious rites, query.

IX. ^ common burial place.
X. A coujicil of the gens.

These functions and attributes gave vitality as well as indi-
viduahty to the organization, and protected the personal rights
of its members.

I. The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.

Nearly all the American Indian tribes had two grades of
chiefs, w^ho may be distinguished as sachems and common
chiefs. Of these two primary grades all other grades were va-
rieties. They were elected in each gens from among its mem-
bers. A son could not be chosen to succeed his father, where
descent was in the female line, because he belonged to a differ-
ent gens, and no gens would have a chief or sachem from any
gens but its own. The office of sachem was hereditary in the
gens, in the sense that it was filled as often as a vacancy oc-
curred ; while the office of chief was non-hereditary, because it
was bestowed in reward of personal merit, and died with the
individual. Moreover, the duties of a sachem were confined to
the affairs of peace. He could not go out to war as a sachem.
On the other hand, the chiefs who were raised to office for per-
sonal bravery, for wisdom in affairs, or for eloquence in council,

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

were usually the superior class in ability, though not in author-
ity over the gens. The relation of the sachem was primarily
to the gens, of which he was the official head ; while that of the
chief was primarily to the tribe, of the council of which he, as
well as the sachem, were members.

The office of sachem had a natural foundation in the gens,
as an organized body of consanguinei which, as such, needed a
representative head. As an office, however, it is older than
the gentile organization, since it is found among tribes not thus
organized, but among whom it had a similar basis in the puna-
luan group, and even in the anterior horde. In the gens the
constituency of the sachem was clearly defined, the basis of the
relation was permanent, and its duties paternal. While the
office was hereditary in the gens it was elective among its male
members. When the Indian system of consanguinity is con-
sidered, it will be found that all the male members of a gens
were either brothers to each other, ov/n or collateral, uncles or
nephews, ov/n or collateral, or collateral grandfathers and grand-
sons.^ This will explain the succession of the office of sachem
which passed from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew,
and very rarely from grandfather to grandson. The choice,
which was by free suffrage of both males and females of adult
age, usually fell upon a brother of the deceased sachem, or up-
on one of the sons of a sister ; an own brother, or the son of an
own sister being most likely to be preferred. As between sev-
eral brothers, own and collateral, on the one hand, and the sons
of several sisters, own and collatefal, on the other, there was no
priority of right, for the reason that all the male members of
,the gens were equally eligible. To make a choice between
them was the function of the elective principle.

Upon the death of a sachem, for example among the Sen-
eca-Iroquois, a council of his gentiles^ was convened to name
his successor. Two candidates, according to their usages, must
be voted upon, both of them members of the gens. Each per-

' The sons of several sisters are brothers to each other, instead of cousins.

The latter are here distinguished as collateral brothers. So a man's brother's son

is his son instead of his nephew ; while his collateral sister's son is his nephew,

as well as his own sister's son. The former is distinguished as a collateral nephew.

* Pronounced gcn'-ii-lcs, it may be remarked to those unfamiliar with Latin.

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 73

son of adult age was called upon to express his or her prefer-
ence, and the one who received the largest number of affirma-
tive declarations was nominated. It still required the assent of
the seven remaining gentes before the nomination ^\•as complete.
If these gentes, who met for the purpose by phratries, refused
to confirm the nomination it was thereby set aside, and the
gens proceeded to make another choice. When the person
nominated by his gens was accepted by the remaining gentes
the election was complete ; but it was still necessary that the
new sachem should be raised up, to use their expression, or in-
vested with his office by a council of the confederacy, before
he could enter upon its duties. It was their method of con-
ferring the impcrimii. In this manner the rights and inter-
ests of the several gentes were consulted and preserved ; for
the sachem of a gens was ex offieio a member of the coun-
cil of the tribe, and of the higher council of the confederacy.
The same method of election and of confirmation existed with
respect to the office of chief, and for the same reasons. But a
general council was never convened to raise up chiefs below the
grade of a sachem. They awaited the time when sachems were
invested.

The principle of democracy, which was born of the gentes,
manifested itself in the retention by the gentiles of the right to
elect their sachem and chiefs, in the safeguards thrown around
the office to prevent usurpation, and in the check upon the elec-
tion held by the remaining gentes.

The chiefs in each gens were usually proportioned to the
number of its members. Among the Seneca-Iroquois there is
one chief for about every fifty persons. They now number in
New York some three thousand, and have eight sachems and
about sixty chiefs. There are reasons for supposing that the
proportionate number is now greater than in former times.
With respect to the number of gentes in a tribe, the more
numerous the people the greater, usually, the number of gen-
tes. The number varied in the different tribes, from three
among the Delawares and Munsees to upwards of twenty
among the Ojibwas and Creeks; six, eight, and ten being com-
mon numbers.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

II. TJie right of deposing its sachem and chiefs.

This right, which was not less important than that to elect,
was reserved by the members of the gens. Although the
office was nominally for life, the tenure was practically during
good behavior, in consequence of the power to depose. The
installation of a sachem was symbolized as "putting on the
horns," and his deposition as "taking off the horns." Among
widely separated tribes of mankind horns have been made the
emblem of office and of authority, suggested probably, as Ty-
lor intimates, by the commanding appearance of the males
among ruminant animals bearing horns. Unworthy behavior,
followed by a loss of confidence, furnished a sufficient ground
for deposition. When a sachem or chief had been deposed in
due form by a council of his gens, he ceased thereafter to be
recognized as such, and became thenceforth a private person.
The council of the tribe also had power to depose both sachems
and chiefs, without waiting for the action of the gens, and even
against its wishes. Through the existence and occasional ex-
ercise of this power the supremacy of the gentiles over their
sachem and chiefs was asserted and preserved. It also reveals
the democratic constitution of the gens.

III. The obligatiojt not to Diarry in the gens.

Although a negative proposition it was fundamental. It was
evidently a primary object of the organization to isolate a
moiety of the descendants of a supposed founder, and prevent
their intermarriage for reasons of kin. When the gens came
into existence brothers were intermarried to each other's wives
in a group, and sisters to each other's husbands in a group, to
which the gens interposed no obstacle. But it sought to ex-
clude brothers and sisters from the marriage relation which was
effected, as there are good reasons for stating, by the prohi-
bition in question. Had the gens attempted to uproot the en-
tire conjugal system of the period by its direct action, there is
not the slightest probability that it would have worked its way
into general establishment. The gens, originating probably in
the ingenuity of a small band of savages, must soon have
proved its utility in the production of superior men. Its nearly
universal prevalence in the ancient world is the highest evidence

THE IROQUOIS GENS.

of the advantages it conferred, and of its adaptability to human
wants in savagery and in barbarism. The Iroquois still adhere
inflexibly to the rule which forbids persons to marry in their
own gens.

TV. Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased
fnembers.

In the Status of savagery, and in the Lower Status of bar-
barism, the amount of property was small. It consisted in the
former condition of personal effects, to which, in the latter,
were added possessory rights in joint-tenement houses and in
gardens. The most valuable personal articles were buried with
the body of the deceased owner. Nevertheless, the question
of inheritance was certain to arise, to increase in importance
with the increase of property in variety and amount, and to
result in some settled rule of inheritance. Accordingly we find
the principle established low down in barbarism, and even back
of that in savagery, that the property should remain in the
gens, and be distributed among the gentiles of the deceased
owner. It was customary law in the Grecian and Latin gentes
in the Upper Status of barbarism, and remained as written law
far into civilization, that the property of a deceased person
should remain in the gens. But after the time of Solon among
the Athenians it was limited to cases of intestacy.
> The question, who should take the property, has given rise
I to three great and successive rules of inheritance. First, that
it should be distributed among the gentiles of the deceased
owner. This was the rule in the Lower Status of barbarism,
and so far as is known in the Status of savagery. .Second,
that the property should be distributed among the agnatic kin-
dred of the deceased owner, to the exclusion of the remaininsf
gentiles. The germ of this rule makes its appearance in the
Lower Status of barbarism, and it probably became completely
established in the Middle Status. Third, that the property
should be inherited by the children of the deceased owner, to
the exclusion of the remaining agnates. This became the rule
in the Upper Status of barbarism.

J Theoretically, the Iroquois were under the first rule; but,
'practically, the effects of a deceased person were appropriated

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

by his nearest relations within the gens. In the case of a male
his own brothers and sisters and maternal uncles divided his
effects among themselves. This practical limitation of the in-
heritance to the nearest gentile kin discloses the germ of agnatic
inheritance. In the case of a female her property was inherited
by her children and her sisters, to the exclusion of her brothers.
In every case the property remained in the gens. The children
of the deceased males took nothing from their father because
they belonged to a different gens. It was for the same reason
that the husband took nothing from the wife, or the wife from
her husband. These mutual rights of inheritance strengthened
the autonomy of the gens.

V. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of
injuries.

In civilized society the state assumes the protection of per-
sons and of property. Accustomed to look to this source for
the maintenance of personal rights, there has been a corre-
sponding abatement of the strength of the bond of kin. But
under gentile society the individual depended for security upon
his gens. It took the place afterwards held by the state, and
possessed the requisite numbers to render its" guardianship ef-
fective. Within its membership the bond of kin was a pow-
erful element for mutual support. To wrong a person w^as to
wrong his gens; and to support a person was to stand behind
him with the entire array of his gentile kindred.

In their trials and difficulties the members of the gens assisted
each other. Two or three illustrations may be given from the
Indian tribes at large. Speaking of the Mayas of Yucatan,
Herrera remarks, that "when any satisfaction was to be made
for damages, if he who was adjudged to pay was like to be re-
duced to poverty, the kindred contributed."^ By the term kin-
dred, as here used, we are justified in understanding the gens.
And of the Florida Indians: "When a brother or son dies the
people of the house will rather starve than seek anything to eat
during three months, but the kindred and relations send it all
in."^ Persons who removed from one village to another could

' History of America, Lond. ed., 1 725, Stevens' Trans., iv, 171.
» lb., iv, 34.

THE IROQUOIS GENS. yy

not transfer their possessory right to cultivated lands or to a sec-
tion of a joint-tenement house to a stranger; but must leave
them to his gentile kindred. Herrera refers to this usage among
the Indian tribes of Nicaragua; "He that removed from one
town to another could not sell what he had, but must leave it to
his nearest relation."^ So much of their property was held in
joint ownership that their plan of life would not admit of its
alienation to a person of another gens. Practically, the right
to such property was possessory, and when abandoned it reverted
to the gens. Garcilasso de la Vega remarks of the tribes of the
Peruvian Andes, that "when the commonalty, or ordinary
sort, married, the communities of the people were obliged to
build and provide them houses."^ For communities, as here
used, we are justified in understanding the gens. Herrera
speaking of the same tribes observes that "this variety of
tongues proceed from the nations being divided into races,
tribes, or clans. "^ Here the gentiles were required to assist
newly married pairs in the construction of their houses.

The ancient practice of blood revenge, which has prevailed
so widely in the tribes of mankind, had its birthplace in the
gens. It rested with this body to avenge the murder of one of
its members. Tribunals for the trial of criminals and laws pre-
scribing their punishment, came late into existence in gentile
society; but they made their appearance before the institution
of political society. On the other hand, the crime of murder is
as old as human society, and its punishment by the revenge of
kinsmen is as old as the crime itself. Among the Iroquois and
other Indian tribes generally, the obligation to avenge the
murder of a kinsman was universally recognized.*

It was, however, the duty of the gens of the slayer, and of
the slain, to attempt an adjustment of the crime before proceed-
ing to extremities. A council of the members of each gens

1 History of America, iii, 298.

' Royal Co7nmeniaries, Lond. ed., 1688, Rycaut's Trans., p. 107.

''Herrera, iv, 231.

■• "Their hearts burn violently day and night without intermission till th?y have
shed blood for blood. They transmit from father to son the memory of the loss
of their relations, or one of their own tribe, or family, though it was an old
woman." — Adair's Hist. Amer. Indians, Lond. ed., 1775, p. 150.

78 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

was held separately, and propositions were made in behalf of
the murderer for a condonation of the act, usually in the nature
of expressions of regret and of presents of considerable value.
If there were justifying or extenuating circumstances it gener-
ally resulted in a composition; but if the gentile kindred of the
slain person were implacable, one or more avengers were ap-
pointed by his gens from among its members, whose duty it
was to pursue the criminal until discovered, and then to slay
him wherever he might be found. If they accomplished the
deed it was no ground of complaint by any member of the
eens of the victim. Life having answered for life the demands
of justice were appeased.

The same sentiment of fraternity manifested itself in other
ways in relieving a fellow gentilis in distress, and in protecting
him from injuries.

VI. The right of bestozuing names upon its members.
Among savage and barbarous tribes there is no name for the
family. The personal names of individuals of the same family
do not indicate any family connection between them. The
family name is no older than civilization.^ Indian personal
names, however, usually indicate the gens of the individual to
persons of other gentes in the same tribe. As a rule each gens
had names for persons that were its special property, and, as
such, could not be used by other gentes of the same tribe. A
gentile name conferred of itself gentile rights. These names
either proclaimed by their signification the ^ens to which they
belonged, or were known as such by common reputation.^

After the birth of a child a name was selected by its mother
from those not in use belonging to the gens, with the concur-
rence of her nearest relatives, which was then bestowed upon

' Mommsen's History of Rome, Scribner's ed., Dickson's Trans., i, 49.
* One of the twelve gentes of the Omahas is Lii'-ta-da, the Pigeon-Hawk, which
has, among others, the following names :

Boys' Names.
Ah-hise'-na-da, "Long Wing."

Gla-dan'-noh-che, "Hawk balancing itself in the air."
Nes-tase'-ka, "White-Eyed Bird."

Girls' Names.
Me-ta'-na, "Bird singing at daylight."
La-ta-da'-win, "One of the Birds."
Wa-ta' na, "Bird's Egg."

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 79

the infant. But the child was not fully christened until its
birth and name, together with the name and gens of its mother
and the name of its father, had been announced at the next en-
suing council of the tribe. Upon the death of a person his
name could not be used again in the life-time of his oldest
surviving son without the consent of the latter.^

Two classes of names were in use, one adapted to childhood,
and the other to adult life, which were exchanged at the proper
period in the same formal manner; one being taken away, to
use their expression, and the other bestowed in its place. 0-
zui'-go, a canoe floating dozvn the stream, and Ah-zvon'-ne-ont,
hanging flozver, are names for girls among the Seneca-Iroquois;
and Gd-nc-o-di' -yo, Jiandsomc lake, and Do-7ie-ho-gd' -zveh
door-keeper, are names of adult males. At the age of sixteen
or eighteen, the first name was taken away, usually by a chief
of the gens, and one of the second class bestowed in its place.
At the next council of the tribe the change of names was
publicly announced, after which the person, if a male, assumed
the duties of manhood. In some Indian tribes the youth was
required to go out upon the war-path and earn his second name
by some act of personal bravery. After a severe illness it was
not uncommon for the person, from superstitious considera-
tions, to solicit and obtain a second change of name. It was
sometimes done again in extreme old age. When a person
was elected a sachem or a chief his name was taken away, and
a new one conferred at the time of his installation. The indi-
vidual had no control over the question of a change. It is the
prerogative of the female relatives and of the chiefs; but an
adult person might change his name provided he could induce
a chief to announce it in council. A person having the control
of a particular name, as the eldest son of that of his deceased
father, might lend it to a friend in another gens; but after the
death of the person thus bearing it the name reverted to the
gens to which it belonged.

Among the Shawnees and Delawares the mother has now
the right to name her child into any gens she pleases; and the

' When particular usages are named it will be understood they are Iroquois
unless the contrary is stated.

8o ANCIENT SOCIETY.

name given transfers the child to the gens to which the name
belongs. But this is a wide departure from archajc usages,
and exceptional in practice. It tends to corrupt and confound
the gentile lineage. The names now in use among the Iroquois
and among other Indian tribes are, in the main, ancient names
handed down in the gentes from time immemorial.

The precautions taken with respect to the use of names be-
longing to the gens sufficiently prove the importance attached
to them, and the gentile rights they confer.

Although this question of personal names branches out in
many directions it is foreign to my purpose to do more than
illustrate such general usages as reveal the relations of the
rhiembers of a gens. In familiar intercourse and in formal salu-
tation the American Indians address each other by the term of
relationship the person spoken to sustains to the speaker.
When related they salute by kin; when not related "my
friend" is substituted. It would be esteemed an act of rude-
ness to address an Indian by his personal name, or to inquire
his name directly from himself.

Our Saxon ancestors had single personal names down to the
Norman conquest, with none to designate the family. This indi-
cates the late appearance of the monogamian family among
them ; and it raises a presumption of the existence in an earlier
period of a Saxon gens.

VII. TJic rig Jit of adopting strangers into the gens.

Another distinctive right of the gens was that of admitting
new members by adoption. Captives taken in war were either
put to death, or adopted into some gens. Women and chil-
dren taken prisoners usually experienced clemency in this form.
Adoption not only conferred gentile rights, but also the nation-
ality of the tribe. The person adopting a captive placed him
or her in the relation of a brother or sister ; if a mother adopt-
ed, in that of a son or daughter ; and ever afterwards treated
the person in all respects as though born in that relation.
Slavery, which in the Upper Status of barbarism became the
fate of the captive, was unknown among tribes in the Lower
Status in the aboriginal period. The gauntlet also had some
connection with adoption, since the person who succeeded,

THE IROQ UOIS GENS 8 1

through hardihood or favoritism, in running through the Hnes
in safety was entitled to this reward. Captives when adopted
were often assigned in the family the places of deceased persons
slain in battle, in order to fill up the broken ranks of relatives.
A declining gens might replenish its numbers, through adop-
tion, although such instances are rare. At one time the Hawk
gens of the Senecas were reduced to a small number of persons,
and its extinction became imminent. To save the gens a num-
ber of persons from the Wolf gens by mutual consent were
transferred in a body by adoption to that of the Hawk. The
right to adopt seems to be left to the discretion of each gens.

Among the Iroquois the ceremony of adoption was per-
formed at a public council of the tribe, which turned it practi-
cally into a religious rite.^

Vni. Religious 7'itcs in the gens. Query.

Among the Grecian and Latin tribes these rites held a con-
spicuous position. The highest polytheistic form of religion
Avhich had then appeared seems to have sprung from the gen-
tes in v/hich religious rites were constantly maintained. Some
of them, from the sanctity they were supposed to possess, were
nationalized. In some cities the office of high priest of certain
divinities was hereditary in a particular gens.^ The gens became
the natural centre of religious growth and the birthplace of
religious ceremonies.

But the Indian tribes, although they had a polytheistic sys-
tem, not much unlike that from which the Grecian and Roman
must have sprung, had not attained that religious development
which was so strongly impressed upon the gentes of the latter
tribes. It can scarcely be said any Indian gens had special

' After the people had assembled at the council house one of the chiefs made an
address giving some account of the person, the reason for his adoption, the name
and gens of the person adopting, and the name bestowed upon the novitiate.
Two chiefs taking the person by the arms then marched with him through the
council house and back, chanting the song of adoption. To this the people
responded in musical chorus at the end of each verse. The march continued
until the verses were ended, which required three rounds. With this the ceremony
concluded. Americans are sometimes adopted as a compliment. It fell to my lot
some years ago to be thus adopted into the Hawk gens of the Senecas, when this
ceremony was repeated.

' Grote's Hist, of Greece, i, 194.

82 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

religious rites ; and yet their religious worship had a more or
less direct connection with the gentes. It was here that reli-
gious ideas would naturally germinate and that forms of wor-
ship would be instituted. But they would expand from the
gens over the tribe, rather than remain special to the gens.
Accordingly we find among the Iroquois six annual religious
festivals, (Maple, Planting, Berry, Green-Corn, Harvest, and
New Years Festivals)^ which were common to all the gentes
united in a tribe, and which were observed at stated seasons
of the year. ..

Each gens furnished a number of " Keepers of the Faith,"
both male and female, who together were charged with the
celebration of these festivals.^ The number 'advanced to this
office by each was regarded as evidence of the fidelity of the
gens to religion. They designated the days for holding the
festivals, made the necessary arrangements for their celebration,
and conducted the ceremonies in conjunction with the sachems
and chiefs of the tribe, who were, ex officio, "Keepers of the
Faith." With no official head, and none of the marks of a
priesthood, their functions were equal. The female "Keepers
of the Faith" v/ere more especially charged with the prepara-
tion of the feast, which was provided at all councils at the close
of each day for all persons in attendance. It was a dinner in
common. The religious rites appertaining to these festivals,
which have been described in a previous work,^ need not be
considered further than to remark, that their worship was
one of thanksgiving, with invocations to the Great Spirit, and
to the Lesser Spirits to continue to them the blessings of life.

With the progress of mankind out of the Lower into the

1 League of the Iroquois, p. 182.

2 The "Keepers of the Faith" were about as numerous as the chiefs, and were
selected by the wise-men and matrons of each gens. After their selection they
were raised up by a council of the tribe with ceremonies adapted to the occasion.
Their names were taken away and new ones belonging to this class bestowed in
their place. Men and women in about equal numbers were chosen. They were
censors of the people, with power to report the evil deeds of persons to the
council. It was the duty of individuals selected to accept the office; but after a
reasonable service each might relinquish it, which was done by dropping his name
as a Keeper of the Faith, and resuming his former name.

3 League of the Iroquois, p. 182.

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 83

Middle, and more especially out of the latter into the Upper
Status of barbarism, the gens became more the centre of relig-
ious influence and the source of religious development. We
have only the grosser part of the Aztec religious system; but
in addition to national gods, there seem to have been other
gods, belonging to smaller divisions of the people than the
phratries. The existence of an Aztec ritual and priesthood
would lead us to expect aniong them a closer connection of re-
ligious rites with the gentes than is found among the Iroquois;
but their religious beliefs and observances are under the same
cloud of obscurity as their social organization.
IX. A common burial place.

An ancient but not exclusive mode of burial was by scaffold-
ing the body until the flesh had wasted, after which the bones
were collected and preserved in bark barrels in a house con-
structed for their reception. Those belonging to the same
gens were usually placed in the same house. The Rev. Dr.
Cyrus Byington found these practices among the Choctas in
1827; and Adair mentions usages among the Cherokees sub-
stantially the same. "I saw three of them," he remarks, "in
one of their towns pretty near each other; * * * Each
house contained the bones of one tribe separately, with the
hieroglyphical figures of each family [gens] on each of the odd-
shaped arks. They reckoned it irreligious to mix the bones of
a relative with those of a stranger, as bone of bone and flesh
of flesh should always be joined together."^ The Iroquois in
ancient times used scaffolds and preserved the bones of de-
ceased relatives in bark barrels, often keeping them in the
house they occupied. They also buried in the ground. In the
latter case those of the same gens were not always buried lo-
cally together unless they had a common cemetery for the vil-
lage. The late Rev. Ashur Wright, so long a missionary
among the Senecas, and a noble specimen of the American
missionary, wrote to the author as follows; "I find no trace of
the influence of clanship in the burial places of the dead. I
believe that they buried promiscuously. However, they say
that formerly the members of the different clans more fre-
' History of the American Indians, p. 183.

84 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

quently resided together than they do at the present time. As
one family they were more under the influence of family feel-
ing, and had less of individual interest. Hence, it might occa-
sionally happen that a large proportion of the dead in some
particular burying place might be of the same clan." Mr.
Wright is undoubtedly correct that in a particular cemetery
members of all the gentes established in a village would be
buried; but they might keep those of the same gens locally
together. An illustration in point is now found at the Tus-
carora reservation near Lewiston, where the tribe has one com-
mon cemetery, and where individuals of the same gens are
buried in a row by themselves. One row is composed of the
graves of the deceased members of the Beaver gens, two rows
of the members of the Bear gens, one row of the Gray Wolf,
one of the Great Turtle, and so on to the number of eight
rows. Husband and wife are separated from each other and
buried in different rows; fathers and their children the same;
but mothers and their children and brothers and sisters are
found in the same row. It shows the power of gentile feeling,
and the quickness with which ancient usages are reverted to
under favorable conditions; for the Tuscaroras are now chris-
tianized without surrendering the practice. An Onondaga In-
dian informed the writer that the same mode of burial by
gentes now prevailed at the Onondaga and Oneida cemeteries.
While this usage, perhaps, cannot be declared general among
the Indian tribes, there was undoubtedly in ancient times a
tendency to,> and preference for this mode of burial.

Among the Iroquois, and what is true of them is generally
true of other Indian tribes in the same status of advancement,
all the members of the gens are mourners at the funeral of a
deceased gentilis. The addresses at the funeral, the prepara-
tion of the grave, and the burial of the body were performed
by members of other gentes.

The Village Indians of Mexico and Central America prac-
ticed a slovenly cremation, as well as scaffolding, and burying
in the ground. The former was confined to chiefs and promi-
nent men.

X. A council of the got s.

The council was the great feature of ancient society, Asi-

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 85

atic, European and American, from the institution of the gens
in savagery to civiHzation. It was the instrument of govern-
ment as well as the supreme authority over the gens, the tribe,
and the confederacy. Ordinary affairs were adjusted by the
chiefs; but those of general interest were submitted to the de-
termination of a council. As the council sprang from the gen-
tile organization the two institutions have come down together
through the ages. The Council of Chiefs represents the an-
cient method of evolving the wisdom of mankind and applying
it to human affairs. Its history, gentile, tribal, and confederate,
would express the growth of the idea of government in its
whole development, until political society supervened into
which the council, changed into a senate, was transmitted.

The simplest and lowest form of the council was that of the
gens. It was a democratic assembly because every adult male
and female member had a voice upon all questions brought
before it. It elected and deposed its sachem and chiefs, it
elected Keepers of the Faith, it condoned or avenged the mur-
der of a gentilis, and it adopted persons into the gens. It was
the germ of the higher council of the tribe, and of that still
higher of the confederacy, each of which was composed ex-
clusively of chiefs as representatives of the gentes.

Such were the rights privileges and obligations of the mem-
bers of an Iroquois gens; and such were those of the members
of the gentes of the Indian tribes generally, as far as the in-
vestigation has been carried. When the gentes of the Grecian
and Latin tribes are considered, the same rights privileges and
obligations will be found to exist, with the exception of the I,
II, and VI; and with respect to these their ancient existence is
probable though the proof is not perhaps attainable.

All the members of an Iroquois gens were personally free,
and they were bound to defend each other's freedom; they were
equal in privileges and in personal rights, the sachem and chiefs
claiming no superiority; and they were a brotherhood bound
together by the ties of kin. Liberty, equality, and fraternity,
though never formulated, were cardinal principles of the gens.
These facts are material, because the gens was the unit of a
isocial and governmental system, the foundation upon which

86 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Indian society was organized. A structure composed of such
units would of necessity bear the impress of their character, for
as the unit so the compound. It serves to explain that sense
of independence and personal dignity universally an attribute
of Indian character.

Thus substantial and important in the social system was the
gens as it anciently existed among the American aborigines, and
as it still exists in full vitality in many Indian tribes. It was the
basis of the phratry, of the tribe, and of the confederacy of
tribes. Its functions might have been presented more elaborate-
ly in several particulars; but sufficient has been given to show
its permanent and durable character.

At the epoch of European discovery the American Indian
tribes generally were organized in gentes, with descent in the
female line. In some tribes, as among the Dakotas, the gentes
had fallen out; in others, as among the Ojibwas, the Omahas,
and the Mayas of Yucatan, descent had been changed from the
female to the male line. Throughout aboriginal America the
gens took its name from some animal, or inanimate object, and
never from a person. In this early condition of society, the
individuality of persons was lost in the gens. It is at least
presumable that the gentes of the Grecian and Latin tribes were
so named at some anterior period; but when they first came
under historical notice, they were named after persons. In
some of the tribes, as the Moqui Village Indians of New Mexico,
the members of the gens claimed their descent from the animal
whose name they bore — their remote ancestors having been
transformed by the Great Spirit from the animal into the human
form. The Crane gens of the Ojibwas have a similar legend.
In some tribes the members of a gens will not eat the animal
whose name they bear, in which they are doubtless influenced
by this consideration.

With respect to the number of persons in a gens it varied
with the number of the gentes, and with the prosperity or
decadence of the tribe. Three thousand Senecas divided
equally among eight gentes would give an average of three
hundred and seventy-five persons to a gens. Fifteen thousand
Ojibwas divided equally among tM''enty-three gentes would give

THE IROQUOIS GENS. 87

six hundred and fifty persons to a gens. The Cherokees would
average more than a thousand to a gens. In the present con-
dition of the principal Indian tribes the number of persons in
each gens would range from one hundred to a thousand.

One of the oldest and most widely prevalent institutions of
mankind, the gentes have been closely identified with human
progress upon which they have exercised a powerful influence.
They have been found in tribes in the Status of savagery, in the
Lower, in the Middle, and in the Upper Status of barbarism on
different continents, and in full vitality in the Grecian and Latin
tribes after civilization had commenced. Every family of man-
kind, except the Polynesian, seems to have come under the
gentile organization, and to have been indebted to it for preser-
vation, and for the means of progress. It finds its only parallel
in length of duration in systems of consanguinity, which,
springing up at a still earlier period, have remained to the pres-
ent time, although the marriage usages in which they originated
have long since disappeared.

From its early institution, and from its maintenance through
such immense stretches of time, the peculiar adaptation of the!
gentile organization to mankind, while in a savage and in a\
barbarous state, must be regarded as abundantly demonstrated. )

CHAPTER III.

THE IROQUOIS PHRATRY.

Definition of a Phratry. — Kindred Gentes Reunited in a Higher Or-
ganization.—Phratry OF the Iroquois Tribes. — Its Composition. — Its
Uses and Functions. — Social and Religious. — Illustrations. — The An-
alogue OF THE Grecian Phratry; but in its Archaic Form. — Phratries
of the Choctas. — Of the Chickasas. — Of the Mohegans. — Of the Thlin-
KEETS. — Their Probable Universality in the Tribes of the American
Aborigines.

The phratry {qjparpia) is a brotherhood, as the term im-
ports, and a natural growth from the organization into gentes.
It is an organic union or association of two or more gentes of
the same tribe for certain common objects. These gentes were
usually such as had been formed by the segmentation of an
original gens.

Among the Grecian tribes, where the phratric organization
was nearly as constant as the gens, it became a very conspic-
uous institution. Each of the four tribes of the Athenians was
organized in three phratries, each composed of thirty gentes,
making a total of twelve phratries and three hundred and sixty
gentes. Such precise numerical uniformity in the composition
of each phratry and tribe could not have resulted from the sub-
division of gentes through natural processes. It must have
been produced, as Mr. Grote suggests, by legislative procure-
ment in the interests of a symmetrical organization. All the
gentes of a tribe, as a rule, were of common descent and bore
a common tribal name, consequently it would not require
severe constraint to unite the specified number in each phra-

THE IROQ UOIS PHRA TR Y. 89

try, and to form the specified number of phratries in each
tribe. But the phratric organization had a natural foundation
in the immediate kinship of certain gentes as subdivisions of an
original gens, which undoubtedly was the basis on which the
Grecian phratry was originally formed. The incorporation of
alien gentes, and transfers by consent or constraint, would ex-
plain the numerical adjustment of the gentes and phratries in
the Athenian tribes.

The Roman ctiria was the analogue of the Grecian phratry.
It is constantly mentioned by Dionysius as a phratry.^ There
were ten gentes in each curia, and ten cicriae in each of the
three Roman tribes, making thirty curiae and three hundred
cfentes of the Romans. The functions of the Roman curia are
much better known than those of the Grecian phratry, and
were higher in degree because the citria entered directly into the
functions of government. The assembly of the gentes (comitia
curiata JYoiQd by curiae, each having one collective vote. This
assembly was the sovereign power of the Roman People down
to the time of Servius Tullius.

Among the functions of the Grecian phratry was the observ-
ance of special religious rites, the condonation or revenge of
the murder of a phrator, and the purification of a murderer
after he had escaped the penalty of his crime preparatory to
his restoration to society.^ At a later period among the Athe-
nians— for the phratry at Athens survived the institution of
political society under Cleisthenes — it looked after the regis-
tration of citizens, thus becoming the guardian of descents and
of the evidence of citizenship. The wife upon her marriage
was enrolled in the phratry of her husband, and the children
of the marriage were enrolled in the gens and phratry of their
father. It was also the duty of this organization to prosecute
the murderer of a phrator in the courts of justice. These are
among its known objects and functions in the earlier and later
periods. Were all the particulars fully ascertained, the phratry

1 EiT} 5' av 'EXXaSi ylaorr^ rd ov6/2ctra ravra ne^spixrjvEvofisva
q)vXrj nkv xai rpittvi rj rpifiovZ, cppdrpa. de xai Xoxoi ?} xovpia.

— Dionysius, lib. II, cap. vii ; and vid. lib. II, c. xiii.

* That purification was performed by the phratry is intimated by ^schylus :
Tioia 8k x^P^^t cppocrepoDv Ttpoids^srau — T/ie Eumenides, 656.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

would probably manifest itself in connection with the common
tables, the public games, the funerals of distinguished men, the
earliest army organization, and the proceedings of councils, as
well as in the observance of religious rites and in the guard-
ianship of social privileges.

The phratry existed in a large number of the tribes of the
American aborigines, where it is seen to arise by natural
growth, and to stand as the second member of the organic
series, as among the Grecian and Latin tribes. It did not
possess original governmental functions, as the gens tribe and
confederacy possessed them; but it was endowed with certain
useful powers in the social system, from the necessity for some
organization larger than a gens and smaller than a tribe, and
especially when the tribe was large. The same institution in
essential features and in character, it presents the organization
in its archaic form and with its archaic functions. A knowledge
of the Indian phratry is necessary to an intelligent understand-
ing of the Grecian and the Roman.

The eight gentes of the Seneca- Iroquois tribe were reintegra-
ted in two phratries as follows:

First Phratry.
Gentes — i. Bear. 2. Wolf 3. Beaver. 4. Turtle.

Second Phratry.
Gentes. — 5. Deer. 6. Snipe. 7. Heron. 8. Hawk.

Each phratry (De-a-non-da'-a-yoh) is a brotherhood as this
term also imports. The gentes in the same phratry are brother
gentes to each other, and cousin gentes to those of the other
phratry. They are equal in grade character and privileges. It
is a common practice of the Senecas to call the gentes of their
own phratry brother gentes, and those of the other phratry
their cousin gentes, when they mention them in their relation
to the phratries. Originally marriage was not allowed between
the members of the same phratry; but the members of either
could marry into any gens of the other. This prohibition tends
to show that the gentes of each phratry were subdivisions of
an original gens, and therefore the prohibition against marrying
into a person's own gens had followed to its subdivisions. This
restriction, however, was long since removed, except with

THE IROQ UOIS J'HRA TRY. 9 1

respect to the gens of the individual. A tradition of the Sene-
cas affirms that the Bear and the Deer were the original gentes,
of which the others were subdivisions. It is thus seen that the
phratry had a natural foundation in the kinship of the gentes
of which it was composed. After their subdivision from
increase of numbers there was a natural tendency to their
reunion in a higher organization for objects common to them
all. The same gentes are not constant in a phratry indefinite-
ly, as will appear when the composition of the phratries in the
remaining Iroquois tribes is considered. Transfers of particular
gentes from one phratry to the other must have occurred when
the equilibrium in their respective numbers was disturbed. It
is important to know the simple manner in which this organi-
zation springs up, and the facility with which it is managed, as
a part of the social system of ancient society. With the in-
crease of numbers in a gens, followed by local separation of its
members, segmentation occurred, and the seceding portion
adopted a new gentile name. But a tradition of their former
unity would remain, and become the basis of their reorganiza-
tion in a phratry.

In like manner the Cayuga-Iroquois have eight gentes in
two phratries; but these gentes are not divided equally between
them. They are the following:

First Phratry.
! Gentes. — i. Bear. 2. Wolf 3. Turtle. 4. Snipe. 5. Eel.
Secojid Phratry.
Gejites. — 6. Deer. 7. Beaver. 8. Hawk.

Seven of these gentes are the same as those of the Senecas;
but the Heron gens has disappeared, and the Eel takes its
place, but transferred to the opposite phratry. The Beaver and
the Turtle gentes also have exchanged phratries. The Cay u gas
style the gentes of the same phratry brother gentes to each
other, and those of the opposite phratry their cousin gentes.

The Onondaga- Iroquois have the same number of gentes,
but two of them differ in name from those of the Senecas.
They are organized in two phratries as follows:

First Phratry.
Gentes. — i. Wolf 2. Turtle. 3. Snipe. 4. Beaver. 5. Ball.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Second Phratry.
Gentes. — 6. Deer. 7. Eel. 8. Bear,

Here again the composition of the phratries is different from
that of the Senecas. Three of the gentes in the first phratry
are the same in each; but the Bear gens has been transferred
to the opposite phratry and is now found with the Deer. The
division of gentes is also unequal, as among the Cayugas. The
gentes in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each
other, and those in the other their cousin gentes. While the
Onondagas have no Hawk, the Senecas have no Eel gens; but
the members of the two fraternize when they meet, claiming
that there is a connection between them.

The Mohawks and Oneidas have but three gentes, the Bear,
the Wolf, and the Turtle, and no phratries. When the confed-
eracy was formed, seven of the eight Seneca gentes existed in
the several tribes as is shown by the establishment of sachem-
ships in them; but the Mohawks and Oneidas then had only
the three named. It shows that they had then lost an entire
phratry, and one gens of that remaining, if it is assumed that
the original tribes were once composed of the same gentes.
When a tribe organized in gentes and phratries subdivides, it
might occur on the line of the phratric organization. Al-
though the members of a tribe are intermingled throughout by
marriage, each gens in a phratry is composed of females with
their children and descendants, through females, who formed
the body of the phratry. They would incline at least to re-
main locally together, and thus might become detached in a
body. The male members of the gens married to women of
other gentes and remaining with their wives would not affect
the gens since the children of the males do not belong to its
connection. If the minute history of the Indian tribes is ever
irecovered it must be sought through the gentes and phratries,
'which can be followed from tribe to tribe. In such an investi-
gation it will deserve attention whether tribes ever disinte-
grated by phratries. It is at least improbable.

The Tuscarora-Iroquois became detached from the main
stock at some unknown period in the past, and inhabited the
Neuse river region in North Carolina at the time of their dis-

THE IROQ UOTS PHRA TR V. 93

covery. About A. D. 17 12 they were forced out of this area,

whereupon they removed to the country of the Iroquois and

were admitted into the confederacy as a sixth member. They

have eight gentes organized in two phratries, as follows:

First PJiratry.

Gentes. — i. Bear. 2. Beaver. 3. Great Turtle. 4. Eel.

Second Phratry.

Gentes.—^. Gray Wolf 6. Yellow Wolf 7. Little Turtle.

8. Snipe.
They have six gentes in common with the Cayugas and On-
ondagas, five in common with the Senecas, and three in com-
mon with the Mohawks and Oneidas. The Deer gens, which
they once possessed, became extinct in modern times. It will
be noticed, also, that the Wolf gens is now divided into two,
the Gray and the Yellow, and the Turtle into two, the Great
and Little. Three of the gentes in the first phratry are the
same with three in the first phratry of the Senecas and Cayu-
gas, with the exception that the Wolf gens is double. As
several hundred years elapsed between the separation of the
Tuscaroras from their congeners and their return, it affords
some evidence of permanence in the existence of a gens. The
gentes in the same phratry are called brother gentes to each
I other, and those in the other phratry their cousin gentes, as
among the other tribes.

From the differences in the composition of the phratries in
the several tribes it seems probable that the phratries are mod-
ified in their gentes at intervals of time to meet changes of con-
dition. Some gentes prosper and increase in numbers, while
others through calamities decline, and others become extinct;
so that transfers of gentes from one phratry to another were
found necessary to preserve some degree of equality in the
number of phrators in each. The phratric organization has ex-
isted among the Iroquois from time immemorial. It is proba-
bly older than the confederacy which was established more
than four centuries ago. The amount of difference in their
composition, as to the gentes they contain, represents the vicis-
situdes through which each tribe has passed in the interval.
In any view of the matter it is small, tending to illustrate the
permanence of the phratry as well as the gens.

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The Iroquois tribes had a total of thirty-eight gentes, ard in
four of the tribes a total of eight phratries.

In its objects and uses the Iroquois phratry falls below the
Grecian, as would be supposed, although our knowledge of the
functions of the latter is limited ; and below what is known of
the uses of the phratry among the Roman tribes. In com-
paring the latter with the former we pass backward through
two ethnical periods, and into a very different condition of so-
ciety. The difference is in the degree of progress, and not in
kind ; for we have the same institution in each race, derived
from the same or a similar germ, and preserved by each
through immense periods of time as a part of a social system.
Gentile society remained of necessity among the Grecian and
Roman tribes until political society supervened ; and it re-
mained among the Iroquois tribes because they were still two
ethnical periods below civilization. Every fact, therefore, in
relation to the functions and uses of the Indian phratry is im-
portant, because it tends to illustrate the archaic character of
an institution which became so influential in a more developed
condition of society.

The phratry, among the Iroquois, was partly for social and
partly for religious objects. Its functions and uses can be best
shown by practical illustrations. We begin with the lowest,
with games, which were of common occurrence at tribal and
confederate councils. In the ball game, for example, among
the Senecas, they play by phratries, one against the other ;
and they bet against each other upon the result of the game.
Each phratry puts forward its best players, usually from six to
ten on a side, and the members of each phratry assemble to-
gether but upon opposite sides of the field in which the game
is played. Before it commences, articles of personal property
are hazarded upon the result by mem.bers of the opposite phra-
tries. These are deposited with keepers to abide the event.
The game is played with spirit and enthusiasm, and is an excit-
ing spectacle. The members of each phratry, from their op-
posite stations, watch the game with eagerness, and cheer
their respective players at every successful turn of the game.'

League of the Iroquois, p. 294.

THE IROQ UOIS PHRA TR Y. 95

In many ways the phratric organization manifested itself.
At a council of the tribe the sachems and chiefs in each phratry
usually seated themselves on opposite sides of an imaginary
council-fire, and the speakers addressed the two opposite bodies
as the representatives of the phratries. Formalities, such as
these, have a a peculiar charm for the Red Man in the trans-
action of business.

Ag-ain ; when a murder had been committed it was usual for
the gens of the murdered person to meet in council; and,
after ascertaining the facts, to take measures for avenging the
deed. The gens of the criminal also held a council, and
endeavored to effect an adjustment or condonation of the
crime with the gens of the murdered person. But it often
happened that the gens of the criminal called upon the other
gentes of their phratry, when the slayer and the slain belonged
to opposite phratries, to unite with them to obtain a condonation
of the crime. In such a case the phratry held a council, and
then addressed itself to the other phratry to which it sent a
delegation with a belt of white wampum asking for a council of
the phratry, and for an adjustment of the crime. They offered
reparation to the family and gens of the murdered person in
expressions of regret and in presents of value. Negotiations
were continued between the two councils until an affirmative or
a negative conclusion was reached. The influence of a phratry
composed of several gentes would be greater than that of a
single gens; and by calling into action the opposite phratry the
probability of a condonation would be increased, especially if
there were extenuating circumstances. We may thus see how
naturally the Grecian phratry, prior to civilization, assumed the
principal though not exclusive management of cases of murder,
and also of the purification of the murderer if he escaped
punishment; and, after the institution of political society, with
what proprietry the phratry assumed the duty of prosecuting
the murderer in the courts of justice.

At the funerals of persons of recognized importance in the
tribe, the phratric organization manifested itself in a conspicuous
manner. The phrators of the decedent in a body were the
mourners, and the members of the opposite phratry conducted

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the ceremonies. In the case of a sachem it was usual for the
opposite phratry to send, immediately after the funeral, the
official wampum belt of the deceased ruler to the central council
fire at Onondaga, as a notification of his demise. This was
retained until the installation of his successor, when it was
bestowed upon him as the insignia of his office. At the funeral
of Handsome Lake (Ga-ne-o-di'-yo), one of the eight Seneca
sachems (which occurred some years ago), there was an assem-
blage of sachems and chiefs to the number of twenty-seven, and
a large concourse of members of both phratries. The customary
address to the dead body, and the other addresses before the
removal of the body, were made by members of the opposite
phratry. After the addresses were concluded, the body was
borne to the grave by persons selected from the last named
phratry, followed, first, by the sachems and chiefs, then by the
family and gens of the decedent, next by his remaining phrators,
and last by the members of the opposite phratry. After the
body had been deposited in the grave the sachems and chiefs
formed in a circle around it for the purpose of filling it with
earth. Each in turn, commencing with the senior in years, cast
in three shovelfuls, a typical number in their religious system;
of which the first had relation to the Great Spirit, the second to
the Sun, and the third to Mother Earth. When the grave was
filled the senior sachem, by a figure of speech, deposited "the
horns" of the departed sachem, emblematical of his office, upon
the top of the grave over his head, there to remain until his
successor was installed. In that subsequent ceremony, " the
horns " were said to be taken from the grave of the deceased
ruler, and placed upon the head of his successor.^ The social
and religious functions of the phratry, and its naturalness in the
organic system of ancient society, are rendered apparent by this
single usage.

' It was a journey of ten days from earth to heaven for the departed spirit,
according to Iroquois belief. For ten days after the death of a person, the
mourners met nightly to lament the deceased, at which they indulged in excessive
grief. The dirge or wail was performed by women. It was an ancient custom to
make a fire on the grave each night for the same period. On the eleventh day
they held a feast; the spirit of the departed having reached heaven, the place
of rest, there was no further cause for mourning. With the feast it terminated.

THE IROOUOIS PHRATRY.

The pliratiy was also directly concerned in the election of
sachems and chiefs of the several gentes, upon which they had
a negative as well as a confirmative vote. After the gens of a
deceased sachem had elected his successor, or had elected a
chief of the second grade, it was necessary, as elsewhere stated,
that their choice should be accepted and confirmed by each
phratry. It was expected that the gentes of the same phratry
would confirm the choice almost as a matter of course; but
the opposite phratry also must acquiesce, and from this source
opposition sometimes appeared. A council of each phratry
was held and pronounced upon the question of acceptance or
rejection. If the nomination made was accepted by both it
I became complete; but if either refused it was thereby set aside,
j and a new election was made by the gens. When the choice
made by the gens had been accepted by the phratries, it was
still necessary, as before stated, that the new sachem, or the
new chief, should be invested by the council of the con-
federacy, which alone had power to invest, with office.

The Senecas have now lost their Medicine Lodges which fell
out in modern times; but they formerly existed and formed a
prominent part of their religious system. To hold a Medicine
Lodge was to observe. their highest religious rites, and to prac-
tice their highest religious mysteries. They had two such or-
ganizations, one in each phratry, Avhich shows still further the
natural connection of the phratry with religious observances.
Very little is now known concerning these lodges or their cere-
monies. Each w^as a brotherhood, into which new members
were admitted by a formal initiation.

The phratry was without governmental functions in the strict
sense of the phrase, these being confined to the gens tribe and
confederacy; but it entered into their social affairs with large
administrative powers, and would have concerned itself more
and more with their religious affairs as the condition of the
people advanced. Unlike the Grecian phratry and the Roman
curia it had no official head. There was no chief of the phra-
try as such, and no religious functionaries belonging to it as
distinguished from the gens and tribe. The phratric institu-
tion among the Iroquois was in its rudimentary archaic form;
7

98 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

but it grew into life by natural and inevitable development,
and remained permanent because it met necessary wants.
Every institution of mankind which attained permanence will
be found linked with a perpetual want. With the gens tribe
and confederacy in existence the presence of the phratry was
substantially assured. It required time, however, and further
experience to manifest all the uses to which it might be made
subservient.

Among the Village Indians of Mexico and Central America
the phratry must have existed, reasoning upon general princi-
ples; and have been a more fully developed and influential or-
ganization than among the Iroquois. Unfortunately, mere
glimpses at such an institution are all that can be found in the
teeming narratives of the Spanish writers within the first cent-
ury after the Spanish conquest. The four "lineages" of the
Tlascalans who occupied the four quarters of the pueblo of
Tlascala, were, in all probability, so many phratries. They
were sufficiently numerous for four tribes; but as they occupied
the same pueblo and spoke the same dialect the phratric or-
ganization was apparently a necessity. Each lineage, or phra-
try so to call it, had a distinct military organization, a peculiar
costume and banner, and its head war- chief (^7>;/r///^, \\\\o was
its general military commander. They went forth to battle by
'phratries. The organization of a military force by phratries
and by tribes was not unknown to the Homeric Greeks.
Thus; Nestor advises Agamemnon to "separate the troops by
phratries and by tribes, so that phratry may support phratry
and tribe tribe." ^ Under gentile institutions of the most ad-
vanced type the principle of kin became, to a considerable ex-
tent, the basis of the army organization. The Aztecs, in like
manner, occupied the pueblo of Mexico ■ in four distinct divis-
ions, the people of each of which were more nearly related to
each other than to the people of the other divisions. They
were separate lineages, like the Tlascalan, and it seems highly
probable were four phratries, separately organized as such.
They were distinguished from each other by costumes and
standards, and went out to war as separate divisions. Their

' Iliad, ii, 362.

THE IROOUOTS PHRATRY.

geographical areas were called the four quarters of Mexico.
This subject will be referred to again.

With respect to the prevalence of this organization, among
the Indian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism, the subject
has been but slightly investigated. It is probable that it was
general in the principal tribes, from the natural manner in
which it springs up as a necessary member of the organic
series, and from the uses, other than governmental, to which it
was adapted.

In some of the tribes the phratries stand out prominently
upon the face of their organization. Thus, the Chocta gentes
are united in two phratries which must be mentioned first in
order to show the relation of the gentes to each other. The
first phratry is called "Divided People," and contains four gen-
tes. The second is called "Beloved People," and also contains
four gentes. This separation of the people into two divisions
by gentes created two phratries. Some knowledge of the
functions of these phratries is of course desirable; but without
it, the fact of their existence is established by the divisions
themselves. The evolution of a confederacy from a pair of
gentes, for less than two are never found in any tribe, may be
deduced, theoretically,- from the known facts of Indian experi-
ence. Thus, the gens increases in the number of its members
and divides into two; these again subdivide, and in time reunite
in two or more phratries. These phratries form a tribe, and its
members speak the same dialect. In course of time this tribe
falls into several by the process of segmentation, which in turn
reunite in a confederacy. Such a confederacy is a growth,
through the tribe and phratry, from a pair of gentes.

The Chickasas are organized in two phratries, of which one
contains four, and the other eight gentes, as follows:

I. Panther Phratry.

Gentes. — i. Wild Cat. 2. Bird. 3. Fish. 4. Deer.

II. Spajiish Phratry.

Gentes. — 5. Raccoon. 6. Spanish. 7. Royal. 8. Hush-ko'-ni.
9. Squirrel. 10. Alligator. 11. Wolf 12. Blackbird.
The particulars with respect to the Chocta and Chickasa
phratries I am unable to present. Some fourteen years ago

lOO ANCIENT SOCIETY.

these organizations were given to me by Rev. Doctor Cyrus
Byington and Rev. Charles C. Copeland, but without discuss-
ing their uses and functions.

A very complete illustration of the manner in which phratries
are formed by natural growth, through the subdivision of gen-
tes, is presented by the organization of the Mohegan tribe. It
had three original gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle, and the Turkey.

Each of these subdivided, and the subdivisions became inde-
pendent gentes; but they retained the names of the original
gentes as their respective phratric names. In other words the
subdivisions of each gens reorganized in a phratry. It proves
conclusively the natural process by which, in course of time, a
gens breaks up into several, and these remain united in a phra-
tric organization, which is expressed by assuming a phratric
name. They are as follows:

I. Wolf Phratry.

Gentes. — I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Dog. 4. Opossum.

II. Turtle PJiratry.

Gentes. — 5. Little Turtle. 6. Mud Turtle. 7. Great Turtle.

8. Yellow Eel.

III. Turkey PJiratry.

Gentes. — 9. Turkey. 10. Crane, ii. Chicken.

It is thus seen that the original Wolf gens divided into four
gentes, the Turtle into four, and the Turkey into three. Each
new gens took a new name, the original retaining its own,
which became, by seniority, that of the phratry. It is rare
among the American Indian tribes to find such plain evidence
of the segmentation of gentes in their external organization,
followed by the formation into phratries of their respective sub-
divisions. It shows also that the phratry is founded upon the
kinship of the gentes. As a rule the name of the original gens
out of which others had formed is not known; but in each of
these cases it remains as the name of the phratry. Since the
latter, like the Grecian, was a social and religious rather than a
governmental organization, it is externally less conspicuous than
a gens or tribe which were essential to the government of so-
ciety. The name of but one of the twelve Athenian phratries
has come down to us in history. Those of the Iroquois had
no name but that of a brotherhood.

THE IROQ UOIS PHRA TRY. I O I

The Delawares and Munsees have the same three gentcs, the
Wolf, the Turtle, and the Turkey. Among the belawares
there are twelve embryo gentes in each tribe, but they seem to
be lineages within the gentes and had not taken gentile names.
It was a movement, however, in that direction.

The phratry also appears among the Thlinkeets of the North-
west coast, upon the surface of their organization into gentes.
They have two phratries, as follow^s:

I. Wolf Phratry.
Gentcs. — I. Bear. 2. Eagle. 3. Dolphin. 4. Shark. 5. Alca.

II. Raven Phratry.
Gentes. — 6. Frog. 7. Goose. 8. Sea-lion. 9. Owl. 10. Salmon.

Intermarriage in the phratry is prohibited, which shows, of
itself, that the gentes of each phratry were derived from an
original gens.^ The members of any gens in the Wolf phratry
could marry into any gens of the opposite phratry, and vice
versa.

From the foregoing facts the existence of the phratry is es-
tablished in several linguistic stocks of the American aborigines.
Its presence in the tribes named raises a presumption of its
general prevalence in the Ganowanian family. Among the
Village Indians, where the numbers in a gens and tribe were
greater, it would necessarily have been more important and con-
sequently more fully developed. As an institution it was still
in its archaic form, but it possessed the essential elements of the
Grecian and the Roman. It can now be asserted that the full
organic series of ancient society exists in full vitality upon the
American continent; namely, the gens, the phratry, the tribe,
and the confederacy of tribes. With further proofs yet to be
adduced, the universality of the gentile organization upon all
the continents will be established.

If future investigation is directed specially to the functions
of the phratric organization among the tribes of the American
aborigines, the knowledge gained will explain many peculiari-
ties of Indian life and manners not well understood, and throw
additional light upon their usages and customs, and upon their
plan of life and government.

' Bancroft's Native Races of the Pacific States, I, 109.

CHAPTER IV.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

The Tribe as an Organization. — Composed of Gentes Speaking the
SAME Dialect. — Separation in area led to Divergence of Speech, and
Segmentation. — The Tribe a Natural Growth. — Illustrations. — At-
tributes OF A Tribe. — A Territory and Name. — An Exclusive Dialect. —
The Right to Invest and Depose its Sachems and Chiefs. — A Religious
Faith and Worship. — A Council of Chiefs.— A Head-Chief of Tribe in
some Instances. — Three successive Forms of Gentile Government:
First, a Government of One Power; Second, of Two Powers; Third,
of Three Powers.

It is difficult to describe an Indian tribe by the affirmative
elements of its composition. Nevertheless it is clearly marked,
and the ultimate organization of the great body of the Ameri-
can aborigines. The large number of independent tribes into
which they had fallen by the natural process of segmentation,
is the striking characteristic of their condition. Each tribe was
individualized by a name, by a separate dialect, by a supreme
government, and by the possession of a territory which it oc-
cupied and defended as its own. The tribes were as numerous
as the dialects, for separation did not become complete until
dialectical variation had commenced. Indian tribes, therefore,
are natural growths through the separation of the same people
in the area of their occupation, followed by divergence of
speech, segmentation, and independence.

We have seen that the phratry was not so much a govern-
mental as a social organization, while the gens, tribe, and
confederacy, were necessary and logical stages of progress in the

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

103

growth of the idea of government. A confederacy could not
exist, under gentile society, without tribes as a basis; nor could
tribes exist without gentes, though they might without
phratries. In this chapter I will endeavor to point out the
manner in which these numerous tribes were formed, and,
presumptively out of one original people; the causes which
produced their perpetual segmentation; and the principal at-
tributes which distinguished an Indian tribe as an organization.

The exclusive possession of a dialect and of a territory has
led to the application of the term nation to many Indian tribes,
notwithstanding the fewness of the people in each. Tribe and
nation, however, are not strict equivalents. A nation does not
arise, under gentile institutions, until the tribes united under the
same government have coalesced into one people, as the four
Athenian tribes coalesced in Attica, three Dorian tribes at
Sparta, and three Latin and Sabine tribes at Rome. Federation
requires independent tribes in separate territorial areas; but
coalescence unites them by a higher process in the same area,
although the tendency to local separation by gentes and by
tribes would continue. The confederacy is the nearest analogue
of the nation, but not strictly equivalent. Where the gentile
organization exists, the organic series gives all the terms which
are needed for a correct description.

An Indian tribe is composed of several gentes, developed
from two or more, all the members of which are intermingled
by marriage, and all of Avhom speak the same dialect. To a
stranger the tribe is visible, and not the gens. The instances
are extremely rare, among the American aborigines, in
which the tribe embraced peoples speaking different dialects.
When such cases are found, it resulted from the union of a
weaker wath a stronger tribe speaking a closely related dialect,
as the union of the Missouris with the Otoes after the overthrow
of the former. The fact that the great body of the aborigines
were found in independent tribes illustrates the slow and diffi-
cult growth of the idea of government under gentile institutions.
A small portion only had attained to the ultimate stage known
among them, that of a confederacy of tribes speaking dialects
of the same stock language. A coalescence of tribes into a
nation had not occurred in any case in any part of America.

104

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

A constant tendency to disintegration, which has proved
such a hinderance to progress among savage and barbarous
tribes, existed in the elements of the gentile organization. It
was aggravated by a further tendency to divergence of speech,
which was inseparable from their social state and the large
areas of their occupation. A verbal language, although
remarkably persistent in its vocables, and still more persistent in
its grammatical forms, is incapable of permanence. Separation
of the people in area was followed in time by variation in
speech; and this, in turn, led to separation in interests and
ultimate independence. It was not the work of a brief period,
but of centuries of time, aggregating finally into thousands of
years. The great number of dialects and stock languages in
North and South America, which presumptively were derived,
the Eskimo excepted, from one original language, require for
their formation the time measured by three ethnical periods.

New tribes as well as new gentes were constantly forming by
natural growth; and the process was sensibly accelerated by
the great expanse of the American continent. The method
was simple. In the first place there would occur a gradual
outflow of people from some overstocked geographical centre,
which possessed superior advantages in the means of subsist-
ence. Continued from year to year, a considerable population
would thus be developed at a distance from the original seat of
the tribe. In course of time the emigrants would become
distinct in interests, strangers in feeling, and last of all, diver-
gent in speech. Separation and independence would follow,
although their territories were contiguous. A nevv' tribe was
thus created. This is a concise statement of the manner in
which the tribes of the American aborigines were formed, but
the statement must be taken as general. Repeating itself from
age to age in newly acquired as well as in old areas, it must be
regarded as a natural as well as inevitable result of the gentile
organization, united with the necessities of their condition.
When increased numbers pressed upon the means of subsist-
ence, the surplus removed to a new seat where they established
themselves with facility, because the government was perfect in
every gens, and in any number of gentes united in a band.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE. 105

Among the Village Indians the same thing repeated itself in a
slightly different manner. When a village became overcrowd-
ed with numbers, a colony went up or down on the same stream
and commenced a new village. Repeated at intervals of time
several such villages would appear, each independent of the
other and a self-governing body; but united in a league or
confederacy for mutual protection. Dialectical variation would
finally spring up, and thus complete their growth into tribes.

The manner in which tribes are evolved from each other can
be shown directly by examples. The fact of separation is de-
rived in part from tradition, in part from the possession by each
of a number of the same gentes, and deduced in part from the
relations of their dialects. Tribes formed by the subdivisions
of an original tribe would possess a number of gentes in com-
mon, and speak dialects of the same language. After several
centuries of separation they would still have a number of the
same gentes. Thus, the Hurons, now Wyandotes, have six
gentes of the same name with six of the gentes of the Seneca-
Iroquois, after at least four hundred years of separation. The
Potawattamies have eight gentes of the same name with eight
among the Ojibwas, while the former have six, and the latter
fourteen, which are different ; showing that new gentes have
been formed in each tribe by segmentation since their separa-
tion. A still older offshoot from the Ojibwas, or from the com-
mon parent tribe of both, the Miamis, have but three gentes in
common with the former, namely, the Wolf, the Loon, and the
Eagle. The minute social history of the tribes of the Ganowa-
nian family is locked up in the life and growth of the gentes.
If investigation is ever turned strongly in this direction, the
gentes themselves would become reliable guides, both in respect
to the order of separation from each other of the tribes of the
same stock, and possibly of the great stocks of the aborigines.

The following illustrations are drawn from tribes in the
Lower Status of barbarism. When discovered, the eight Missouri
tribes occupied the banks of the Missouri river for more than a
thousand miles; together with the banks of its tributaries, the
Kansas and the Platte; and also the smaller rivers of Iowa.
They also occupied the west bank of the Mississippi down to the

I06 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Arkansas. Their dialects show that the people were in three
tribes before the last subdivisions; namely, first, the Punkas and
Omahas, second, the lowas, Otoes and Missouris, and third,
the Kaws, Osages and Quappas. These three were undoubtedly
subdivisions of a single original tribe, because their several
dialects are still much nearer to each other than to any other
dialect of the Dakotian stock language to which they belong.
There is, therefore, a linguistic necessity for their derivation from
an original tribe. A gradual spread from a central point on
this river along its banks, both above and below, would lead to
a separation in interests with the increase of distance between
their settlements, followed by divergence of speech, and finally
by independence. A people thus extending themselves along a
river in a prairie country might separate, first into three tribes,
and afterwards into eight, and the organization of each subdi-
vision remain complete. Division was neither a shock, nor an
appreciated calamity; but a separation into parts by natural ex-
pansion over a larger area, followed by a complete segmenta-
tion. The uppermost tribe on the Missouri were the Punkas
at the mouth of the Niobrara river, and the lowermost the
Quappas at the mouth of the Arkansas on the Mississippi, with
an interval of near fifteen hundred miles between them. The
intermediate region, confined to the narrow belt of forest upon
the Missouri, was held by the remaining six tribes. They were
strictly River Tribes.

Another illustration may be found in the tribes of Lake Su-
perior. The Ojibwas, Otawas^ and Potawattamies are subdi-
visions of an original tribe; the Ojibwas representing the stem,
because they remained at the original seat at the great fisheries
upon the outlet of the lake. Moreover, they are styled "El-
der Brother" by the remaining two; while the Otawas were
styled "Next Older Brother," and the Potawattamies "Younger
Brother." The last tribe separated first, and the Otawas last,
as is shown by the relative amount of dialectical variation, that
of the former being greatest. At the time of their discovery,
A. D. 1 64 1, the Ojibwas were seated at the Rapids on the out-
let of Lake Superior, from which point they had spread along

1 O-ta'-was.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

107

the southern shore of the lake to the site of Ontonagon, along
its northeastern shore, and down the St. Mary River well to-
ward Lake Huron. Their position possessed remarkable ad-
vantages for a fish and game subsistence, which, as they did not
cultivate maize and plants, was their main reliance.^ It was
second to none in North America, with the single exception of
the Valley of the Columbia. With such advantages they were
certain to develop a large Indian population, and to send out
successive bands of emigrants to become independent tribes.
The Potawattamies occupied a region on the confines of Upper
Michigan and Wisconsin, from which the Dakotas in 1641,
were in the act of expelling them. At the same time the
Otawas, whose earlier residence is supposed to have been on
the Otawa river of Canada, had drawn westward and were
then seated upon the Georgian Bay, the Manitouline Islands
and at Mackinaw, from which points they were spreading
southward over Lower Michigan. Originally one people, and
possessing the same gentes, they had succeeded in appropriat-
ing a large area. Separation in place, and distance between
their settlements, had long before their discovery resulted in
the formation of dialects, and in tribal independence. The
three tribes, whose territories were contiguous, had formed an
alliance for mutual protection, known among Americans as
"the Otawa Confederacy." It was a league, offensive and de-
fensive, and not, probably, a close confederacy like that of the
Iroquois.

Prior to these secessions another affiliated tribe, the Miamis,
had broken off from the Ojibwa stock, or the common parent
tribe, and migrated to central Illinois and western Indiana.
Following in the track of this migration were the Illinois, an-
other and later offshoot from the same stem, who afterwards
subdivided into the Peorias, Kaskaskias, Weaws, and Pian-
keshaws. Their dialects, with that of the Miamis, find their
nearest affinity with the Ojibwa, and next with the Cree.^ The

* The Ojibwas manufactured earthen pipes, water jars, and vessels in ancient
times, as they now assert. Indian pottery has been dug up at different times at
the Sault St. Mary, which they recognize as the work of their forefathers.

* The Potawattamie and the Cree have diverged about equally. It is probable
that the Ojibwas Otawas and Crees were one people in dialect after the Pot-
awattamies became detached.

I08 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

outflow of all these tribes from the central seat at the great
fisheries of Lake Superior is a significant fact, because it illus-
trates the manner in which tribes are formed in connection
with natural centres of subsistence. The New England, Del-
aware, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina Algonkins were, in all
probability, derived from the same source. Several centuries
would be required for the formation of the dialects first named,
and for the production of the amount of variation they now
exhibit.

, The foregoing examples represent the natural process by
! which tribes are evolved from each other, or from a parent tribe
established in an advantageous position. Each emigrating band
was in the nature of a military colony, if it may be so strongly
characterized, seeking to acquire and hold a new area; pre-
serving at first, and as long as possible, a connection with the
mother tribe. By these successive movements they sought to
expand their joint possessions, and afterward to resist the in-
trusion of alien people within their limits. It is a noticeable
fact that Indian tribes speaking dialects of the same stock lan-
guage have usually been found in territorial continuity, how-
ever extended their common area. The same has, in the main,
, been true of all the tribes of mankind linguistically united. It
j is because the people, spreading from some geographical centre,
jand maintaining an arduous struggle for subsistence, and for
'the possession of their new territories, have preserved their con-
inection with the mother land as a means of succor in times of
danger, and as a place of refuge in calamity.

It required special advantages in the means of subsistence to
render any area an initial point of migration through the
gradual development of a surplus population. These natural
centres were few in number in North America. There are but
three. First among them is the Valley of the Columbia, the most
extraordinary region on the face of the earth in the variety and
amount of subsistence it afforded, prior to the cultiv^ation of
maize and plants;^ second, the peninsula between Lakes Supe-

• As a mixture of forest and prairie it was an excellent game country. A species
of bread-root, the kamash, grew in abundance in the prairies. In the summer
there was a profusion of berries. But in these respects it was not superior to

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE. 109

rior, Huron and Michigan, the seat of the Ojibwas, and the
nursery land of many Indian tribes; and third, the lake region
in ]\Iinnesota, the nursery ground of the present Dakota
tribes. These are the only regions in North America that can
be called natural centres of subsistence, and natural sources of
surplus numbers. There are reasons for believing that Min-
nesota was a^part of the Algonkin area before it was occupied
by the Dakotas. When the cultivation of maize and plants
came in, it tended to localize the people and support them in
smaller areas, as well as to increase their numbers ; but it failed
to transfer the control of the continent to the most advanced
tribes of Village Indians, who subsisted almost entirely by cul-
tivation. Horticulture spread among the principal tribes in the
Lower Status of barbarism and greatly improved their condi-
tion. They held, with the non-horticultural tribes, the great
areas of North America when it was discovered, and from their
ranks the continent 'was being replenished with inhabitants.^

other areas. That which signalized the region was the inexhaustible supply
of salmon in the Columbia, and other rivers of the coast. They crowded these
streams in millions, and were taken in the season with facility, and in the greatest
abundance. After being split open and dried in the sun, they were packed and
removed to their villages, and formed their principal food during the greater
part of the year. Beside these were the shell fisheries of the coast, which supplied
a large amount of food during the winter months. Superadded to these concen-
trated advantages, the climate was mild and equable throughout the year — about
that of Tennessee and Virginia. It was the paradise of tribes without a knowl-
edge of the cereals.

' It can be shown with a great degree of probability, that the Valley of the
Columbia was the seed land of the Ganowanian family, from which issued, in
past ages, successive streams of migrating bands, until both divisions of the
continent were occupied. And further, that both divisions continued to_ be re-
plenished with inhabitants from this source down to the epoch of European
discovery. These conclusions may be deduced from physical causes, from the
relative conditions, and from the linguistic relations of the Indian tribes. The
great expanse of the central prairies, which spread continuously more than fifteen
hundred miles from north to south, and more than a thousand miles from east to
west, interposed a barrier to a free communication between the Pacific and Atlantic
sides of the continent in North America. It seems probable, therefore, that an
original family commencing its spread from the Valley of the Columbia, and
migrating under the influence of physical causes, would reach Patagonia sooner
than they would Florida. The known facts point so strongly to this region as the
original home of the Indian family, that a moderate amount of additional evidence
will render the hypothesis conclusive.

The discovery and cultivation of maize did not change materially the course

no ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The multiplication of tribes and dialects has been the fruitful
source of the incessant warfare of the aborigines upon each
other. As a rule the most persistent warfare has been waged
;between tribes speaking different stock languages ; as, for ex-
Jample, between the Iroquois and Algonkin tribes, and between
the Dakota tribes and the same. On the contrary the Algon-
kin and Dakota tribes severally have, in general, hved at peace
among themselves. Had it been otherwise they would ftot
have been found in the occupation of continuous areas. The
worst exception were the Iroquois, who pursued a war of exter-
mination against their kindred tribes, the Eries, the Neutral
Nation, the Hurons and the Susquehannocks. Tribes speaking
• dialects of the same stock language are able to communicate
orally and thus compose their differences. They also learned,

of events, or suspend the operatiofi of previous causes ; though it became an
important factor in the progress of improvement. It is not known where this
American cereal was indigenous ; but the tropical region of Central America,
where vegetation is intensely active, where this plant is peculiarly fruitful, and
where the oldest seats of the Village Indians were found, has been assumed
by common consent, as the probable place of its nativity. If, then, cultivation
commenced in Central America, it would have propagated itself first over Mexico,
and from thence to New Mexico and the valley of the Mississippi, and thence
ao-ain eastward to the shores of the Atlantic ; the volume of cultivation diminish-
ing from the starting-point to the extremities. It would spread, independently
of the Village Indians, from the desire of more barbarous tribes to gain tlie new
subsistence ; but it never extended beyond New Mexico to the Valley of the
Columbia, though cultivation was practiced by the Minnitarees and Mandans of the
Upper Missouri, by the Shyans on the Red River of the North, by the Hurons
of Lake Simcoe in Canada, and by the Abenakies of the Kennebec, as well as
generally by the tribes between the Mississippi and the Atlantic. Migrating bands
from the Valley of the Columbia, following upon the track of their predecessors,
would press upon the Village Indians of New Mexico and Mexico, tending to force
displaced and fragmentary tribes toward and through the Isthmus into South
America. Such expelled bands would carry with them the first germs of progress
developed by Village Indian life. Repeated at intervals of time it would tend to
bestow upon South America a class of inhabitants far superior to the wild bands
previously supplied, and at the expense of the northern section thus impoverished.
In the final result. South America would attain the advanced position in develop-
ment, even in an inferior country, which seems to have been the fact. The Peru-
vian legend of Manco Capac and Mama Oello, children of the sun, brother and
sister, husband and wife, shows, if it can be said to show anything, that a band
of Village Indians migrating from a distance, though not necessarily from North
America direct, had gathered together and taught the rude tribes of the Andes the
higher arts of life, including the cultivation of maize and plants. By a simple and
quite natural process the legend has dropped out the band, and retained only the
leader and his wife.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE. Ill

(in virtue of their common descent, to depend upon each other

las natural allies.

Numbers within a given area were limited by the amount of
subsistence it afforded. When fish and game were the main
reliance for food, it required an immense area to maintain a
small tribe. After farinaceous food was superadded to fish and
game, the area occupied by a tribe was still a large one in pro-
portion to the number of the people. New York, with its
forty-seven thousand square miles, never contained at any time
more than twenty-five thousand Indians, including with the
Iroquois the Algonkins on the east side of the Hudson and
upon Long Island, and the Eries and Neutral Nation in the
western section of the state. A personal government founded
upon gentes was incapable of developing sufficient central
power to follow and control the increasing numbers of the
people, unless they remained within a reasonable distance from
each other.

Among the Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, and
Central America an increase of numbers in a small area did not
arrest the process of disintegration. Each pueblo was usually
an independent self-governing community. Where several
pueblos were seated near each other on the same stream, the
people were usually of common descent, and either under a
tribal or confederate government. There are some seven
stock languages in New Mexico alone, each spoken in several
dialects. At the time of Coronado's expedition, 1 540- 1 542, the
villages found were numerous but small. There were seven
each of Cibola, Tucayan, Quivira, and Hemez, and twelve of
Tiguex;^ and other groups indicating a linguistic connection of
their members. Whether or not each group was confederated
we are not informed. The seven Moqui Pueblos (the Tucayan
Villages of Coronado's expedition), are said to be confederated
at the present time, and probably were at the time of their
discovery.

The process of subdivision, illustrated by the foregoing
examples, has been operating among the American aborigines
for thousands of years, until upwards of forty stock languages,

' Coll. TernauX'Compans, IX, pp. 181-183.

112 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

as near as is known, have been developed in North America
alone; each spoken in a number of dialects, by an equal
number of independent tribes. Their experience, probably,
was but a repetition of that of the tribes of Asia, Europe and
Africa, when they were in corresponding conditions.

From the preceding observations, it is apparent that an
American Indian tribe is a very simple as well as humble
organization. It required but a few hundreds, and, at most, a
few thousand people to form a tribe, and place it in a respect-
able position in the Ganowanian family.

It remains to present the functions and attributes of an
Indian tribe, which may be discussed under the following prop-
ositions:

I. The possession of a territory and a name.

II. TJie exclusive possession of a dialect.

III. The right to invest sacJicms and chiefs elected by the

gentes.

IV. The right to depose these sachems and chiefs.

V. The possession of a religious faith and luorship.
VI. A supreme governmcjit consisting of a council of chiefs.
VII. A head-chief of the tribe in some instances.

It will be sufficient to make a brief reference to each of these
several attributes of a tribe.

I. The possession of a territory and a name.

Their territory consisted of the area of their actual settle-
ments, and so much of the surrounding region as the tribe
ranged over in hunting and fishing, and were able to defend
against the encroachments of other tribes. Without this area
was a wide margin of neutral grounds, separating them from
their nearest frontegers if they spoke a different language, and
claimed by neither; but less wide, and less clearly marked,
when they spoke dialects of the same language. The country
thus imperfectly defined, whether large or small, was the
domain of the tribe, recognized as such by other tribes, and
defended as such by themselves.

In due time the tribe became individualized by a name,
which, from their usual character, must have been in many
cases accidental rather than deliberate. Thus, the Senecas

THE IROQ UOIS TRIBE. 1 1 3

styled themselves the "Great Hill People" (Nun-da'- wa-o-no),
the Tuscaroras, "Shirt- wearing People" (Dus-ga'-o-weh-o-
no'), the Sissetons, "Village of the Marsh" (Sis-se'-to-wan), the
Ogalallas, "Camp Movers" (O-ga-lal'-lJi), the Omahas, "Up-
stream People" (O-ma'-ha), the lowas, "Dusty Noses" (Pa-ho'-
cha), the Minnitarees, "People from Afar" (E-nat'-za), the
Cherokees, "Great People" (Tsa-lo'-kee), the Shawnees,
"Southerners" (Sa-wan-wa-kee'), the Mohegans, "Sea-side
People" (Mo-he-kun-e-uk), the Slave Lake Indians, "People
of the Lowlands" (A-cha'-o-tin-ne). Among the Village
Indians of Mexico, the Sochimilcos styled themselves "Nation
of the Seeds of Flowers," the Chalcans, "People of Mouths,"
the Tepanecans, "People of the Bridge," the Tezcucans or
Culhuas "A Crooked People," and the Tlascalans "Men of
Bread. "^ When European colonization began in the northern
part of America, the names of Indian tribes were obtained, not
usually from the tribe direct, but from other tribes who had
bestowed names upon them different from their own. As a
consequence, a number of tribes are now known in history
under names not recognized by themselves.
I II. The exclusive posscssioii of a dialect.

! Tribe and dialect are substantially co- extensive, but there
are exceptions growing out of special circumstances. Thus,
the twelve Dakota bands are now properly tribes, because they
are distinct in interests and in organization; but they were
forced into premature separation by the advance of Americans
upon their original area which forced them upon the plains.
They had remained in such intimate connection previously that
but one new dialect had commenced forming, the Tceton, on the
Missouri; the hanntie on the Mississippi being the original
speech. A few years ago the Cherokees numbered twenty-six
thousand, the largest number of Indians ever found within the
limits of the United States speaking the same dialect. But in
the mountain districts of Georgia a slight divergence of speech
had occurred, though not sufficient to be distinguished as a
dialect. There are a few other similar cases, but they do not

' Acosta. The Natural and J\foral History of the East and West Indies,
Lond. ed., 1604, Grimstone's Trans., pp. 500-503.

114

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

break the general rule during the aboriginal period which made
tribe and dialect co-extensive. The Ojibwas, who are still in
the main non-horticultural, now number about fifteen thou-
sand, and speak the same dialect; and the Dakota tribes col-
lectively about twenty-five thousand who speak two very
closely related dialects, as stated. These several tribes are ex-
ceptionally large. The tribes within the United States and
British America would yield, on an average, less than two thou-
sand persons to a tribe.

III. TJie right of investing sachems and chiefs elected by
the gentes.

Among the Iroquois the person elected could not become a
chief until his investiture by a council of chiefs. As the chiefs
of the gentes composed the council of the tribe, with power
over common interests, there was a manifest propriety in re-
serving to the tribal council the function of investing persons
with office. But after the confederacy was formed, the power
of "raising up" sachems and chiefs was transferred from the
council of the tribe to the council of the confederacy. With
respect to the tribes generally, the accessible information is in-
sufficient to explain their usages in relation to the mode of in-
vestiture. It is one of the numerous subjects requiring further
investigation before the social system of the Indian tribes can
be fully explained. The office of sachem and chief was uni-
versally elective among the tribes north of Mexico; with suffi-
cient evidence, as to other parts of the continent, to leave no
doubt of the universality of the rule.

Among the Delawares each gens had one sachem, (Sa-ke'-
ma), whose office was hereditary in the gens, besides two com-
mon chiefs, and two war-chiefs — making fifteen in three gentes —
who composed the council of the tribe. Among the Ojibwas,
the members of some one gens usually predominated at each
settlement. Each gens had a sachem, whose office was heredi-
tary in the gens, and several common chiefs. Where a large
number of persons of the same gens lived in one locality they
would be found similarly organized. There was no prescribed
limit to the number of chiefs. A body of usages, which have
never been collected, undoubtedly existed in the several Indian

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

115

tribes respecting the election and investiture of sachems and
chiefs. A knowledge of them would be valuable. An expla-
nation of the Iroquois method of "raising up" sachems and
chiefs will be given in the next chapter.

IV. The right to depose these sachems and chiefs.

This right rested primarily with the gens to which the sa-
chem and chief belonged. But the council of the tribe possessed
the same power, and could proceed independently of the gens,
and even in opposition to its wishes. In the Status of savage-
ry, and in the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barba-
rism, office was bestowed for life, or during good behavior.
Mankind had not learned to limit an elective office for a term
of years. The right to depose, therefore, became the more
essential for the maintenance of the principle of self-govern-
ment. This right was a perpetual assertion of the sovereignty
of the gens and also of the tribe; a sovereignty feebly under-
stood, but nevertheless a reality.

V. The possession of a irligions faith and worship.

After the fashion of barbarians the American Indians were a
religious people. The tribes generally held religious festivals
at particular seasons of the year, which were observed with
forms of worship, dances and games. The Medicine Lodge, in
many tribes, was the centre of these observances. It was cus-
tomary to announce the holding of a Medicine Lodge weeks
and months in advance to awaken a general interest in its cer-
emonies. The religious system of the aborigines is another
of the subjects which has been but partially investigated. It is
rich in materials for the future student. The experience of
these tribes in deyeloping their religious beliefs and mode of
worship is a part of the experience of mankind ; and the facts
will hold an important place in the science of comparative re-
ligion.

Their system was more or less vague and indefinite, and load-
ed with crude superstitions. Element worship can be traced
among the principal tribes, with a tendency to polytheism in
the advanced tribes. The Iroquois, for example, recognized
a Great, and an Evil Spirit, and a multitude of inferior spir-
itual beings, the immortality of the soul, and a future state.

1 1 5 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

Their conception of the Great Spirit assigned to him a human
form; which was equally true of the Evil Spirit, of He' -no, the
Spirit of Thunder, of Ga'-o/i, the Spirit of the Winds, and of the
Three Sisters, the Spirit of Maize, the Spirit of the Bean, and
the Spirit of the Squash. The latter were styled, collectively,
" Our Life," and also "Our Supporters." Beside these were the
spirits of the several kinds of trees and plants, and of the run-
ning streams. The existence and attributes of these numerous
spiritual beings were but feebly imagined. Among the tribes in
the Lower Status of barbarism idolatry was unknown.^ The
Aztecs had personal ggds, with idols to represent them, and a
temple worship. If the particulars of their religious system were
accurately known, its growth out of the common beliefs of the
Indian tribes would probably be made apparent.

Dancing was a form of w^orship among the American abo-
rigines, and formed a part of the ceremonies at all religious fes-
tivals. In no part of the earth, among barbarians, has the
dance received a more studied development. Every tribe has
from ten to thirty set dances ; each of which has its own name,
songs, musical instruments, steps, plan and costume for persons.
Some of them, as the war- dance, were common to all the tribes.
Particular dances are special property, belonging either to a gens,
or to a society organized for its maintenance, into which new
members were from time to time initiated. The dances of the
Dakotas, the Crees, the Ojibwas, the Iroquois, and of the Pueblo
Indians of New Mexico, are the same in general character, in
step, plan, and music; and the same is true of the dances of the
Aztecs so far as they are accurately known. It is one system
throughout the Indian tribes, and bears a direct relation to
their system of faith and worship.
I VI. A supreme government tJiro7igJi a council of cJiidfs.

The council had a natural foundation in the gcntes of whose
chiefs it was composed. It met a necessary want, and was
certain to remain as long as gentile society endured. As the

' Near the close of the last century the Seneca- Iroquois, at one of their villages
on the Alleghany river, set up an idol of wood, and performed dances and other
religious ceremonies around it. My informer, the late William Parker, saw this
idol in the river into which it had been cast. Whom it personated he did not
learn.

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

117

gens was represented by its chiefs, so the tribe was represented
by a council composed of the chiefs of the gentes. It was a
permanent feature of the social system, holding the ultimate
authority over the tribe. Called together under circumstances
known to all, held in the midst of the people, and open to their
orators, it was certain to act under popular influence. Al-
though oligarchical in form, the government was a representa-
!tive democracy; the representative being elected for life, but
subject to deposition. The brotherhood of the mem.bers of
■ each gens, and the elective principle with respect to office, were
the germ and the basis of the democratic principle. Imperfectly
developed, as other great principles were in this early stage of
advancement, democracy can boast a very ancient pedigree in
the tribes of mankind.

It devolved upon the council to guard and protect the com-
mon interests of the tribe. Upon the intelligence and courage
of the people, and upon the Avisdom and foresight of the coun-
cil, the prosperity and the existence of the tribe depended.
Questions and exigencies were arising, through their incessant
warfare with other tribes, whicfh required the exercise of all these
qualities to meet and manage. It was unavoidable, therefore,
that the popular element should be commanding in its influ-
ence. As a general rule the council was open to any private
individual who desired to address it on a public question. Even
the women were allowed to express their wishes and opinions
through an orator of their own selection. But the decision was
made by the council. Unanimity was a fundamental law of its
action among the Iroquois; but whether this usage was general
I am unable to state.

Military operations were usually left to the action of the
voluntary principle. Theoretically, each tribe was at war with
every other tribe with which it had not formed a treaty of
peace. Any person was at liberty to organize a war-party and
conduct an expedition wherever he pleased. He announced
his project by giving a war-dance and inviting volunteers.
This method furnished a practical test of the popularity of the
undertaking. If he succeeded in forming a company, which
would consist of such persons as joined him in the dance, they

1 1 8 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

departed immediately, while enthusiasm was at its height.
When a tribe was menaced with an attack, war-parties were
formed to meet it in much the same manner. Where forces
thus raised were united in one body, each was under its own
war-captain, and their joint movements were determined by a
council of these captains. If there was among them a war-
chief of established reputation he would naturally become their
leader. These statements relate to tribes in the Lower Status
of barbarism. The Aztecs and Tlascalans went out by phra-
tries, each subdivision under its own captain, and distinguished
by costumes and banners.

Indian tribes, and even confederacies, were weak organiza-
tions for military operations. That of the Iroquois, and that
of the Aztecs, were the most remarkable for aggressive pur-
poses. Among the tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism,
including the Iroquois, the most destructive work was per-
formed by inconsiderable war-parties, which were constantly
forming and making expeditions into distant regions. Their
supply of food consisted of parched corn reduced to flour,
carried in a pouch attached to the belt of each warrior, with
such fish and game as the route supplied. The going out of
these 'war-parties, and their public reception on their return,
were among the prominent events in Indian life. The sanction;
of the council for these expeditions was not sought, neither
was it necessary.

The council of the tribe had power to declare war and make
peace, to send and receive embassies, and to make alliances.
It exercised all the powers needful in a government so simple
and limited in its affairs. Intercourse between independent
tribes was conducted by delegations of wise-men and chiefs.
When such a delegation was expected by any tribe, a council
was convened for its reception, and for the transaction of its
business.

VII. A Jicad-cJiicf of the tribe in sonic instances.

In some Indian tribes one of the sachems was recognized as
its head-chief; and as superior in rank to his associates. A
need existed, to some extent, for an official head of the tribe to
represent it when the council was not in session; but the duties

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE.

119

and powers of the office were slight. Although the council
was supreme in authority it was rarely in session, and questions
might arise demanding the provisional action of some one
authorized to represent the tribe, subject to the ratification of
his acts by the council. This was the only basis, so far as the
writer is aware, for the office of head-chief It existed in a
number of tribes, but in a form of authority so feeble as to fall
below the conception of an executive magistrate. In the lan-
guage of some of the early writers they have been designated
as kings, which is simply a caricature. The Indian tribes had
not advanced far enough in a knowledge of government to de-
velop the idea of a chief executive magistrate. The Iroquois
tribe recognized no head-chief, and the confederacy no execu-
tive officer. The elective tenure of the office of chief, and the
Hability of the person to deposition, settle the character of the
office.

A council of Indian chiefs is of little importance by itself;
but as the germ of the modern parliament, congress, and legis-
lature, it has an important bearing in the history of mankind.

The growth of the idea of government commenced with
the organization into gentes in savagery. It reveals three
great stages of progressive development between its com-
mencement and the institution of political society after civiliza-
tion had been attained. The first stage was the government
of a tribe by a council of chiefs elected by the gentes. It may
be called a government of one pozvo^; namely, the council. It
prevailed generally among tribes in the Lower Status of bar-
barism. The second stage was a government co-ordinated be-
tween a council of chiefs, and a general military commander;
one representing the civil, and the other the military functions.
This second form began to manifest itself in the Lower Status
of barbarism, after confederacies were formed, and it became
definite in the Middle Status. The office of general, or princi-
pal military commander, was the germ of that of a chief ex-
ecutive magistrate, the king, the emperor, and the president.
It may be called a government of two powers, namely, the
council of chiefs, and the general. The third stage was the
government of a people or nation by a council of chiefs, an

1 20 ANCIEA T SOCIE T Y.

assembly of the people, and a general military commander. It
appeared among the tribes who had attained to the Upper
Status of barbarism; such, for example, as the Homeric Greeks,
and the Italian tribes of the period of Romulus. A large in-
crease in the number of people united in a nation, their estab-
lishment in walled cities, and the creation of wealth in lands
and in flocks and herds, brought in the assembly of the people
as an instrument of government. The council of chiefs, which
still remained, found it necessary, no doubt through popular
constraint, to submit the most important public measures to an
assembly of the people for acceptance or rejection; whence the
popular assembly. This assembly did not originate measures.
It was its function to adopt or reject, and its action was final.
From its first appearance it became a permanent power in the
government. The council no longer passed important public
measures, but became a pre-considering council, with power to
originate and mature public acts, to which the assembly alone
could give validity. It may be called a government of three
powers ; namely, the prc-co7isidcring council, the assembly of
the people, and the general. This remained until the institu-
tion of political society, when, for example, among the Athe-
nians, the council of chiefs became the senate, and the assembly
of the people the ecclesia or popular assembly. The same or-
ganizations have come down to modern times in the two houses
of parliament, of congress, and of legislatures. In like manner
the office of general military commander, as before stated, was
the germ of the office of the modern chief executive magistrate.
Recurring to the tribe, it was limited in the numbers of the
people, feeble in strength, and poor in resources ; but yet a
completely organized society. It illustrates the condition of
mankind in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle
Status there was a sensible increase of numbers in a tribe, and
an improved condition ; but with a continuance of gentile soci-
ety without essential change. Political society was still im-
possible from want of advancement. The gentes organized into
tribes remained as before; but confederacies must have been
more frequent. In some areas, as in the Valley of Mexico,
larger numbers were developed under a common government,

THE IROQUOIS TRIBE. 1 2.1

with improvements in the arts of hfe ; but no evidence exists
of the overthrow among them of gentile society and the sub-
stitution of poHtical. It is impossible to found a political soci-
ety or a state upon gentes. A state must rest upon territory
and not upon persons, upon the township as the unit of a po-
litical system, and not upon the gens which is the unit of a
social system. It required time and a vast experience, beyond
that of the American Indian tribes, as a preparation for such
a fundamental change of systems. It also required men of the
mental stature of the Greeks and Romans, and with the expe-
rience derived from a long chain of ancestors to devise and
gradually introduce that new plan of government under which
civilized nations are living at the present time.

Following the ascending organic series, we are next to con-
sider the confederacy of tribes, in which the gentes phratries
and tribes will be seen in new relations. The remarkable
adaptation of the gentile organization to the condition and
wants of mankind, while in a barbarous state, will thereby be
further illustrated.

CHAPTER V.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

Confederacies Natural Growths. — Founded upon Common Gentes,
AND A Common Language.— The Iroquois Tribes. — Their Settlement in
New York.— Formation of the Confederacy. — Its Structure and Prin-
ciples.— Fifty Sachemships Created. — Made Hereditary in certain
Gentes. — Number assigned to each Tribe. — These Sachems formed the
Council of the Confederacy. — The Civil Council. — Its Mode of Trans-
acting Business. — Unanimity Necessary to its Action. — The Mourning
Council.— Mode of Raising up Sachems. — General Military Command-
ers.— This Office the Germ of that of a Chief Executive Magistrate. —
Intellectual Capacity of the Iroquois.

A tendency to confederate for mutual defense would very
naturally exist among kindred and contiguous tribes. When
the advantages of a union had been appreciated by actual ex-
perience the organization, at first a league, would gradually
cement into a federal unity. The state of perpetual warfare in
which they lived would quicken this natural tendency into ac-
tion among such tribes as were sufficiently advanced in intelli-
gence and in the arts of life to perceive its benefits. It would
be simply a growth from a lower into a higher organization by
an extension of the principle which united the gentes in a tribe.

As might have been expected, several confederacies existed
in different parts of North America when discovered, some of
which were quite remarkable in plan and structure. Among the
number may be mentioned the Iroquois Confederacy of five in-
dependent tribes, the Creek Confederacy of six, the Otawa Con-
federacy of three, the Dakota League of the "Seven Council-"
Fires," the Moqui Confederacy in New Mexico of Seven Pueb-

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. 123

los, and the Aztec Confederacy of three tribes in the Valley
of Mexico. It is probable that the Village Indians in other
parts of Mexico, in Central and in South America, were quite
generally organized in confederacies consisting of two or more
kindred tribes. Progress necessarily took this direction from
the nature of their institutions, and from the law governing
their development. Nevertheless the formation of a confeder-
acy out of such materials, and with such unstable geographical
relations, was a difficult undertaking. It was easiest of achieve-
ment by the Village Indians from the nearness to each other
of their pueblos, and from the smallness of their areas; but it
was accomplished in occasional instances by tribes in the Lower
Status of barbarism, and notably by the Iroquois. Wherever
a confederacy was formed it would of itself evince the superior
intelligence of the people.

The two highest examples of Indian confederacies in North
America were those of the Iroquois and of the Aztecs. From
their acknowledged superiority as military powers, and from
their geographical positions, these confederacies, in both cases,
produced remarkable results. Our knowledge of the structure
and principles of the former is definite and complete, while of
the latter it is far froin satisfactory. The Aztec confederacy
, has been handled in such a manner historically as to leave it
doubtful whether it was simply a league of three kindred tribes,
offensive and defensive, or a systematic confederacy like that
of the Iroquois. That which is true of the latter was probably
in a general sense true of the former, so that a knowledge of
one will tend to elucidate the other.

The conditions under which confederacies spring into being
and the principles on which they are formed are remarkably
simple. They grow naturally, with time, out of pre-existing
elements. Where one tribe had divided into several and these
subdivisions occupied independent but contiguous territories,
the confederacy re-integrated them in a higher organization, on
the basis of the common gentes they possessed, and of the
affiliated dialects they spoke. The sentiment of kin embodied
in the gens, the common lineage of the gentes, and their dia-
lects still mutually intelligible, yielded the material elements for

124

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

a confederation. The confederacy, therefore, had the gentes
for its basis and centre, and stock language for its circumfer-
ence. No one has been found that reached beyond the bounds
of the dialects of a common language. If this natural barrier
had been crossed it would have forced heterogeneous elements
into the organization. Cases have occurred where the remains
of a tribe, not cognate in speech, as the Natchez,^ have been
admitted into an existing confederacy; but this exception would
not invalidate the general proposition. It was impossible for
an Indian power to arise upon the American continent through
a confederacy of tribes organized in gentes, and advance to a
general supremacy unless their numbers were developed from
their own stock. The multitude of stock languages is a stand-
ing explanation of the failure. There was no possible way of
becoming connected on equal terms with a confederacy except-
ing through membership in a gens and tribe, and a common
speech.

It may here be remarked, parenthetically, that it was impos-
sible in the Lower, in the Middle, or in the Upper Status of
barbarism for a kingdom to arise by natural growth in any part
of the earth under gentile institutions. I venture to make this
suggestion at this early stage of the discussion in order to call
attention more closely to the structure and principles of ancient
society, as organized in gentes, phratries and tribes. Monarchy
is incompatible with gentilism. It belongs to the later period
of civilization. Despotisms appeared in some instances among
the Grecian tribes in the Upper Status of barbarism; but they
were founded upon usurpation, were considered illegitimate by
the people, and were, in fact, alien to the ideas of gentile so-
ciety. The Grecian tyrannies were despotisms founded upon
usurpation, and were the germ out of which the later kingdoms
arose; while the so-called kingdoms of the heroic age were
military democracies, and nothing more,

' The Iroquois have furnished an excellent illustration of the
manner in which a confederacy is formed by natural growth as-
sisted by skillful legislation. Originally emigrants from beyond

' They were admitted into the Creek Confederacy after their overthrow by the
French.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

125

the IMississippi, and probably a branch of the Dakota stock,
they first made their way to the valley of the St. Lawrence and
settled themselves near Montreal. Forced to leave this region
by the hostility of surrounding tribes, they sought the central
region of New York. Coasting the eastern shore of Lake On-
tario in canoes, for their numbers were small, they made their
first settlement at the mouth of the Oswego river, where, ac-
cording to their traditions, they. remained for a long period of
time. They were then in at least three distinct tribes, the Mo-
hawks, the Onondagas, and the Senecas. One tribe subse-
quently established themselves at the head of the Canandaigua
lake and became the Senecas. Another tribe occupied the
Onondaga Valley and became the Onondagas. The third
passed eastward and settled first at Oneida near the site of
Utica, from which place the main portion removed to the Mo-
hawk Valley and became the Mohawks. Those \\\\o remained
became the Oneidas. A portion of the Onondagas or Senecas
settled along the eastern shore of the Cayuga lake and became
the Cayugas. New York, before its occupation by the Iro-
quois, seems to have been a part of the area of the Algonkin
tribes. According to Iroquois traditions they displaced its an-
terior inhabitants as they gradually extended their settlements
eastward to the Hudson, and westward to the Genesee. Their
traditions further declare that a long period of time elapsed
after their settlement in New York before the confederacy was
formed, during which they made common cause against their
enemies and thus experienced the advantages of the federal
principle both for aggression and defense. They resided in vil-
lages, which were usually surrounded with stockades, and sub-
sisted upon fish and game, and the products of a limited horti-
culture. In numbers they did not at any time exceed 20,000
souls, if they ever reached that number. Precarious subsist-
ence and incessant warfare repressed numbers in all the aborig-
inal tribes, including the Village Indians as well. The Iroquois
were enshrouded in the great forests, which then overspread
New York, against which they had no power to contend.
They were first discovered A. D. 1608. About 1675, they
attained their culminating point when their dominion reached

126 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

over an area remarkably large, covering the greater parts of
New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio,^ and portions of Canada
north of Lake Ontario. At the time of their discovery they
were the highest representatives of the Red Race north of New
Mexico in intelligence and advancement, though perhaps in-
ferior to some of the Gulf tribes in the arts of life. In the ex-
tent and quality of their mental endowments they must be
ranked among the highest Indians in America. Although
they have declined in numbers there are still four thousand
Iroquois in New York, about a thousand in Canada, and near
that number in the West; thus illustrating the efficiency as well
as persistency of the arts of barbarous life in sustaining exist-
ence. It is now said that they are slowly increasing.

When the confederacy was formed, about A. D. 1400-1450,*
the conditions previously named were present. The Iroquois
was in five independent tribes, occupied territories contiguous
to each other, and spoke dialects of the same language which
were mutually intelligible. Beside these facts certain gentes
were common in the several tribes as has been shown. In
their relations to each other, as separated parts of the same
gens, these common gentes afforded a natural and enduring
basis for a confederacy. With these elements existing, the
formation of a confederacy became a question of intelligence
and skill. Other tribes in large numbers were standing in pre-
cisely the same relations in different parts of the continent with-
out confederating. The fact that the Iroquois tribes accom-
iplished the work affords evidence of their superior capacity.
Moreover, as the confederacy was the ultimate stage of organ-
ization among the American aborigines its existence would be
expected in the most intelligent tribes only.

It is affirmed by the Iroquois that the confederacy was form-
ed by a council of wise-men and chiefs of the five tribes which

* About 165 1-5, they expelled their kindred tribes, the Eries, from the region
between the Genesee river and Lake Erie, and shortly afterwards the Neutral Na-
tions from the Niagara river, and thus came into possession of the remainder
of New York, with the exception of the lower Hudson and Long Island.

* The Iroquois claimed that it had existed from one hundred and fifty to two
hundred years when they first saw Europeans. The generations of sachems in
the history by David Cusick (a Tuscarora), would make it more ancient.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. 12/

met for that purpose, on the north shore of Onondaga lake,
near the site of Syracuse; and that before its session was con-
cluded the organization was perfected, and set in immediate
operation. At their periodical councils for raising up sachems
they still explain its origin as the result of one protracted effort
of legislation. It was probably a consequence of a previous al-
liance for mutual defense, the advantages of which they had
perceived and which they sought to render permanent.

The origin of the plan is ascribed to a mythical, or, at least,
traditionary person, Hd-yo-zvcnt'-Jid, the Hiawatha of Long-
fellow's celebrated poem, who was present at this council and
the central person in its management. In his communications
with the council he used a wise-man of the Onondagas, Da-gd-
no-we' -da, as an interpreter and speaker to expound the struct-
ure and principles of the proposed confederacy. The same
tradition further declares that when the work was accomplished
Hd-yo-went! -hd miraculously disappeared in a white canoe,
which arose with him in the air and bore him out of their sight.
Other prodigies, according to this tradition, attended and sig-
nalized the formation of the confederacy, which is still cele-
brated among them as a masterpiece of Indian wisdom. Such
in truth it was; and it will remain in history as a monument of
their genius in developing gentile institutions. It will also be
remembered as an illustration of what tribes of mankind have
been able to accomplish in the art of government while in the
Lower Status of barbarism, and under the disadvantages this
condition implies. - {

Which of the two persons was the founder of the confeder- ^ /
acy it is difficult to determine. The silent Hd-yo-iuent' -hd ^ \
was, not unlikely, a real person of Iroquois lineage;^ but tradi- \>
tion has enveloped his character so completely in the super- C
natural that he loses his place among them as one of their l-vT*
number. If Hiawatha were a real person, Da-gd-no-zvc' -dd ^
must hold a subordinate place; but, if a mythical person in-
voked for the occasion, then to the latter belongs the credit of
planning the confederacy.

' My friend, Horatio Hale, the eminent philologist, came, as he informed me, to
this conclusion.

128 ANCIENT SOCIETY,

The Iroquois affirm that the confederacy as formed by this
council, with its powers functions and mode of administration,
has come down to them through many generations to the pres-
ent time with scarcely a change in its internal organization.
When the Tuscaroras were subsequently admitted, their sa-
chems were allowed by courtesy to sit as equals in the general
council, but the original number of sachems was not increased,
and in strictness those of the Tuscaroras formed no part of the
ruling body.

The general features of the Iroquois Confederacy may be
.summarized in the following propositions:

I. The confederacy was a union of Five Tribes, composed of
common gentes, under one government on the basis of equal-
ity; each Tribe remaining independent in all matters pertaining
to local self-government.

II. It created a General Council of Sachems, who were lim-
ited in number, equal in rank and authority, and invested with
supreme pov/ers over all matters pertaining to the Confederacy.

III. Fifty Sachemships were created and named in perpetuity
in certain gentes of the several Tribes; with power in these
gentes to fill vacancies, as often as they occurred, by election
from among their respective members, and with the further
power to depose from office for cause; but the right to invest
these Sachems with office was reserved to the General Council.

IV. The Sachems of the Confederacy were also Sachems in
their respective Tribes, and with the Chiefs of these Tribes form-
ed the Council of each, which was supreme over all matters per-
taining to the Tribe exclusively.

V. Unanimity in the Council of the Confederacy was maaef
essential to every public act. ,,_^

VI. In the General Council the Sachems voted by Tribes,
which gave to each Tribe a negative upon the others.

VII. The Council of each Tribe had power to convene the
General Council; but the latter had no power to convene itself.

VIII. The General Council was open to the orators of the
people for the discussion of public questions; but the Council
alone decided.

IX. The Confederacy had no chief Executive Magistrate, or
official head.

THE IROQ UOIS CONFEDERA CV. 1 2 9

X. Experiencing the necessity for a General Military Com-
mander they created the office in a dual form, that one might
neutralize the other. The two principal War-chiefs created
were made equal in powers.

These several propositions will be considered and illustrated,
but without following the precise form or order in which they
are stated.

At the institution of the confederacy fifty permanent sachem-
ships were created and named, and made perpetual in the gen-
tes to which they were assigned. With the exception of two,
which were filled but once, they have been held by as many
different persons in succession as generations have passed
away between that time and the present. The name of each
sachemship is also the personal name of each sachem while he
holds the office, each one in succession taking the name of his
predecessor. These sachems, when in session, formed the
council of the confederacy in which the legislative, executive,
and judicial powers were vested, although such a discrimina-
tion of functions had not come to be made. To secure order
in the succession, the several gentes in which these offices were
made hereditary were empowered to elect successors from
1 among their respective members when vacancies occurred, as
elsewhere explained. As a further measure of protection to
their own body each sachem, after his election and its confir-
mation, was invested with his office by a council of the confed-
eracy. When thus installed his name was "taken away" and
that of the sachemship was bestowed upon him. By this name
he was afterwards known among them. They were all upon
equality in rank, authority, and privileges.

These sachemships were distributed unequally among the
five tribes; but without giving to either a preponderance of
power; and unequally among the gentes of the last three tribes.
The Mohawks had nine sachems, the Oneidas nine, the Onon-
dagas fourteen, the Cayugas ten, and the Senecas eight. This
was the number at first, and it has remained the number to the
present time. A table of these sachemships is subjoined, with
their names in the Seneca dialect, and their arrangement in
classes to facilitate the attainment of unanimity in council. In
9

I30 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

foot-notes will be found the signification of these names, and
the gentes to which they belonged.

Table of sa^hemships of the Iroquois, founded at the institu-
tion of the Confederacy; with the names which have been
borne by their sachems in succession, from its formation to the
present time:

Mohawks.
I. I. Da-ga-e'-o-ga.' 2. Ha-yo-went'-ha.^ 3. Da-ga-no-

we'-da.^
II. 4. So-a-e-wa'-ah.* 5. Da-yo'-ho-go.^ 6. O-a-a'-go-wa.^
III. 7. Da-an-no-ga'-e-neh.'^ 8. Sa-da'-ga-e-wa-deh.^ 9.
Has-da-weh'-se-ont-ha.^

Oneidas.
I. I, Ho-das'-ha-teh.^" 2. Ga-no-gweh'-yo-do." 3. Da-

yo-ha'-gwen-da.^^
II. 4. So-no-sase'.^^ 5. To-no-a-ga'-o." 6. Ha-de-a-dun-
nent'-ha.^^
III. 7. Da-wa-da'-o-da-yo.^" 8. Ga-ne-a-dus'-ha-yeh." 9.
Ho-wus'-ha-da-o.^^

Onondagas.
I. I. To-do-da'-ho.^^ 2. To-nes'-sa-ah. 3. Da-at'-ga-dose.^**
II. 4. Ga-nea-da'-je-wake.^^ 5. Ah-wa'-ga-yat.^^ 6. Da-a-
yat'-gwa-e.
III. 7. Ho-no-we-na'-to.-^

1 These names signify as follows: i. " Neutral, " or " the Shield." 2. "Man
who Combs." 3. "Inexhaustible." 4. "Small Speech." 5. "At the Forks."
6. "At the Great River." 7. "Dragging his Horns." 8. "Even-Tempered."
9. "Hanging up Rattles." The sachems in class one belonged to the Turtle
tribe, in class two to the Wolf tribe, and in class three to the Bear tribe.

10. "A Man bearing a Burden." ii. "A Man covered with Cat-tail Down."
12. "Opening through the Woods." 13. "A Long String." 14. "A Man with
a Headache." 15. "Swallowing Himself." 16. "Place of the Echo." 17.
"War-club on the Ground." 18. "A Man Steaming Himself." The sachems
in the first class belonged to the Wolf tribe, in the second to the Turtle tribe, and
in the third to the Bear tribe.

19. "Tangled," Bear tribe. 20. "On the Watch," Bear tribe. This sachem
and the one before him, were hereditary councilors of the To-do-da'-ho, who held
the most illustrioiis sachemship. 21. "Bitter Body," Snipe tribe. 22. Turtle
I tribe. 23. This sachem was hereditary keeper of the wampum ; Wolf tribe.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

131

IV. 8. Ga-wa-na'-san-do.^ 9. Ha-e'-ho.^ 10. Ho-yo-ne-ii'-

ne.^ II. Sa-da'-kwa-seh.'^
V. 12. Sa-go-ga-ha'.^ 13. Ho-sa-ha'-ho.^ 14. Ska-no'-
wun-de.'^

Cayiigas.
I. I. Da-ga'-a-yo.^ 2. Da-je-no'-da-weh-o.^ 3. Ga-da'-
gwa-sa.^" 4. So-yo-wase." 5. Ha-de-as'-yo-no.^^
II. 6. Da-yo-o-yo'-go." 7. Jote-ho-weh'-ko.^'* 8. De-a-

wate'-ho.^^
III. 9. To-da-e-ho'.^^ 10. Des-ga'-heh.^'

Scnecas.
I. I. Ga-ne-o-di'-yo.^^ 2. Sa-da-ga'-o-yase.^^
II. 3. Ga-no-gi'-e.^" 4. Sa-geh'-jo-wa.^^

III. 5. Sa-de-a-no'-wus.^^ 6. Nis-ha-ne-a'-nent.^^

IV. 7. Ga-no-go-e-da'-we.-* 8. Do-ne-ho-ga'-weh.^^

Two of these sachemships have been filled but once since
their creation. Hd-yo-zvent^-hd and Da-gd-no-we' -da consent-
ed to take the office among the Mohawk sachems, and to leave
their names in the list upon condition that after their demise
the two should remain thereafter vacant. They were installed
upon these terms, and the stipulation has been observed to the
present day. At all councils for the investiture of sachems
their names are still called with the others as a tribute of re-
spect to their memory. The general council, therefore, con-
sisted of but forty-eight members.

Each sachem had an assistant sachem, who was elected by
the gens of his principal from among its members, and who
was installed with the same forms and ceremonies. He was
styled an "said." It was his duty to stand behind his superior

' Deer tribe. 2. Deer tribe. 3. Turtle tribe. 4. Bear tribe. 5. "Having
a Glimpse," Deer tribe. 6. "Large Mouth," Turtle tribe. 7. "Over the
Creek," Turtle tribe.

8. "Man Frightened," Deer tribe. 9. Heron tribe. 10. Bear tribe. II.
Bear tribe. 12. Turtle tribe. 13. Not ascertained. 14. "Very Cold," Turtle
tribe. 15. Heron tribe. 16. Snipe tribe. 17. Snipe tribe.

18. " Handsome Lake," Turtle tribe. 19. "Level Heavens," Snipe tribe. 20.
Turtle tribe. 21. "Great Forehead," Hawk tribe. 22. "Assistant," Bear tribe.
23. "Falling Day," Snipe tribe. 24. "Hair Burned Off," Snipe tribe. 25.
"Open Door," Wolf tribe.

132

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

on all occasions of ceremony, to act as his messenger, and in
general to be subject to his directions. It gave to the aid the
office of chief, and rendered probable his election as the suc-
cessor of his principal after the decease of the latter. In their
figurative language these aids of the sachems were styled
"Braces in the Long House," which symbolized the confed-
eracy.

The names bestowed upon the original sachems became the
names of their respective successors in perpetuity. For ex-
ample, upon the demise of Gd-iic-o-di'-yo, one of the eight
Seneca sachems, his successor would be elected by the Turtle
gens in which this sachemship was hereditary, and when raised
up by the general council he would receive this name, in place
of his own, as a part of the ceremony. On several different
occasions I have attended their councils for raising up sachems
both at the Onondaga and Seneca reservations, and witnessed
the ceremonies herein referred to. Although but a shadow of
the old confederacy now remains, it is fully organized with its
complement of sachems and aids, with the exception of the
Mohawk tribe which removed to Canada about 1775. When-
ever vacancies occur their places are filled, and a general coun-
cil is convened to install the new sachems and their aids. The
present Iroquois are also perfectly familiar with the structure
and principles of the ancient confederacy.

For all purposes of tribal government the five tribes were in-
dependent of each other. Their territories were separated by
fixed boundary lines, and their tribal interests were distinct
The eight Seneca sachems, in conjunction with the other Sen-
eca chiefs, formed the council of the tribe by which its affairs
were administered, leaving to each of the other tribes the same
control over their separate interests. As an organization the
tribe was neither weakened nor impaired by the confederate
compact. Each was in vigorous life within its appropriate
sphere, presenting some analogy to our own states within an
embracing republic. It is worthy of remembrance that the
Iroquois commended to our forefathers a union of the colonies
similar to their own as early as 1755. They saw in the com-
mon interests and common speech of the several colonies the

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

133

elements for a confederation, which was as far as their vision
was able to penetrate.

The tribes occupied positions of entire equality in the con-
federacy, in rights privileges and obligations. Such special im-
munities as were granted to one or another indicate no in-
tention to establish an unequal compact, or to concede unequal
privileges. There were organic provisions apparently invest-
ing particular tribes with superior power; as, for example, the
Onondagas were allowed fourteen sachems and the Senecas but
eight; and a larger body of sachems would naturally exercise
a stronger influence in council than a smaller. But in this case
it gave no additional power, because the sachems of each tribe
had an equal voice in forming a decision, and a negative upQn
the others. When in council they agreed by tribes, and unan-
imity in opinion was essential to every public act. The Onon-
dagas were made "Keepers of the Wampum," and "Keepers
of the Council Brand," the Mohawks, "Receivers of Tribute"
from subjugated tribes, and the Senecas "Keepers of the Door"
of the Long House. These and some other similar provisions
were made for the common advantage.

The cohesive principle of the confederacy did not spring ex-
jlclusively from the benefits of an alliance for mutual protection,
but had a deeper foundation in the bond of kin. The confed-
eracy rested upon the tribes ostensibly, but primarily upon
common gentes. All the members of the same gens, whether
^Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, or Senecas, were
brothers and sisters to each other in virtue of their descent
from the same common ancestor; and they recognized each
other as such with the fullest cordiality. When they met the
first inquiry was the name of each other's gens, and next the
immediate pedigree of their respective sachems; after which
they were usually able to find, under their peculiar system of
consanguinity,^ the relationship in which they stood to each

' The children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters to each other, the
children of the latter were also brothers and sisters, and so downwards in-
definitely ; the children and descendants of sisters are the same. The children
of a brother and sister are cousins, the children of the latter are cousins, and so
downwards indefinitely. A knowledge of the relationships to each other of the
members of the same gens is never lost.

134 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

other. Three of the gentes, namely, the Wolf, Bear and
Turtle, were common to the five tribes; these and three others
were common to three tribes. In effect the Wolf gens, through
the division of an original tribe into five, was now in five di-
visions, one of which was in each tribe. It was the same with
the Bear and the Turtle gentes. The Deer, Snipe and Hawk
gentes were common to the Senecas, Cayugas and Onondagas.
Between the separated parts of each gens, although its mem-
bers spoke different dialects of the same language, there existed
a fraternal connection which linked the nations together with
indissoluble bonds. When the Mohawk of the Wolf gens recog-
nized an Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga or Seneca of the same
gens as a brother, and when the members of the other divided
gentes did the same, the relationship was not ideal, but a fact
founded upon consanguinity, and upon faith in an assured
lineage older than their dialects and coeval with their unity as
one people. In the estimation of an Iroquois every member
of his gens in whatever tribe was as certainly a kinsman as an
own brother. This cross- relationship between persons of the
same gens in the different tribes is still preserved and recog-
nized among them in all its original force. It explains the
tenacity with which the fragments of the old confederacy still
cling together. If either of the five tribes had seceded from
the confederacy it would have severed the bond of kin, al-
though this would have been felt but slightly. But had they
fallen into collision it would have turned the gens of the Wolf
against their gentile kindred. Bear against Bear, in a word
brother against brother. The history of the Iroquois demon-
strates the reality as well as persistency of the bond of kin, and
the fidehty with which it was respected. During the long
period through which the confederacy endured, they never fell
into anarchy, nor ruptured the organization.

The "Long House" {Ho-de'-no-sote) was made the symbol
of the confederacy; and they styled themselves the "People of
the Long House" [Ho-de' -no-sati-nee). This was the name, and
the only name, with which they distinguished themselves. The
confederacy produced a gentile society more complex than that
of a single tribe, but it was still distinctively a gentile society.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

135

It was, however, a stage of progress in the dh-ection of a na-
tion, for nationahty is reached under gentile institutions. Co-
alescence is the last stage in this process. The four Athenian
tribes coalesced in Attica into a nation by the intermingling of
the tribes in the same area, and by the gradual disappearance of
geographical lines between them. The tribal names and organ-
izations remained in full vitality as before, but without the basis
of an independent territory. When political society was insti-
tuted on the basis of the deme or township, and all the resi-
dents of the deme became a body politic, irrespective of their
gens or tribe, the coalescence became complete.

The coalescence of the Latin and Sabine gentes into the Ro-
man people and nation was a result of the same processes. In
all alike the gens phratry and tribe were the first three stages
of organization. The confederacy followed as the fourth. But
it does not appear, either among the Grecian or Latin tribes in
the Later Period of barbarism, that it became more than a loose
league for offensive and defensive purposes. Of the nature and
details of organization of the Grecian and Latin confederacies
our knowledge is limited and imperfect, because the facts are
buried in the obscurity of the traditionary period. The proc-
ess of coalescence arises later than the confederacy in gentile
society; but it was a necessary as well as vital stage of progress
by means of which the nation, the state, and political society
were at last attained. Among the Iroquois tribes it had not
manifested itself

The valley of Onondaga, as the seat of the central tribe, and
the place where the Council Brand was supposed to be perpet-
ually burning, was the usual though not the exclusive place for
holding the councils of the confederacy. In ancient times it
was summoned to convene in the autumn of each year; but
public exigencies often rendered its meetings more frequent.
Each tribe had power to summon the council, and to appoint
the time and place of meeting at the council-house of either
tribe, when circumstances rendered a change from the usual
place at Onondaga desirable. But the council had no power to
convene itself

Originally the principal object of the council was to raise up

136 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

sachems to fill vacancies in the ranks of the ruling body occa-
sioned by death or deposition; but it transacted all other busi-
ness which concerned the common welfare. In course of time,
as they multiplied in numbers and their intercourse with foreign
tribes became more extended, the council fell into three distinct
kinds, which may be distinguished as Civil, Mourning and Re-
ligious. The first declared war and made peace, sent and re-
ceived embassies, entered into treaties with foreign tribes, reg-
ulated the affairs of subjugated tribes, and took all needful
measures to promote the general welfare. The second raised
up sachems and invested them with office. It received the
name of Mourning Council because the first of its ceremonies
was the lament for the deceased ruler whose vacant place was
to be filled. The third was held for the observance of a gen-
eral religious festival. It was made an occasion for the confed-
erated tribes to unite under the auspices of a general council in
the observance of common religious rites. But as the Mourn-
ing Council was attended with many of the same ceremonies it
came, in time, to answer for both. It is now the only council
they hold, as the civil powers of the confederacy terminated
with the supremacy over them of the state.

Invoking the patience of the reader, it is necessary to enter
into some details with respect to the mode of transacting busi-
ness at the Civil and Mourning Councils. In no other way can
the archaic condition of society under gentile institutions be so
readily illustrated.

If an overture was made to the confederacy by a foreign
tribe, it might be done through either of the five tribes. It
was the prerogative of the council of the tribe addressed to de-
termine whether the affair was of sufficient importance to re-
quire a council of the confederacy. After reaching an affirm-
ative conclusion, a herald was sent to the nearest tribes in
position, on the east and on the west, with a belt of wampum,
which contained a message to the effect that a civil council
{Ho-de-os' -sell) would meet at such a place and time, and for
such an object, each of which was specified. It v/as the duty
of the tribe receiving the message to forward it to the tribe

THE IROQ UOIS CONFEDERAC Y. 1 3 7

next in position, until the notification was made complete.-'
!No council ever assembled unless it was summoned under the
prescribed forms.

' A civil council, which might be called by either nation, was usually summoned
and opened in the following manner : If, for example, the Onondagas made the
call, they would send heralds to the Oneidas on the east, and the Cayugas on the
west of them, with belts containing an invitation to meet at the Onondaga council-
grove on such a day of such a moon, for purposes which were also named. It
would then become the duty of the Cayugas to send the same notification to the
Senecas, and of the Oneidas to notify the Mohawks. If the council was to meet
for peaceful purposes, then each sachem was to bring with him a bundle of fagots
of white cedar, typical of peace; if for warlike objects then the fagots were to be
of red cedar, emblematical of war.

At the day appointed the sachems of the several nations, with their followers,
who usually arrived a day or two before and remained encamped at a distance,
were received in a formal manner by the Onondaga sachems at the rising of the
sun. They marched in separate processions from their camps to the council-grove,
each bearing his skin robe and bundle of fagots, where the Onondaga sachems
awaited them with a concourse of people. The sachems then formed themselves
into a circle, an Onondaga sachem, who by appointment acted as master of the
ceremonies, occupying the side toward the rising sun. At a signal they marched
round the circle moving by the north. It may be here observed that the rim
of the circle toward the north is called the "cold side," (o-to'-wa-ga); that on the
west "the side toward the setting sun," (ha-ga-kwas'-gwa); that on the south
"the side of the high sun," (en-de-ih'-kwii); and that on the east "the side of the
rising sun," (t'-ka-gwit-kas'-gwa). After marching three times around on the
circle single file, the head and-foot of the column being joined, the leader stopped
on the rising sun side, and deposited before him his bundle of fagots. In this he
was followed by the others, one at a time, following by the north, thus forming an
inner circle of fagots. After this each sachem spread his skin robe in the same
order, and sat down upon it, cross-legged, behind his bundle of fagots, with his
assistant sachem standing behipd him. The master of the ceremonies, after a
moment's pause, arose, drew from his pouch two pieces of dry wood and a piece
of punk with which he proceeded to strike fire by friction. When fire was thus
obtained, he stepped within the circle and set fire to his own bundle, and then to
each of the others in the order in which they were laid. When they were well
ignited, and at a signal from the master of the ceremonies, the sachems arose and
marched three times around the Burning Circle, going as before by the north. Each
turned from time to time as he walked, so as to expose all sides of his person to the
warming influence of the fires. This typified that they warmed their affections for
each other in order that they might transact the business of the council in friend-
ship and unity. They then reseated themselves each upon his own robe. After
this the master of the ceremonies again rising to his feet, filled and lighted the
pipe of peace from his own fire. Drawing three whiffs, one after the other, he
blew the first toward the zenith, the second toward the ground, and the third
toward the sun. By the first act he returned thanks to the Great Spirit for the
preservation of his life during the past year, and for being permitted to be present
at this council. By the second, he returned thanks to his Mother, the Earth, for
her various productions which had ministered to his sustenance. And by the

1 3 8 A NCI EN T SOLVE T Y.

When the sachems met in council, at the time and place ap-
pointed, and the usual reception ceremony had been performed,
they arranged themselves in two divisions and seated them-
selves upon opposite sides of the council-fire. Upon one side
were the Mohawk, Onondaga and Seneca sachems. The tribes
they represented were, when in council, brother tribes to each
other and father tribes to the other two. In like manner their
sachems were brothers to each other and fathers to those oppo-
site. They constituted a phratry of tribes and of sachems, by
an extension of the principle which united gentes in a phratry.
On the opposite side of the fire were the Oneida and Cayuga,
and, at a later day, the Tuscarora sachems. The tribes they
represented were brother tribes to each other, and son tribes to
the opposite three. Their sachems also were brothers to each
other, and sons of those in the opposite division. They formed
a second tribal phratry. As the Oneidas were a subdivision
of the Mohawks, and the Cayugas a subdivision of the Onon-
dagas or Senecas, they were in reality junior tribes; whence
their relation of seniors and juniors, and the application of the
phratric principle. When the tribes are named in council the
Mohawks by precedence are mentioned first. Their tribal epi-
thet was "The Shield " [Da-gd-c-o'-da). The Onondagas came
next under the epithet of "Name-Bearer" [Ho-de-san-no'-ge-
td), because they had been appointed to select and name the fifty
original sachems.^ Next in the order of precedence were the
Senecas, under the epithet of "Door-Keeper" {^Ho-nan-ne-hd -
out). They were made perpetual keepers of the western door
of the Long House. The Oneidas, under the epithet of " Great
Tree " {Nc-ad -de-on-dar' -go-wai'), and the Cayugas, under that

third, he returned thanks to the Sun for his never-faiHng light, ever shining upon
alL These words were not repeated, but such is the purport of the acts them-
selves. He then passed tlie pipe to the first upon his right toward the north, who
repeated tlie same ceremonies, and then passed it to the next, and so on around
the burning circle. The ceremony of smoking the calumet also signified that they
pledged to each other their faith, their friendship, and their honor.

These ceremonies completed the opening of the council, which was then de-
clared to be ready for the business upon which it had been convened.

1 Tradition declares that the Onondagas deputed a wise-man to visit the terri-
tories of the tribes and select and name the new sachems as circumstances should
prompt : whicli explains the unequal distribution of the office among the several
gentes.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

139

of "Great Pipe " [So-nus'-ho-gwar-to-zvar), were named fourth
and fifth. The Tuscaroras, who came late into the confederacy,
were named last, and had no distinguishing epithet. Forms,
such as these, were more important in ancient society than we
would be apt to suppose.

It was customary for the foreign tribe to be represented at
the council by a delegation of wise-men and chiefs, who bore
their proposition and presented it in person. After the council
was formally opened and the delegation introduced, one of the
sachems made a short address, in the course of which he
thanked the Great Spirit for sparing their lives and permitting
them to meet together; after which he informed the delegation
that the council was prepared to hear them upon the affair for
which it had convened. One of the delegates then submitted
their proposition in form, and sustained it by such arguments
as he was able to make. Careful attention was given by the
members of the council that they might clearly comprehend
the matter in hand. After the address was concluded, the del-
egation withdrew from the council to await at a distance the
result of its deliberations. It then became the duty of the sa-
chems to agree upon an answer, which Avas reached through
the ordinary routine of debate and consultation. When a de-
cision had been made, a speaker was appointed to communi-
cate the answer of the council, to receive which the delegation
were recalled. The speaker was usually chosen from the tribe
at whose instance the council had been convened. It was cus-
tomary for him to review the whole subject in a formal speech,
in the course of which the acceptance, in whole or in part, or
the rejection of the proposition were announced with the rea-
sons therefor. Where an agreement was entered upon, belts
of wampum were exchanged as evidence of its terms. With
these proceedings the council terminated.

"This belt preserves my words" was a common remark of
an Iroquois chief in council. He then delivered the belt as the
evidence of what he had said. Several such belts would be
given in the course of a negotiation to the opposite party. In
the reply of the latter a belt would be returned for each prop-
osition accepted. The Iroquois experienced the necessity for

I40 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

an exact record of some kind of a proposition involving their
faith and honor in its execution, and they devised this method
to place it beyond dispute.

Unanimity among the sachems was required upon all pubHc
questions, and essential to the validity of every public act. It
was a fundamental law of the confederacy.^ They adopted a
method for ascertaining the opinions of the members of the
council which dispensed with the necessity of casting votes.
Moreover, they were entirely unacquainted with the principle
of majorities and minorities in the action of councils. They
voted in council by tribes, and the sachems of each tribe were
required to be of one mind to form a decision. Recognizing
unanimity as a necessary principle, the founders of the confed-
eracy divided the sachems of each tribe into classes as a means
for its attainment. This will be seen by consulting the table,
{supra p. 1 30). No sachem was allowed to express an opinion
in council in the nature of a vote until he had first agreed with
the sachem or sachems of his class upon the opinion to be ex-
pressed, and had been appointed to act as speaker for the class.
Thus the eight Seneca sachems being in four classes could have
but four opinions, and the ten Cayuga sachems, being in the
same number of classes, could have but four. In this manner
the sachems in each class were first brought to unanimity
among themselves. A cross-consultation was then held be-
tween the four sachems appointed to speak for the four classes;
and when they had agreed, they designated one of their num-
ber to express their resulting opinion, which was the answer of
their tribe. When the sachems of the several tribes had, by
this ingenious method, become of one mind separately, it re-
mained to compare their several opinions, and if they agreed
the decision of the council was made. If they failed of agree-

' At the beginning of tlie American revolution the Iroquois were unable to agree
upon a declaration of war against our confederacy for want of unanimity in council.
A number of the Oneida sachems resisted the proposition and finally refused their
consent. As neutrality was impossible with the Mohawks, and the Senecas were
determined to fight, it was resolved that each tribe might engage in the war upon
its own responsibility, or remain neutral. The war against the Eries, against the
Neutral Nation and Susquehannocks, and the several wars against the French,
were resolved upon in general council. Our colonial records are largely filled with
negotiations with the Iroquois Confederacy.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY.

141

ment the measure was defeated, and the council was at an end.
The five persons appointed to express the decision of the five
tribes may possibly explain the appointment and the functions
of the six electors, so called, in the Aztec confederacy, which
will be noticed elsewhere.

By this method of gaining assent the equality and independ-
ence of the several tribes were recognized and preserved. If
any sachem was obdurate or unreasonable, influences were
brought to bear upon him, through the preponderating senti-
ment, which he could not well resist ; so that it seldom hap-
pened that inconvenience or detriment resulted from their ad-
herence to the rule. Whenever all efforts to procure unanimity
had failed, the whole matter was laid aside because further
action had become impossible.

The induction of new sachems into office was an event of
great interest to the people, and not less to the sachems who
retained thereby some control over the introduction of new
members into their body. To perform the ceremony of raising
•up sachems the general council was primarily instituted. It
was named at the time, or came afterwards to be called, the
Mourning Council {Hen-7inn-do-im]i' -scJt), because it embraced
the twofold object of lamenting the death of the departed
sachems and of installing his successor. Upon the death of a
sachem, the tribe in which the loss had occurred had power to
summon a general council, and to name the time and place of
its meeting. A herald was sent out with a belt of wampum,
usually the official belt of the deceased sachem given to him at
his installation, which conveyed this laconic message; — "the
name" (mentioning that of the late ruler) "calls for a council."
It also announced the day and place of convocation. In some
cases the official belt of the sachem was sent to the central
council-fire at Onondaga immediately after his burial, as a
notification of his demise, and the time for holding the council
was determined afterwards.

The Mourning Council, with the festivities which followed
the investiture of sachems possessed remarkable attractions for
the Iroquois. They flocked to its attendance from the most
distant localities with zeal and enthusiasm. It was opened and

142

'ANCIENT SOCIETY.

conducted with many forms and ceremonies, and usually lasted
five days. The first was devoted to the prescribed ceremony
of lamentations for the deceased sachem, which, as a religious
act, commenced at the rising of the sun. At this time the
sachems of the tribe, with whom the council was held, march-
ed out followed by their tribesmen, to receive formally the
sachems and people of the other tribes, who had arrived before
and remained encamped at some distance waiting for the ap-
pointed day. After exchanging greetings, a procession was
formed and the lament was chanted in verse, with responses,
by the united tribes, as they marched from the place of recep-
tion to the place of council. The lament, with the responses in
chorus, was a tribute of respect to the memory of the departed
sachem, in which not only his gens, but his tribe, and the con-
federacy itself participated. It was certainly a more delicate
testimonial of respect and affection than would have been ex-
pected from a barbarous people. This ceremonial, wath the
opening of the council, concluded the first day's proceedings.
On the second day, the installation ceremony commenced, and
it usually lasted into the fourth. The sachems of the several
tribes seated themselves in two divisions, as at the civil council.
When the sachem to be raised up belonged to either of the
three senior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems
of the junior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a
father. In like manner, if he belonged to either of the three
junior tribes the ceremony was performed by the sachems of
the senior tribes, and the new sachem was installed as a son.
These special circumstances are mentioned to show the peculiar
character of their social and governmental life. To the Iroquois
these forms and figures of speech were full of significance.

Among other things, the ancient wampum belts, into
which the structure and principles of the confederacy "had
been talked," to use their expression, were produced and read
or interpreted for the instruction of the newly inducted sachem.
A wise-man, not necessarily one of the sachems, took these
belts one after the other and walking to and fro between the
two divisions of sachems, read from them the facts which they
j recorded. According to the Indian conception, these belts can

THE IROQ UOIS CON FED ERA CY. 143

tell, by means of an Interpreter, the exact rule, provision or
transaction talked into them at the time, and of which they
were the exclusive record. A strand of wampum consisting of
strings of purple and white shell beads, or a belt woven with
figures formed by beads of different colors, operated on the prin-
ciple of associating a particular fact with a particular string or fig^-
ure; thus giving a serial arrangement to the facts as well as fidelity
to the memory. These strands and belts of wampum were the
only visible records of the Iroquois; but they required those
trained interpreters who could draw from their strings and fig-
ures the records locked up in their remembrance. One of the
Onondaga sachems (Ho-no-we-na'-to) was made "Keeper of
the Wampum," and two aids w^ere raised up with him who were
required to be versed in its interpretation as well as the sa-
chem. The interpretation of these several belts and strings
brought out, in the address of the wise-man, a connected ac-
count of the occurrences at the -formation of the confederacy.
The tradition was repeated in full, and fortified in its essential
parts by reference to the record contained in these belts. Thus
the council to raise up sachems became a teaching council,
which maintained in perpetual freshness in the minds of the
Iroquois the structure and principles of the confederacy, as well
as the history of its formation. These proceedings occupied
the council until noon each day; the afternoon being devoted
to games and amusements. At twilight each day a dinner in
common was served to the entire body in attendance. It con-
sisted of soup and boiled meat cooked near the council-house,
and served directly from the kettle in wooden bowls, trays and
ladles. Grace was said before the feast commenced. It was a
prolonged exclamation by a single person on a high shrill note,
falling down in cadences into stillness, followed by a response
in chorus by the people. The evenings were devoted to the
dance. With these ceremonies, continued for several days, and
with the festivities that follow^ed, their sachems were inducted
into office.

By investing their sachems with office through a general
council, the framers of the confederacy had in view the three-
fold object of a perpetual succession in the gens, the benefits

144

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of a free election among its members, and a final supervision
of the choice through the ceremony of investiture. To render
the latter effective it should carry with it the power to reject
the nominee. Whether the right to invest was purely func-
tional, or carried with it the right to exclude, I am unable to
state. No case of rejection is mentioned. The scheme adopted
by the Iroquois to maintain a ruling body of sachems may
claim, in several respects, the merit of originality, as well as of
adaptation to their condition. In form an oligarchy, taking
this term in its best sense, it Avas yet a representative democ-
racy of the archaic type. A powerful popular element per-
vaded the whole organism and influenced its action. It is seen
in the right of the gentes to elect and depose their sachems and
chiefs, in the right of the people to be heard in council through
orators of their own selection, and in the voluntary system in
the military service. In this and the next succeeding ethnical
period democratic principles were the vital element of gentile
society.

The Iroquois name for a sachem [Ho-yai^-na-go' -zvar), which
signifies "a counselor of the people," was singularly appropri-
ate to a ruler in a species of free democracy. It not only de-
fines the office well, but it also suggests the analogous designa-
tion of the members of the Grecian council of chiefs. The
Grecian chiefs were styled "councilors of the people."^ From
the nature and tenure of the office among the Iroquois the sa-
chems were not masters ruling by independent right, but rep-
resentatives holding from the gentes by free election. It is
worthy of notice that an office which originated in savagery,
and continued through the three sub-periods of barbarism,
should reveal so much of its archaic character among the Greeks
after the gentile organization had carried this portion of the
human family to the confines of civilization. It shows further
how deeply inwrought in the human mind the principle of de-
mocracy had become under gentilism.

The designation for a chief of the second grade, Ha-sa-jio-

• SoHovvta xai do^avT^ aTtayyaXXsiv //c XPV
dr/iuov 7tpo/3ovX(n? TiJdSs nad/nsm? tcoXegoS'

— .(Eschylus, T/ie Seven against Thebes, IO05.

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. 1 45

wd'-na, "an elevated name," indicates an appreciation by bar-
barians of the ordinary motives for personal ambition. It also
reveals the sameness of the nature of man, whether high up or
low down upon the rounds of the ladder of progress. TheceP"
~~ebrated orators, wise-men, and war-chiefs of the Iroquois were
chiefs of the second grade almost without exception. One
reason for this may be found in the organic provision which
confined the duties of the sachem to the affairs of peace. An-
other may have been to exclude from the ruling body their
ablest men, lest their ambitious aims should disturb its action.
As the office of chief was bestowed in reward of merit, it fell
necessarily upon their ablest men. Red-Jacket, Brandt, Garan
gula, Cornplanter, Farmer's Brother, Frost, Johnson, and other
M^ell known Iroquois, were chiefs as distinguished from sachems
None of the long lines of sachems have become distinguished
in American annals, with the exception of Logan,^ Handsome
Lake,^ and at a recent day, Ely S. Parker.^ The remainder
have left no remembrance behind them extending beyond the \
Iroquois. "*' "'"-i *^

At the time the confederacy was formed To-do-dd'-ho was
the most prominent and influential of the Onondaga chiefs.
His accession to the plan of a confederacy, in which he would
experience a diminution of power, was regarded as highly
meritorious. He was raised up as one of the Onondaga sa-
chems and his name placed first in the list. Two assistant
sachems were raised up with him to act as his aids and to
stand behind him on public occasions. Thus dignified, this
sachemship has since been regarded by the Iroquois as the
most illustrious of the forty-eight, from the services rendered
by the first To-do-dd'-ho. The circumstance was early seized
upon by the inquisitive colonists to advance the person who
held this office to the position of king of the Iroquois; but the \
misconception was refuted, and the institutions of the Iroquois ■>
were relieved of the burden of an impossible feature. In the\\,l;
general council he sat among his equals. The confederacy had \ '
no chief executive magistrate. » A/

' One of the Cayuga sachems. ^^ ■ ij

* One of the Seneca sachems, and the founder of the New ReHgion of the^ .l\
Iroquois. 3 Qne of the Seneca "sachems, ri

146 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Under a confederacy of tribes the office of general, (Hos-gd-
d-geJt! -da-go-wd) " Great War Soldier," makes its first ap-
pearance. Cases would now arise when the several tribes in
their confederate capacity would be engaged in war; and the
necessity for a general commander to direct the movements of
the united bands would be felt. The introduction of this office
as a permanent feature in the government was a great event in
the history of human progress. It was the beginning of a dif-
ferentiation of the military from the civil power, which, when
completed, changed essentially the external manifestation of
the government. But even in later stages of progress, when
the military spirit predominated, the essential character of the
government was not changed. Gentilism arrested usurpation.
With the rise of the office of general, the government was
gradually changed from a government of one power, into a
government of two powers. The functions of government
became, in course of time, co-ordinated between the two.
This new office was the germ of that of a chief executive mag-
istrate; for out of the general came the king, the emperor, and
the president, as elsewhere suggested. The office sprang from
the military necessities of society, and had a logical develop-
ment. For this reason its first appearance and subsequent
growth have an important place in this discussion. In the course
'of this volume I shall attempt to trace the progressive develop-
ment of this office, from the Great War Soldier of the Iroquois
through the Teitctli of the Aztecs, to the Basileus of the Gre-
cian, and the Rex of the Roman tribes; am.ong all of whom,
through three successive ethnical periods, the office was the
same, namely, that of a general in a military democracy.
Among the Iroquois, the Aztecs, and the Romans the office
was elective, or confirmative, by a constituency. Presumptive-
ly, it was the same among the Greeks of the traditionary
period. It is claimed that the office of basilcits among the
Grecian tribes in the Homeric period was hereditary from
father to son. This is at-lea^tdoubtful. It is such a wide and
total departure from the original tenure of the office as to re-
quire positive evidence to establish the fact. An election, or
confirmation by a constituency, would still be necessary under

THE IROQUOIS CONFEDERACY. 147

gentile institutions. If in numerous instances it were known
that the office had passed from father to son this might have
suggested the inference of hereditary succession, now adopted
as historically true, while succession in this form did not exist.
Unfortunately, an intimate knowledge of the organization and
usages of society in the traditionary period is altogether want-
ing. Great principles of human action furnish the safest guide
when their operation must have been necessary. It is far
more probable that hereditary succession, when it first came
lin, was established by force, than by the free consent of the
people; and that it did not exist among the Grecian tribes in
the Homeric period-

lien the Iroquois confederacy was formed, or soon after
that event, two permanent war-chiefships were created and
named, and both were assigned to the Seneca tribe. One of
them ( Ta-wan' -ne-ars, signifying needle-breaker) was made
hereditary in the Wolf, and the other ( So-no' -so-zvd, signifying
great oyster shell) in the Turtle gens. The reason assigned
for giving them both to the Senecas was the greater danger of
attack at the west end of their territories. They were elected
in the same manner as the sachems, were raised up by a general
council, and were equal in rank and power. Another account
states that they were created later. They discovered immedi-
ately after the confederacy was formed that the structure of the
Long House was incomplete because there were no officers to
execute the military commands of the confederacy. A council
was convened to remedy the omission, which established the
two perpetual war-chiefs named. As general commanders
they had charge of the military affairs of the confederacy, and
the command of its joint forces when united in a general expe-
dition. Governor Blacksnake, recently deceased, held the
office first named, thus showing that the succession has been
regularly maintained. The creation of two principal war-chiefs
instead of one, and with equal powers, argues a subtle and cal-
culating policy to prevent the domination of a single man even
|in their military affairs. They'did without experience precisely
as the Romans did in creating two consuls instead of one,
after they had abolished the office of rex. Two consuls would

148 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

balance the military power between them, and prevent either
from becoming supreme. Among the Iroquois this office
never became influential.

In Indian Ethnography the subjects of primary importance
are the gens, phratry, tribe and confederacy. They exhibit the
organization of society. Next to these are the tenure and
functions of the office of sachem and chief, the functions of the
council of chiefs, and the tenure and functions of the office of
principal war-chief When these are ascertained, the structure
and principles of their governmental system will be known. A
knowledge of their usages and customs, of their arts and inven-
tions, and of their plan of life will then fill out the picture. In
the work of American investigators too little attention has been
given to the former. They still afford a rich field in which
much information may be gathered. Our knowledge, which
is now general, should be made minute and comparative. The
Indian tribes in the Lower, and in the Middle Status of barba-
rism, represent two of the great stages of progress from savagery
to civilization. Our own remote forefathers passed through
the same conditions, one after the other, and possessed, there
can scarcely be a doubt, the same, or very similar institutions,
with many of the same usages and customs. However little
we may be interested in the American Indians personally,
their experience touches us more nearly, as an exemplification
of the experience of our own ancestors. Our primary institu-
tions root themselves in a prior gentile society in which the
gens, phratry and tribe were the organic series, and in which the
council of chiefs was the instrument of government. The phe-
nomena of their ancient society must have presented many
points in common with that of the Iroquois and other Indian
tribes. This view of the matter lends an additional interest to
the comparative institutions of mankind.

The Iroquois confederacy is an excellent exemplification of
a gentile society under this form of organization. It seems to
realize all the capabilities of gentile institutions in the Lower
Status of barbarism; leaving an opportunity for further develop-
ment, but no subsequent plan of government until the institu-
tions of political society, founded upon territory and upon prop-

THE IROQ UOIS CONFEDERACY. 1 49

erty, with the establishment of which the gentile organization
would be overthrown. The intermediate stages were transi-
tional, remaining military democracies to the end, except where
tyrannies founded upon usurpation were temporarily established
in their places. The confederacy of the Iroquois was essentially
democratical; because it was composed of gentes each of which
was organized upon the common principles of democracy, not
of the highest but of the primitive type, and because the tribes
reserved the right of local self-government. They conquered
other tribes and held them in subjection, as for example the
Delawares; but the latter remained under the government of
their own chiefs, and added nothing to the strength of the con-
federacy. It was impossible in this state of society to unite
tribes under one government who spoke different languages, or
to hold conquered tribes under tribute with any benefit but the
tribute.

This exposition of the Iroquois confederacy is far from ex-
haustive of the facts, but it has been carried far enough to an-
swer my present object. The Iroquois were a viggixma^ajjd
intelligent people, with a brain approaching in volume the
Aryaiwv'erage. Eloquent in oratory, vindictive in warTarid
iiidomitablg_jn perseverance, they have^ainM~a-placeTn'1iis-
tqry. If their military achievements are dreary with the atroc-
ities of savage warfare, they have illustrated some of the high-
est virtues of mankind in their relations with each other. The
jconfederacy which they organized must be regarded as a re-
jmarkable production of wisdom and sagacity. One of its
avowed objects was peace ; to remove the cause of strife by
uniting their tribes under one government, and then extending
it by incorporating other tribes of the same name and lineage.
They urged the Eries and the Neutral Nation to become mem-
bers of the confederacy, and for their refusal expelled them
ffrorn their borders. Such an insight into the highest objects
of government is creditable to their intelligence. Their num-
bers were small, but they counted in their ranks a large number
of able men. This proves the high grade of the stock.

From their position and military strength they exercised a
marked influence upon the course of events between the En-

I50 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

glish and the French in their competition for supremacy in
North America. As the two were nearly equal in power and
resources during the first century of colonization, the French
may ascribe to the Iroquois, in no small degree, the overthrow
of their plans of empire in the New World.

With a knowledge of the gens in its archaic form and of its
capabilities as the unit of a social system, we shall be better able
to understand the gentes of the Greeks and Romans yet to be
considered. The same scheme of government composed of
gentes, phratries and tribes in a gentile society will be found
among them as they stood at the threshold of civilization, with
the superadded experience of two entire ethnical periods.
Descent among them was in the male line, property was in-
herited by the children of the owner instead of the agnatic
kindred, and the family was now assuming the monogamian
form. The growth of property, now becoming a commanding
element, and the increase of numbers gathered in walled cities
were slowly demonstrating the necessity for the second great
plan of government — the political. The old gentile system
was becoming incapable of meeting the requirements of society
as it approached civilization. Glimpses of a state, founded
upon territory and property, were breaking upon the Grecian
and Roman minds before which gentes and tribes were to dis-
appear. To enter upon the second plan of government, it was
necessary to supersede the gentes by townships and city wards
— the gentile by a territorial system. The going down of the
gentes and the uprising of organized townships mark the divid-
ing line, pretty nearly, between the barbarian and the civiHzed
worlds — between ancient and modern society.

CHAPTER VI.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE GANOWA'NIAN FAMILY.]

Divisions of American Aborigines. — Gentes in Indian Tribes; with
THEIR Rules of Descent and Inheritance. — I. Hodenosaunian Tribes. —
II. Dakotian. — III. Gulf. — IV. Pawnee. — V. Algonkin. — VI. Athapasco-
Apache. — VII. Tribes of Northwest Coast. — Eskimos, a Distinct Family.
— VIII. Salish, Sahaptin, and Kootenay Tribes. — IX. Shoshonee. — X.
Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico and Central America. — XI.
South American Indian Tribes. — Probable Universality of the Organi-
zation in Gentes in the Ganowa'nian Family.

When America was first discovered in its several regions, the
Aborigines were found in two dissimilar conditions. First
were the Village Indians, who depended almost exclusively
upon horticulture for subsistence; such were the tribes in this
status in New Mexico, Mexico and Central America, and upon
the plateau of the Andes. Second, were the Non-horticultural
Indians, who depended upon fish, bread-roots and game;
such were the Indians of the Valley of the Columbia, of the
Hudson's Bay Territory, of parts of Canada, and of some other
sections of America. Between these tribes, and connecting the
extremes by insensible gradations, were the partially Village,
and partially Horticultural Indians; such were the Iroquois, the
New England and Virginia Indians, the Creeks, Choctas, Cher-
okees, Minnitarees, Dakotas and Shawnees. The weapons,
arts, usages, inventions, dances, house architecture, form of
government, and plan of life of all alike bear the impress of a
common mind, and reveal, through their wide range, the suc-
cessive stages of development of the same original conceptions.

1 5 2 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Our first mistake consisted in overrating the comparative ad-
vancement of the Village Indians; and our second in under-
rating that of the Non-horticultural, and of the partially Vil-
lage Indians: whence resulted a third, that of separating one
from the other and regarding them as different races. There
was a marked difference in the conditions in which they were
severally found; for a number of the Non-horticultural tribes
were in the Uj^per Status of savagery; the intermediate tribes
were in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the Village Indians
were in the Middle Status. The evidence of their unity of or-
igin has now accumulated to such a degree as to leave no rea-
sonable doubt upon the question, although this conclusion is not
universally accepted. The Eskimos belong to a different fam-
ily.

In a previous work I presented the system of consanguin-
ity and affinity of some seventy American Indian tribes; and
upon the fact of their joint possession of the same system, with
evidence of its derivation from a common source, ventured to
claim for them the distinctive rank of a family of mankind, un-
der the name of the Ganowanian, the "Family of the Bow and
Arrow. "^ '^ "

Having considered the attributes of the gens in its archaic
form, it remains to indicate the extent of its prevalence in the
tribes of the Ganowanian family. In this chapter the organi-
zation will be traced among them, confining the statements to
the names of the gentes in each tribe, with their rules of de-
scent and inheritance as to property and office. I'urther ex-
planations will be added when necessary. The main point to
be established is the existence or non-existence of the gentile
organization among them. Wherever the institution has been
found in these several tribes it is the same in all essential re-
spects as the gens of the Iroquois, and therefore needs no fur-
ther exposition in this connection. Unless the contrary is
stated, it may be understood that the existence of the organi-
zation was ascertained by the author from the Indian tribe or
some of its members. The classification of tribes follows that
adopted in "Systems of Consanguinity."

' Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Faniily. {Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii, 1871, p. 131.)

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 53

I. Hodenosaunian Tribes.

1. Iroquois. The gentes of the Iroquois have been consid-
ered.^

2. Wyandotes. This tribe, the remains of the ancient Hu-
rons, is composed of eight gentes, as follows:

I, Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Beaver. 4. Turtle.

5. Deer. 6. Snake. 7. Porcupine. 8. Hawk.^
Descent is in the female line, with marriage in the gens pro-
hibited. The office of sachem, or civil chief, is hereditary in
the gens, but elective among its members. They have seven
sachems and seven war-chiefs, the Hawk gens being now ex-
tinct. The office of sachem passes from brother to brother, or
from uncle to nephew; but that of war-chief was bestowed in
reward of merit, and was not hereditary. Property was he-
reditary in the gens, consequently children took nothing from
their father; but they inherited their mother's effects. Where
the rule is stated hereafter it will be understood that unmar-
ried as well as married persons are included. Each gens had
power to depose as well as elect its chiefs. The Wyandotes
have been separated from the Iroquois at least four hundred
years; but they still have five gentes in common, although
their names have either changed beyond identification, or new
names- have been substituted by one or the other.

The Eries, Neutral Nation, Nottoways, Tutelos,^ and Sus-
quehannocks* now extinct or absorbed in other tribes, belong
to the same Hneage, Presumptively they were organized in
gentes, but the evidence of the fact is lost.

1 I. Wolf, Tor-yoh'-ne. 5. Deer, Na-o'-geh.

2. Bear, Ne-e-ar-guy'-ee. 6. Snipe, Doo-eese-doo-we'.

3. Beaver, Non-gar-ne'-e-ar-goh. 7. Heron, Jo-as'-seh.

4. Turtle, Ga-ne-e-ar-teh-go'-\va. 8. Hawk, Os-sweh-ga-da-ga'-ah.
* I. Ah-na-rese'-kwa, Bone Gnawers. 5- Os-ken'-o-toh, Roaming.

2. Ah-nu-yeh', Tree Liver. 6. Sine-gain'-see, Creeping.

3. Tso-ta'-ee, Shy Animal. 7. Ya-ra-hats'-see, Tall Tree.

4. Ge-ah'-wish, Fine Land. 8. Da-soak' Flying.

3 Mr. Horatio Hale has recently proved the connection of the Tutelos with the
Iroquois.

* Mr. Francis Parkman, author of the brilliant series of works on the coloniza-
tion of America, was the first to establish the affiliation of the Susquehannocks
•with the Iroquois.

154 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

II. Dakotian Tribes.
A large number of tribes are included in this great stock of
the American aborigines. At the time of their discovery they
had fallen into a number of groups, and their language into a
number of dialects; but they inhabited, in the main, continuous
areas. They occupied the head waters of the Mississippi, and
both banks of the Missouri for more than a thousand miles in
extent. In all probability the Iroquois, and their cognate
tribes, were an offshoot from this stem.

^i. Dakotas or Sioux. The Dakotas, consisting at the pres-
ent time of some twelve independent tribes, have allowed the
gentile organization to fall into decadence. It seems substan-
tially certain that they once possessed it because their nearest
congeners, the Missouri tribes, are now thus organized. They
have societies named after animals analogous to gentes, but
the latter are now wanting. Carver, who was among them in
1767, remarks that "every separate body of Indians is divided
into bands or tribes; which band or tribe forms a little commu-
nity with the nation to which it belongs. As the nation has some
particular symbol by which it is distinguished from others, so
each tribe has a badge from which it is denominated ; as that of
the eagle, the panther, the tiger, the buffalo, etc. One band of
the Naudowissies [Sioux] is represented by a Snake, another a
Tortoise, a third a Squirrel, a fourth a Wolf, and a fifth a Buf-
falo. Throughout every nation they particularize themselves in
|J the same manner, and the meanest person among them will re-
■ • member his lineal descent, and distinguish himself by his re-
spective family."^ He visited the eastern Dakotas on the Mis-
sissippi. From this specific statement I see no reason to doubt
that the gentile organization was then in full vitality among
them. When I visited the eastern Dakotas in 1861, and the
western in 1862, I could find no satisfactory traces of gentes
among them. A change in the mode of life among the Dako-
tas occurred between these dates when they were forced upon
the plains, and fell into nomadic bands, which may, perhaps,
explain the decadence of gentilism among them.

Carver also noticed the two grades of chiefs among the
1 Travels in North America, Phila. ed., 1796, p. 164.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 55

western Indians, which have been explained as they exist
among the Iroquois. "Every band," he observes, "has a chief
who is termed the Great Chief, or the Chief Warrior, and who
is chosen in consideration of his experience in war, and of his
approved valor, to direct their military operations, and to reg-
ulate all concerns belonging to that department. But this
chief is not considered the head of the state; besides the great
warrior who is elected for his warlike qualifications, there is
another who enjoys a pre-eminence as his hereditary right, and
has the more immediate management of their civil affairs. This
chief might with greater propriety be denominated the sachem;
whose assent is necessary to all conveyances and treaties, to
which he affixes the mark of the tribe or nation."^

2^ Missouri tribes. I. Punkas. This tribe is composed of
eight gentes, as follows:

1. Grizzly Bear. 2. Many People. 3. Elk. 4. Skunk:
5. Buffalo. 6. Snake. 7. Medicine. 8. Ice.^

In this tribe, contrary to the general rule, descent is in the
male line, the children belonging to the gens of their father.
Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. The office of sachem
is hereditary in the gens, the choice being determined by elec-
tion; but the sons of a deceased sachem are eligible. It is
probable that the change from the archaic form was recent,
from the fact that among the Otoes and Missouris, two of the
eight Missouri tribes, and also among the Mandans, descent is
still in the female line. Property is hereditary in the gens.

2. Omahas. This tribe is composed of the following twelve
gentes:

I. Deer. 2. Black. 3. Bird. 4. Turtle.

5. Buffalo. 6. Bear. 7. Medicine. 8. Kaw.
9. Head. 10. Red. 11. Thunder. 12. Many Seasons.'
Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same
as among the Punkas.

1 Travels in North America, p. 165.
* I. Wa-sii'-be. 2. De-a-glie'-ta.

5. Wa-sha'-ba. 6. Wa-zhii'-zha.
3 I. Wa'-zhese-ta. 2. Ink-ka'-sa-ba.

5. Da-thun'-da. 6. Wa-sa'-ba.

9. Ta'-pa. 10. In-gra'-zhe-da.

Na-ko-poz''

-na.

Moh-kuh'.

Noli'-ga.

Wah'ga.

La'-ta-da.

Ka'-ih.

Hun'-ga.

Kun'za. [K

II.

Ish-da'-sun

-da.

12.

O-non-e'-ka-ga-

156 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

3. lowas. In like manner the lowas have eight gentes, as
follows:

I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Cow Buffalo. 4. Elk.

5. Eagle. 6. Pigeon. 7. Snake. 8. Owl.^

A gens of the Beaver Pd-kiih'-thd once existed among the
lowas and Otoes, but it is now extinct. Descent, inheritance,
and the prohibition of intermarriage in the gens are the same
as among the Punkas.

4. Otoes and Missouris. These tribes have coalesced into
one, and have the eight following gentes:

I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Cow Buffalo. 4. Elk.

5. Eagle. 6. Pigeon. 7. Snake. 8. Owl.^

Descent among the Otoes and Missouris is in the female

line, the children belonging to the gens of their mother. The

office of sachem, and property are hereditary in the gens, in

which intermarriage is prohibited.

5. Kaws. The Kaws (Kaw'-za) have the following fourteen
gentes:

I. Deer. 2. Bear. 3. Buffalo. 4. Eagle (white).

5. Eagle (black). 6. Duck. 7. Elk. 8. Raccoon.

9. Prairie Wolf. 10. Turtle. ii. Earth. 12. Deer Tail.
13. Tent. 14. Thunder.^

The Kaws are among the wildest of the American aborig-
ines, but are an intelligent and interesting people. Descent,
inheritance and marriage regulations among them are the
same as among the Punkas. It will be observed that there are
two Eagle gentes, and two of the Deer, which afford a good
illustration of the segmentation of a gens; the Eagle gens hav-
ing probably divided into two and distinguished themselves by

' I, Me-je'-ra-ja. 2. Too-num'-pe. 3. Ah'-ro-wha. 4. Ho'-dash.

5. Cheh'-he-ta. 6. Lu'-chih. 7. Wa-keeh'. 8. Ma'-kotch.

li represents a deep sonant guttural. It is quite common in tlie dialects of the
Missouri tribes, and also in the Minnitaree and Crow.

2 I. Me-je'-ra-ja. 2. Moon'-cha. 3. Ah'-ro-wha. 4. Hoo'-ma.
5. Kha'-a. 6. Lute'-ja. 7. Wa'-kii. 8. Ma'-kotch.

3 I. Ta-we-kii-she'-ga. 2. Sin'-ja-ye-ga. 3. Mo-e'-kwe-ah-ha.
4. Hu-e'-ya. 5. Hun-go-tin'-ga. 6. Me-hii-shun'-ga.
7. O'-pa. 8. Me-ka'. 9. Sho'-ma-koo-sa.

10. Do-ha-kel'-ya. 11. Mo-c'-ka-ne-ka'-she-ga. 12. Da-sin '-ja-ha-ga.

13. Ic'-hii-she. 14. Lo-ne'-ka-she-ga.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES.

157

the names of white and black. The Turtle will be found here-
after as a further illustration of the same fact. When I visited
the Missouri tribes in 1859 and i860, I was unable to reach the
Osages and Ouappas. The eight tribes thus named speak
closely affiliated dialects of the Dakotian stock language, and
the presumption that the Osages and Ouappas are organized
in gentes is substantially conclusive. In 1869, the Kaws, then
much reduced, numbered seven hundred, which would give an
average of but fifty persons to a gens. The home country of
these several tribes was along the Missouri and its tributaries
from the mouth of the Big Sioux river to the Mississippi, and
down the west bank of the latter river to the Arkansas.

^3^ Winnebagoes. When discovered this tribe resided near
the lake of their name in Wisconsin. An offshoot from the
Dakotian stem, they were apparently following the track of the
Iroquois eastward to the valley of the St. Lawrence, when
their further progress in that direction was arrested by the Al-
gonkin tribes between Lakes Huron and Superior. Their near-
est affiliation is with the Missouri tribes. They have eight
gentes as follows:

I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Buffalo. 4. Eagle.

5. Elk. 6. Deer. 7. Snake. 8. Thunder.^

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same
among them as among the Punkas. It is surprising that so
many tribes of this stock should have changed descent from
the female line to the male, because when first known the idea
of property was substantially undeveloped, or but slightly be-
yond the germinating stage, and could hardly, as among the
Greeks and Romans, have been the operative cause. It is
probable that it occurred at a recent period under American
and missionary influences. Carver found traces of descent in
the female line in 1787 among the Winnebagoes. "Some na-
tions," he remarks, "when the dignity is hereditary, limit the
succession to the female line. On the death of a chief his sis-
ters' son succeeds him in preference to his own son; and if he

' I. Shonk-chun'-ga-da.

2. Hone-cha'-da. 3. Cha'-ra.

4. \Vahk-cha'-he-da.

5. Hoo-\vim'-na. 6. Cha'-ra,

7. Wa-kon'-na.

8. Wa-kon'-cha-ra.

158

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

happens to have no sister the nearest female relation assumes
the dignity. This accounts for a woman being at the head of
the Winnebago nation, which, before I was acquainted with
their laws, appeared strange to me."^ In 1869, the Winne-
bagoes numbered fourteen hundred, which would give an aver-
age of one hundred and fifty persons to the gens.
4. Upper Missouri Tribes.
I. Mandans. In intelligence and in the arts of life the
Mandans were in advance of all their kindred tribes, for which
they were probably indebted to the Minnitarees. They are
divided into seven gentes as follows:

I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Prairie Chicken. 4. Good Knife.

5. Eagle. 6. Flathead. 7. High Village.^

Descent is in the female line, with office and property hered-
itary in the gens. Intermarriage in the gens is not permitted.
Descent in the female line among the Mandans would be sin-
gular where so many tribes of the same stock have it in the
male, were it not in the archaic form from which the other
tribes had but recently departed. It affords a strong presump-
tion that it was originally in the female line in all the Dakotian
tribes. This information with respect to the Mandans was ob-
tained at the old Mandan Village in the Upper Missouri, in
1862, from Joseph Kip, whose mother was a Mandan woman.
He confirmed the fact of descent by naming his mother's gens,
which was also his own.

2. Minnitarees. This tribe and the Upsarokas (Up-sar'-o-
kas) or Crows, are subdivisions of an original people. They
"are doubtful members of this branch of the Ganowanian family:
although from the number of words in their dialects and in
those of the Missouri and Dakota tribes which are common,
they have been placed with them linguistically. They have
had an antecedent experience of which but little is known.
Minnitarees carried horticulture, the timber-framed house, and
a peculiar religious system into this area which they taught to

' Travels, loc. cit., p. 166.

* I. Ho-ra-ta'-mu-make. 2. Mii-to'-no-make. 3. See-poosh'-kii.

4. Ta-na-tsu'-ka. 5. Ki-ta'-ne-make. 6. E-stii-pa'.

7. Me-te-ah'-ke.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 59

the IMandans. There is a possibility that they are descend-
ants of the Mound-Builders. They have the seven following
gentes :
I. Knife. 2. Water. 3. Lodge.

4. Prairie Chicken. 5. Hill People. 6. Unknown Animal.
7. Bonnet.^
Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is
forbidden, and the office of sachem as well as property is
hereditary in the gens. The Minnitarees and Mandans now
live together in the same village. In personal appearance
they are among the finest specimens of the Red Man now living
in any part of North America.

3. Upsarokas or Crows. This tribe has the following gentes:

Prairie Dog.

Bad Leggins.

Skunk.

Treacherous Lodges.

Lost Lodges.

Bad Honors.

Butchers.

Moving Lodges.

Bear's Paw Mountain.

10.

Blackfoot Lodges.

II.

Fish Catchers.

12.

Antelope.

13. Raven. ^
Descent, inheritance and the prohibition of intermarriage in
the gens, are the same- as among the Minnitarees. Several of
the names of the Crow gentes are unusual, and more suggestive
of bands than of gentes. For a time I was inclined to discredit
them. But the existence of the organization into gentes was
clearly established by their rules of descent, and marital usages,
and by their laws of inheritance with respect to property. My
interpreter when among the Crows was Robert Meldrum, then
one of the factors of the American Fur Company, who had
lived with the Crows forty years, and was one of their chiefs.
He had mastered the language so completely that he thought
in it. The following special usages with respect to inheritance

1 1.

Mit-che-ro'-ka.

2. Min-ne-pa'-ta. 3. Ba-ho-lia'-ta.

4. Seech-ka-be-ruh-pii'-ka. 5. E-tish-sho'-ka.

6. Ah-nali-ha-

na'

'-me-te. 7. E-ku'-pa-be-ka.

«I.

A-chc-pa-be'-cha.

2. E-sach'-ka-buk. 3. Ho-ka-rut'-cha.

Ash-bot-chee-ah.

5. Ah-shin'-na-de'-ah. 6. Ese-kep-ka'-buk.

Oo-sa-bot'-see.

8. Ah-ha-chick. 9. Ship-tet'-za.

10.

Ash-kane'-na.

II. Boo-a-da'-sha. - 12. O-hot-du'-sha.
13. Pet-chale-ruH-pa'-ka.

1 60 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

were mentioned by him. If a person to whom any article of
property had been presented died with it in his possession, and
the donor was dead, it reverted to the gens of the latter.
Property made or acquired by a wife descended after her death
to her children; while that of her husband after his decease be-
longed to his gentile kindred. If a person made a present to
a friend and died, the latter must perform some recognized act
of mourning, such as cutting off the joint of a finger at the
funeral, or surrender the property to the gens of his deceased
friend.^

The Crows have a custom with respect to marriage, which I
have found in at least forty other Indian tribes, which may be
mentioned here, because some use will be made of it in a sub-
sequent chapter. If a man marries the eldest daughter in a
family he is entitled to all her sisters as additional wives when
they attain maturity. He may waive the right, but if he in-
sists, his superior claim would be recognized by her gens.
Polygamy is allowed by usage among the American aborigines
generally; but it was never prevalent to any considerable ex-
tent from the inability of persons to support more than one
family. Direct proof of the existence of the custom first men-
tioned was afforded by Meldrum's wife, then at the age of twenty-
five. She was captured when a child in a foray upon the Black-
feet, and became Meldrum's captive. He induced his mother-
in-law to adopt the child into her gens and family, which made
the captive the younger sister of his then wife, and gave him
the right to take her as another wife when she reached matu-
rity. He availed himself of this usage of the tribe to make his
claim paramount. This usage has a great antiquity in the
human family. It is a survival of the old custom o{ pwiahta.
III. Gulf Tribes.
I. Muscokees or Creeks. The Creek Confederacy consisted
of six Tribes; namely, the Creeks, Hitchetes, Yoochees, Ala-

1 This practice as an act of mourning is very common among the Crows, and
also as a religious offering when they hold a " Medicine Lodge," a great religious
ceremonial. In a basket hung up in a Medicine Lodge for their reception as
offerings, fifty, and sometimes a hundred finger joints, I have been told, are
sometimes thus collected. At a Crow encampment on the Upper Missouri I
noticed a number of women and men with their hands mutilated by this practice.

GENTES IN 0 THER TRIBES. 1 6 1

bamas, Coosatees, and Natches, all of whom spoke dialects of
the same language, with the exception of the Natches, who
M'ere admitted into the confederacy after their overthrow by
the French.

The Creeks are composed of twenty-two gentes as follows:

Bear.

Deer.

Wind.

Wolf

Alligator.

Tiger.

lO.

Mole.

1 1.

13-

Fish.

14.

1 6.

Hickory Nut.

17-

19.

(Sig'n Lost).

20.
22.

-->
J-

Skunk.

Bird.

Toad.

12.

Raccoon.

15-

Potatoe.

18.

Wild Cat.

21.

(Sig'n Lost).

Corn.

Salt.

(Sig'n Lost).^

The remaining tribes of this confederacy are said to have had
the organization into gentes, as the author was informed by the
Rev. S. M. Loughridge, who was for many years a missionary
among the Creeks, and who furnished the names of the gentes
above given. He further stated that descent among the Creeks
was in the female line; that the office of sachem and the prop-
erty of deceased persons were hereditary in the gens, and that
intermarriage in the gens was prohibited. At the present time
the Creeks are partially civilized with a changed plan of life.
They have substituted a political in place of the old social sys-
tem, so that in a few years all traces of their old gentile insti-
tutions will have disappeared. In 1869 they numbered about
fifteen thousand, which would give an average of five hundred
and fifty persons to the gens.

2. Choctas. Among the Choctas the phratric organization
appears in a conspicuous manner, because each phratry is
named, and stands out plainly as a phratry. It doubtless ex-
isted in a majority of the tribes previously named, but the sub-
ject has not been specially investigated. The tribe of the

* I. Yii'-ha

No-kuse'.

Ku'-mu.

Kal-put'-lii.

5. E'-cho.

Tus'-wa.

Kat'-chu.

Ho-tor'-lee.

9. So-pak'-tu.

10.

Tuk'-ko.

II.

Clui'-la.

12.

Wo'-tko.

13. Hu'-hlo.

14.

U'-che.

15-

Ah'-ah.

16.

0-che'.

17. Ok-chun'-wa.

18.

Ku-\va'-ku-che.

19.

Ta-mul'-kee.

20.

Ak-tu-ya-

21. Is-fa-nul'-ke.

22.

Wa-hlak-kul'

-kee.

chul'-kee.

' Sig'n = signification.

1 62 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Creeks consists of eight gentes arranged in two phratries, com-
posed of four gentes each, as among the Iroquois.
I. Divided People. (First PJiratry).
I. Reed. 2. Law Okla. 3. Lulak. 4. Linoklusha.
II. Beloved People, (Second PJiratry).

I. Beloved People. 2. Small People.

3. Large People. 4. Cray Fish.^

The gentes of the same phratry could not intermarry; but
the members of either of the first gentes could marry into either
gens of the second, and viee versa. It shows that the Choc-
tas, like the Iroquois, commenced with two gentes, each of
Avhich afterwards subdivided into four, and that the original
prohibition of intermarriage in the gens had followed the sub-
divisions. Descent among the Choctas was in the female line.
Property and the office of sachem were hereditary in the gens.
In 1869 they numbered some twelve thousand, which would
give an average of fifteen hundred persons to a gens. The
foregoing information was communicated to the author by the
late Dr. Cyrus Byington, who entered the missionary service
in this tribe in 1820 while they still resided in their ancient terri-
tory east of the Mississippi, who removed with them to the In-
dian Territory, and died in the missionary service about the
year 1868, after forty-five years of missionary labors. A man
of singular excellence and purity of character, he has .left be-
hind him a name and a memory of which humanity may be
proud.

A Chocta once expressed to Dr. Byington a wish that he
might be made a citizen of the United States, for the reason
that his children would then inherit his property instead of his
gentile kindred under the old law of the gens. Chocta usages
would distribute his property after his death among his broth-
ers and sisters and the children of his sisters. He could, how-
ever, give his property to his children in his life-time, in which
.case they could hold it against the members of his gens. Many

» First. Ku-shap'. Ok'-la.
I. Kush-ik'-sa. 2. Law-ok'-la. 3. Lu-lak Ik'sa. 4. Lin-ok-lu'-sha.

Second. Wa-tak-i-Hu-lii'-ta.
il. Chu-fan-ik'-sii. 2. Is-ku-la'-ni. 3. Chi'-to. 4. Shak-chuk'-la.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 63

Indian tribes now have considerable property in domestic ani-
mals and in houses and lands owned by individuals, among
whom the practice of giving it to their children in their life-time
has become common to avoid gentile inheritance. As prop-
erty increased in quantity the disinheritance of children began
to arouse opposition to gentile inheritance; and in some of the
tribes, that of the Choctas among the number, the old usage
was abolished a few years since, and the right to inherit was
vested exclusively in the children of the deceased owner. It
came, however, through the substitution of a political system in
the place of the gentile system, an elective council and mag-
istracy being substituted in place of the old government of
chiefs. Under the previous usages the wife inherited nothing
from her husband, nor he from her; but the wife's effects were
divided among her children, and in default of them, among her
sisters.

3. Chickasas. In like manner the Chickasas were organized
in two phratries, of which the first contains four, and the sec-
ond eight gentes, as follows:

I. Panther Phratry.

I. Wild Cat. 2. Bird. 3. Fish. 4. Deer.

II. SpanisJi Phratry.

I. Raccoon. 2. Spanish. 3. Royal. 4. Hush-ko-ni.
5. Squirrel. 6. Alligator. 7. Wolf 8. Blackbird.^
Descent was in the female line, intermarriage in the gens was
prohibited, and property as well as the office of sachem were
hereditary in the gens. The above particulars were obtained
from the Rev. Charles C. Copeland, an American missionary re-
siding with this tribe. In 1869 they numbered some five thou-
sand, which would give an average of about four hundred per-
sons to the gens. A new gens seems to have been formed
after their intercourse with the Spaniards commenced, or this
name, for reasons, may have been substituted in the place of an
original name. One of the phratries is also called the Spanish.

' I. Koi.
I. Ko-in-chush. 2. Ha-tiik-fu-shi. 3. Nun-ni. 4. Is-si.

II. Ish-pan-ee.
I. Sha-u-ee. 2. Ish-pan-ee. 3. Ming-ko. 4. Hushko-ni.

5. Tun-ni. 6. Ho-chon-chab-ba. 7. Na-sho-la. 8. Chuh-hla.

1 64 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

4. Cherokees. This tribe was anciently composed of ten
gentes, of which two, the Acorn, AJi-nc-dsu' -la, and the Bird,
Ah-ne-dse' -skivii, are now extinct. They are the following:

I. Wolf 2. Red Paint. 3. Long Prairie. 4. Deaf (A bird.)
5. Holly. 6. Deer. 7. Blue. 8. Long Hair.^

Descent is in the female line, and intermarriage in the gens
prohibited. Li 1869 the Cherokees numbered fourteen thou-
sand, which would give an average of seventeen hundred and
fifty persons to each gens. This is the largest number, so far
as the fact is known, ever found in a single gens among the
American aborigines. The Cherokees and Ojibwas at the pres-
ent time exceed all the remaining Lidian tribes within the
United States in the number of persons speaking the same dia-
lect. It may be remarked further, that it is not probable that
there ever was at any time in any part of North America a hun-
dred thousand Indians who spoke the same dialect. The Az-
tecs, Tezcucans and Tlascalans were the only tribes of whom so
large a number could, with any propriety, be claimed; and
with respect to them it is difficult to perceive how the existence
of so large a number in either tribe could be established, at the
epoch of the Spanish Conquest, upon trustworthy evidence.
The unusual numbers of the Creeks and Cherokees is due to
the possession of domestic animals and a well-developed field
agriculture. They are now partially civilized, having substi-
tuted an elective constitutional government in the place of the
ancient gentes, under the influence of which the latter are rap-
idly falling into decadence.

5. Seminoles. This tribe is of Creek descent. They are
said to be organized into gentes, but the particulars have not
been obtained.

IV. Pawnee Tribes.

Whether or not the Pawnees are organized in gentes has not

been ascertained. Rev. Samuel AUis, who had formerly been

a missionary among them, expressed to the author his belief

that they were, although he had not investigated the matter

* I. Ah-ne-whi'-ya. 2. Ah-ne-who'-teh. 3. Ah-ne-ga-ta-ga'-nih.

4. Dsu-ni-li'-a-na. 5. U-ni-sda'-sdi. 6. Ah-nee-ka'-wih.

7. Ah-nee-sa-hok'-nih. 8. Ah-nu-ka-lo'-high. ah-nee signifies the plural.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 65

specially. He named the following gentes of which he believed
they were composed:

I. Bear. 2. Beaver. 3. Eagle.

4. Buffalo. 5. Deer. 6. Owl.

I once met a band of Pawnees on the Missouri, but was un-
able to obtain an interpreter.

The Arickarees, whose village is near that of the Minnitarees,
are the nearest congeners of the Pawnees, and the same diffi-
culty occurred with them. These tribes, with the Huecos and
some two or three other small tribes residing on the Canadian
river, have always lived west of the Missouri, and speak an in-
dependent stock language. If the Pawnees are organized in
gentes, presumptively the other tribes are the same.
V. Algonkiii Tribes.

At the epoch of their discovery this great stock of the
American aborigines occupied the area from the Rocky
Mountains to Hudson's Bay, south of the Siskatchewun, and
thence eastward to the Atlantic, including both shores of Lake
Superior, except at its head, and both banks of the St. Law-
rence below Lake Champlain. Their area extended southward
along the Atlantic coast to North Carolina, and down the east
bank of the Mississippi in Wisconsin and Illinois to Kentucky.
Within the eastern section of this immense region the Iroquois
and their affiliated tribes were an intrusive people, their only
competitor for supremacy within its boundaries.

Gitchigamian^ Tribes, i. Ojibwas. The Ojibwas speak the
same dialect, and are organized in gentes, of which the names
of twenty-three have been obtained without being certain that
they include the whole number. In the Ojibwa dialect the
word totem, quite as often pronounced dodaiin, signifies the
symbol or device of a gens; thus the figure of a wolf was the
totem of the Wolf gens. From this Mr. Schoolcraft used the
Avords "totemic system," to express the gentile organization,
which would be perfectly acceptable were it not that we have
both in the Latin and the Greek a terminology for every qual-
ity and character of the system which is already historical. It

' I. From the Ojibwa, gi-tcJii' , great, and gd'me, lake, the aboriginal name
of Lake Superior, and other great lakes.

1 ^(i ANCIENT SOCIE T Y.

may be used, however, with advantage. The Ojibwas have the
following gentes:

I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Beaver.

4. Turtle (Mud). 5. Turtle (Snapping). 6. Turtle (Little).

7. Reindeer. 8. Snipe. 9. Crane.

10. Pigeon Hawk. ii. Bald Eagle. 12. Loon.

13. Duck. 14. Duck. 15. Snake.

16. Muskrat. 17. Marten. 18. Heron.

19. Bull-head. 20. Carp. 21. Cat Fish

22. Sturgeon. 23. Pike.^

Descent is in the male line, the children belonging to their
, father's gens. There are several reasons for the inference that
it was originally in the female line, and that the change was
comparatively recent. In the first place, the Delawares, who
are recognized by all Algonkin tribes as one of the oldest of
their lineage, and who are styled "Grandfathers" by all alike,
still have descent in the female line. Several other Algonkin
tribes have the same. Secondly, evidence still remains that
wathin two or three generations back of the present, descent was
in the female line, with respect to the office of chiefs Thirdly,
American and missionary influences have generally opposed it.
A scheme of descent which disinherited the sons seemed to the
early missionaries, trained under very different conceptions,
without justice or reason; and it is not improbable that in a
number of tribes, the Ojibwas included, the change was made
under their teachings. And lastly, since several Algonkin

1 1.

My-een'-gun.

Ma-kvva'. 3.

Ah-mik'.

Me-she'-ka.

Mik-o-noh'.

Me-skwa-da'-re. 7.

Ah-dik'.

Chu-e-skwe'-

O-jee-jok'.

10.

Ka-kake'. 1 1 .

0-me-gee-ze'.

ske-vrii.

12.

Mong.

13-

Ah-ah'-weh. 14.

She-shebe'.

15-

Ke-na'-big,

16.

Wa-zhush'.
Nii-ma'-bin.

17-
21.

Wa-be-zhaze'. 18.

Moosh-ka-00-ze',

Na-ma'.

, 19.

Ah-wah-sis'-

20.

sa.

23. Ke-no'-zhe.

''■ An Ojibwa sachem, Ke-we' -Icons, who died about 1840, at the age of ninety
years, when asked by my informant why he did not retire from office and give
place to his son, rephed, that his son could not succeed him ; that the right
of succession belonged to his nephew, E-Iiwa' -ka-niik, who must have the office.
This nephew was a son of one of his sisters. From this statement it follows that
descent, anciently, and within a recent period, was in the female line. It does not
follow from the form of the statement that the nephew would take by hereditary
right, but that he was in the line of succession, and his election was substantially
assured.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 6/

tribes now have descent in the female Hne, it leads to the con-
clusion that it was anciently universal in the Ganowanian fam-
ily, it being also the archaic form of the institution.

Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited, and both property
and office are hereditary in the gens. The children, however,
at the present time, take the most of it to the exclusion of
their gentile kindred. The property and effects of the mother
pass to her children, and in default of them, to her sisters, own
and collateral. In like manner the son may succeed his father
in the office of sachem; but where there are several sons the
choice is determined by the elective principle. The gentiles
not only elect, but they also retain the power to depose. At
the present time the Ojibwas number some sixteen thousand,
which would give an average of about seven hundred to each
gens.

2. Potawattamies. This tribe has fifteen gentes, as follows:

I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Beaver.

4. Elk. 5. Loon. 6. Eagle.

7. Sturgeon. 8. Carp. 9. Bald Eagle.

10. Thunder. ii. Rabbit. 12. Crow.

13. Fox. 14. Turkey. 15. Black Hawk.^

Descent, inheritance, and the law of marriage are the same
as among the Ojibwas.

3. Otawas.^ The Ojibwas, Otawas and Potawattamies were
subdivisions of an original tribe. When first known they were
confederated. The Otawas were undoubtedly organized in
gentes, but their names have not been obtained.

4. Crees. This tribe, when discovered, held the northwest
shore of Lake Superior, and spread from thence to Hudson's
Bay, and westward to the Red River of the North. At a later
day they occupied the region of the Siskatchewun, and south
of it. Like the Dakotas they have lost the gentile organiza-
tion which presumptively once existed among them. Lin-

3. Muk. 4. Mis-sha'-wa.

7. N'-ma'. 8. N'-ma-pe-na'.

II. Wii-bo'-zo. 12. Ka-kag'-she.

15 M'-ke-tash'-she-ka-kah'.
O-ta'-wa.
* Pronounced O-ta'-wa.

' I.

Mo-ah'.

M'-ko'.

Maak.

K'-nou'.

M'-ge-ze'-wa.

10.

Che'-kwa.

13-

Wake-shi'.

14.

Pen'-na.

16.

1 68 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

guistically their nearest affiliation is with the Ojibvvas, whom
they closely resemble in manners and customs, and in personal
appearance.

Mississippi Tribes. The western Algonkins, grouped under
this name, occupied the eastern banks of the Mississippi in
Wisconsin and Illinois, and extended southward into Kentucky,
and eastward into Indiana.

I. Miamis, The immediate congeners of the Miamis,
namely, the Weas, Piankeshaws Peorias, and Kaskaskias,
known at an early day, collectively, as the Illinois, are now
{<:l\'^ in numbers, and have abandoned their ancient usages for a
settled agricultural life. Whether or not they were formerly
organized in gentes has not been ascertained, but it is probable
that they were. The Miamis have the following ten gentes:

1. Wolf 2. Loon. 3. Eagle. 4. Buzzard.
5. Panther. 6. Turkey. 7. Raccoon. 8. Snow.

9. Sun. 10. Water.^

Under their changed condition and declining numbers the
gentile organization is rapidly disappearing. When its decline
commenced descent was in the male line, intermarriage in the
gens was forbidden, and the office of sachem together with
property were hereditary in the gens.

2. Shawnees. This remarkable and highly advanced tribe,
one of the highest representatives of the Algonkin stock, still
retain their gentes, although they have substituted in place of
the old gentile system a civil organization with a first and sec-
ond head-chief and a council, each elected annually by popular
suffi-age. They have thirteen gentes, which they still maintain
for social and genealogical purposes, as follows:

I. Wolf 2. Loon. 3. Bear. 4. Buzzard.

5. Panther. 6. Owl. 7. Turkey. 8. Deer.

9. Raccoon. 10. Turtle. ii. Snake. 12. Horse.

13. Rabbit.^

* I. Mo-wha'-wii. 2. Moii-gwa'. 3. Ken-da-wa'. 4. Ah-pa'-kose-e-a.

5. Ka-no-zli'-wa. 6. Pi-la-wii'. 7. Ah-se-pon'-na. 8. Mon-na'-to.

9. Kul-swa'. 10. (Not obtained).

* I. M'-wa-vva'. 2. Ma-gwa'. 3. M'-kwa'. 4. We-wa'-see.

5. M'-se'-pa-se. 6. M'-ath-wa'. 7. Pa-la-wa'. 8. Psake-the'.

9. Slia pa-ta', 10. Na-ma-tha'. II. Ma-na-to'. 12. Pe-sa-wa'.

13. Pa-take-e-no-the'.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 69

Descent, inheritance, and the rule with respect to marrying
out of the gens are the same as among the Miamis. In 1 869
the Shawnees numbered but seven hundred, which would give
an average of about fifty persons to the gens. They once num-
bered three or four thousand persons, which was above the
average among the American Indian tribes.

The Shawnees had a practice, common also to the Miamis
and Sauks and Foxes, of naming children into the gens of the
father or of the mother or any other gens, under certain restric-
tions, which deserves a moment's notice. It has been shown
that among the Iroquois each gens had its own special names
for persons which no other gens had a right to use.^ This
usage was probably general. Among the Shawnees these
names carried with them the rights of the gens to which they
belonged, so that the name determined the gens of the person.
As the sachem must, in all cases, belong to the gens over which
he is invested with authority, it is not unlikely that the change
of descent from the female line to the male commenced in this
practice ; in the first place to enable a son to succeed his father,
and in the second to enable children to inherit property from
their father. If a son when christened received a name belonsr-
ing to the gens of his father it would place him in his father's
gens and in the line of succession, but subject to the elective
principle. The father, however, had no control over the ques-
tion. It was left by the gens to certain persons, most of them
matrons, who were to be consulted when children were to be
named, with power to determine the name to be given. By
some arrangement between the Shawnee gentes these persons
had this power, and the name when conferred in the prescribed
manner, carried the person into the gens to which the name
belonged.

There are traces of the archaic rule of descent among the
Shawnees, of which the following illustration may be given as
it was mentioned to the author. Ld-ho' -zveh, a sachem of the

' In every tribe the name indicated the gens. Thus, among the Sauks and
Foxes Long Horn is a name belonging to the Deer gens ; Black Wolf, to the wolf.
In the Eagle gens the following are specimen names: Ji'a'-po-ttd, "Eagle draw-
ing his nest; " Ja-ka-kiva-pe, "Eagle sitting with his head up; " Pe-a-id-na-ka^
hok, "Eagle flying over a limb."

I/O

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Wolf gens, when about to die, expressed a desire that a son of
one of his sisters might succeed him in the place of his own
son. But his nephew (Kos-kzua'-thc) Avas of the Fish and his
son of the Rabbit gens, so that neither could succeed him
without first being transferred, by a change of name, to the
Wolf gens, in which the office was hereditary. His wish was
respected. After his death the name of his nephew was
changed to Tcp-a-tii-go-tJic' , one of the Wolf names, and he
was elected to the office. Such laxity indicates a decadence
of the gentile organization; but it tends to show that at no re-
mote period descent among the Shawnees was in the female
line.

3. Sauks and Foxes. These tribes are consolidated into one,
and have the following gentes :

I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Deer. 4. Elk.

5. Hawk. 6. Eagle. 7. Fish. 8. Buffalo.

9. Thunder. 10. Bone. 11. Fox. 12. Sea.

13. Sturgeon. 14. Big Tree.^

Descent, inheritance, and the rule requiring marriage out of
the gens, are the same as among the Miamis. In 1869 they
numbered but seven hundred, which would give an average of
fifty persons to the gens. The number of gentes still preserved
affords some evidence that they were several times more numer-
ous within the previous two centuries.

4. Menominees and Kikapoos. These tribes, which are in-
dependent of each other, are organized in gentes, but their
names have not been procured. With respect to the Menomi-
nees it may be inferred that, until a recent period, descent was
in the female line, from the following statement made to the
author, in 1859, by Antoine Gookie, a member of this tribe. In
answer to a question concerning the rule of inheritance, he re-
plied: "If I should die, my brothers and maternal uncles would
rob my wife and children of my property. We now expect
that our children will inherit our effects, but there is no certainty

I I. Mo-wha-wis'-so-uk. 2. RIa-kwis'-so-jik. 3. Pa-sha'-ga-sa-wis-so-uk.

4. Ma-sha-w-a-uk'. 5. Ka-ka-kwis'-so-uk. 6. Pa-mis'-so-uk.

7. Na-ma-sis'-so-uk. 8. Na-nns-sus'-so-uk. 9. Na-na-ma'-kew-uk.

10. Ah-kiih'-ne-nak. 11. Wa-ko-a-wis'-so-jik. 12. Ka-che-kone-a-we'-so-

13. Na-ma-we'-so-uk. 14. Ma-she'-ma-tak. uk.

CEiYTES IN OTHER TRIBES. jyi

of it. The old law gives my property to my nearest kindred
who are not my children, but my brothers and sisters, and ma-
ternal uncles." It shows that property was hereditary in the
gens, but restricted to the agnatic kindred in the female line.

Rocky Mountain Tribes, i. Blood Blackfeet. This tribe is
composed of the five following gentes:

1. Blood. 2. Fish Eaters. 3. Skunk.
4. Extinct Animal. 5. Elk.^

Descent is in the male line, but intermarriage in the gens is
not allowed.

2. Piegan Blackfeet. This tribe has the eight following
gentes :

I. Blood. 2. Skunk. 3. Web Fat.

4. Inside Fat. 5. Conjurers. 6. Never Laugh.

7. Starving. 8. Half Dead Meat.^

Descent is in the male line, and intermarriage in the gens is
prohibited. Several of the names above given are more ap-
propriate to bands than to gentes; but as the information was
obtained from the Blackfeet direct, through competent inter-
preters, (Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Culbertson, the latter a
Blackfeet woman) I believe it reliable. It is possible that nick-
names for gentes in some cases may have superseded the
original names.

A tlan tic Tribes.

I. Delawares. As elsewhere stated the Delawares are, in
the duration of their separate existence, one of the oldest of
the Algonkin tribes. Their home country, when discovered,
was the region around and north of Delaware Bay. They are
comprised in three gentes, as follows:

I. Wolf Took'-seat. Round Paw.

II. Turtle. Poke-koo-un'-go. Crawling.

III. Turkey. Pul-la'-ook. Non-chewing.

These subdivisions are in the nature of phratries, because

1 1. Ki'-no. 2. Mii-me-o'-ya. 3. Ah-pe-ki'. 4. A-ne'-po.

5. Po-no-kix'.
* I. Ah-ah'-pi-ta-pe. 2. Ah-pe-ki'-e. 3. Ih-po'-se-ma.

4. Ka-ka'-po-ya. 5. Mo-ta'-to-sis. 6. Kii-ti'-ya-ye-mix.

7. Ka-ta'-ge-ma-ne. 8. E-ko'-to-pis-taxe.

172 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

each is composed of twelve sub-gentes, each having some of the
attributes of a gens.^ The names are personal, and mostly, if
not in every case, those of females. As this feature was unus-
ual I worked it out as minutely as possible at the Delaware res-
ervation in Kansas, in 1 860, with the aid of William Adams, an
educated Delaware. It proved impossible to find the origin of
these subdivisions, but they seemed to be the several eponymous
ancestors from whom the members of the gentes respectively
derived their descent. It shows also the natural growth of the
phratries from the gentes.

Descent among the Delawares is in the female line, which
renders probable its ancient universality in this form in the Al-
gonkin tribes. The office of sachem was hereditary in the
gens, but elective among its members, who had the power both
to elect and depose. Property also was hereditary in the gens.
Originally the members of the three original gentes could not
intermarry in their own gens; but in recent years the prohibition
has been confined to the sub-gentes. Those of the same name in
the Wolf gens, now partially become a phratry, for example,
cannot intermarry, but those of different names marry. The
practice of naming children into the gens of their father also

1 I. Wolf. Took'-seat.

1. Ma-an'-greet, Big Feet. 7. Pun-ar'-you, Dog standing by Fireside.

2. Wee-sow-het'-ko, Yellow Tree. 8. Kwin-eek'-cha, Long Body.

3. Pa-sa-kun-a'-mon, Pulling Corn. 9. Moon-har-tar'-ne, Digging.

4. We-yar-nili'-kji-to, Care Enterer. 10. Non-liar'-min, Pulling up Stream.

5. Toosli-war-ka'-ma, Across the River. II. Long-ush-har-kar'-to, Brush Log.

6. O-lum'-a-ne, Vermilion. 12. Maw-soo-toh', Bringing Along.

IL Turtle. Poke-koo-un'-go.

1. O-ka-ho'-ki, Ruler. 6. Toosh-ki-pa-kwis-i, Green Leaves.

2. Ta-ko-ong'-o-to, High Bank Shore. 7. Tung-ul-ung'-si, Smallest Turtle.

3. See-har-ong'-o-to, DrawingdownHill. 8. We-lun-ung-si, Little Turtle.

4. Ole-har-kar-me'-kar-to, Elector. 9. Lee-kwin-a-i', Snapping Turtle.

5. Ma-har-o-luk'-ti, Brave. 10. Kwis-aese-kees'-to, Deer.
The two remaining sub-gentes are extinct.

III. Turkey. Pul-la'-ook.

1. Mo-har-a'-la, Big Bird. 6. Muh-ho-we-ka'-ken, Old Shin.

2. Le-le-wa'-you, Bird's Cry. 7. Tong-o-na'-o-to, Drift Log.

3. Moo-kwung-wa-ho'-ki, Eye Pain. 8. Nool-a-mar-lar'-mo, Living in Water.

4. Moo-har-mo-wi-kar'-nu, Scratch 9. Muh-krent-har'-ne, Root Digger.

the Path. 10. Muh-karm-huk-se, Red Face.

5. O-ping-ho'-ki, Opossum Ground. 11. Koo-wJi-ho'-ke, Pine Region.

12. Oo-chuk'-ham, Ground Scratcher.

CENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 73

prevails among the Delawares, and has introduced the same
confusion of descents found among the Shawnees and Miamis.
American civiHzation and intercourse necessarily administered a
shock to Indian institutions under which the ethnic life of the
people is gradually breaking down.

Examples of succession in office afford the most satisfactory
illustrations of the aboriginal law of descent. A Delaware
woman, after stating to the author that she, with her children,
belonged to the Wolf gens, and her husband to the Turtle, re-
marked that when Captain Ketchum (Ta-whe'-la-na), late head
chief' or sachem of the Turtle gens, died, he was succeeded by
his nephew, John Conner (Ta-ta-ne'-sha), a son of one of the
sisters of the deceased sachem, who was also of the Turtle gens.
The decedent left a son, but he was of another gens and conse-
quently incapable of succeeding. With the Delawares, as with
the Iroquois, the office passed from brother to brother, or from
uncle to nephew, because descent was in the female line.

2. Munsees. The Munsees are an offshoot from the Delawares,
and have the same gentes, the Wolf, the Turtle and the Turkey.
Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is not
permitted, and the office of sachem, as well as property, are he-
reditary in the gens.

3. Mohegans. All of the New England Indians, south of
the river Kennebeck, of whom the Mohegans formed a part,
were closely affiliated in language, and could understand each
other's dialects. Since the Mohegans are organized in gentes,
there is a presumption that the Pequots, Narragansetts, and
other minor bands were not only similarly organized, but had
the same gentes. The Mohegans have the same three with the
Delawares, the Wolf, the Turtle and the Turkey, each of which
is composed of a number of gentes. It proves their immediate
connection with the Delawares and Munsees by descent, and
also reveals, as elsewhere stated, the process of subdivision by
which an original gens breaks up into several, which remain
united in a phratry. In this case also it may be seen how the
phratry arises naturally under gentile institutions. It is rare
among the American aborigines to find preserved the evidence
of the segmentation of original gentes as clearly as in the pres-
ent case.

174

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The Mohegaii phratries stand out more conspicuously than
those of any other tribe of the American aborigines, because
they cover the gentes of each, and the phratries must be stated
to explain the classification of the gentes; but we know less
about them than of those of the Iroquois. They are the fol-
lowing:

I. Wolf Pkratry. Took-se-tiik' .

I. Wolf 2. Bear. 3. Dog. 4. Opossum.

II. Turtle Phratry. Tonc-bd'-o.

I. Litde Turde. 2. Mud TurUe. 3. Great Turde.
4. Yellow Eel.
III. Turkey Phratry.
I. Turkey 2. Crane. 3. Chicken.^

Descent is in the female line, intermarriage in the gens is for-
bidden, and the office of sachem is hereditary in the gens, the
office passing either from brother to brother, or from uncle to
nephew. Among the Pequots and Narragansetts descent was
in the female line, as I learned from a Narragansett woman
whom I met in Kansas.

4. Abenakis. The name of this tribe, Wa-be-na'-kee, signi-
fies "Rising Sun People."^ They affiliate more closely with
the Micmacs than with the New England Indians south of the
Kennebeck. They have fourteen gentes, as follows:
I. Wolf 2. Wild Cat. (Black.) 3. Bear.

4. Snake. 5. Spotted Animal. 6. Beaver.

7. Cariboo. 8. Sturgeon. 9. Muskrat

10. Pigeon Hawk. 11. Squirrel. 12. Spotted Frog.

13. Crane. 14. Porcupine.^

' I. Took-se-tuk'.

I. Ne-li'-ja-o. 2. Mii'-kwa. 3. N-de-ya'-o. 4. Wii-pa-kwe'.

II. Tone-ba'-o.

I. Gak-po-mnte'. 2. . 3. Tone-ba'-o. 4. We-saw-ma'-un.

III. Turkey.

I. Na-ah-ma'-o. 2. Ga-h'-ko. 3. .

* In Systems of Consangitinity, the aboriginal names of the principal Indian
tribes, with their significations, may be found.

3 I. Mals'-sum. 2. Pis-suh'. 3. Ah-weh'-soos.

4. Skooke. 5. Ah-lunk'-soo. 6. Ta-ma'-kwa.

7. Ma-guh-le-loo'. 8. Ka-bah'-seh. 9. Moos-kwa-suh'.

10. K'-che-gii-gong'-go. 11. Meli-ko-a'. 12. Che-gwa'-lis.
13. Koos-koo'. 14. Ma-da'-weh-soos.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES.

175

Descent is now in the male line, intermarriage in the gens
was anciently prohibited, but the prohibition has now lost most
of its force. The office of sachem was hereditary in the gens.
It will be noticed that several of the above gentes are the same
as among the Ojibwas.

VI. A thapasco- Apache Tribes.

Whether or not the Athapascans of Hudson's Bay Territory,
and the Apaches of New Mexico, who are subdivisions of an
original stock, are organized in gentes has not been definitely
ascertained. When in the former territory, in 1861, 1 made an
effort to determine the question among the Hare and Red Knife
Athapascans, but was unsuccessful for want of competent in-
terpreters; and yet it seems probable that if the system ex-
isted, traces of it would have been discovered even with imper-
fect means of inquiry. The late Robert Kennicott made a
similar attempt for the author among the A-cha'-o-ten-ne, or
Slave Lake Athapascans, with no better success. He found
special regulations with respect to marriage and the descent of
the office of sachem, which seemed to indicate the presence of
gentes, but he could not obtain satisfactory information. The
Kutchin (Louchoux) of the Yukon river region are Athapas-
cans. In a letter to the author by the late George Gibbs, he
remarks: "In a letter which I have from a gentleman at Fort
Simpson, Makenzie river, it is mentioned that among the Lou-
choux or Kutchin there are three grades or classes of society —
undoubtedly a mistake for totem, though the totems probably
differ in rank, as he goes on to say — that a man does not marry
into his own class, but takes a wife from some other; and that
a chief from the highest may marry with a woman of the low-
est without loss of caste. The children belong to the grade of
the mother; and the members of the same grade in the differ-
ent tribes do not war with each other."

Among the Kolushes of the Northwest Coast, who affiliate
linguistically though not closely with the Athapascans, the or-
ganization into gentes exists. Mr. Gallatin remarks that they
are "like our own Indians, divided into tribes or clans; a dis-
tinction of which, according to Mr. Hale, there is no trace
among the Indians of Oregon. The names of the tribes [gen-

176

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

tes] are those of animals, namely: Bear, Eagle, Crow, Por-
poise and Wolf. . . . The right of succession is in the female
line, from uncle to nephew, the principal chief excepted, who is
generally the most powerful of the family."^

VII. Indian Tribes of the Nortlnvest Coast.

In some of these tribes, beside the Kolushes, the gentile or-
ganization prevails. "Before leaving Puget's Sound," observes
Mr. Gibbs, in a letter to the author, "I was fortunate enough to
meet representatives of three principal families of what we call
the Northern Indians, the inhabitants of the Northwest Coast,
extending from the Upper end of Vancouver's Island into the
Russian Possessions, and the confines of the Esquimaux.
From them I ascertained positively that the totemic system
exists at least among these three. The families I speak of are,
beginning at the northwest, Tlinkitt, commonly called the Sti-
keens, after one of their bands; the Tlaidas; and Chimsyans,
called by Gallatin, Weas. There are four totems common to
these, the Whale, the Wolf, the Eagle, and the Crow. Neither
of these can marry into the same totem, although in a different
nation or family. What is remarkable is that these nations con-
stitute entirely different families. I mean by this that their lan-
guages are essentially different, having no perceptible analogy."
Mr. Dall, in his work on Alaska, written still later, remarks that
"the Tlinkets are divided into four totems: the Raven (Yehl),

the Wolf (Kanu'kh), the Whale, and the Eagle (Chethl)

Opposite totems only can marry, and the child usually takes
the mother's totem. "'^

Mr. Hubert H. Bancroft presents their organization still more
fully, showing two phratries, and the gentes belonging to each.
He remarks of the Thlinkeets that the "nation is separated into
two great divisions or clans, one of which is called the Wolf and
the other the Raven. , . . The Raven trunk is again divided
into sub-clans, called the Frog, the Goose, the Sea-Lion, the
Owl, and the Salmon. The Wolf family comprises the Bear,
Eagle, Dolphin, Shark, and Alca. . . . Tribes of the same clan
may not war on each other, but at the same time members of

' Trans. Am. Eth, Soc, ii, Intro., cxlix.
' Alaska and its Resources, p. 414.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. lyj

the same clan may not marry with each other. Thus, the
young Wolf warrior must seek his mate among the Ravens."^

The Eskimos do not belong to the Ganowanian family.
Their occupation of the American continent in comparison
with that of the latter family was recent or modern. They are
also without gentes.

VIII. Salts k, Sahaptin and Kootcnay Tribes.
The tribes of the Valley of the Columbia, of whom those
above named represent the principal stocks, are without the
gentile organization. Our distinguished philologists, Horatio
Hale and the late George Gibbs, both of whom devoted special
attention to the subject, failed to discover any traces of the sys-
tem among them. There are strong reasons for believing that
this remarkable area was the nursery land of the Ganowanian
family, from which, as the initial point of their migrations, they
spread abroad over both divisions of the continent. It seems
probable, therefore, that their ancestors possessed the organiza-
tion into gentes, and that it fell into decay and finally disap-
peared.

IX. S ho shone e Tribes.
The Comanches of Texas, together with the Ute tribes, the
Bonnaks, the Shoshonees, and some otlier tribes, belong to this
stock. Mathew Walker, a Wyandote half-blood, informed the
author, in 1859, that he had lived among the Comanches, and
that they had the following gentes:

I. Wolf. 2. Bear. 3. Elk.

4. Deer. 5. Gopher. 6. Antelope.

If the Comanches are organized in gentes, there is a presump-
tion that the other tribes of this stock are the same.

This completes our review of the social system of the Indian
tribes of North America, north of New Mexico. The greater
portion of the tribes named were in the Lower Status of bar-
barism at the epoch of European discovery, and the remainder
in the Upper Status of savagery. From the wide and nearly
universal prevalence of the organization into gentes, its ancient
universality among them with descent in the female line may
with reason be assumed. Their system was purely social, hav-

' Native Races of the Pacific States, i, 109.

178 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ing the gens as its unit, and the phratry, tribe and confederacy
as the remaining members of the organic series. These four
successive stages of integration and re-integration express the
whole of their experience in the growth of the idea of govern-
ment. Since the principal Aryan and Semitic tribes had the
same organic series when they emerged from barbarism, the
system was substantially universal in ancient society, and infer-
entially had a common origin. The punaluan group, hereafter
to be described more fully in connection with the growth of the
idea of the family, evidently gave birth to the,gentes, so that
the Aryan, Semitic, Uralian, Turanian and Ganowanian fami-
lies of mankind point with a distinctiveness seemingly unmis-
takable to a common punaluan stock, with the organization into
gentes engrafted upon it, from which each and all were derived,
and finally differentiated into families. This Conclusion, I be-
lieve, will ultimately enforce its own acceptance, when future
investigation has developed and verified the facts on a minuter
scale. Such a great organic series, able to hold mankind in
society through the latter part of the period of savagery, through
the entire period of barbarism, and into the early part of the
period of civilization, does not arise by accident, but had a nat-
ural development from pre-existing elements. Rationally and
rigorously interpreted, it seems probable that it can be made de-
monstrative of the unity of origin of all the families of man-
kind who possessed the organization into gentes.
X. Village bidians.
I. Moqui Pueblo Indians. The Moqui tribes are still in un-
disturbed possession of their ancient communal houses, seven in
number, near the Little Colorado in Arizona, once a part of
New Mexico. They are living under their ancient institutions,
and undoubtedly at the present moment fairly represent the
type of Village Indian life which prevailed from Zuni to Cuzco
at the epoch of Discovery. Zuiii, Acoma, Taos, and several
other New Mexican pueblos are the same structures which were
found there by Coronado in 1 540-1 542. Notwithstanding
their apparent accessibility we know in reality but little con-
cerning their mode of life or their domestic institutions. No
systematic investigation has ever been made. What little in-
formation has found its way into print is general and accidental.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES.

179

The Moquls are organized in gentes, of which they have nine,
as follows:

I. Deer. 2. Sand. 3. Rain.

4. Bear. 5. Hare. 6. Prairie Wolf

7. Rattlesnake. 8. Tobacco Plant. 9. Reed Grass.

Dr. Ten Broeck, Assistant Surgeon, U. S. A., furnished to
Mr. Schoolcraft the Moqui legend of their origin which he ob-
tained at one of their villages. They said that "many years
ago their Great Mother^ brought from her home in the West
nine races of men in the following form. First, the Deer race;
second, the Sand race; third, the Water [Rain] race; fourth,
the Bear race; fifth, the Hare race; sixth, the Prairie Wolf race;
seventh, the Rattlesnake race; eighth, the Tobacco Plant race;
and ninth, the Reed Grass race. Having planted them on the
spot where their villages now stand, she transformed them into
men who built up the present pueblos ; and the distinction of race
is still kept up. One told me that he was of the Sand race, an-
other, the Deer, etc. They are firm believers in metempsycho-
sis, and say that when they die they will resolve into their orig-
inal forms, and become bears, deers, etc., again. . . . The
government is hereditary, but does not necessarily descend to
the son of the incumbent; for if they prefer any other blood
relative, he is chosen."^ Having passed, in this case, from the
Lower into the Middle Status of barbarism, and found the or-
ganization into gentes in full development, its adaptation to
their changed condition is demonstrated. Its existence among
the Village Indians in general is rendered probable; but from
this point forward in the remainder of North, and in the whole
of South America, we are left without definite information ex-
cept with respect to the Lagunas. It shows how incompletely
the work has been done in American Ethnology, that the unit
of their social system has been but partially discovered, and
its significance not understood. Still, there are traces of it in
the early Spanish authors, and direct knowledge of it in a few
later waiters, which when brought together will leave but little

' The Shawnecs formerly worshiped a Female Deity, called Go-gome-tha-ma',
•' Our Grand-Mother. "
* Schoolcraff s Hist. , etc. , of Indian Tribes, iv, 86.

1 80 ANCIENT SOCIE T Y.

doubt of the ancient universal prevalence of the gentile organ-
izations throughout the Indian family.

There are current traditions in many gentes, like that of the
Moquis, of the transformation of their first progenitors from
the animal, or inanimate object, which became the symbol of
the gens, into men and women. Thus, the Crane gens of the
Ojibwas have a legend that a pair of cranes flew over the wide
area from the Gulf to the Great Lakes and from the prairies of
the Mississippi to the Atlantic in quest of a place where sub-
sistence was most abundant, and finally selected the Rapids on
the outlet of Lake Superior, since celebrated for its fisheries.
Having alighted on the bank of the river and folded their
wings the Great Spirit immediately changed them into a man
and woman, who became the progenitors of the Crane gens of
the Ojibwas. There are a number of gentes in the different
tribes who abstain from eating the animal whose name they
bear; but this is far from universal.

2. Lagunas. The Laguna Pueblo Lidians are organized in
gentes, with descent in the female line, as appears from an ad-
dress of Rev. Samuel Gorman before the Historical Society of
New Mexico in i860. "Each town is classed into tribes or
families, and each of these groups is named after some animal,
bird, herb, timber, planet, or one of the four elements. In the
pueblo of Laguna, which is one of above one thousand inhab-
itants, tliere are seventeen of these tribes ; some are called
bear, some deer, some rattlesnake, some corn, some wolf, some
water, etc., etc. The children are of the same tribe as their
mother. And, according to ancient custom, two persons of
the same tribe are forbidden to marry ; but, recently, this cus-
tom begins to be less rigorously observed than anciently."

"Their land is held in common, as the property of the com-
munity, but after a person cultivates a lot he has a personal
claim to it, which he can sell to any one of the same commu-
nity; or else when he dies it belongs to his widow or daugh-
ters ; or, if he were a single man, it remains in his father's
family."^ That wife or daughter inherit from the father is
doubtful.

' Address, p. 12.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES.

I8r

3. Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlacopans. The question of the
organization of these, and the remaining Nahuatlac tribes of
Mexico, in gentes will be considered in the next ensuing
chapter.

4. Mayas of Yucatan. Herrera makes frequent reference to
the "kindred," and in such a manner with regard to the tribes
in Mexico, Central and South America as to imply the exist-
ence of a body of persons organized on the basis of consan-
guinity much more numerous than would be found apart from
gentes. Thus: "He that killed a free man was to make satis-
faction to the children and kindred."^ It was spoken of the
aborigines of Nicaragua, and had it been of the Iroquois,
among whom the usage was the same, the term kindred would
have been equivalent to gens. And again, speaking generally
of the Maya Indians of Yucatan, he remarks that "when any
satisfaction was to be made for damages, if he who was ad-
judged to pay was like to be reduced to poverty, the kindred
contributed."^ In this another gentile usage may be recognized.
Again, speaking of the Aztecs; "if they were guilty, no favor
or kindred could save them from death. "^ One more citation
to the same effect may be made, applied to the Florida In-
dians who were organized in gentes. He observes "that they
were extravagantly fond of their children, and cherished them,
the parents and kindred lamenting such as died a whole year."*
The early observers noticed, as a peculiarity of Indian society,
that large numbers of persons were bound together by the bond
of kin, and therefore the group came to be mentioned as "the
kindred." But they did not carry the scrutiny far enough to
discover, what was probably the truth, that the kindred formed
a gens, and, as such, the unit of their social system.

Herrera remarks further of the Mayas, that "they were wont
to observe their pedigrees very much, and therefore thought

themselves all related, and were helpful to one another

They did not marry mothers, or sisters-in-law, nor any that
bore the same name as their father, which was looked upon as
unlawful."^ The pedigree of an Indian under their system of

' General History of America, Lond. ed. , 1726. Stevens' Trans., iii, 299.
* Ih., iv, 171. ' lb., iii, 203. ■• lb., iv, 33.

^ Gene7-al History of America, iv, 171.

1 82 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

consanguinity could have no significance apart from a gens;
but leaving this out of view, there was "no possible way, under
Indian institutions, by which a father and his children could
bear the same name except through a gens, which conferred a
common gentile name upon all its members. It would also re-
quire descent in the male line to bring father and children into
the same gens. The statement shows, moreover, that intermar-
riage in the gens among the Mayas was prohibited. Assuming
the correctness of Herrera's words, it is proof conclusive of the
existence of gentes among the Mayas, with descent in the male
line. Tylor, in his valuable work on the Early History of Man-
kind, which is a repository of widely-drawn and well-digested
ethnological information, cites the same fact from another
source, with the following remarks: "The analogy of the North
American Indian custom is therefore with that of the Austral-
ian in making clanship on the female side a bar to marriage, but
if we go down further south into Central America, the reverse
custom, as in China, makes its appearance. Diego de Landa
says of the people of Yucatan, that no one took a wife of his
name, on the father's side, for this was a very vile thing among
them; but they might marry cousins german on the mother's
side."i

XI. South American Indian Tribes.
Traces of the gens have been found in all parts of South
America, as well as the actual presence of the Ganowanian sys-
tem of consanguinity, but the subject has not been fully inves-
tigated. Speaking of the numerous tribes of the Andes brought
by the Incas under a species of confederation, Herrera observes
that " this variety of tongues proceeded from the nations being di-
vided into races, tribes, or clans. "^ Here in the clans the ex-
istence of gentes is recognized. Mr. Tylor, discussing the rules
with respect to marriage and descent, remarks that "further
south, below the Isthmus, both the clanship and the prohibition
re-appear on the female side. Bernau says that among the Ar-
rawaks of British Guiana, 'Caste is derived from the mother,
and children are allowed to marry into -their father's family,

' Early History of Mankind, p. 287.
* Ge7i. Hist, of Anier., iv, 231.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 83

but not into that of their mother.' Lastly, Father Martin
Dobrizhoffer says that the Guaranis avoid, as highly criminal,
marriage with the most distant relations; and speaking of the
Abipones, he makes the following statement: . . . 'The Abi-
pones, instructed by nature and the example of their ancestors,
abhor the very thought of marrying any one related to them
by the most distant tie of relationship.'"^ These references to
the social system of the aborigines are vague; but in the light
of the facts already presented the existence of gentes with descent
in the female line, and with intermarriage in the gens prohib-
ited, renders them intelligible. Brett remarks of the Indian
tribes in Guiana that they "are divided into families, each of
which has a distinct name, as the Siwidi, Karuafudi, Onisidi,
etc. Unlike our families, these all descend in the female line,
and no individual of either sex is allowed to marry another of
the same family name. Thus a woman of the Siwidi family
bears the same name as her mother, but neither her father nor
her husband can be of that family. Her children and the chil-
dren of her daughters will also be called Siwidi, but both her
sons and daughters are prohibited from an alliance with any in-
dividual bearing the same name; though they may marry into
the family of their father, if they choose. These customs are
strictly observed, and any breach of them would be considered
as wicked."'^ In the family of this writer may at once be
recognized the gens in its archaic form. All the South Amer-
ican tribes above named, with the exception of the Andean,
were when discovered either in the Lower Status of barbarism,
or in the Status of savagery. Many of the Peruvian tribes con-
centrated under the government established by the Inca Village
Indians were in the Lower Status of barbarism, if an opinion
may be formed from the imperfect description of their domes-
tic institutions found in Garcillasso de la Vega.

To the Village Indians of North and South America, whose
indigenous culture had advanced them far into, and near the
end of, the Middle Period of barbarism, our attention naturally
turns for the transitional history of the gentes. The archaic

^ Early History of Mankind, p. 287.

* Indian Tribes of Guiatia, p. 98 ; cited by Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, p. 98.

1 84 ANCIEN T SOCIE T Y.

constitution of the gens has been shown; its latest phases re-
main to be presented in the gentes of the Greeks and Romans;
but the intermediate changes, both of descent and inheritance,
which occurred in the Middle Period, are essential to a com-
plete history of the gentile organization. Our information is
quite ample with respect to the earlier and later condition of
this great institution, but defective with respect to the transi-
tional stage. Where the gentes are found in any tribe of man-
kind in their latest form, their remote ancestors must have pos-
sessed them in the archaic form; but historical criticism de-
mands affirmative proofs rather than deductions. These proofs
once existed among the Village Indians. We are now well
assured that their system of government was social and not po-
litical. The upper members of the series, namely, the tribe
and the confederacy, meet us at many points; with positive evi-
dence of the gens, the unit of the system, in a number of the
tribes of Village Indians. But we are not able to place our
hands upon the gentes among the Village Indians in general
with the same precise information afforded by the tribes in the
Lower Status of barbarism. The golden opportunity was pre-
sented to the Spanish conquerers and colonists, and lost, from
apparent inability to understand a condition of society from
which civilized man had so far departed in his onward progress.
W^ithout a knowledge of the unit of their social system, which
impressed its character upon the whole organism of society, the
Spanish histories fail entirely in the portrayal of their govern-
mental institutions.

A glance at the remains of ancient architecture in Central
America and Peru sufficiently proves that the Middle Period of
barbarism was one of great progress in human development, of
growing knowledge, and of expanding intelligence. It was
followed by a still more remarkable period in the Eastern
hemisphere after the invention of the process of making iron
had given that final great impulse to human progress which
was to bear a portion of mankind into civilization. Our ap-
preciation of the grandeur of man's career in the Later Pe-
riod of barbarism, when inventions and discoveries multiplied
with such rapidity, would be intensified by an accurate knowl-

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES. 1 85

edge of the condition of society in the Middle Period, so re-
markably exemplified by the Village Indians. By a great ef-
fort, attended with patient labor, it may yet be possible to re-
cover a large portion at least of the treasures of knowledge
which have been allowed to disappear. Upon our present in-
formation the conclusion is warrantable that the American In-
dian tribes were universally organized in gentes at the epoch
of European discovery, the few exceptions found not being
sufficient to disturb the general rule.

CHAPTER VII.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

Misconception of Aztec Society. — Condition of Advancement. — Na-
HUATI.AC Tribes. — Their Settlement in Mexico. — Pueblo of Mexico
FOUNDED, A. D. , 1325. — Aztec Confederacy established, A. D., 1426.—
Extent of Territorial Domination. — Probable Number of the People.
— Whether or not the Aztecs were organized in Gentes and Phratries. —
The Council of Chiefs. — Its probable Functions. — Office held by Mon-
tezuma.— Elective in Tenure. — Deposition of Montezuma. — Probable
Functions of the Office. — Aztec Institutions essentially Democraticai-
— The Government a Military Democracy.

The Spanish adventurers, who captured the Pueblo of Mex-
ico, adopted the erroneous theory that the Aztec government
was a monarchy, analogous in essential respects to existing
monarchies in Europe. This opinion was adopted generally
by the early Spanish writers, without investigating minutely
the structure and principles of the Aztec social system. A
terminology not in agreement with their institutions came in
with this misconception which has vitiated the historical narra-
tive nearly as completely as though it were, in the main, a
studied fabrication. With the capture of the only stronghold
the Aztecs possessed, their governmental fabric was destroyed,
Spanish rule was substituted in its place, and the subject of
their internal organization and polity was allowed substantially
to pass into oblivion.^

1 The histories of Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates to the
acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristics of the Indians ;
in whatever relates to their weapons, implements and utensils, fabrics, food and

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY, 187

The Aztecs and their confederate tribes were ignorant of iron
and consequently without iron tools; they had no money, and
traded by barter of commodities; but they worked the native
metals, cultivated by irrigation, manufactured coarse fabrics of
cotton, constructed joint-tenement houses of adobe-bricks and
of stone, and made earthenware of excellent quality. They
had, therefore, attained to the Middle Status of barbarism.
They still held their lands in common, lived in large households
composed of a number of related families; and, as there are
strong reasons for believing, practiced communism in living in
the household. It is rendered reasonably certain that they had
but one prepared meal each day, a dinner; at which they sep-
arated, the men eating first and by themselves, and the women
and children afterwards. Having neither tables nor chairs for
dinner service they had not learned to eat their single daily
meal in the manner of civilized nations. These features of their
social condition show sufficiently their relative status of ad-
vancement.

In connection with the Village Indians of other parts of Mex-
ico and Central America, and of Peru, they afforded the best
exemplification of this condition of ancient society then exist-
ing on the earth. They represented one of the great stages of
progress toward civilization in which the institutions derived
from a previous ethnical period are seen in higher advance-
ment, and which were to be transmitted, in the course of hu-
man experience, to an ethnical condition still higher, and un-
dergo still further development before civilization was possible.
But the Village Indians were not destined to attain the Upper
Status of barbarism so well represented by the Homeric
Greeks.

The Indian pueblos in the valley of Mexico revealed to
Europeans a lost condition of ancient society, which was so
remarkable and peculiar that it aroused at the time an insatia-
ble curiosity. More volumes have been written, in the propor-

raiment, and things of a similar character. But in whatever relates to Indian
society and government, their social relations, and plan of life, they are nearly
worthless, because they learned nothing and knew nothing of either. We are at
full liberty to reject them in these respects and commence anew ; using any facts
they may contain which harmonize with what is known of Indian society.

1 8 8 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

tion of ten to one, upon the Mexican aborigines and the Span-
ish Conquest, than upon any other people of the same advance-
ment, or upon any event of the same importance. And yet,
there is no people concerning whose institutions and plan of
life so little is accurately known. The remarkable spectacle
presented so inflamed the imagination that romance swept the
field, and has held it to the present hour. The failure to ascer-
tain the structure of Aztec society which resulted was a serious
loss to the history of mankind. It should not be made a cause
of reproach to any one, but rather for deep regret. Even that
which has been written, with such painstaking industry, may
prove useful in some future attempt to reconstruct the history
of the Aztec confederacy. Certain facts remain of a positive
kind from which other facts may be deduced; so that it is not
improbable that a well-directed original investigation may yet
recover, measurably at least, the essential features of the Aztec
social system.

The "kingdom of Mexico" as it stands in the early histories,
and the "empire of Mexico" as it appears in the later, is a fic-
tion of the imagination. At the time there was a seeming
foundation for describing the government as a monarchy, in the
absence of a correct knowledge of their institutions; but the
misconception can no longer be defended. That which the
Spaniards found was simply a confederacy of three Indian
tribes, of which the counterpart existed in all parts of the con-
tinent, and they had no occasion in their descriptions to ad-
vance a step beyond this single fact. The government was ad-
ministered by a council of chiefs, with the co-operation of a
general commander of the military bands. It was a govern-
ment of two powers; the civil being represented by the coun-
cil, and the military by a principal war-chief Since the insti-
tutions of the confederate tribes were essentially democratical,
the government may be called a military democracy, if a des-
ignation more special than confederacy is required.

Three tribes, the Aztecs or Mexicans, the Tezcucans and
the Tlacopans, were united in the Aztec confederacy, which
gives the two upper members of the organic social scries.
Whether or not they possessed the first and the second, namely,

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. 1 89

the gens and the phratry, does not appear in a definite form
in any of the Spanish writers; but they have vaguely described
certain institutions whieli can only be understood by supplying
the lost members of the series. Whilst the phratry is not essen-
tial, it is otherwise with the gens, because it is the unit upon
which the social system rests. Without entering the vast and
unthreadable labyrinth of Aztec affairs as they now stand
historically, I shall venture to invite attention to a {q.\\ par-
ticulars only of the Aztec social system, which may tend to
illustrate its real character. Before doing this, the relations of
the confederated to surrounding tribes should be noticed.

The Aztecs were one of seven kindred tribes who had mi-
grated from the north and settled in and near the valley of
Mexico; and who were among the historical tribes of that
country at the epoch of the Spanish Conquest. They called
themselves collectively the Nahuatlacs in their traditions.
Acosta, who visited Mexico in 1585, and whose work was pub-
lished at Seville in 1589, has given the current native tradition
of their migrations, one after the other, from Aztlan, with their
names and places of settlement. He states the order of their
arrival as follows: i. Sochimilcas, "Nation of the Seeds of
Flowers," who settled upon Lake Xochimilco, on the south
slope of the valley of Mexico; 2. Chalcas, "People of Mouths,"
who came long after the former and settled near them, on Lake
Chalco; 3. Tepanecans, "People of the Bridge," who settled
at Azcopozalco, west of Lake Tezcuco, on the western slope of
the valley; 4. Culhuas, "A Crooked People," who settled on
the east side of Lake Tezcuco, and were afterwards knowri as
Tezcucans; 5. Tlatluicans, "Men of the Sierra," who, finding
the valley appropriated around the lake, passed over the Sierra
southward and settled upon the other side; 6. Tlascalans,
"Men of Bread," who, after living for a time with the Tepane-
cans, finally settled beyond the valley eastward, at Tlascala;
7. The Aztecs, who came last and occupied the site of the pres-
ent city of Mexico.^ Acosta further observes that they came
"from far countries which lie toward the north, where now

1 The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, Lond. ed. , 1604,
Grimstone's Trans., pp. 497-504.

190

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

they have found a kingdom which they call New Mexico."^
The same tradition is given by Herrera,^ and also by Clavigero.^
It will be noticed that the Tlacopans are not mentioned.
They were, in all probability, a subdivision of the Tepanecans
who remained in the original area of that tribe, while the re-
mainder seem to have removed to a territory immediately south
of the Tlascalans, where they were found under the name of
the Tepeacas. The latter had the same legend of the seven
caves, and spoke a dialect of the Nahuatlac language.^

This tradition embodies one significant fact of a kind that
\ could not have been invented; namely, that the seven tribes
\ were of immediate common origin, the fact being confirmed by
their dialects; and a second fact of importance, that they came
, from the north. It shows that they were originally one people,
i who had fallen into seven and more tribes by the natural proc-
ess of segmentation. Moreover, it was this same fact which
rendered the Aztec confederacy possible as well as probable, a
common language being the essential basis of such organiza-
tions.

The Aztecs found the best situations in the valley occupied,
and after several changes of position they finally settled upon
a small expanse of dry land in the midst of a marsh bordered
with fields of pedregal and with natural ponds. Here they
founded the celebrated pueblo of Mexico (Tenochtitlan), A. D.
1325, according to Clavigero, one hundred and ninety- six
years prior to the Spanish Conquest.^ They were few in num-
ber and poor in condition. But fortunately for them, the out-
let'of Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco and rivulets from the west-
ern hills flowed past their site into Lake Tezcuco. Having the
sagacity to perceive the advantages of the location they suc-
ceeded, by means of causeways and dikes, in surrounding their
pueblo with an artificial pond of large extent, the waters being
furnished from the sources named ; and the level of Lake Tez-
cuco being higher then than at present, it gave them, when

1 The Natural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, p. 499.

2 General History of America, I,oncl. ed. , 1725, Stevens' Trans., iii, 188.
^ History of Mexico, Philadelphia ed., 1817, Cullen's Trans., i, 119.

■* Herrera, Hist, of Amer., iii, no.
6 History of Mexico, loc. cit., i, 162.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. I9I

the whole work was completed, the most secure position of any
tribe in the valley. The mechanical engineering by which they
accomplished this result was one of the greatest achievements
of the Aztecs, and one without which they would not probably
have risen above the level of the surrounding tribes. Inde-
pendence and prosperity followed, and in time a controlling in-
fluence over the valley tribes. Such was the manner, and so
recent the time of founding the pueblo according to Aztec tra-
ditions which may be accepted as substantially trustworthy.

At the epoch of the Spanish Conquest five of the seven
tribes, namely, the Aztecs, Tczcucans, Tlacopans, Sochimilcas,
and Chalcans resided in the valley, which was an area of quite
limited dimensions, about equal to the state of Rhode Island.
It was a mountain or upland basin having no outlet, oval in
form, being longest from north to south, one hundred and
twenty miles in circuit, and embracing about sixteen hundred
square miles excluding the surface covered by water. The
valley, as described, is surrounded by a series of hills, one
range rising above another with depressions between, encom-
passing the valley with a mountain barrier. The tribes named
resided in some thirty pueblos, more or less, of which that of
Mexico was the largest. There is no evidence that any con-
siderable portion of these tribes had colonized outside of the
valley and the adjacent hill-slopes; but, on the contrary, there
is abundant evidence that the remainder of modern Mexico
was then occupied by numerous tribes who spoke languages
different from the Nahuatlac, and the majority of whom were
independent. The Tlascalans, the Cholulans, a supposed sub-
division of the former, the Tepeacas, the Huexotzincos, the
Meztitlans, a supposed subdivision of the Tezcucans, and the
Tlatluicans were the remaining Nahuatlac tribes living without
the valley of Mexico, all of whom were independent excepting
the last, and the Tepeacas. A large number of other tribes,
forming some seventeen territorial groups, more or less, and
speaking as many stock languages, held the remainder of Mex-
ico. They present, in their state of disintegration and inde-
pendence, a nearly exact repetition of the tribes of the United
States and British America, at the time of their discovery, a
century or more later.

192

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Prior to A. D. 1426, when the Aztec confederacy was form-
ed, very Httle had occurred in the affairs of the valley tribes of
historical importance. They were disunited and belligerent,
and without influence beyond their immediate localities.
About this time the superior position of the Aztecs began to
manifest its results in a preponderance of numbers and of
strength. Under their war-chief, Itzcoatl, the previous su-
premacy of the Tezcucans and Tlacopans was overthrown, and
a league or confederacy was established as a consequence of
their previous wars against each other. It was an alliance be-
tween the three tribes, offensive and defensive, with stipulations
for the division among them, in certain proportions, of the
spoils, and the after tributes of subjugated tribes.^ These trib-
utes, which consisted of the manufactured fabrics and horti-
cultural products of the villages subdued, seem to have been
enforced with system, and with rigor of exaction.

The plan of organization of this confederacy has been lost.
From the absence of particulars it is now difficult to determine
whether it was simply a league to be continued or dissolved at
pleasure; or a consolidated organization, Hke that of the Iro-
quois, in which the parts were adjusted to each other in per-
manent and definite relations. Each tribe was independent in
whatever related to local self-government; but the three were
externally one people in whatever related to aggression or de-
fense. While each tribe had its own council of chiefs, and its
own head war-chief, the war-chief of the Aztecs was the com-
mander-in-chief of the confederate bands. This may be in-
ferred from the fact that the Tezcucans and Tlacopans had a
voice either in the election or in the confirmation of the Aztec
war-chief The acquisition of the chief command by the Az-
tecs tends to show that their influence predominated in estab-
lishing the terms upon which the tribes confederated.

Nezahualcojotl had been deposed, or at least dispossessed of
his office, as principal war-chief of the Tezcucans, to which he
was at this time (1426) restored by Aztec procurement. The
event may be taken as the date of the formation of the con-
federacy or league whichever it was.

' Clavigero, Hist, of Mex,, i, 229: Henera, iii, 312: Prescott, Conq. of Mex.,
i, 18.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

193

Before discussing the limited number of facts which tend to
illustrate the character of this organization, a brief reference
should be made to what the confederacy accomplished in ac-
quiring territorial domination during the short period of its
existence.

From A. D. 1426 to 1520, a period of ninety-four years,
the confederacy was engaged in frequent wars with adjacent
tribes, and particularly with the feeble Village Indians south-
ward from the valley of Mexico to the Pacific, and thence east-
ward well toward Guatemala. They began with those nearest
in position whom they overcame, through superior numbers
and concentrated action, and subjected to tribute. The villages
in this area were numerous but small, consisting in many cases
of a single large structure of adobe-brick or of stone, and in
some cases of several such structures grouped together. These
joint-tenement houses interposed serious hinderances to Aztec
conquest, but they did not prove insuperable. These forays
were continued from time to time for the avowed object of
gathering spoil, imposing tribute, and capturing prisoners for
sacrifice ; ' until the principal tribes within the area named, with
some exceptions, were subdued and made tributary, including
the scattered villages of the Totonacs near the present Vera
Cruz.

No attempt was made to incorporate these tribes in the
Aztec confederacy, which the barrier of language rendered

1 The Aztecs, like the Northern Indians, neither exchanged or released prisoners.
Among the latter the stake was the doom of the captive unless saved by adoption;
but among the former, under the teachings of the priesthood, the unfortunate
captive was offered as a sacrifice to the principal god they worshiped. To utihze
the life of the prisoner in the service of the gods, a life forfeited by the imme-
morial usages of savages and barbarians, was the high conception of the first
hierarchy in the order of institutions. An organized priesthood first appeared
among the American aborigines in the Middle Status of barbarism; and it stands
connected with the invention of idols and human sacrifices, as a means of acquiring
authority over mankind through the religious sentiments. It probably has a
similar history in the principal tribes of mankind. Three successive usages with
respect to captives appeared in the three sub-periods of barbarism. In the first he
was burned at the stake, in the second he was sacrificed to the gods, and in the
third he was made a slave. All alike they proceeded upon the principle that the
life of the prisoner was forfeited to his captor. This principle became so deeply
seated in the human mind that civilization and Christianity combined were required
for its displacement.

194

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

impossible under their institutions. They were left under the
government of their own chiefs, and to the practice of their
own usages and customs. In some cases a collector of tribute
resided among them. The barren results of these conquests
reveal the actual character of their institutions. A domination
of the strong over the weak for no other object than to enforce
an unwilling tribute, did not even tend to the formation of a
nation. If organized in gentes, there was no way for an in-
dividual to become a member of the government except
I through a gens, and no way for the admission of a gens except
' by its incorporation among the Aztec, Tezcucan, or Tlacopan
gentes. The plan ascribed to Romulus of removing the gentes
of conquered Latin tribes to Rome might have been resorted
to by the Aztec confederacy with respect to the tribes over-
run ; but they were not sufficiently advanced to form such a
conception, even though the barrier of language could have
been obviated. Neither could colonists for the same reason, if
sent among them, have so far assimilated the conquered tribes
as to prepare them for incorporation in the Aztec social
system. As it was, the confederacy gained no strength by the
terrorism it created ; or by holding these tribes under burdens,
inspired with enmity and ever ready to revolt. It seems, how-
[ ever, that they used the military bands of subjugated tribes in
\ some cases, and shared with them the spoils. All the Aztecs
could do, after forming the confederacy, was to expand it over
the remaining Nahuatlac tribes. This they were unable to ac-
complish. The Xochimilcas and Chalcans were not constituent
members of the confederacy, but they enjoyed a nominal in-
dependence, though tributary.

This is about all that can now be discovered of the material
basis of the so-called kingdom or empire of the Aztecs. The
confederacy was confronted by hostile and independent tribes
on the west, northwest, northeast, east, and southeast sides:
as witness, the Mechoacans on the west, the Otomies on the
northwest, (scattered bands of the Otomies near the valley had
been placed under tribute), the Chichimecs or wild tribes north
of the Otomies, the Mcztitlans on the northeast, the Tlascalans
on the east, the Cholulans and Huexotzincos on the southeast

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. I95

and beyond them the tribes of the Tabasco, the tribes of
Chiapas, and the Zapotecs. In these several directions the
dominion of the Aztec confederacy did not extend a hundred
miles beyond the valley of Mexico, a portion of which sur-
rounding area was undoubtedly neutral ground separating the
confederacy from perpetual enemies. Out of such limited
materials the kingdom of Mexico of the Spanish chronicles
was fabricated, and afterwards magnified into the Aztec empire
of current history.

A few words seem to be necessary concerning the popula-
tion of the valley and of the pueblo of Mexico. No means ex-
ist for ascertaining the number of the people in the five
Nahuatlac tribes who inhabited the valley. Any estimate
must be conjectural. As a conjecture then, based upon what
is known of their horticulture, their means of subsistence, their
institutions, their limited area, and not forgetting the tribute
y they received, two hundred and fifty thousand persons in the
1 aggregate would probably be an excessive estimate. It would
give about a hundred and sixty persons to the square mile,
equal to nearly twice the present average, population of the
state of New York, and about equal to the average popula-
tion of Rhode Island. It is difficult to perceive what suffi-
cient reason can be assigned for so large a number of in-
habitants in all the villages within the valley, said to have
been from thirty to forty. Those who claim a higher number
will be bound to show how a barbarous people, without
flocks and herds, and without field agriculture, could have
sustained in equal areas a larger number of inhabitants than
a civilized people can now maintain armed with these ad-
vantages. It cannot be shown for the simple reason that it
could not have been true. Out of this population thirty thou-
sand may, perhaps, be assigned to the pueblo of Mexico.^

1 There is some difference in the estimates of the population of Mexico found in
the Spanish histories ; but several of them concurred in the number of houses,
which, strange to say, is placed at sixty thousand. Zuazo, who visited Mexico in
1521, wrote sixty thousand inhabitants (Prescott, Conq. of Alex., ii, 1 12, note);
the Anonymous Conqueror, who accompanied Cortes also wrote sixty thousand
inhabitants, "soixante mille habitans " (i^. Ternaiix-Compans, x, 92) ; but Go-
mora and Martyr wrote sixty thousand houses, and this estimate has been adopted

196 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

It will be unnecessary to discuss the position and relations
of the valley tribes beyond the suggestions made. The Aztec
monarchy should be dismissed from American aboriginal histo-
ry, not only as delusive, but as a misrepresentation of the
Indians, who had neither developed nor invented monarchical
institutions. The government they formed was a confederacy
of tribes, and nothing more; and probably not equal in plan
and symmetry with that of the Iroquois. In dealing with this
organization, War-chief, Sachem, and Chief will be sufficient to
distinguish their official persons.

The pueblo of Mexico was the largest in America. Ro-
mantically situated in the midst of an artificial lake, its large
joint-tenement houses plastered over with gypsum, which
made them a brilliant white, and approached by causeways, it
presented to the Spaniards, in the distance, a striking and
enchanting spectacle. It was a revelation of an ancient society
lying two ethnical periods back of European society, and
eminently calculated, from its orderly plan of life, to awaken
curiosity and inspire enthusiasm. A certain amount of ex-
travagance of opinion was unavoidable.

A few particulars have been named tending to show the
extent of Aztec advancement to which some others may now
be added. Ornamental gardens were found, magazines of
weapons and of military costumes, improved apparel, manu-
factured fabrics of cotton of superior workmanship, improved
implements and utensils, and an increased variety of food;
picture-writing, used chiefly to indicate the tribute in kind
each subjugated village was to pay; a calendar for measur-
ing time, and open markets for the barter of commodities.

by Clavigero {Hist, of Mex., ii, 360), by Herrera {Hist, of Ainer., ii, 360), and
by Prescott {Conq. of Mex., ii, 1 12). Solis says sixty thousand farnilies {Hist.
Conq. of Mex., I. c, \, 393). This estimate would give a population of 300,000,
although London at that time contained but 145,000 inhabitants (Black's London,
p. 5). Finally, Torquemada, cited by Clavigero (ii, 360, note'), boldly writes one
hundred and twenty thousand houses. There can scarcely be a doubt that the
houses in this pueblo were in general large communal, or joint-tenement houses,
like those in New Mexico of the same period, large enough to accommodate from
ten to fifty and a hundred families in each. At either number the mistake is
egregious. Zuazo and the Anonymous Conqueror came the nearest to a respect-
able estimate, because they did not much more than double the probable number.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

197

Administrative offices had been created to meet the demands
of a growing municipal life; a priesthood, with a temple wor-
ship and a ritual including human sacrifices, had been estab-
lished. The office of head war-chief had also risen into in-
creased importance. These, and other "circumstances of their
condition, not necessary to be detailed, imply a corresponding
development of their institutions. Such are some of the
differences between the Lower and the Middle Status of barba-
rism, as illustrated by the relative conditions of the Iroquois
and the Aztecs, both having doubtless the same original
institutions.

With these preliminary suggestions made, the three most
important and most difficult questions with respect to the
Aztec social system, remain to be considered. They relate
first, to the existence of Gentes and Phratries; second, the
existence and functions of the Council of Chiefs; and, third,
the existence and functions of the office of General Military
Commander, held by Montezuma.
I. The Existence of Gentes and Phratries.

It may seem singular that the early Spanish writers did not
discover the Aztec gentes, if in fact they existed; but the case
was nearly the same with the Iroquois under the observation of
our own people more than two hundred years. The existence
among them of clans, named after animals, was pointed out at
an early day, but without suspecting that it was the unit of a
social system upon which both the tribe and the confederacy
rested.^ The failure of the Spanish investigators to notice the
existence of the gentile organization among the tribes of Span-
ish America would afford no proof of its non-existence; but if
it did exist, it would simply prove that their work was super-
ficial in this respect.

There is a large amount of indirect and fragmentary evidence
in the Spanish writers pointing both to the gens and the phra-
try, some of which will now be considered. Reference has been
made to the frequent use of the term "kindred" by Herrera,
showing that groups of persons were noticed who were bound
together by affinities of blood. This, from the size of the group,

' League of ihe Iroquois, p. 78.

198 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

seems to require a gens. The term "lineage" is sometimes
used to indicate a still larger group, and implying a phratry.
The pueblo of Mexico was div^ided geographically into four
quarters, each of which was occupied by a lineage, a body of
people more nearly related by consanguinity among themselves
than they were to the inhabitants of the other quarters. Pre-
sumptively, each lineage was a phratry. Each quarter was
again subdivided, and each local subdivision was occupied by a
community of persons bound together by some common tie.^
Presumptively, this community of persons was a gens. Turn-
ing to the kindred tribe of Tlascalans, the same facts nearly
re-appear. Their pueblo was divided into four quarters, each
occupied by a lineage. Each had its own Teuctli or head war-
chief, its distinctive military costume, and its own standard and
blazon.^ As one people they were under the government of a
council of chiefs, which the Spaniards honored with the name
of the Tlascalan senate.^ Cholula, in like manner, was divided
into six quarters, called wards by Herrera, which leads to the
same inference.* The Aztecs in their social subdivisions hav-
ing arranged among themselves the parts of the pueblo they
were severally to occupy, these geographical districts would re-
sult from their mode of settlement. If the brief account of
these quarters at the foundation of Mexico, given by Herrera,
who follows Acosta, is read in the light of this explanation, the
truth of the matter will be brought quite near. After mention-
ing the building of a "chapel of lime and stone for the idol,"
Herrera proceeds as follows: "When this was done, the idol
ordered a priest to bid the chief men divide themselves, with
their kindred and followers, into four wards or quarters, leav-
ing the house that had been built for him to rest in the middle,
and each party to build as they liked best. These are the four
quarters of Mexico now called St. John, St. Mary the Round,
St. Paul and St. Sebastian. That division being accordingly
made, their idol again directed them to distribute among them-

' Herrera, iii, 194, 209.

* Herrera, ii, 279, 304: Clavigero, i, 146.

3 Clavigero, i, 147; The four war-chiefs were ex officio members of the Council.
lb., ii, 137.

* Herrera, ii, 310.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

199

selves the gods he should name, and each ward to apponit pe-
culiar places where the gods should be worshiped; and thus
every quarter has several smaller wards in it according to the
number of their gods this idol called them to adore. . . . Thus
Mexico, Tenochtitlan, was founded. . . . When the aforesaid
partition was made, those who thought themselves injured, with
their kindred and followers, went away to seek some other
place," ^ namely, Tlatelulco, which was adjacent. It is a reason-
able interpretation of this language that they divided by kin,
first into four general divisions, and these into smaller subdi-
visions, which is the usual formula for stating results. But the
actual process was the exact reverse; namely, each body of
kindred located in an area by themselves, and the several
bodies in such a way as to bring those most nearly related in
geographical connection with each other. Assuming that the
lowest subdivision was a gens, and that each quarter was occu-
pied by a phratry, composed of related gentes, the primary dis-
tribution of the Aztecs in their pueblo is perfectly intelligible.
Without this assumption it is incapable of a satisfactory expla-
nation. When a people, organized in gentes phratries and
tribes, settled in a town or city, they located by gentes and by
tribes, as a necessary consequence of their social organization.
The Grecian and Roman tribes settled in their cities in this man-
ner. For example, the three Roman tribes were organized in
gentes and curiae, the curia being the analogue of the phratry;
and they settled at Rome by gentes, by curije and by tribes.
The Ramnes occupied the Palatine Hill. The Titles were
mostly on the Ouirinal, and the Luceres mostly on the Esqui-
line. If the Aztecs were in gentes and phratries, having but
one tribe, they would of necessity be found in as many quar-
ters as they had phratries, with each gens of the same phratry
in the main locally by itself As husband and wife were of
different gentes, and the children were of the gens of the father
or mother as descent was in the male or the female line, the
preponderating number in each locality would be of the same
gens.

Their military organization was based upon these social di-

' Herrera, iii, 194.

200 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

visions. As Nestor advised Agamemnon to arrange the troops
by phratries and by tribes, the Aztecs seem to have arranged
themselves by gentes and by phratries. In the Mexican
CJironiclcs, by the native autlior Tezozomoc (for a reference to
the following passage, in which I am indebted to my friend
Mr. Ad. F. Bandelier, of Highland, Illinois, who is now engag-
ed upon its translation), a proposed invasion of Michoacan is
referred to. Axaycatl "spoke to the Mexican captains Tlaca-
tecatl and Tlacochcalcatl, and to all the others, and inquired
whether all the Mexicans were prepared, after the usages and
customs of each ward, each one with its captains; and if so
that they should begin to march, and that all were to reunite
at Matlatzinco Toluca."^ It indicates that the military organi-
zation was by gentes and by phratries.

An inference of the existence of Aztec gentes arises also
from their land tenure. Clavigero remarks that "the lands
which were called Altcpctlalli [altepetl=pueblo] that is, those of
the communities of cities and villages, were divided into as
many parts as there were districts in a city, and every district
possessed its own part entirely distinct from, and independent
of every other. These lands could not be alienated by any
means whatever."^ In each of these communities we are led
to recognize a gens, whose localization was a necessary conse-
quence of their social system. Clavigero puts the districts for
the community, whereas it was the latter which made the dis-
trict, and which owned the lands in common. The element of
kin, which united each community, omitted by Clavigero is
supplied by Herrera. "There were other lords, called major
parents [sachems], whose landed property all belonged to one
lineage [gens], which lived in one district, and there were many
of them when the lands were distributed at the time New Spain
was peopled; and each lineage received its own, and have pos-
sessed them until now; and these lands did not belong to any
\one in particular, but to all in common, and he who possessed
them could not sell them, although he enjoyed them for life

1 Cronka Mexicana, De Fernando de Alvarado Tezozomoc, ch. li, p. ?>'^, Kings-
borough, V, ix.

^ History of Alexico, ii, 141.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. 201

and left them to his sons and heirs; and if a house died out
they were left to the nearest parent to whom they were given
and to no other, who administered the same district or hne-
age."^ In this remarkable statement our author was puzzled
to harmonize the facts with the prevailing theory of Aztec in-
stitutions. He presents to us an Aztec lord who held the fee
of the land as a feudal proprietor, and a title of rank pertaining
to it, both of which he transmitted to his son and heir. But in
obedience to truth he states the essejitial fact that the lands be-
longed to a body of consanguine! of whom he is styled the
major parent, i. e., he was the sachem, it may be supposed, of
the gens, the latter owning these lands in common. The sug-
gestion that he. held the lands in trust means nothing. They
found Indian chiefs connected with gentes, each gens owning
a body of lands in common, and when the chief died, his place
was filled by his son, according to Herrera. In so far it may
have been analogous to a Spanish estate and title; and the mis-
conception resulted from a want of knowledge of the nature
and tenure of the office of chief In some cases they found the
son did not succeed his father, but the office went to some
other person; hence the further statement, "if a house (alguna
casa, another feudal feature) died out, -they [the lands] were left
to the nearest major parent;" i. e., another person was elected
sachem, as near as any conclusion can be drawn from the lan-
guage. What little has been given to us by the Spanish writ-
ers concerning Indian chiefs, and the land tenure of the tribes
is corrupted by the use of language adapted to feudal institu-
tions that had no existence among them. In this lineage we
are warranted in recognizing an Aztec gens; and in this loi'd
an Aztec sachem, whose office was hereditary in the gens, in
the sense elsewhere stated, and elective among its members.
If descent was in the male line, the choice would fall upon one
of the sons of the deceased sachem, own or collateral, upon a
grandson, through one of his sons, or upon a brother, own or
collateral. But if in the female line it would fall upon a
brother or nephew, own or collateral, as elsewhere explained.

1 History of America, iii, 314. The above is a retranslation by Mr. Bandelier
from the Spanish text.

202 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The sachem had no title whatever to the lands, and therefore
none to transmit to any one. He was thought to be the pro-
prietor because he held an office which was perpetually main-
tained, and because there was a body of lands perpetually be-
longing to a gens over which he was a sachem. The miscon-
ception of this office and of its tenure has been the fruitful
source of unnumbered errors in our aboriginal histories. The
Uncage of Herrera, and the coiiiuui-nitics of Clavigero were evi-
dently organizations, and the same organization. They found
in this body of kindred, without knowing the fact, the unit of
their social system — a gens, as we must suppose.

Indian chiefs are described as lords by Spanish writers, and
invested with rights over lands and over persons they never
possessed. It is a misconception to style an Indian chief a
lord in the European sense, because it implies a condition of
society that did not exist. A lord holds a rank and a title
by hereditary right, secured to him by special legislation in
derogation of the rights of the people as a whole. To this
rank and title, since the overthrow of feudalism, no duties are
attached which may be claimed by the king or the kingdom as a
matter of right. On the contrary, an Indian chief holds an
office, not by hereditary right, but by election from a constitu-
ency, which retained the right to depose him for cause. The
office carried with it the obligation to perform certain duties for
the benefit of the constituency. He had no authority over the
persons or property or lands of the members of the gens. It
is thus seen that no analogy exists between a lord and his title,
and an Indian chief and his office. One belongs to political
society, and represents an aggression of the few upon the
many; while the other belongs to gentile society and is founded
upon the common interests of the members of the gens. Un-
equal privileges find no place in the gens, phratry or tribe*

Further traces of the existence of Aztec gentes will appear.
A prima facie case of the existence of gentes among them is
at least made out. There was also an antecedent probability
to this effect, from the presence of the two upper members of
the organic series, the tribe, and the confederacy, and from the
general prevalence of the organization among other tribes. A

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY.

203

very little close investigation by the early Spanish writers would
have placed the question beyond a doubt, and, as a consequence,
have given a very different complexion to Aztec history.

The usages regulating the inheritance of property among the
Aztecs have come down to us in a confused and contradictory
condition. They are not material in this discussion, except as
they reveal the existence of bodies of consanguine!, and the
inheritance by children from their fathers. If the latter were
the fact it Avould show that descent was in the male line, and
also an extraordinary adv^ance in a knowledge of property. It
is not probable that children enjoyed an exclusive inheritance,
or that any Aztec owned a foot of land which he could call his
own, with power to sell and convey to whomsoever he pleased.
II. The Existence and Functions of the Council of Chiefs.

The existence of such a council among the Aztecs might
have been predicted from the necessary constitution of Indian
society. Theoretically, it would have been composed of that
class of chiefs, distinguished as sachems, who represented bodies
of kindred through an office perpetually maintained. Here
again, as elsewhere, a necessity is seen for gentes, whose princi-
pal chiefs would represent the people in their ultimate social
subdivisions as among the Northern tribes. Aztec gentes are
fairly necessary to explain the existence of Aztec chiefs. Of
the presence of an Aztec council there is no doubt whatever;
but of the number of its members and of its functions we are
left in almost total ignorance. Brasseur de Bourbourg remarks
generally that "nearly all the towns or tribes are divided into
four clans or quarters whose chiefs constitute the great coun-
cil."^ Whether he intended to limit the number to one chief
from each quarter is not clear; but elsewhere he limits the Az-
tec council to four chiefs. Diego Duran, who wrote his work
in 1 579-1 58 1, and thus preceded both Acosta and Tezozomoc,
remarks as follows: "First we must know, that in Mexico
after having elected a king they elected four lords of the
brothers or near relations of this king to whom they gave the
titles of princes, and from whom they had to choose the king.
[To the offices he gives the names of Tlacachcalcatl, Tlacatecal,

' Popol Vuh, Intro, p. 117, note 2.

204

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Ezuauacatl, and Fillancalque]. . . These four lords and titles
after being elected princes, they made them the royal council,
like the presidents and judges of the supreme council, without
whose opinion nothing could be done."^ Acosta, after naming
the same offices, and calling the persons who held them "elect-
ors," remarks that "all these four dignities were of the great
council, without whose advice the king might not do anything
of importance."^ And Herrera, after placing these offices in
four grades, proceeds: "These four sorts of noblemen were of
the supreme council, without whose advice the king was to do
nothing of moment, and no king could be chosen but what
was of one of these four orders."^ The use of the term king
to describe a principal war-chief and of princes to describe In-
dian chiefs cannot create a state or a political society where
none existed; but as misnomers they stilt up and disfigure our
aboriginal history and for that reason ought to be discarded.
When the Huexotzincos sent delegates to Mexico proposing
an alliance against the Tlascalans, Montezuma addressed
them, according to Tezozomoc, as follows: "Brothers and
sons, you are welcome, rest yourselves awhile, for although
I am king indeed I alone cannot satisfy you, but only
together with all the chiefs of the sacred Mexican senate."*
The above accounts recognize the existence of a supreme
council, with authority over the action of the principal war-
chief, which is the material point. It tends to show that the
Aztecs guarded themselves against an irresponsible despot, by
subjecting his action to a council of chiefs, and by making him
elective and deposable. If the limited and incomplete state-
ments of these authors intended to restrict this council to four
members, which Duran seems to imply, the limitation is im-
probable. As such the council would represent, not the Aztec
tribe, but the small body of kinsmen from whom the military

' History of the Indies of New Spain and Islands of the Main land, Mexico,
1867. Ed. by Jose F. Ramirez, p. 102. Published from the original MS. Trans-
lated by Mr. Bandelier.

2 The A^alural and Moral History of the East and West Indies, Lond. ed., 1604,
Grimstone's Trans., p. 485.

3 History of America, iii, 224.

•^ Cronica Mexicana, cap. xcvii, Bandelier's Trans.

THE AZTEC COXFEDERACY.

205

commander was to be chosen. This is not the theory of a
council of chiefs. Each chief* represents a constituency, and
the chiefs together represent the tribe. A selection from their
number is sometimes made to form a general council; but it is
through an organic provision which fixes the number, and pro-
\ddes for their perpetual maintenance. The Tezcucan council is
said to have consisted of fourteen members,^ while the council at
Tlascala was a numerous body. Such a council among the Az-
tecs is required by the structure and principles of Indian society,
and therefore would be expected to exist. In this council may
be recognized the lost element in Aztec history. A knowledge
of its functions is essential to a comprehension of Aztec society.
In the current histories this council is treated as an advisory
board of Montezuma's, as a council of ministers of his own
creation; thus Clavigero: "In the history of the conquest we
shall find Montezuma in frequent deliberation with his council
on the pretensions of the Spaniards. We do not know the
number of each council, nor do historians furnish us with the
lights necessary to illustrate such a subject."^ It was one of the
first questions requiring investigation, and the fact that the
early writers failed to ascertain its composition and functions is
proof conclusive of the superficial character of their work. We
know, however, that the council of chiefs is an institution which
came in with the gentes, which represents electing constituen-
cies, and which from time immemorial had a vocation as well
as original governing powers. We find a Tezcucan and Tlaco-
pan council, a Tlascalan, a Cholulan and a IMichoacan council,
each composed of chiefs. The evidence establishes the exis-
tence of an Aztec council of chiefs; but so far as it is limited
to four members, all of the same lineage, it is presented in an
improbable form. Every tribe in Mexico and Central America,
beyond a reasonable doubt, had its council of chiefs. It was
the governing body of the tribe, and a constant phenomenon
in all parts of aboriginal America. The council of chiefs is
the oldest institution of government of mankind. It can show
an unbroken succession on the several continents from the

' Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chichimeca, Kingsborough, Mex. Aniiq. ix, p. 243.
* History of Mexico, ii, 132.

2o6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Upper Status of savagery through the three sub- periods of
barbarism to the commencement of civiHzation, when, having
been changed' into a preconsidering council with the rise of
the assembly of the people, it gave birth to the modern
legislature in two bodies.

It does not appear that there was a general council of the
Aztec confederacy, composed of the principal chiefs of the
three tribes, as distinguished from the separate councils of
each. A complete elucidation of this subject is required before
it can be known whether the Aztec organization was simply a
league, offensive and defensive, and as such under the primary
control of the Aztec tribe, or a confederacy in which the parts
were integrated in a symmetrical whole. This problem must
await future solution.

III. The Tenure and Fii net ions of the Offiee of Prineipal War-
ehief.

The name of the office held by Montezuma, according to
the best accessible information, was simply Tenet li, which sig-
nifies a zvar-ehief. As a member of the council of chiefs he was
sometimes called Tlatoani, which signifies speaker. This office
of a general military commander was the highest known to the
Aztecs. It was the same office and held by the same tenure as
that of principal war-chief in the Iroquois confederacy. It made
the person, ex offieio, a member of the council of chiefs, as may
be inferred from the fact that in some of the tribes the principal
war-chief had precedence in the council both in debate and in
pronouncing his opinion.^ None of the Spanish writers apply
this title to Montezuma or his successors. It was superseded by
the inappropriate title of king. Ixtiilxoehitl, who was of mixed
Tezcucan and Spanish descent, describes the head war-chiefs
of Mexico, Tezcuco and Tlacopan, by the simple title of war-
chief, with another to indicate the tribe. After speaking of
the division of powers between the three chiefs when the con-

* " The title of Teiutll was added in the manner of a surname to the 'proper
name of the person advanced to this dignity, as Chichimeca- Teiictli, Fit- Teitcili,
and others. The Teitcili took precedency of all others in the senate, both in the
order of sitting and voting, and were permitted to have a servant behind them with
a seat, whicli was esteemed a privilege of the highest honor." — Clavigero, ii, 137.
This is a re-appearance of the sub-sachem of the Iroquois behind his principal.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. 20/

federacy was formed, and of the- assembling of the chiefs of the
three tribes on that occasion, he proceeds: "The king of
Tezcuco was sahited by the title of Aciilhua Teuctli, also by
that of CJiicJiiinccatl Tciictli which his ancestors had worn,
and which was the mark of the empire ; Itzcoatzin, his uncle,
received the title of CnlJiua Teuctli, because he reigned over
the Toltecs-Culhuas ; and Totoqnihuatzin that of Tecpaimatl
Teuctli, which had been the title of AzcapiUzalco. Since that
time their successors have received the same title. "^ Itzcoatzin
{Itzcoatl), here mentioned, was war-chief of the Aztecs when
the confederacy was formed. As the title was that of war-chief,
then held by many other persons, the compliment consisted in
connecting with it a tribal designation. In Indian speech the
office held by Montezuma was equivalent to head war-chief,
and in English to general.

Clavigero recognizes this office in several Nahuatlac tribes,
but never applies it to the Aztec war-chief "The highest
rank of nobility in Tlascala, in Huexotzinco and in Cholula
was that of Teuctli. To obtain this rank it was necessary to
be of noble birth, to have given proofs in several battles of the
utmost courage, to have arrived at a certain age, and to com-
mand great riches for the enormous expenses which were nec-
essary to be supported by the possessor of such a dignity."'
After Montezuma had been magnified into an absolute potent-
ate, with civil as well as military functions, the nature and
powers of the office he held were left in the background — in
fact uninvestigated. As their general military commander he
possessed the means of winning the popular favor, and of com-
manding the popular respect. It was a dangerous but neces-
sary office to the tribe and to the confederacy. Throughout
human experience, from the Lower Status of barbarism to the
present time, it has ever been a dangerous office. Constitu-
tions and laws furnish the present security of civilized nations,
so far as they have any. A body of usages and customs grew
up, in all probability, among the advanced Indian tribes and
among the tribes of the valley of Mexico, regulating the pow-

' Historia Chichimeca, ch. xxxii, Kingsborough : Mex. Antiq., ix, 219.
* History of Mexico, I. c, ii, 1 36.

2o8 AXCIENT SOCIETY.

ers and prescribing the duties of this office. There are general
reasons warranting the supposition that thc_Aztec council of
phiefs was supreme, not only in civil affairs, but over military
affairs, the person and direction of the war-chief included.
The Aztec polity under increased numbers and material ad-
vancement, had undoubtedly grown complex, and for that rea-
son a knowledge of it would have been the more instructive.
Could the exact particulars of their governmental organization
be ascertained they would be sufficiently remarkable without
embellishment.

The Spanish writers concur generally in the statement that
the office held by Montezuma was elective, with the choice
confined to a particular family. The office was found to pass
from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew. They were
unable, however, to explain why it did not in some cases pass
from father to son. Since the mode of succession was unusual to
the Spaniards there was less possibility of a mistake with regard
to the principal fact. Moreover, two successions occurred
under the immediate notice of the conquerors. Montezuma
was succeeded by Cuitlahua. In this case the office passed
from brother to brother, although we cannot know whether
they were own or collateral brothers without a knowledge of
their system of consanguinity. Upon the death of the latter
Guatemozin was elected to succeed him. Here the office
passed from uncle to nephew, but we do not know whether
he was an own or a collateral nephew. (See Part Third, ch.
iii.) In previous cases the office had passed from brother to
brother and also from uncle to nephew.^ An elective office
implies a constituency ; but who were the constituents in this
case? To meet this question the four chiefs mentioned by
Duran [supra) are introduced as electors, to whom one elector
from Tezcuco and one from Tlacopan are added, making six,
who are then invested with power to choose from a particular
family the principal war-chief This is not the theory of an
elective Indian office, and it may be dismissed as improbable.
Sahagun indicates a much larger constituency. "When the
king or lord died," he remarks, "all the senators called Tecut-

' Clavigero, ii, 126.

THE AZTEC CONFEBERACY.

209

latoqncs, and the old men of the tribe called AchcacanJttl, and
also the captains and old warriors called Yautcqnioaqiics, and
other prominent captains in warlike matters, and also the priests
called Tlcnaniacaques, or Papasaqucs — all these assembled in
the royal houses. Then they deliberated upon and determined
who had to be lord, and chose one of the most noble of the
lineage of the past lords, who should be a valiant man,
experienced in warlike matters, daring and brave.
When they agreed upon one they at once named him as lord,
but this election was not made by ballot or votes, but all to-
gether conferring at last agreed upon the man. The lord once
elected they also elected four others which were like senators,
and had to be always with the lord, and be informed of all the
business of the kingdom."^ This scheme of election by a large
assembly, Vvhile it shows the popular element in the govern-
ment which undoubtedly existed, is without the method of In-
dian institutions. Before the tenure of this office and the
mode of election can be made intelligible, it is necessary to find
whether or not they were organized in gentes, whether descent
was in the female line or the male, and to know something of
their system of consanguinity. If they had the system found
in many other tribes of the Ganowanian family, which is prob-
able, a man would call his brother's son his son, and his
sister's son his nephew; he would call his father's brother his
father, and his mother's brother his uncle; the children of his
father's brother his brothers and sisters, and the children of his
mother's brother his cousins, and so on. If organized into gentes
with descent in the female line, a man would have brothers,
uncles and nephews, collateral grandfathers and grandsons
within his own gens; but neither own father, own son, or lineal
grandson. His own sons and his brother's sons would belong
to other gentes. It cannot as yet be affirmed that the Aztecs
were organized in gentes; but the succession to the office of prin-
cipal war-chief is of itself strong proof of the fact, because it
would explain this succession completely. Then with descent
in the female line the office would be hereditary in a particular
gens, but elective among its members. In that case the office

' Historia General, ch. xviii.

210 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

\ would pass, by election within the gens, from brother to
I brother, or from uncle to nephew, precisely as it did among
the Aztecs, and never from father to son. Among the Iro-
quois at that same time the offices of sachem and of principal
war-chief were passing from brother to brother or from uncle
to nephew, as the choice might happen to fall, and never to
the son. It was the gens, with descent in the female line,
which gave this mode of succession, and which could have
been secured in no other conceivable way. It is difficult to
resist the conclusion, from these facts alone, that the Aztecs
were organized in gentes, and that in respect to this office at
least descent was still in the female line.

It may therefore be suggested, as a probable explanation,
that the office held by Montezuma was hereditary in a gens
(the eagle was the blazon or totem on the house occupied by
Montezuma), by the members of which the choice was made
from among their number; that their nomination was then sub-
mitted separately to the four lineages or divisions of the Aztecs
(conjectured to be phratries), for acceptance or rejection; and
also to the Tezcucans and Tlacopans, who were directly inter-
ested in the selection of the general commander. When they
had severally considered and confirmed the nomination each
division appointed a person to signify their concurrence;
whence the six miscalled electors. It is not unlikely that the
four high chiefs of the Aztecs, mentioned as electors by a num-
ber of authors, were in fact the war-chiefs of the four divisions
of the Aztecs, like the four war-chiefs of the four lineages of the
Tlascalans. The function of these persons was not to elect,
but to ascertain by a conference with each other whether the
choice made by the gens had been concurred in, and if so to
announce the result. The foregoing is submitted as a conject-
ural explanation, upon the fragments of evidence remaining, of
the mode of succession to the Aztec office of principal war-
chief It is seen to harmonize with Indian usages, and with
the theory of the office of an elective Indian chief

The right to depose from office follows as a necessary conse-
quence of the right to elect, where the term was for life. It is
thus turned into an office duriner e:ood behavior. In these two

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. 2 1 1

principles of electing and deposing, universally established in the
social system of the American aborigines, sufficient evidence is
furnished that the sovereign power remained practically in the
hands of the people. This power to depose, though seldom
exercised, was vital in the gentile organization. Montezuma
was no exception to the rule. It required time to reach this
result from the peculiar circumstances of the case, for a good
reason was necessary. When Montezuma allowed himself,
through intimidation, to be conducted from his place of resi-
dence to the quarters of Cortes where he was placed under
confinement, the Aztecs were paralyzed for a time for the
want of a military commander. The Spaniards had posses-
sion both of the man and of his office.^ They waited some
\veeks, hoping the Spaniards would retire; but when they found
the latter intended to remain they met the necessity, as there X
are sufficient reasons for believing, by deposing Montezuma for , t
want of resolution, and elected his brother to fill his place, a
Immediately thereafter they assaulted the Spanish quarters with 0
great fury, and finally succeeded in driving them from their
pueblo. This conclusion respecting the deposition of Monte-
zuma is fully warranted by Herrera's statement of the facts.
After the assault commenced, Cortes, observing the Aztecs
obeying a new commander, at once suspected the truth of the
matter, and "sent Marina to ask Montezuma whether he thought
they had put the government into his hands," ^ /. e., the hands of
the new commander. Montezuma is said to have replied "that
they would not presume to choose a king in Mexico whilst he was
living."^ He then went upon the roof of the house and ad-
dressed his countrymen, saying among other things, "that he

* In the West India Islands the Spaniards discovered that when they captured
the cacique of a tribe and held him a prisoner, the Indians became demoralized
and refused to fight. Taking advantage of this knowledge when they reached the
main-land they made it a point to entrap the principal chief, by force or fraud, and
hold him a prisoner until their object was gained. Cortes simply acted upon this
experience when he captured Montezuma and held him a prisoner in his quarters ;
and Pizaarro did the same when he seized Atahuallpa. Under Indian customs
the prisoner was put to death, and if a principal chief, the office reverted to the
tribe and was at once filled. But in these cases the prisoner remained alive, and
in possession of his office, so that it could not be filled. The action of the people
was paralyzed by novel circumstances. Cortes put the Aztecs in this position. ^

' History of Mexico, iii, 66. 3 lb., iii, 67.

212 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

had been informed they had chosen another king because he
was confined and loved the Spaniards;" to which he received
the following ungracious reply from an Aztec warrior: "Hold
your peace, you effeminate scoundrel, born to weave and spin;
these dogs keep you a prisoner, you are a coward."^ Then
they discharged arrows upon him and stoned him, from the ef-
fects of which and from deep humiliation he shortly afterwards
died. The war-chief in the command of the Aztecs in this
assault was Cuitlahua, the brother of Montezuma and his suc-
cessor.^

Respecting the functions of this office very little satisfactory
information can be derived from the Spanish writers. There
is no reason for supposing that Montezuma possessed any
power over the civil affairs of the Aztecs. Moreover, every
presumption is against it. In military affairs when in the field
he had the powers of a general; but military movements were
probably decided upon by the council. It is an interesting
fact to be noticed that the functions of a priest were attached
to the office of principal war-chief, and, as it is claimed, those
of a judge.^ The early appearance of these functions in the
natural growth of the military office will be referred to again
in connection with that of basileus. Although the govern-
ment was of two powers it is probable that the council was
supreme, in case of a conflict of authority, over civil and mili-
tary affairs. It should be remembered that the council of
chiefs was the oldest in time, and possessed a solid basis of
power in the needs of society and in the representative charac-
ter of the office of chief

The tenure of the office of principal war-chief and the pres-
ence of a council with power to depose from office, tend to
show that the institutions of the Aztecs were essentially demo-
cratical. The elective principle with respect to war-chief, and
which we must suppose existed with respect to sachem and
chief, and the presence of a council of chiefs, determine the
material fact. A pure democracy of the Athenian type was
unknown in the Lower, in the Middle, or even in the Upper

' Clavigero, ii, 406. * lb., ii, 404.

' Herrera, iii, 393.

THE AZTEC CONFEDERACY. 2 1 3

Status of barbarism; but it is very important to know whether
the institutions of a people are essentially democratical, or es-
1 sentially monarchical, when we seek to understand them. In-
V stitutions of the former kind are separated nearly as widely
I from those of the latter, as democracy is from monarchy. With-
out ascertaining the unit of their social system, if organized in
gentes as they probably were, and without gaining a knowledge
of the system that did exist, the Spanish writers boldly invent-
ed for the Aztecs an absolute monarchy with high feudal char-
acteristics, and have succeeded in placing it in history. This
misconception has stood, through American indolence, quite as
long as it deserves to stand. The Aztec organization presented
itself plainly to the Spaniards as a league or confederacy of
tribes. Nothing but the grossest perversion of obvious facts
could have enabled the Spanish writers to fabricate the Aztec
monarchy out of a democratic organization.

Theoretically, the Aztecs, Tezcucans and Tlacopans should
severally have had a head-sachem to represent the tribe in civil
affairs when the council of chiefs was not in session, and to take
the initiative in preparing its work. There are traces of such
an officer among the Aztecs in the Ziahitacatl, who is some-
times called the second chief, as the war-chief is called the first.
But the accessible information respecting this office is too limit-
ed to warrant a discussion of the subject.

It has been shown among the Iroquois that the warriors
could appear before the council of chiefs and express their
views upon public questions; and that the women could do the
same through orators of their own selection. This popular
participation in the government led in time to the popular as-
sembly, with power to adopt or reject public measures submit-
ted to them by the council. Among the Village Indians there
is no evidence, so far as the author is aware, that there was an
assembly of the people to consider public questions with power
to act upon them. The four lineages probably met for special
objects, but this was very different from a general assembly for
public objects. From the democratic character of their insti-
tutions and their advanced condition the Aztecs were drawing
near the time when the assembly of the people might be ex-
pected to appear.

214 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The growth of the idea of government among the American
aborigines, as elsewhere remarked, commenced with the gens
and ended with the confederacy. Their organizations were
social and not political. Until the idea of property had ad-
iVanced very far beyond the point they had attained, the substi-
Itution of political for gentile society was impossible. There is
not a fact to show that any portion of the aborigines, at least
in North America, had reached any conception of the second
great plan of government founded upon territory and upon
property. The spirit of the government and the condition of
the people harmonize with the institutions under which they
live. When the military spirit predominates, as it did among
the Aztecs, a military democracy rises naturally under gentile
institutions. Such a government neither supplants the free
spirit of the gentes, nor weakens the principles of democracy,
but accords with them harmoniously.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GRECIAN GENS.

Early condition of Grecian Tribes.— Organized into Gentes.-— Changes
IN THE Character of the Gens. — Necessity for a Political System. —
Problem TO be Solved.— The Format(on of a State.— Grote's Description
OF the Grecian Gentes.— Of their Phratries and Tribes. — Attributes
of the Gens.— Similar to those of the Iroquois Gentes. — The Office of
Chief of the Gens.— Whether Elective or Hereditary.— The Gens the
Basis of the Social System. — Antiquity of the Gentile Lineage. — Inher-
itance OF Property.— Archaic and Final Rule.— Relationships between
the Members of a Gens.— The Gens the Centre of Social and Religious
Influence.

Civilization may be said to have commenced among the Asi-
atic Greeks with the composition of the Homeric poems about
850 B. C. ; and among the European Greeks about a century
later with the composition of the Hesiodic poems. Anterior
to these epochs, there was a period of several thousand years
during which the Hellenic tribes were advancing through the
Later Period of barbarism, and preparing for their entrance
upon a civilized career. Their most ancient traditions find
them already established in the Grecian peninsula, upon the
eastern border of the Mediterranean, and upon the intermedi-
ate and adjacent islands. An older branch of the same stock,
of which the Pelasgians were the chief representatives, had
preceded them in the occupation of the greater part of these
areas, and were in time either Hellenized by them, or forced
into emigration. The anterior condition of the Hellenic tribes
and of their predecessors, must be deduced from the arts and

2 1 6 ANCIENT SOCJE T Y.

inventions which they brought down from the previous period,
from the state of development of their language, from their
traditions and from their social institutions, which severally
survived into the period of civilization. Our discussion will be
restricted, in the main, to the last class of facts.

Pelasgians and Hellenes alike were organized in gentes,
phratries^ and tribes; and the latter united by coalescence into
nations. In some cases the organic series was not complete.
Whether in tribes or nations their government rested upon the
gens as the unit of organization, and resulted in a gentile so-
ciety or a people, as distinguished from a political society or a
state. The instrument of government was a council of chiefs,
with the co-operation of an agora or assembly of the people,
and of a basileus or military commander. The people were
free, and their institutions democratical. Under the influence
of advancing ideas and wants the gens had passed out of its
archaic into its ultimate form. Modifications had been forced
upon it by the irresistible demands of an improving society;
but, notwithstanding the concessions made, the failure of the
gentes to meet these wants was constantly becoming more ap-
parent. The changes were limited, in the main, to three par-
ticulars: firstly, descent was changed to the male line; second-
ly, intermarriage in the gens was permitted in the case of
female orphans and heiresses; and thirdly, children had gained
an exclusive inheritance of their father's property. An at-
tempt will elsewhere be made to trace these changes, briefly,
and the causes by which they were produced.

The Hellenes in general were in fragmentary tribes, present-
ing the same characteristics in their form of government as the
barbarous tribes in general, when organized in gentes and in
the same stage of advancement. Their condition was precisely
such as might have been predicted would exist under gentile
institutions, and therefore presents nothing remarkable.

When Grecian society came for the first time under histor-
ical observation, about the first Olympiad {'jy6 B. C.) and
down to the legislation of Cleisthenes (509 B. C), it was

' Tlie phratries were not common to the Dorian tribes. — Miiller's Dorians,
Tufnel and Law's Trans., Oxford ed., ii, 82.

THE GRECIAN GENS. 21/

engaged upon the solution of a great problem. It was no less
than a fundamental change in the plan of government, involv-
ing a great modification of institutions. The people were seek-
ing to transfer themselves out of gentile society, in which they
had lived from time immemorial, into political society based
upon territory and upon property, which had become essential
to a career of civilization. In fine, they were striving to estab-
lish a state, the first in the experience of the Aryan family, and
to place it upon a territorial foundation, such as the state has
occupied from that time to the present. Ancient society rested
i upon an organization of persons, and was governed through
I the relations of persons to a gens and tribe; but the Grecian
1 tribes were outgrowing this old plan of government, and began
I to feel the necessity of a political system. To accomplish this
j result it was only necessary to invent a^eme or township, cir-
1 cumscribed with boundaries, to christen it with a name, and or-
' ganize the people therein as a body politic. The township,
with the fixed property it contained, and with the people who
inhabited it for the time being, was to become the unit of or-
ganization in the new plan of government. Thereafter the gen-
tilis, changed into a citizen, would be dealt with by the state
through his territorial relations, and not through his personal
relations to a gens. He would be enrolled in the deme of his
residence, which enrollment was the evidence of his citizenship ;
would vote and be taxed in his deme; and from it be called
into the mihtary service. Although apparently a simple idea,
it required centuries of time and a complete revolution of pre-
existing conceptions of government to accomplish the result.
The gens, which had so long been the unit of a social system,
had proved inadequate, as before suggested, to meet the re-
quirements of an advancing society. But to set this organiza-
tion aside, together with the phratry and tribe, and substitute a
number of fixed areas, each with its community of citizens, was,
in the nature of the case, a measure of extreme difficulty. The
relations of the individual to his gens, which were personal, had
to be transferred to the township and become territorial; the
demarch of the township taking, in some sense, the place of
the chief of the gens. A township with its fixed property would

2 1 8 ANCIENT SOCIE T Y.

be permanent, and the people therein sufficiently so; while the
gens was a fluctuating aggregate of persons, more or less scat-
tered, and now growing incapable of permanent establishment
in a local circumscription. Anterior to experience, a township,
as the unit of a political system, was abstruse enough to tax the
Greeks and Klomans to the depths of their capacities before the
conception was formed and set in practical operation. F^£S£-
erty was the new element that had been gradually remoulding
Grecian institutions to prepare the way for political society, of
which it was to be the mainspring as well as the foundation.
It was no easy task to accomplish such a fundamental change,
however simple and obvious it may now seem; because all the
previous experience of the Grecian tribes had been identified
i with the gentes whose powers were to be surrendered to the
\ new political bodies.

j Several centuries elapsed, after the first attempts were made
^ to found the new political system, before the problem was
solved. After experience had demonstrated that the gentes
were incapable of forming the basis of a state, several distinct
schemes of legislation were tried in the various Grecian com-
v munities, who copied more or less each other's experiments, all
I tending to the same result. Among the Athenians, from whose
'experience the chief illustrations will be drawn, may be men-
tioned the legislation of Theseus, on the authority of tradition;
that of Draco (624 B. C); that of Solon (594 B. C); and
that of Cleisthenes (509 B. C), the last three of which were
within the historical period. The development of municipal
life and institutions, the aggregation of wealth in walled cities,
and the great changes in the mode of life thereby produced,
prepared the way for the overthrow of gentile society, and for
the establishment of political society in its place.

Before attempting to trace the transition from gentile into po-
litical society, with which the closing history of the gentes is
identified, the Grecian gens and its attributes will be first con-
sidered.

Athenian institutions are typical of Grecian institutions in
general, in whatever relates to the constitution of the gens and
tribe, down to the end of ancient society among them. At

THE GRECIAN GENS.

219

the commencement of the historical period, the lonians of At-
tica were subdivided, as is well known, into four tribes (Gele-
ontes, Hopletes, Aegicores, and Argades), speaking the same
dialect, and occupying a common territory. They had coal-
esced into a nation as distinguished from a confederacy of
tribes; but such a confederacy had probably existed in anterior
times.^ Each_Attic tribe was composed of three phratries, and
ea£h phratry of thirty gentes, making an aggregate of twelve
phratries, and of three hundred and sixty gentes in the four
tribes. Such is the general form of the statement, the fact be-
ing constant with respect to the number of tribes, and the
number of phratries in each, but liable to variation in the num-
ber of gentes in each phratry. In like manner the Dorians
were generally found in three tribes (Hylleis, Pamphyli, and
Dymanes), although forming a number of nationalities; as at
Sparta, Argos, Sicyon, Corinth, Epidaurus and Troezen; and
beyond the Peloponnesus at Megara, and elsewhere. One or
more non-Dorian tribes were found in some cases united with
them, as at Corinth, Sicyon and Argos.

In all cases the Grecian tribe presupposes the gentes, the
bond of kin and of dialect forming the basis upon which they
united in a tribe; but the tribe did not presuppose the phra-
try, which, as an intermediate organization, although very com-
mon among all these tribes, was liable to be intermitted. At
Sparta, there were subdivisions of the tribes called obes {(^ftai),
each tribe containing ten, which were analogous to phratries;
but concerning the functions of these organizations some un-
certainty prevails.^

The Athenian gentes will now be considered as they ap-
peared in their ultimate form and in full vitality; but with the

• Hermann mentions the confederacies of .(Egina, Athens, Prasia, Nauplia, etc.
—Political A iitiqiiilies of Greece, Oxford Trans., ch. i, s. il.

* "In the ancient Rhetra of Lycurgus, the tribes and obes are directed to be
maintained unaltered : but the statement of O. Miiller and Boeckh — that there were
thirty obes in all, ten to each tribe, — rests upon no higher evidence than a peculiar
punctuation in this Rhetra, which various other critics reject ; and seemingly with
good reason. We are thus left without any information respecting the obc, though
we know that it was an old peculiar and lasting division among the Spartan people."
— Crete's History of Greece, Murray's ed., ii, 362. But see Miiller's Dorians,
I. c, ii, 80.

220 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

elements of an incipient civilization arrayed against them, be-
fore which they were yielding step by step, and by which they
were to be overthrown witli tlie social system they created.
In some respects it is the most interesting portion of the his-
tory of this remarkable organization, which had brought human
society out of savagery, and carried it through barbarism into
the early stages of civilization.

The social system of the Athenians exhibits the following
series: first, the gens {ykvoi) founded upon kin; second, the
phratry {(pparpa and cpparpia), a brotherhood of gentes de-
rived by segmentation, probably, from an original gens; third,
the tribe {qjvXov, later cpvX?}), composed of several phratries,
the members of which spoke the same dialect; and fourth, a
people or nation, composed of several tribes united by coal-
escence into one gentile society, and occupying the same terri-
tory. These integral and ascending organizations exhausted
their social system under the gentes, excepting the confeder-
acy of tribes occupying independent territories, which, although
it occurred in some instances in the early period and sprang
naturally out of gentile institutions, led to no important results.
It is likely that the four Athenian tribes confederated before
they coalesced, the last occurring after they had collected in one
territory under pressure from other tribes. If true of them, it
would be equally true of the Dorian and other tribes. When
such tribes coalesced into a nation, there was no term in the
language to express the result, beyond a national name. The
Romans, under very similar institutions, styled themselves the
Populus Romanus, which expressed the fact exactly. They
were then simply a people, and nothing more ; which was all
that could result from an aggregation of gentes, curice and
tribes. The four Athenian tribes formed a society or people,
which became completely autonomous in the legendary period
under the name of the Athenians. Throughout the early
Grecian communities, the gens phratry and tribe were constant
phenomena of their social systems, with the occasional absence
of the phratry.

Mr. Grote has collected the principal facts with respect to
the Grecian gentes with such critical ability that they cannot

THE GRECIAN GENS. 221

be presented in a more authoritative manner than in his own
language, which will be quoted where he treats the subject
generally. After commenting upon the tribal divisions of the
Greeks, he proceeds as follows: "But the Phratries and Gentes
are a distribution completely different from this. They seem
aggregations of small primitive unities into larger; they are
independent of, and do not presuppose, the tribe ; they arise
separately and spontaneously, without preconcerted uniformity,
and Avithout reference to a common political purpose ; the leg-
islator finds them pre-existing, and adapts or modifies them to
gyiswer some national scheme. We must distinguish the general
fact of the classification, and the successive subordination in the
scale, of the families to the gens, of the gentes to the phratry,
and of the phratries to the tribe — from the precise numerical
symmetry with which this subordination is invested, as we read
it, — thirty families to a gens, thirty gentes to a phratry, three
phratries to each tribe. If such nice equality of numbers
could ever have been procured, by legislative constraint, op-
erating upon pre-existent natural elements, the proportions
could not have been permanently maintained. But we may
reasonably doubt whether it did ever so exist. . . . That
every phratry contained an equal number of gentes, and every
gens an equal number of families, is a supposition hardly admis-
sible without better evidence than we possess. But apart from
this questionable precision of numerical scale, the Phratries and
Gentes themselves were real, ancient, and durable associations
among the Athenian people, highly important to be understood.
The basis of the whole was the house, hearth, or family, — a
number.of which, greater or less, composed the Gens or Genos.
This gens was therefore a clan, sept, or enlarged, and partly
y factitious, brotherhood, bound together by, — i. Common relig-
ious ceremonies, and exclusive privilege of priesthood, in honor
of the same god, supposed to be the primitive ancestor, and
characterized by a special surname. 2. By a common burial
place.^ 3. By mutual rights of succession to property, 4. By

:^: ;; :; ~~ be

' xairoi Tii edriv odrti av ei? rd Ttarpcaa ''

Hvrfi-iocra rou? fxrjdev h^ yevsi ziSevra? Iddai.
— Demosthenes, Ettbtilicf

222 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries.
5. By mutual right and obligation to intermarry in certain de-
terminate cases, especially where there was an orphan daughter
or heiress. 6. By possession, in some cases, at least, of common
property, an archon and treasurer of their own. Such were the
rights and obligations characterizing the gentile union. The
phratric union, binding together several gentes, was less inti-
mate, but still included some mutual rights and obligations of
an analogous character; especially a communion of particular
sacred rites, and mutual privileges of prosecution in the event
of a phrator being slain. Each phratry was considered as
belonging to one of the four tribes, and all the phratries of the
same tribe enjoyed a certain periodical communion of sacred
rites under the presidency of a magistrate called the Phylo-
Basileus or tribe-king selected from the Eupatrids."^

The similarities between the Grecian and the Iroquois gens
will at once be recognized. Differences in characteristics will
also be perceived, growing out of the more advanced condition
of Grecian society, and a fuller development of their religious
system. It will not be necessary to verify the existence of the
several attributes of the gens named by Mr. Grote, as the
proof is plain in the classical authorities. There were other
characteristics which doubtless pertained to the Grecian gens,
although it may be difficult to establish the existence of all
of them; such as: 7. The limitation of descent to the male line;
8. The prohibition of intermarriage in the gens excepting in the
case of heiresses; 9. The right of adopting strangers into the
gens; and 10. The right of electing and deposing its chiefs.

The rights, privileges and obligations of the members of the
Grecian gens may be recapitulated, with the additions named,
as follows:

I. Common religious rites.

II. A common burial place.

III. Mutual rig Jits of sticccssiou to property of deceased mem-

bers.

IV. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense and redress of

injuries.

' History of Greece, iii, 53, et seq.

THE GRECIAN GENS.

223

V. The right to intermarry in the gens in the eases of orphan
daitgJiters and heiresses.

VI. The possession of eonunon property, an areJion, and a
treasurer.
VII. The limitation of descent to the male line.
VIII. The obligation not to marry in the gens exeept in speeified
eases. -

IX. The right to adopt strangers into the gens.

X. The I'igJit to eleet and depose its chiefs.

A brief reference to the added characteristics should be
made.

7. TJic limitation of descent to the male line. There is no doubt
that such was the rule, because it is proved by their genealo-
gies. I have not been able to find in any Greek author a defi-
nition of a gens or of a gentilis that would furnish a sufficient
test of the right of a given person to the gentile connection.
Cicero, Varro and Festus have defined the Roman gens and
gentilis, which were strictly analogous to the Grecian, with
sufficient fullness to show that descent was in the male line.
From the nature of the gens, descent was either in the female
line or the male, and included but a moiety of the descendants
of the founder. It is precisely like the family among ourselves.
Those who are descended from the males bear the family name,
and they constitute a gens in the full sense of the term, but in
a state of dispersion, and without any bond of union excepting
those nearest in degree. The females lose, with their marriage,
the family name, and with their children are transferred to an-
other family. Grote remarks that Aristotle was the "son of
the physician Nikomachus who belonged to the gens of the
Asklepiads."^ Whether Aristotle was of the gens of his father
depends upon the further question Avhether they both derived
their descent from Aesculapius, through males exclusively.
This is shown by Laertius, who states that " Aristotle was the
son of Nikomachus .... and Nikomachus was descended
from Nikomachus the son of Machaon, the son of Aescula-
pius."^ Although the higher members of the series may be

^ History of Greece, iii, 60.

* Diogenes, Laertius, Vit. Aristotle, v, I.

224 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

fabulous, the manner of tracing the descent would show the
gens of the person. The statement of Hermann, on the au-
thority of Isaeus, is also to the point. "Every infant was reg-
istered in the phratria and clan iyye.vo<i^ of its father."' Regis-
tration in the gens of the father implies that his children were
of his gens.

8. TJic obligation not to marry in the gens excepting in speci-
fied cases. This obligation may be deduced from the conse-
quences of marriage. The wife by her marriage lost the re-
ligious rites of her gens, and acquired those of her husband's
gens. The rule is stated as so general as to imply that mar-
riage was usually out of the gens. "The virgin who quits her
father's house," Wachsmuth remarks, "is no longer a sharer
of the paternal sacrificial hearth, but enters the religious com-
munion of her husband, and this gave sanctity to the marriage
tie."'* The fact of her registration is stated by Hermann as
follows: "Every newl}^ married woman, herself a citizen, was
on this account enrolled in the phratry of her husband."^ Spe-
cial religious rites (sacra gentilieia) were common in the Gre-
cian and Latin gens. Whether the wife forfeited her agnatic
rights by her marriage, as among the Romans, I am unable to
state. It is not probable that marriage severed all connection
with her gens, and the wife doubtless still counted herself of
the gens of her father.

The prohibition of intermarriage in the gens was funda-
mental in the archaic period; and it undoubtedly remained
after descent was changed to the male line, with the exception
of heiresses and female orphans for whose case special provision
was made. Although a tendency to free marriage, beyond
certain degrees of consanguinity, would follow the complete
establishment of the monogamian family, the rule requiring
persons to marry out of their own gens would be apt to remain
so long as the gens was the basis of the social system. The
special provision in respect to heiresses tends to confirm this
supposition. Becker remarks upon this question, that "rela-

' Political Antiquities of the Greeks, c. v, s. lOo; and vide Eiibiilides of Demos-
thenes, 24.

* Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, Woolrych's Trans., Oxford ed., 1837, i, 451.
3 Political Antiquities, I, c, cap. v, s. lOO.

THE GRECIAN GENS.

225

tionship was, with trifling limitations, no hinderance to marriage,
which could take place within all degrees of ayxiGreia^ or
Gvyyeveia, though naturally not in the yivoZ itself."^

9. The right to adopt strangers into the gejis. This right was
practiced at a later day, at least in fam.ilies; but it was done
Avith public formalities, and was doubtless limited to special
cases. '^ Purity of lineage became a matter of high concern in
the Attic gentes, interposing no doubt serious obstacles to the
use of the right except for weighty reasons.

10. The right to elect and depose its chiefs. This right un-
doubtedly existed in the Grecian gentes in the early period.
Presumptively it was possessed by them while in the Upper
Status of barbarism. Each gens had its archon {pcpx^^), which
was the common name for a chief Whether the office was
elective, for example, in the Homeric period, or was transmit-
ted by hereditary right to the eldest son, is a question. The
latter was not the ancient theory of the office; and a change so
great and radical, affecting the independence and personal
rights of all the m.embers of the gens, requires positive proof
to override the presumption against it. Hereditary right to an
office, carrying with it authority over, and obligations from, the
members of a gens is a very different thing from an office be-
stowed by a free election, with the reserved power to depose for
unworthy behavior. The free spirit of the Athenian gentes
down to the time of Solon and Cleisthenes forbids the supposi-
tion, as to them, that they had parted v/ith a right so vital to
the independence of the members of the gens. I have not
been able to find any satisfactory explanation of the tenure of
this office. Hereditary succession, if it existed, would indicate
a remarkable development of the aristocratical element in
ancient society, in derogation of the democratical constitution
of the gentes. Moreover, it would be a sign of the commence-
ment, at least, of their decadence. All the members of a
gens were free and equal, the rich and the poor enjoying equal

• Charicles, Metcalfe's Trans., Lond. ed., 1866, p. 477; citing Isaetis de Cir.
her. 217: Demosthenes adv. EbtiL, 1304: Plutarch, Themist., 32: Pajtsanias, i,
7, l: Achill. Tat., i, 3.

* Hermann, /. c, v, s. 100 and lOl.

226 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

rights and privileges, and acknowledging the same in each
other. We find liberty, equality and fraternity, written as
plainly in the constitution of the Athenian gentes as in those
of the Iroquois. Hereditary right to the principal office of the
gens is totally inconsistent with the older doctrine of equal
rights and privileges.

Whether the higher offices of anax, koiranos, and basileus
were transmitted by hereditary right from father to son, or
were elective or confirmative by a larger constituency, is also
a question. It will be considered elsewhere. The former
would indicate the subversion, as the latter the conservation,
of gentile institutions. Without decisive evidence to the con-
trary every presumption is adverse to hereditary right. Some
additional light will be gained on this subject when the Roman
gentes are considered. A careful re-investigation of the tenure
of this office would, not unlikely, modify essentially the re-
ceived accounts.

It may be considered substantially assured that the Grecian
gentes possessed the ten principal attributes named. All save
three, namely, descent in the male line, marrying into the gens
in the case of heiresses, and the possible transmission of the
highest military office by hereditary right, are found with slight
variations in the gentes of the Iroquois. It is thus rendered
apparent that in the gentes, both the Grecian and the Iroquois
tribes possessed the same original institution, the one having
the gens in its later, and the other in its archaic form.

Recurring now to the quotation from Mr. Grote, it may be
remarked that had he been familiar with the archaic form
of the gens, and with the several forms of the family anterior
to the monogamian, he would probably have modified essen-
tially some portion of his statement. An exception must be
taken to his position that the basis of the social system of the
Greeks "was the house, hearth, or family." The form of the
family in the mind of the distinguished historian was evidently
the Roman, under the iron-clad rule of a pater faviilias, to
which the Grecian family of the Homeric period approximated
in the complete domination of the father over the household.
It would have been equally untenable had other and anterior

THE GRECIAN GENS.

227

forms of the family been intended. The gens, in its origin,
is older than the monogamian family, older than the syndy-
asmian, and substantially contemporaneous with the punaluan.
In no sense was it founded upon either. It does not recognize
the existence of the family of any form as a constituent of
itself On the contrary, every family in the archaic as well as
in the later period, was partly within and partly without the
gens, because husband and wife must belong to different gen-
tes. The explanation is both simple and complete ; namely,
that the family springs up independently of the gens with
entire freedom to advance from a lower into a' higher form,
while the gens is constant, as w^ell as the unit of the social
system. The gens entered entire into the phratry, the phratry
entered entire into the tribe, and the tribe entered entire into
the nation ; but the family could not enter entire into the gens
because husband and wife must belong to different gentes.

The question here raised is important, since not only Mr.
Grote, but also Niebuhr, Thirlwall, Maine, Mommsen, and
many other able and acute investigators have taken the same
position with respect to the monogamian family of the patri-
archal type as the integer around which society integrated in
the Grecian and Roman systems. Nothing whatever was
based upon the family in any of its forms, because it was
incapable of entering a gens as a v/hole. The gens was homo-
geneous and to a great extent permanent in duration, and as
such, the natural basis of a social system. A family of the
monogamian type might have become individualized and pow-
erful in a gens, and in society at large ; but the gens never-
theless did not and could not recognize or depend upon the
family as an integer of itself The same remarks are equally
true with respect to the modern family and political society.
Although individuahzed by property rights and privileges, and
recognized as a legal entity by statutory enactment, the family
is not the unit of the political system. The state recognizes
the counties of which it is composed, the county its townships,
but the township takes no note of the family; so the nation
recognized its tribes, the tribes its phratries, and the phratries
its gentes ; but the gens took no note of the family. In dealing

228 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

with the structure of society, organic relations alone are to be
considered. The township stands in the same relation to polit-
ical society that the gens did to gentile society. Each is the
unit of a system.

There are a number of valuable observations by Mr. Grote,
upon the Grecian gentes, which I desire to incorporate as an
exposition of them ; although these observations seem to
imply that they are no older than the then existing mythology,
or hierarchy of the gods from the members of which some
of the gentes claimed to have derived their eponymous an-
cestor. In the light of the facts presented, the gentes are seen
to have existed long before this mythology was developed —
before Jupiter or Neptune, Mars or Venus were conceived in
the human mind.

Mr. Grote proceeds: "Thus stood the primitive religious
and social union of the population of Attica in its gradually
ascending scale — as distinguished from the political union,
probably of later introduction, represented at first by the
trittyes and naukraries, and in after times by the ten Kleisthe-
nean tribes, subdivided into trittyes and demes. The religious
and family bond of aggregation is the earlier of the two ; but
the political bond, though beginning later, will be found to
acquire constantly increasing influence throughout the greater
part of this history. In the former, personal relation is the
essential and predominant characteristic — local relation being
subordinate : in the latter, property and residence become the
chief considerations, and the personal element counts only as
measured along with these accompaniments. All these phra-
tric and gentile associations, the larger as well as the smaller,
were founded upon the same principles and tendencies of the
Grecian mind — a coalescence of the idea of worship with that
of ancestry, or of communion in certain special religious rites
with communion of blood, real or supposed. The god or
hero, to whom the assembled members offered their sacrifices,
was conceived as the primitive ancestor to whom they owed
their origin ; often through a long list of intermediate names,
as in the case of the Milesian Hekataeus, so often before re-
ferred to. Each family had its own sacred rites and funeral

THE GRECIAN GENS. 229

commemorations of ancestors, celebrated by the master of the
house, to which none but members of the family were admissi-
ble. . . . The larger associations, called gens, phratry, tribe,
were formed by an extension of the same principle — of the
family considered as a religious brotherhood, worshiping some
common god or hero with an appropriate surname, and recog-
nizing him as tlieir joint ancestor ; and the festival of Theoenia,
and Apaturia (the first Attic, the second common to all the
Ionian race) annually brought together the members of these
phratries and gentes for worship, festivity, and maintenance
of special sympathies ; thus strengthening the larger ties with-
out effacing the smaller. . . . But the historian must accept
as an ultimate fact the earliest state of things which his wit-
nesses make known to him, and in the case now before us,
the gentile and phratric unions are matters into the beginning
of which we cannot pretend to penetrate."^

"The gentes both at Athens, and in other parts of Greece,
bore a patronymic name, the stamp of their believed common
paternity.^ . . . But at Athens, at least after the revolution
of Kleisthenes, the gentile name was not employed : a man
was described by his own single name, followed first by the
name of his father, and next by that of the deme to which he
belonged, — as Aeschines son of Atromctiis, a KotJiokid. . . .
The gens constituted a close incorporation, both as to property
.and as to persons. Until the time of Solon, no man had any
power of testamentary disposition. If he died without chil-
dren, his gennetes succeeded to his property, and so they
continued to do even after Solon, if he died intestate. An
orphan girl might be claimed in marriage of right by any
member of the gens, the nearest agnates being preferred ; if she

' History of Greece, iii, 55.

' "We find the Asklepiadee in many parts of Greece — the Aleuadre in Thessaly
— the Midylidte, Psalychidse, Belpsiada;, Euxenidae, at Aegina — the Branchidse
at Miletus — the Nebridse at Kos — the lamidse and Klytiadae at Olympia— the
Akestoridse at Argos — the Kinyradje at Cyprus— the Penthilidae at Mitylene —
the TalthybiadK at Sparta — not less than the Kodridae, Eumolpidte, Phytalidre,
Lykomgdae, Butadse, Euneidce, Hesychidas, Brytiadje, etc., in Attica. To each
of these corresponded a mythical ancestor more or less known, and passing for the
first father as well as the eponymous hero of the gens — Kodrus, Eumolpus, Butes,
Phytalus, Hesychus, etc." — Grote's Hist, of Greece, iii, 62.

230

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

was poor, and he did not choose to marry her himself, the law
of Solon compelled him to provide her with a dowry pro-
portional to his enrolled scale of property, and to give her out
in marriage to another. ... If a man was murdered, first
his near relations, next his gennetes and phrators, were both
•allowed and required to prosecute the crime at law ; while his
fellow demots, or inhabitants of the same deme, did not possess
the like right of prosecuting. All that we hear of the most
ancient Athenian laws is based upon the gentile and phratric
divisions, which are treated throughout as extensions of the
family. It is to be observed that this division is completely inde-
pendent of any property qualification — rich men as well as poor
being comprehended in the same gens. Moreover, the differ-
ent gentes were very unequal in dignity, arising chiefly from
the religious ceremonies of which each possessed the hereditary
and exclusive administration, and which, being in some cases
considered of pre-eminent sanctity in reference to the whole
city, were therefore nationalized. Thus the Eumolpidae and
Kerykes, who supplied the hicrophant and superintendent
of the mysteries of the Eleusinian Demeter — and the Buta-
dae, who furnished the priestess of Athene Polias, as well as
the priest of Poseidon Erechtheus in the Acropolis — seem to
have been reverenced above all the other gentes."^

Mr. Grote speaks of the gens as an extension of the family,
and as presupposing its existence; treating the family as pri-
mary and the gens as secondary. This view, for the reasons
stated, is untenable. The two organizations proceed upon dif-
ferent principles and are independent of each other. The gens
embraces a part only of the descendants of a supposed common
ancestor, and excludes the remainder; it also embraces a part
only of a family, and excludes the remainder. In order to be
a constituent of the gens, the family should enter entire within
its folds, which was impossible in the archaic period, and con-
structive only in the later. In the organization of gentile so-
ciety the gens is primary, forming both the basis and the unit
of the system. The family also is primary, and older than the
gens; the punaluan and the consanguine families having pre-

* History of Greece, iii, 62, et seq.

THE GRECIAN GENS. 23 I

ceded it in the order of time; but it was not a member of the
organic series in ancient society any more than it is in modern.

The gens existed in the Aryan family when the Latin, Gre-
cian and Sanskrit speaking tribes were one people, as is shown
by the presence in their dialects of the same term (gens, yivo<;^
and ganas) to express the organization. They derived it from
their barbarous ancestors, and more remotely from their savage
progenitors. If the Aryan family became differentiated as
early as the Middle Period of barbarism, which seems probable,
the gens must have been transmitted to them in its archaic
form. After that event, and during the long periods of time
which elapsed between the separation of these tribes from each
other and the commencement of civilization, those changes in
the constitution of the gens, which have been noticed hypothet-
ically, must have occurred. It is impossible to conceive of the
gens as appearing, for the first "time, in any other than its ar-
chaic form; consequently the Grecian gens must have been
originally in this form. If, then, causes can be found adequate
to account for so great a change of descent as that from the fe-
male line to the male, the argument will be complete, although
in the end it substituted a new body of kindred in the gens in
place of the old. The growth of the idea of property, and the
rise of monogamy, furnished motives sufficiently powerful to
demand and obtain this change in order to bring children into
the gens of their father, and into a participation in the inheritance
of his estate. Monogamy assured the paternity of children, which
was unknown when the gens was instituted, and the exclusion
of children from the inheritance was no longer possible. In
the face of the new circumstances, the gens would be forced
into reconstruction or dissolution. When the gens of the
Iroquois, as it appeared in the Lower Status of barbarism, is
placed beside the gens of the Grecian tribes as it appeared in
the Upper Status, it is impossible not to perceive that they are
the same organization, the one in its archaic and the other in its
ultimate form. The differences between them are precisely
those which would have been forced upon the gens by the ex-
igencies of human progress.

Along with these mutations in the constitution of the gens

232

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

are found the parallel mutations in the rule of inheritance.
Property, always hereditary in the gens, was first hereditary
among the gentiles; secondly, hereditary among the agnates, to
the exclusion of the remaining gentiles; and now, thirdly, he-
reditary among the agnates in succession, in the order of their
nearness to the decedent, which gave an exclusive inherit-
ance to the children as the nearest agnates. The pertinacity
with which the principle was maintained down to the time of
Solon, that the property should remain in the gens of the de-
ceased owner, illustrates the vitality of the organization through
all these periods. It was this rule which compelled the heiress
to marry in her own gens to prevent a transfer of the property
by her marriage to another gens. When Solon allowed the
owner of property to dispose of it by will, in case he had no
children, he made the first inroad upon the property rights of
the gens.

How nearly the members of a gens were related, or whether
they were related at all, has been made a question. Mr. Grote
remarked that "Pollux informs us distinctly that the members of
the same gens at Athens were not commonly related by blood, —
and even without any express testimony we might have con-
cluded such to be the fact. To what extent the gens, at the un-
known epoch of its formation was based upon actual relation-
ship, we have no means of determining, either with regard to the
Athenian or the Roman gentes, which were in the main points
analogous. Gentilism is a tie by itself; distinct from the family
ties, but presupposing their existence and extending them by
an artificial analogy, partly founded in religious belief, and
partly on positive compact, so as to comprehend strangers in
blood. All the members of one gens, or even of one phratry,
believed themselves to be sprung, not indeed from the same
grandfather or great-grandfather, but from the same divine or
heroic ancestor. . . . And this fundamental belief, into which
the Greek mind passed with so much facility, was adopted and
converted by positive compact into the gentile and phratric prin-
ciple of union. . . . Doubtless Niebuhr, in his valuable discus-
sion of the ancient Roman gentes, is right in supposing that
they were not real families, procreated from any common his-

THE GRECIAN GENS. 233

torical ancestor. Still it is not the less true (although he seems
to suppose otherwise) that the idea of the gens involved tJw be-
lief in a common first father, divine or heroic — a genealogy
which we may properly call fabulous, but which was consecrat-
ed and accredited among the members of the gens itself; and
served as one important bond of union between them. . . . The
natural families of course changed from generation to generation,
some extending themselves, while others diminished or died
out; but the gens received no alterations, except through the
procreation, extinction, or subdivision of these component
families. Accordingly the relations of the families with the gens
were in perpetual course of fluctuation, and the gentile ances-
torial genealogy, adapted as it doubtless was to the early condi-
tion of the gens, became in process of time partially obsolete
and unsuitable. We hear of this genealogy but rarely, because
it is only brought before the public in certain cases pre-eminent
and venerable. But the humbler gentes had their common
rites, and common superhuman ancestor and genealogy, as
well as the more celebrated: the scheme and ideal basis was
the same in all."^

The several statements of Pollux, Niebuhr and Grote are
true in a certain sense, but not absolutely so. The lineage of
a gens ran back of the acknowledged ancestor, and therefore
the gens of ancient date could not have had a known progeni-
tor; neither could the fact of a blood connection be proved by
their system of consanguinity; nevertheless the gentiles not
only believed in their common descent, but were justified in so
believing. The system of consanguinity which pertained to
the gens in its archaic form, and which the Greeks probably
once possessed, preserved a knowledge of the relationships of
all the members of a gens to each other. This fell into des-
uetude with the rise of the monogamian family, as I shall
endeavor elsewhere to show. The gentile name created a ped-
igree beside which that of a family was insignificant. It was
the function of this name to preserve the fact of the common
descent of those who bore it; but the lineage of the gens was
so ancient that its members could not prove the actual relation-

' Hist, of Greece, iii, 5S, et seq.

234

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ship existing between them, except in a limited number of
cases through recent common ancestors. The name itself was
the evidence of a common descent, and conclusive, except as it
was liable to interruption through the adoption of strangers in
blood in the previous history of the gens. The practical denial
of all relationship between its members made by Pollux and
Niebuhr, which would change the gens into a purely fictitious
association, has no ground to rest upon. A large proportion
of the number could prove their relationship through descent
from common ancestors within the gens, and as to the remain-
der the gentile name they bore was sufficient evidence of com-
mon descent for practical purposes. The Grecian gens was
not usually a large body of persons. Thirty families to a gens,
not counting the wives of the heads of families, would give, by
the common rule of computation, an average of one hundred
and twenty persons to the gens.

As the unit of the organic social system, the gens would
naturally become the centre of social life and activity. It was
organized as a social bod}% with its archon or chief, and treas-
urer; having common lands to some extent, a common burial
place, and common religious rites. Beside these were the
rights, privileges and obligations which the gens conferred and
imposed upon all its members. It was in the gens that the re-
ligious activity of the Greeks originated, which expanded over
the phratries, and culminated in periodical festivals common to
all the tribes. This subject has been admirably treated by M.
De Coulanges in his recent work on "The Ancient City."

In order to understand the condition of Grecian society, an-
terior to the formation of the state, it is necessary to know the
constitution and principles of the Grecian gens; for the char-
acter of the unit determines the character of its compounds in
the ascending series, and can alone furnish the means for their
explanation.

CHAPTER IX.

THE GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION.

The Athenian Phratry. — How Formed. — Definition of Dik^earchus.
— Objects chiefly Religious. — The Phratriarch. — The Tribe. — Composed
OF Three Phratries. — The Phylo-Basileus. — The Nation. — Composed of
Four Tribes. — Boule, or Council of Chiefs. — Agora, or Assembly of the
People. — The Basileus. — Tenure of the Office. — Military and Priestly
Functions. — Civil Functions not shown. — Governments of the Heroic
Age, Military Democracies. — Aristotle's Definition of a Basileus. —
Later AtheniaxN Democracy. — Inherited from the Gentes. — Its power-
ful Influence upon Athenian Development.

The phratry, as we have seen, was the second stage of or-
ganization in the Grecian social system. It consisted of several
gentes united for objects, especially religious, which were com-
mon to them all. It had a natural foundation in the bond
of kin, as the gentes in a phratry were probably subdivisions
of an original gens, a knowledge of the fact having been
preserved by tradition. "All the contemporary members
of the phratry of Hekataeus," Mr. Grote remarks, "had a
common god for their ancestor at the sixteenth degree,"^ which
could not have been asserted unless the several gentes com-
prised in the phratry of Hekataeus, were supposed to be de-
rived by segmentation from an original gens. This genealogy,
although in part fabulous, would be traced according to gentile
usages. Dikaearchus supposed that the practice of certain
gentes in supplying each other with wives, led to the phratric
organization for the performance of common religious rites.

' History of Greece, iii, 58.

236 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

This is a plausible explanation, because such marriages would
intermingle the blood of the gentes. On the contrary, gentes
formed, in the course of time, by the division of a gens and
by subsequent subdivisions, would give to all a common lineage,
and form a natural basis for their re-integration in a phratry.
As such the phratry would be a natural growth, and as such
only can it be explained as a gentile institution. The gentes
thus united were brother gentes, and the association itself was
a brotherhood as the term imports.

Stephanus of Byzantium has preserved a fragment of
Dikaearchus, in which an explanation of the origin of the
gens, phratry and tribe is suggested. It is not full enough,
with respect to either, to amount to a definition ; but it is valu-
able as a recognition of the three stages of organization in
ancient Grecian society. He uses patry {rtaTpa) in the place
of gens {ytvo?), as Pindar did in a number of instances, and
Homer occasionally. The passage may be rendered: "Patry
is one of three forms of social union among the Greeks, ac-
cording to Dikaearchus, which we call respectively, patry, phra-
try, and tribe. The patry comes into being when relationship,
originally solitary, passes over into the second stage [the rela-
tionship of parents with children and children with parents],
and derives its eponym from the oldest and chief member of
the patry, as Aicidas, Pelopidas."

"But it came to be called phatria and phratria when certain
ones gave their daughters to be married into another patry.
For the woman who was given in marriage participated no
longer in her paternal sacred rites, but was enrolled in the
patry of her husband ; so that for the union, formerly subsist-
ing by affection between sisters and brothers, there was estab-
lished another union based on community of religious rites,
which they denominated a phratry; and so that again, while
the patry took its rise in the way we have previously men-
tioned, from the blood relation between parents and children
and children and parents, the phratry took its rise from the
relationship between brothers."

"But tribe and tribesmen were so called from the coalescence

GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION. 237

into communities and nations so called, for each of the coalesc-
ing bodies was called a tribe. "^

It will be noticed that marriage out of the gens is here
recognized as a custom, and that the wife was enrolled in the
gens, rather than the phratry, of her husband. Dikaearchus,
who was a pupil of Aristotle, lived at a time when the gens
existed chiefly as a pedigree of individuals, its powers having
been transferred to new political bodies. He derived the origin
of the gens from primitive times ; but his statement that the
phratry originated in the matrimonial practices of the gentes,
while true doubtless as to the practice, is but an opinion as to
the origin of the organization. Intermarriages, with common
religious rites, would cement the phratric union ; but a more
satisfactory foundation of the phratry may be found in the
common lineage of the gentes of which it was composed. It
must be remembered that the gentes have a history running
back through the three sub-periods of barbarism into the pre-
vious period of savagery, antedating the existence even of the
Aryan and Semitic families. The phratry has been shown to
have appeared among the American aborigines in the Lower
Status of barbarism ; while the Greeks were familiar with so
much only of their former history as pertained to the Upper
Status of barbarism.

Mr. Grote does not attempt to define the functions of the
phratry, except generally. They were doubtless of a religious
character chiefly ; but they probably manifested themselves, as
among the Iroquois, at the burial of the dead, at public games,
at religious festivals, at councils, and at the agoras of the
people, where the grouping of chiefs and people would be by
phratries rather than by gentes. It would also naturally show
itself in the array of the military forces, of which a memorable
example is given by Homer in the address of Nestor to Aga-
memnon.^ "Separate the troops by tribes and by phratries,
Agamemnon, so that phratry may support phratry, and tribes,
tribes {xft^'^^' avdai nard q)vXa, nara qjpy'jTpaS, Ayd}.ie)xvoVj
00^ cppyjrpj] q)prjrpj]q)iv apr'jyrj, qjvXa 6e cpvXoii). If thou

' Wachsmuth's Historical Antiquities of the Greeks, I. c, i, 449, app. for text.
* Iliad, ii, 362.

238

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

wilt thus act, and the Greeks obey, thou wilt then ascertain
which of the commanders and which of the soldiers is a
coward, and which of them may be brave, for they will fight
their best." The number from the same gens in a military
force would be too small to be made a basis in the organization
of an army ; but the larger aggregations of the phratries and
tribes would be sufficient. Two things may be inferred from
the advice of Nestor: first, that the organization of armies by
phratries and tribes had then ceased to be common ; and
secondly, that in ancient times it had been the usual plan of
army organization, a knowledge of which had not then dis-
appeared. We have seen that the Tlascalans and Aztecs, who
were in the Middle Status of barbarism, organized and sent out
their military bands by phratries which, in their condition, was
probably the only method in which a military force could be
organized. The ancient German tribes organized their armies
for battle on a similar principle.' It is interesting to notice
how closely shut in the tribes of mankind have been to the
theory of their social system.

The obligation of blood revenge, which was turned at a later
day into a duty of prosecuting the murderer before the legal
tribunals, rested primarily upon the gens of the slain person ;
but it was also shared in by the phratry, and became a phratric
obligation.^ In the Eumenides of Aeschylus, the Erinnys,
after speaking of the slaying of his mother by Orestes, put the
question : "What lustral water of his phrators shall await him?"^
which seems to imply that if the criminal escaped punishment
final purification was performed by his phratry instead of his
gens. Moreover, the extension of the obligation from the
gens to the phratry implies a common lineage of all the gentes
in a phratry.

Since the phratry was intermediate between the gens and
the tribe, and not invested with governmental functions, it was
less fundamental and less important than either of the others ;
but it was a common, natural and perhaps necessary stage

' Tacitus, Germania, cap. vii.

2 Grotc's Ilislory of Greece, iii, 55. Tlie Court of Areopagus took jurisdiction
over homicides. — lb., iii, 79.
5 Uoia ds ;j;£/3T'z^ cppatipcov TtpodSe^srat. — Etim., 656.

GRECIAN PHRA TR V, TRIBE AiWD NA TION.

239

of re-integration between the two. Could an intimate knowl-
edge of the social life of the Greeks in that early period be
recovered, the phenomena would centre probably in the phra-
tric organization far more conspicuously than our scanty records
lead us to infer. It probably possessed more power and influ-
ence than is usually ascribed to it as an organization. Among
the Athenians it survived the overthrow of the gentes as the
basis of a system, and retained, under the new political system,
some control over the registration of citizens, the enrollment
of marriages and the prosecution of the murderer of a phrator
before the courts.

It is customary to speak of the four Athenian tribes as
divided each into three phratries, and of each phratry as
divided into thirty gentes ; but this is merely for convenience
in description. A people under gentile institutions do not
divide themselves into symmetrical divisions and subdivisions.
The natural process of their formation was the exact reverse
of this' method ; the gentes fell into phratries, and ultimately
into tribes, which reunited in a society or a people. Each was
a natural growth. That the number of gentes in each Athe-
nian phratry was thirty is a remarkable fact incapable of ex-
planation by natural causes. A motive sufficiently powerful,
such as a desire for a symmetrical organization of the phratries
and tribes, might lead to a subdivision of gentes by consent
until the number was raised to thirty in each of these phratries;
and when the number in a tribe was in excess, by the con-
solidation of kindred gentes until the number was reduced to
thirty. A more probable way would be by the admission
of alien gentes into phratries needing an increase of number.
Having a certain number of tribes, phratries and gentes by
natural growth, the reduction of the last two to uniformity
in the four tribes could thus have been secured. Once cast
in this numerical scale of thirty gentes to a phratry and three
phratries to a tribe, the proportion might easily have been
maintained for centuries, except perhaps as to the number
of gentes in each phratry.

The religious life of the Grecian tribes had its centre and
source in the gentes and phratries. It must be supposed that

240

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

in and through these organizations, was perfected that marvel-
ous polytheistic system, with its hierarchy of gods, its symbols
and forms of worship, which impressed so powerfully the mind
of the classical world. In no small degree this mythology in-
spired the great achievements of the legendary and historical
periods, and created that enthusiasm which produced the temple
and ornamental architecture in which the modern world has
taken so much delight. Some of the religious rites, which orig-
inated in these social aggregates, were nationalized from the su-
perior sanctity they were supposed to possess; thus showing to
what extent the gentes and phratries were nurseries of religion.
The events of this extraordinary period, the most eventful in
many respects in the history of the Aryan family, are lost, in
the main, to history. Legendary genealogies and narratives,
myths and fragments of poetry, concluding with the Homeric
and Hesiodic poems, make up its literary remains. But their
institutions, arts, inventions, mythological system, in a word the
substance of civilization which they wrought out and brought
with them, were the legacy they contributed to the new society
they were destined to found. The history of the period may
yet be reconstructed from these various sources of knowledge,
reproducing the main features of gentile society as they appeared
shortly before the institution of political society.

As the gens had its archon, who officiated as its priest in the
religious observances of the gens, so each phratry had its phra-
triarch {(ppar piapxo'i), who presided at its meetings, and offi-
ciated in the solemnization of its religious rites. "The phratry,"
observes M. De Coulanges, " had its assemblies and its tribunals,
and could pass decrees. In it, as well as in the family, there
was a god, a priesthood, a legal tribunal and a government."^
The religious rites of the phratries were an expansion of those
of the gentes of which it was composed. It is in these direc-
tions that attention should be turned in order to understand the
religious life of the Greeks.

Next in the ascending scale of organization was the tribe,
consisting of a number of phratries, each composed of gentes.
The persons in each phratry were of the same common lineage,

' The Ancient City, Small's Trans., p. 157. Boston, Lee & Shepard.

GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION. 24 1

and spoke the same dialect. Among the Athenians as before
stated each tribe contained three phratries, which gave to each
a similar organization. The tribe corresponds with the Latin
tribe, and also with those of the American aborigines, an in-
dependent dialect for each tribe being necessary to render the
analogy with the latter complete. The concentration of such
Grecian tribes as had coalesced into a people, in a small area,
tended to repress dialectical variation, which a subsequent
written language and literature tended still further to arrest.
Each tribe from antecedent habits, however, was more or less
localized in a fixed area, through the requirements of a social
system resting on personal relations. It seems probable that
each tribe had its council of chiefs, supreme in all matters re-
lating to the tribe exclusively. But since the functions and
powers of the general council of chiefs, who administered the
general affairs of the united tribes, were allowed to fall into ob-
scurity, it would not be expected that those of an inferior and
subordinate council Vv'ould be preserved. If such a council ex-
isted, which was doubtless the fact from its necessity under their
social system, it would have consisted of the chiefs of the gentes.
When the several phratries of a tribe united in the commem-
oration of their religious observances it was in their higher or-
ganic constitution as a tribe. As such, they vv^ere under the
presidency, as we find it expressed, of a phylo-basileus, who
was the principal chief of the tribe. Whether he acted as their
commander in the military service I am unable to state. He
possessed priestly functions, always inherent in the office of
basileus, and exercised a criminal jurisdiction in cases of mur-
der; whether to try or to prosecute a murderer, I am unable to
state. The priestly and judicial functions attached to the ofifice
of basileus tend to explain the dignity it acquired in the legend-
ary and heroic periods. But the absence of civil functions, in
the strict sense of the term, of the presence of which we have
no satisfactory evidence, is sufficient to render the term king,
so constantly employed in history as the equivalent of basileus,
a misnomer. Among the Athenians we have the tribe-basileus,
where the term is used by the Greeks themselves as legitimately
as when applied to the general military commander of the four
16

242

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

united tribes. When each is described as a king it makes the
solecism of four tribes each under a king separately, and the
four tribes together under another king. There is a larger
amount of fictitious royalty here than the occasion requires.
Moreover, when we know that the institutions of the Athenians
at the time were essentially democratical it becomes a carica-
ture of Grecian society. It shows the propriety of returning to
simple and original language, using the term basileus where the
Greeks used it, and rejecting king as a false equivalent. Mon-
archy is incompatible with gentilism, for the reason that gen-
tile institutions are essentially democratical. Every gens, phra-
try and tribe was a completely organized self-governing body;
and where several tribes coalesced into a nation the resulting
government would be constituted in harmony with the princi-
ples animating its constituent parts.

The fourth and ultimate stage of organization was the nation
united in a gentile society. Where several tribes, as those of
the Athenians and the Spartans, coalesced into one people, it
enlarged the society, but the aggregate was simply a more com-
plex duplicate of a tribe. The tribes took the same place in
the nation which the phratries held in the tribe, and the gentes
in the phratry. There was no name for the organism^ which was
simply a society {socictas), but in its place a name sprang up
for the people or nation. In Homer's description of the forces
gathered against Troy, specific names are given to these na-
tions, where such existed, as Athenians, yEtolians, Locrians;
but in other cases they are described by the name of the city
or country from which they came. The ultimate fact is thus
reached, that the Greeks, prior to the times of Lycurgus and
Solon, had but the four stages of social organization (gens,
phratry, tribe and nation), which was so nearly universal in an-
cient society, and which has been shown to exist, in part, in the
Status of savagery, and complete in the Lower, in the Middle
and in the Upper Status of barbarism, and still subsisting after
civilization had commenced. This organic series expresses the
extent of the growth of the idea of government among man-

* Aristotle, Thucydides, and other writers, use the term basileia {(id6iXBia)
for the governments of the heroic period.

GRECIAN PHRA TR \ \ TRIBE AND NA TION.

243

kind down to the institution of political society. Such was the
Grecian social system. It gave a society, made up of a series
of aggregates of persons, with whom the government dealt
through their personal relations to a gens, phratry or tribe. It
was also a gentile society as distinguished from a political soci-
ety, from which it was fundamentally different and easily dis-
tinguishable.

The Athenian nation of the heroic age presents in its gov-
ernment three distinct, and in some sense co-ordinate, depart-
ments or powers, namely: first, the council of chiefs {ftovXi]);
second, the agora (ayopd), or assembly of the people; and
third, the basileus [fSaffilsv'^), or general military commander.
Although municipal and subordinate military offices in large
numbers had been created, from the increasing necessities of
their condition, the principal powers of the government were
held by the three instrumentalities named. I am unable to
discuss in an adequate manner the functions and powers of the
council, the agora or the basileus, but will content myself with
a few suggestions upon subjects grave enough to deserve re-
investigation at the hands of professed Hellenists.

I. The Council of Chiefs. The office of basileus in the Gre-
cian tribes has attracted far more attention than either the
council or the agora. As a consequence it has been unduly
magnified while the council and the agora have either been de-
preciated or ignored. We know, however, that the council of
chiefs was a constant phenomenon in every Grecian nation
from the earliest period to which our knowledge extends down
to the institution of political society. Its permanence as a
feature of their social system is conclusive evidence that its
functions were substantial, and that its powers, at least pre-
sumptively, w^ere ultimate and supreme. This presumption
arises from what is known of the archaic character and func-
tions of the council of chiefs under gentile institutions, and
from its vocation. How it was constituted in the heroic age,
and under what tenure the office of chief was held, we are not
clearly informed; but it is a reasonable inference that the coun-
cil was composed of the chiefs of the gentes. Since the num-
ber who formed the council was usually less than the number

244

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of gentes, a selection must have been made in some way from
the body of chiefs. In what manner the selection was made
we are not informed. The vocation of the council as a legisla-
tive body representing the principal gentes, and its natural
growth under the gentile organization, rendered it supreme in
the first instance, and makes it probable that it remained so to
the end of its existence. The increasing importance of the
office of basileus, and the new offices created in their military
and municipal affairs with their increase in numbers and in
wealth, would change somewhat the relations of the council to
public affairs, and perhaps diminish its importance; but it could
not be overthrown without a radical change of institutions. It
seems probable, therefore, that every office of the government,
from the highest to the lowest, remained accountable to the
council for their official acts. The council was fundamental in
their social system;^ and the Greeks of the period were free
self-governing peoples, under institutions essentially democrat-
ical. A single illustration of the existence of the council may
be given from Aeschylus, simply to show that in the Greek
conception it was always present and ready to act. In Tke
Seven against Thebes, Eteocles is represented in command of
the city, and his brother Polynices as one of the seven chiefs
who had invested the place. The assault was repelled, but the
brothers fell in a personal combat at one of the gates. After
this occurrence a herald says: "It is necessary for me to an-
nounce the decree and good pleasure of the councilors of the
people of this city of Cadmus. It is resolved,"^ etc. A coun-
cil which can make and promulgate a decree at any moment,
which the people are expected to obey, possesses the supreme

' "^ EXXrjviKov 8k apa xal tovto to s^oi i/v. roii yovv /JadiAsvdiv,
odoi re itarpiovi dpxdi itapaXdfioiEv xal udovZ r/ TtXf/Svi avrr)
Haradrijdairo r/yE/xovai, (iovXEvrrjpiov r]v kx vwv xparidroov, a5?
"OfnjpoZ TS xal oi TtaXaioraroi toov Ttotrftoov juaprvpovdf xal ovx
(SditF.p £v ro2? Ka3' ?jndi xpovoti av^ddEii xai juovoyvcojuovEi i/dav
ai Ti^v dpxodoov (iadtXioov Svvadreiai. — Dionyshis, 2, xii.
* SuHcwvTa uai do^avr^ dnayyiXXEiv jhe xPV
Sr/juov TtpofSovXoii rf/dSs Kad/LiEia? TtoXEOJi-
^EvEoxXea juiv roV5' fV Evyoia x^ovui
^ditvEiv e'do^E yffi (piXati xaTadxacpaTd.

— Aeschylus, The Seven against Thebes, 1005.

GRECIAN PHRA TR V, TRIBE AND NA TION. 245

powers of government. Aeschylus, although dealing in this
case with events in the legendary period, recognizes the coun-
cil of chiefs as a necessary part of the system of government
of every Grecian people. The boule of ancient Grecian society
was the prototype and pattern of the senate under the subse-
quent political system of the state.

II. The Agora. Although an assembly of the people be-
came established in the legendary period, with a recognized
power to adopt or reject public measures submitted by the
council, it is not as ancient as the council. The latter came in
at the institution of the gentes; but it is doubtful whether the
agora existed, with the functions named, back of the Upper
Status of barbarism. It has been shown that among the Iro-
quois, in the Lower Status, the people presented their wishes
to the council of chiefs through orators of their own selection,
and that a popular influence was felt in the affairs of the con-
federacy; but an assembly of the people, with the right to
adopt or reject public measures, would evince an amount of
progress in intelligence and knowledge beyond the Iroquois.
When the agora first appears, as represented in Homer, and in
the Greek Tragedies, it had the same characteristics which it
afterwards maintained in the ecclesia of the Athenians, and in
the comitia airiata of the Romans. It was the prerogative of
the council of chiefs to mature public measures, and then sub-
mit them to the assembly of the people for acceptance or re-
jection, and 'their decision was final. The functions of the
agora were limited to this single act. It could neither origi-
nate measures, nor interfere in the administration of affairs;
but nevertheless it was a substantial power, emiinently adapted
to the protection of their liberties. In the heroic age certainly,
and far back in the legendary period, the agora is a constant
phenomenon among the Grecian tribes, and, in connection with
the council, is conclusive evidence of the democratical consti-
tution of gentile society throughout these periods. A public
sentiment, as we have reason to suppose, was created among
the people on all important questions, through the exercise of
their intelligence, which the council of chiefs found it desirable
as well as necessary to consult, both for the public good and

246

ANCIENT SOCIETY

for the maintenance of their own authority. After hearing
the submitted question discussed, the assembly of the people,
which was free to all who desired to speak,^ made their decision
in ancient times usually by a show of hands.^ Through partici-
pation in public affairs, which affected the interests of all, the
people were constantly learning the art of self-government, and
a portion of them, as the Athenians, were preparing themselves
for the full democracy subsequently established by the consti-
tutions of Cleislhenes. The assembly of the people to deliber-
ate upon public questions, not unfrequently derided as a mob
by writers who were unable to understand or appreciate the
principle of democracy, was the germ of the ecclesia {aKuXijffia)
of the Athenians, and of the lower house of modern legislative
bodies.

III. The Basilcns. This officer became a conspicuous char-
acter in the Grecian society of the heroic age, and was equally
prominent in the legendary period. He has been placed by
historians in the centre of the system. The name of the office
[fiaaiXevi) was used by the best Grecian writers to character-
ize the government, which was styled a basileia {(SaGiXsiay
Modern writers, almost without exception, translate basileus by
the term king, and basileia by the term kingdom, without qual-
ification, and as exact equivalents. I wish to call attention to
this office of basileus, as it existed in the Grecian tribes, and to
question the correctness of this interpretation. There is no
similarity whatever between the basileia of the ancient Athe-
nians and the modern kingdom or monarchy; certainly not
enough to justify the use of the same term to describe both.
Our idea of a kingly government is essentially of a type in
which a king, surrounded by a privileged and titled class in the
ownership and possession of the lands, rules according to his
own will and pleasure by edicts and decrees ; claiming an
hereditary right to rule, because he cannot allege the consent
of the governed. Such governments have been self-imposed

1 Euripides, Orestes, S84.

' navdrjuia yap x^P'^^ Se^jcjviJfioi?
eq>iJi^Ev ai^rjfj x6v6e Hpatvovroov Xoyov.

— Aeschylus, The Suppliants, 607.

GRECIAN PHRA TR V, TRIBE AND NA TION. 247

through the principle of hereditary right, to which the priest-
hood have sought to superadd a divine right. The Tudor
kings of England and the Bourbon kings of France are illus-
trations. Constitutional monarchy is a modern development,
and essentially different from the basileia of the Greeks. The
basileia was neither an absolute nor a constitutional monarchy;
neither was it a tyranny or a despotism. The question then
is, what was it.

Mr. Grote claims that "the primitive Grecian government is
essentially monarchical, reposing on personal feeling and di-
vine right; "^ and to confirm this view he remarks further, that
" the memorable dictum in the Iliad is borne out by all that
we hear in actual practice: 'the rule of many is not a good
thing; let us have one ruler only — one king — him to whom
Zeus has given the sceptre, with the tutelary sanctions.'"^
This opinion is not peculiar to Mr. Grote, whose eminence as a
historian all delight to recognize; but it has been steadily and
generally affirmed by historical writers on Grecian themes, un-
til it has come to be accepted as historical truth. Our views
upon Grecian and Roman questions have been moulded by
writers accustomed to monarchical government and privileged
classes, who were perhaps glad to appeal to the earliest known
governments of the Grecian tribes for a sanction of this form
of government, as at once natural, essential and primitive.

The true statement, as it seems to an American, is pre-
cisely the reverse of Mr. Grote's; namely, that the primitive
Grecian government was essentially democratical, reposing on
gentes, phratries and tribes, organized as self-governing bod-
ies, and on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity.
This is borne out by all we know of the gentile organization,
which has been shown to rest on principles essentially demo-
cratical. The question then is, whether the office of basileus
passed in reality from father to son by hereditary right; which,
if true, would tend to show a subversion of these principles.
We have seen that in the Lower Status of barbarism the office of
chief was hereditary in a gens, by which is meant that the va-

* History of Greece, ii, 69.

2 History of Greece, ii, 69, and Iliad, ii, 204.

248

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

cancy was filled from the members of the gens as often as it
occurred. Where descent was in the female hne, as among
the Iroquois, an own brother was usually selected to succeed
the deceased chief, and where descent was in the male line, as
\ among the Ojibwas and Omahas, the oldest son. In the ab-
/ sence of objections to the person such became the rule; but
the elective principle remained, which was the essence of self-
government. It cannot be claimed^n satisfactory proof, that
theoldest son of_the basileus_took the office, upon the deniise
of liis father, by absolute heredjtaryjig^^^t!/|rhis is the essen-
tial fact; and it requires conclusive proof for its establishment.
The fact that the oldest, or one of the sons, usually succeeded,
which is admitted, does not establish the fact in question; be-
cause by usage he was in the probable line of succession by a
free election from a constituency. The presumption, on the
face of Grecian institutions, is against succession to the office
of basileus by hereditary right; and in favor either of a^ free
election, or of a confirmation of the office by the people through
/ their recognized_organizations, as in the case of the Roman^
'^ relcT With the office of basileus transmitted in the manner
i last named, the government would remain in the hands of the
I people. Because without an election or confirmation he could
\ not assume the office; and because further, the power to elect
or confirm implies the reserved right to depose.

The illustration of Mr. Grote, drawn from the Iliad, is with-
out significance on the question made. Ulysses, from whose
address the quotation is taken, was .speaking of the command
of an army before a besieged city. He might well say: "All
the Greeks cannot by any means rule here. The rule of many
is not a good thing. Let us have one koiranos, one basileus,
to whom Zeus has given the sceptre, and the divine sanctions in
order that he may command us."^ Koiranos and basileus are

' Mr. Gladstone, who presents to his readers the Grecian chiefs of the heroic
age as kings and princes, with the superadded quahties of gentlemen, is forced to
admit that "on the whole we seem to have the custom or law of primogeniture
sufficiently, but not oversharply defined." — yuvcntiis Mtmdi, Little & Brown's
ed., p. 42S.

* Ov i-iEV TCGDi TtavTE? BadtA-Evdojiiey evBdS^ Axocioi.
ovH dya^Qv 7toXvHoipavi7j- sh HoipavoZ edtoo.

GRECIAN PHRA TR V, TRIBE AND NA TION. 249

used as equivalents, because both alike signified a general mil-
itary commander. There was no occasion for Ulysses to dis-
cuss or endorse any plan of government; but he had sufficient
reasons for advocating obedience to a single commander of the
army before a besieged city.

Basileia may be defined as a military democracy, the people
being free, and the spirit of the government, which is the es-
sential thing, being democratical. The basileus w^as their gen-
eral, holding the highest, the most influential and the most
important office known to their social system. For the want
of a better term to describe the government, basileia was
adopted by Grecian writers, because it carried the idea of a
generalship which had then become a conspicuous feature in
the go\'ernment. With the council and the agora both existing
with the basileus, if a more special definition of this form of
government is required, military democracy expresses it with
at least reasonable correctness; while the use of the term king-
dom, with the meaning it necessarily conveys, would be a mis-
nomer.

In the heroic age the Grecian tribes were living in walled
cities, and were becoming numerous and wealthy through field
agriculture, manufacturing industries, and flocks and herds.
New offices were required, a§ well as some degree of separation
of their functions; and a new municipal system was growing
up apace with their increasing intelligence and necessities. It
was also a period of incessant military strife for the possession
of the most desirable areas. Along with the increase of prop-
erty the aristocratic element in society undoubtedly increased,
and was the chief cause of those disturbances which prevailed
in Athenian society from the time of Theseus to the times of
Solon and Cleisthenes. During this period, and until the final
abolition of the office some time before the first Olympiad,
{jlG B. C.) the basileus, from the character of his office and
from the state of the times, became more prominent and more

£f5 ftadiXevi, ta eScoxs Kpovov Ttal? dyKvXojujjrEGO.
\_6HfjnTp6v r' vryh ^ejuidrai, iva d<pi6i /jadiXsv^.l

— //ia(/, ii, 203.
The words in. brackets are not found in several MS., for example, in the com-
mentary of Eustasius.

250

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

powerful than any single person in their previous experience.
The functions of a priest and of a judge were attached to or
inherent in his office; and he seems to have been ex officio a
member of the council of chiefs. It was a great as well as a
necessary office, with the powers of a general over the army in
the field, and over the garrison in the city, which gave him the
means of acquiring influence in civil affairs as well. But it
does not appear that he possessed civil functions. Prof Mason
remarks, that "our information respecting the Grecian kings in
the more historical age is not ample or minute enough to ena-
ble us to draw out a detailed scheme of their functions." "^ The
military and priestly functions of the basileus are tolerably well
understood, the judicial imperfectly, and the civil functions can-
not properly be said to have existed. The powers of such an
office under gentile institutions would gradually become defined
by the usage of experience, but with a constant tendency in
the basileus to assume new ones dangerous to society. Since
the council of chiefs remained as a constituent element of the
government, it may be said to have represented the democratic
principles of their social system, as well as the gentes, while
the basileus soon came to represent the aristocratic principle.
It is probable that a perpetual struggle was maintained between
the council and the basileus, to hold the latter within the limits
of powers the people were willing to concede to the office.
Moreover, the abolition of the office by the Athenians makes
it probable that they found the office unmanageable, and in-
compatible with gentile institutions, from the tendency to usurp
additional powers.

Among the Spartan tribes the ephoralty was instituted at a
very early period to limit the powers of the basilcis in conse-
quence of a similar experience. Although the functions of the
council in the Homeric and the legendary periods are not ac-
curately known, its constant presence is evidence sufficient that
its powers were real, essential and permanent. With the si-
multaneous existence of the agora, and in the absence of proof
of a change of institutions, we are led to the conclusion that the
council, under established usages, was supreme over gentes,

* Smith's Die, Art. Hex, p. 991.

GRECIAN PHRA TR V, TRIBE AND NA TION. 25 I

phratries, tribes and nation, and that the basileus was amen-
able to this council for his official acts. The freedom of the
gentes, of whom the members of the council were representa-
tives, presupposes the independence of the council, as well as its
supremacy.

Thucydides refers incidentall}- to the governments of the tra-
ditionary period, as follows: "Now when the Greeks were be-
coming more powerful, and acquiring possession of property
still more than before; many tyrannies were established in the
cities, from their revenues becoming greater; whereas before
there had been hereditary basileia with specified powers."
[Ttporspov 6e hffav ini prjroiS yipaffi narpiKcxi fiaaikeiai)^
The office was hereditary in the sense of perpetual because it
was filled as often as a vacancy occurred, but probably hered-
itary in a gens, the choice being by a free election by his gen-
netes, or by nomination possibly by the council, and confir-
mation of the gentes, as in the case of the rex of the Romans.

Aristotle has given the most satisfactory definition of the bas-
ileia and of the basileus of the heroic period of any of the Gre-
cian writers. These then are the four kinds of basileia he
remarks: the first is that of the heroic times, which was a gov-
ernment over a free people, with restricted rights in some par-
ticulars; for the basileus was their general, their judge and
their chief priest. The second, that of the barbarians, which is
an hereditary despotic government, regulated by laws; the third
is that which they call Aesymnetic, which is an elective tyr-
anny. The fourth is the Lacedaemonian, which is nothing
more than an hereditary generalship.^ Whatever may be said
of the last three forms, the first does not answer to the idea of a
kingdom of the absolute type, nor to any recognizable form of
monarchy. Aristotle enumerates with striking clearness the

* Thucydides, i, 13.

* /SadiXsiai jiiev ovv Ei8rj ravra rsTzapa rov dpi$/u6v, juia jusv rj
mpi rovi ripooiHovi xpovovi- avvi] 6' r/v exovrcoy /<£r, ini ridi 5'
ooptd/iisvojv drpazriydi yap rjv xai dixadrr}? 6 ftadiXsvi xai T(^v
Kpoi Seovi Hvptoi. /lEvzepa 8k r/ fjapftapixT) avrrf 8' tdziv ku yevov^
dpxrf SEdTtoziHTf nazd vojuov. Toiztj 8k ijv aidvnvr]ziav Ttpodayo-
pevovdiv avzrj <5' Idziv aipr/zr) zvpavrii. Jstdpzrf 6' r) AaxGovtm)
Tovzoov avrrj 5' kdziv, oJs einsivS' aTT/lcJ?, dzpaz7]yia xazd yivoi
diSio?. — Aristotle, Politics, iii, c. x.

252

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

principal functions of the basileus, neither of which imply civil
powers, and all of which are consistent with an office for life, held
by an elective tenure. They are also consistent with his entire
subordination to the council of chiefs. The "restricted rights,"
and the "specified powers" in the definitions of these authors,
tend to show that the government had grown into this form in
harmony with, as well as under, gentile institutions. The essen-
tial element in the definition of Aristotle is the freedom of the
people, which in ancient society implies that the people held
the powers of the government under their control, that the
office of basileus was voluntarily bestowed, and that it could
be recalled for sufficient cause. Such a government as that de-
scribed by Aristotle can be understood as a military democracy,
which, as a form of government under free institutions, grew
naturally out of the gentile organization when the military
spirit was dominant, when wealth and numbers appeared, with
habitual life in fortified cities, and before experience had pre-
pared the way for a pure democracy.

Under gentile institutions, with a people composed of gentes,
phfatries and tribes, each organized as independent self-govern-
ing bodies, the people would necessarily be free. The rule
of a king by hereditary right and without direct accountability
in such a society was simply impossible. The impossibility
arises from the fact that gentile institutions are incompatible
with a king or with a kingly government. It would require,
what I think cannot be furnished, positive proof of absolute
hereditary right in the office of basileus, with the presence
of civil functions, to overcome the presumption which arises
from the structure and principles of ancient Grecian society.
An Englishman, under his constitutional monarchy, is as free
as an American under the republic, and his rights and liberties
are as well protected ; but he owes that freedom and protection
to a body of written laws, created by legislation and enforced
by courts of justice. In ancient Grecian society, usages and
customs supplied the place of written laws, and the person
depended for his freedom and protection upon the institutions
of his social system. His safeguard was pre-eminently in such
institutions as the elective tenure of office implies.

GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION 253

The reges of the Romans were, in like manner, military
commanders, with priestly functions attached to their office ;
and this so-called kingly government falls into the same cate-
gory of a military democracy. The rex, as before stated, was
nominated by the senate, and confirmed by the comitia ciiriata;
and the last of the number was deposed. With his deposition
the office was abolished, as incompatible with what remained
of the democratic principle, after the institution of Roman
political society.

The nearest analogues of kingdoms among the Grecian
tribes were the tyrannies, which sprang up here and there, in
the early period, in different parts of Greece. They were
governments imposed by force, and the power claimed was no
greater than that of the feudal kings of mediaeval times. A
transmission of tlie office from father to son through a few
generations in order to superadd hereditary right was needed
to complete the analogy. But such governments were so
inconsistent with Grecian ideas, and so alien to their democratic
institutions, that none of them obtained a permanent footing
in Greece. Mr. Grote remarks that "if any energetic man
could by audacity or craft break down the constitution and
render himself permanent ruler according to his own will and
pleasure — even though he might rule well — he could never
inspire the people with any sentiment of duty towards him.
His sceptre was illegitimate from the beginning, and even the
taking of his life, far from being interdicted by that moral
feeling which condemned the shedder of blood in other cases,
was considered meritorious."^ It was not so much the illegit-
imate sceptre which aroused the hostility of the Greeks, as the
antagonism of democratical with monarchical ideas, the former
of which were inherited from the gentes.

When the Athenians established the new political system,
founded upon territory and upon property, the government was
a pure democracy. It was no new theory, or special inven-
tion of the Athenian mind, but an old and familiar system, with
an antiquity as great as that of the gentes themselves. Demo-
cratic ideas had existed in the knowledge and practice of their

' History of Greece, ii, 61, and see 69.

254 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

forefathers from time immemorial, and now found expression in
a more elaborate, and, in many respects, in an improved gov-
ernment. The false element, that of aristocracy, which had
penetrated the system and created much of the strife in the
transitional period connected itself with the office of basileus,
and remained after this office was abolished; but the new sys-
tem accomplished its overthrow. More successfully than the
remaining Grecian tribes, the Athenians were able to carry
forward their ideas of government to their logical results. It
is one reason why they became, for their numbers, the most
distinguished, the most intellectual and the most accomplished
race of men the entire human family has yet produced. In
purely intellectual achievements they are still the astonishment
of mankind. It was because the ideas which had been ger-
minating through the previous ethnical period, and which had
become interwoven with every fibre of their brains, had found
a happy fruition in a democratically constituted state. Under
its life-giving impulses their highest mental development oc-
curred.

The plan of government instituted by Cleisthenes rejected
the office of a chief executive magistrate, while it retained the
council of chiefs in an elective senate, and the agora in the pop-
ular assembly. It is evident that the council, the agora and
the basileus of the gentes were the germs of the senate, the
popular assembly, and the chief executive magistrate (king,
emperor and president) of modern political society. The latter
office sprang from the military necessities of organized society,
and its development with the upward progress of mankind is
instructive. It can be traced from the common war-chief, first
to the Great War Soldier, as in the Iroquois Confederacy;
secondly, to the same military commander in a confederacy
of tribes more advanced, with the functions of a priest at-
tached to the office, as the Teuctii of the Aztec Confeder-
acy; thirdly, to the same military commander in a nation
formed by a coalescence of tribes, with the functions of a priest
and of a judge attached to the office, as in the basileus of the
Greeks; and finally, to the chief magistrate in modern political
society. The elective archon of the Athenians, who succeeded

GRECIAN PHRATRY, TRIBE AND NATION. 255

the basileus, and the president of modern repubhcs, from the
elective tenure of the office, -were the natural outcome of gen-
tilism. We are indebted to the experience of barbarians for
instituting and developing the three principal instrumentalities
of government now so generally incorporated in the plan of
government in civilized states. The human mind, specifically
the same in all individuals in all the tribes and nations of man-
kind, and limited in the range of its powers, works and must
work, in the same uniform channels, and within narrow limits
of variation. Its results in disconnected regions of space, and
in widely separated ages of time, articulate in a logically con-
nected chain of common experiences. In the grand aggregate
may still be recognized the few primary germs of thought,
working upon primary human necessities, which, through the
natural process of development, have produced such vast re-
sults.

CHAPTER X.

THE INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

Failure of the Gentes as a Basis of Government. — Legislation of
Theseus. — Attempted Substitution of Classes. — Its Failure. — Abolition
OF the Office of Basileus. — The Archonship. — NaucrariesandTryttyes.
— Legislation of Solon. — The Property Classes. — Partial Transfer of
Civil Power from the Gentes to the Classes. — Persons unattached to
ANY Gens. — Made Citizens. — The Senate. — The Ecclesia. — Political So-
ciety PARTIALLY ATTAINED. — LEGISLATION OF ClEISTHENES. — INSTITUTION OF

Political Society. — The Attic Deme or Township. — Its Organization
AND Powers.— Its Local Self-government. — The Local Tribe or Dis-
trict.— The Attic Commonwealth. — Athenian Democracy.

The several Grecian communities passed through a substan-
tially similar experience in transferring themselves from gentile
into political society; but the mode of transition can be best
illustrated from Athenian history, because the facts with re-
spect to the Athenians are more fully preserved. A bare out-
line of the material events will answer the object in view, as it
is not proposed to follow the growth of the idea of government
beyond the inauguration of the new political system.

It is evident that the failure of gentile institutions to meet
the now complicated wants of society originated the movement
to withdraw all civil powers from the gentes, phratries and
tribes, and re- invest them in new constituencies. This move-
ment was gradual, extending through a long period of time,
and was embodied in a series of successive experiments by
means of which a remedy was sought for existing evils. The
coming in of the new system was as gradual as the going out of

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 257

the old, the two for a part of the time existing side by side. In
the character and objects of the experiments tried we may dis-
cover wherein the gentile organization had failed to meet the
requirements of society, the necessity for the subversion of the
gentes, phratries and tribes as sources of power, and the means
by which it was accomplished.

Looking backward upon the line of human progress, it may
be remarked that the stockaded village was the usual home of
the tribe in the Lower Status of barbarism. In the Middle
Status joint-tenement houses of. adobe-bricks and of stone, in
the nature of fortresses, make their appearance. But in the
Upper Status, cities surrounded with ring embankments, and
finally with walls of dressed stone, appear for the first time in
human experience. It was a great step forward when the
thought found expression in action of surrounding an area am-
ple for a considerable population with a defensive wall of
dressed stone, with towers, parapets and gates, designed to
protect all alike and to be defended by the common strength.
Cities of this grade imply the existence of a stable and devel-
oped field agriculture, the possession of domestic animals in
flocks and herds, of merchandise in masses and of property in
houses and lands. The city brought with it new demands in
the art of government by creating a changed condition of so-
ciety. A necessity gradually arose for magistrates and judges,
military and municipal officers of different grades, with a mode
of raising and supporting military levies which would require
public revenues. Municipal life and wants must have greatly
augmented the duties and responsibilities of the council of
chiefs, and perhaps have overtaxed its capacity to govern.

It has been shown that in the Lower Status of barbarism the
government was of one power, the council of chiefs; that in
the Middle Status it was of two powers, the council of chiefs
and the military commander; and that in the Upper Status it
was of three powers, the council of chiefs, the assembly of the
people and the military commander. But after the com-
mencement of civilization, the differentiation of the powers of
the government had proceeded still further. The military
power, first devolved upon the basileus, was now exercised by
17

258 A NCI EN T SOCIE T, Y.

generals and captains under greater restrictions. By a further
differentiation the judicial power had now appeared among the
Athenians. It was exercised by the archons and dicasts.
Magisterial powers were now being devolved upon municipal
magistrates. Step by step, and Avith the progress of experi-
ence and advancement, these several powers had been taken by
differentiation from the sum of the powers of the original
council of chiefs, so far as they could be said to have passed
from the people into this council as a representative body.

The creation of these municipal offices was a necessary con-
sequence of the increasing magnitude and complexity of their
affairs. Under the increased burden gentile institutions were
breaking down. Unnumbered disorders existed, both from the
conflict of authority, and from the abuse of powers not as yet
well defined. The brief and masterly sketch by Thucydides
of the condition of the Grecian tribes in the transitional period,^
and the concurrent testimony of other writers to the same
effect, leave no doubt that the old system of government was
failing, and that a new one had become essential to further
progress, A wider distribution of the powers of the govern-
ment, a clearer definition of them, and a stricter accountability
of official persons were needed for the welfare as well as safety
of society; and more especially the substitution of written laws,
enacted by competent authority, in the place of usages and
customs. It was through the experimental knowledge gained
in this and the previous ethnical period that the idea of polit-
ical society or a state was gradually forming in the Grecian
mind. It was a growth running through centuries of time,
from the first appearance of a necessity for a change in the
plan of government, before the entire result was realized.

The first attempt among the Athenians to subvert the gen-
tile organization and establish a new system is ascribed to
Theseus, and therefore rests upon tradition ; but certain facts
remained to the historical period which confirm some part at
least of his supposed legislation. It will be sufficient to regard
Theseus as representing a period, or a series of events. From
the time of Cecrops to Theseus, according to Thucydides, the

' Thucydides, lib. i, 2- 1 3.

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 259

Attic people had always lived in cities, having their own pry-
taneums and archons, and when not in fear of danger did not
consult their basileus, but governed their own affairs separately
according to their own councils. But when Theseus was made
basileus, he persuaded them to break up the council-houses
and magistracies of their several cities and come into relation
with Athens, with one council-house {^ovXavrrjpio';), and one
prytaneum {Ttpuravelov), to which all were considered as be-
longing.^ This statement embodies or implies a number of
important facts, namely ; that the Attic population were or-
ganized in independent tribes, each having its own territory
in which the people were localized, with its own council-house
and prytaneum ; and that while they were self-governing
societies they w^ere probably confederated for mutual protec-
tion, and elected their basileus or general to command their
common forces. It is a picture of communities democratically
organized, needing a military commander as a necessity of
their condition, but not invested with civil functions which their
gentile system excluded. Under Theseus they were brought
to coalesce into one people, with Athens as their seat of gov-
ernment, which gave them a higher organization than before
they had been able to form. The coalescence of tribes into a
nation in one territory is later in time than confederations,
where the tribes occupy independent territories. It is a higher
organic process. While the gentes had always been inter-
mingled by marriage, the tribes were now intermingled by
obliterating territorial lines, and by the use of a common
council-hall and prytaneum. The act ascribed to Theseus
explains the advancement of their gentile society from a lower
to a higher organic form, which must have occurred at some
time, and probably was effected in the manner stated.

> Thucyd., lib. ii, c. 15. Plutarch speaks nearly to the same effect: "He settled
all the inhabitants of Attica in Athens, and made them one people in one city, who
before were scattered up and down, and could with difficulty be assembled on any
urgent occasion for the public welfare. . . . Dissolving therefore the associa-
tions, the councils, and the courts in each particular town, he built one common
prytaneum and court hall, where it stands to this day. The citadel with its
dependencies, and the city or the old and new town, he united under the common
name of Athens." — Plutarch, Vit. Theseus, cap. 24.

260 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

But another act is ascribed to Theseus evincing a more
radical plan, as well as an appreciation of the necessity for
a fundamental change in the plan of government. He divided
the people into three classes, irrespective of gentes, called
respectively the Eiipatridce or "well-born," the Gcomori or
"husbandmen," and the Dcmiiirgi or "artisans." The prin-
cipal offices were assigned to the first class both in the civil
administration and in the priesthood. This classification was
not only a recognition of proj^erty and of the aristocratic
element in the government of society, but it was a direct
movement against the governing power of the gentes. It was
the evident intention to unite the chiefs of the gentes with
their families, and the men of wealth in the several gentes, in
a class by themselves, with the right to hold the principal
offices in which the powers of society were vested. The sep-
aration of the remainder into two great classes traversed the
gentes again. Important results might have followed if the
voting power had been taken from the gentes, phratries and
tribes, and given to the classes, subject to the right of the first
to hold the principal offices. This does not appear to have
been done, although absolutely necessary to give vitality to the
classes. Moreover, it did not change essentially the previous
order of things with respect to holding office. Those now
called Eupatrids were probably the men of the several gentes
who had previously been called into office. This scheme
of Theseus died out, because there was in reality no transfer
of powers from the gentes, phratries and tribes to the classes,
and because such classes were inferior to the gentes as the
basis of a system.

The centuries that elapsed from the unknown time of The-
seus to the legislation of Solon (594 B. C.) formed one of the
most important periods in Athenian experience; but the suc-
cession of events is imperfectly known. The office of basileus
was abolished prior to the first Olympiad ijT^ B. C), and the
archonship established in its place. The latter seems to have
been hereditary in a gens, and it is stated to have been hered-
itary in a particular family within the gens, the first twelve ar-
chons being called the Medontidae, from Medon, the first ar-

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 261

chon, claimed to have been the son of Codrus, the last basileus.
In the case of these archons, Avho held for life, the same ques-
tion exists which has elsewhere been raised with respect to the
basileus; that an election or confirmation by a constituency
was necessary before the office could be assumed. The pre-
sumption is against the transmission of the office by hereditary
right. In 71 1 B. C. the office of archon was limited to ten
years, and bestowed by free election upon the person esteemed
most worthy of the position. We are now within the historical
period, though near its threshold, where we meet the elective
principle w'ith respect to the highest office in the gift of the peo-
ple clearly and completely established. It is precisely what
would have been expected from the constitution and principles
of the gentes, although the aristocratical principle, as we must
suppose, had increased in force with the increase of property,
and was the source through which hereditary right was intro-
duced wherever found. The existence of the elective principle
with respect to the later archons is not without significance in
its relation to the question of the previous practice of the Athe-
nians. In 683 B. C. the office was made elective annually, the
number was increased to nine, and their duties were made min-
isterial and judicial.^ We may notice, in these events, evidence
of a gradual progress in knowledge with respect to the tenure
of office. The Athenian tribes had inherited from their remote
ancestors the office of archon ( c\:px6<;) as chief of the gens. It
was hereditary in the gens, as may fairly be supposed, and
elective among its members. After descent was changed to
the male line the sons of the deceased chief were within the line
of succession, and one of their number would be apt to be chosen

1 "Of the nine archons, whose number continued unaltered from 683 B. C. to
the end of the democracy, three bore special titles — the Archon Eponymus, from
whose name the designation of the year was derived, and who was spoken of as
tAe Archon, the Archon Basileus (King), or more frequently, the Basileus ; and the
Polemarch. The remaining six passed by the general name of Thesmothetce. . . .
The Archon Eponymus determined all disputes relative to the family, the gentile,
and the phratric relations : he was the legal protector of orphans and widows.
The Archon Basileus (or King Archon) enjoyed competence in complaints respect-
ing offenses against the religious sentiment and respecting homicide. The Pole-
march (speaking of times anterior to Kleisthenes) was the leader of military
force, and judge in disputes between citizens and non-citizens." — Grote's History
of Greece, I. c, iii, 74.

262 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

in the absence of personal objections. But now they reverted
to this original office for the name of their highest magistrate,
made it elective irrespective of any gens, and limited its dura-
ation, first to ten years, and finally to one. Prior to this, the
tenure of office to which they had been accustomed was for
life. In the Lower and also in the Middle Status of barba-
rism we have found the office of chief, elective and for life; or
during good behavior, for this limitation follows from the right
of the gens to depose from office. It is a reasonable inference
that the office of chief in a Grecian gens was held by a free
election and by the same tenure. It must be regarded as
proof of a remarkable advancement in knowledge at this early
period that the Athenian tribes substituted a term of years for
their most important office, and allowed a competition of can-
didates. They thus worked out the entire theory of an elect-
ive and representative office, and placed it upon its true basis.

In the time of Solon, it may be further noticed, the Court of
Areopagus, composed of ex-archons, had come into existence
with power to try criminals and with a censorship over morals,
together with a number of new offices in the military, naval
and administrative services. But the most important event
that occurred about this time was the institution of the naii-
a^aries {vavnpapiai), twelve in each tribe, and forty-eight in
all; each of which was a local circumscription of householders
from which levies were drawn into the military and naval serv-
ice, and from which taxes were probably collected. The
naucrary was the incipient deme or township which, when the
idea of a territorial basis was fully developed, was to become
the foundation of the second great plan of government. By
whom the naucraries were instituted is unknown. "They must
have existed even before the time of Solon," Boeckh remarks,
"since the presiding officers of the naucraries {rrpuTareh raov
vavupapoDv) are mentioned before the time of his legislation;
and when Aristotle ascribes their institution to Solon, we may
refer this account only to their confirmation by the political
constitution of Solon." ^ Twelve naucraries formed a trittys
{rpirrvz) a larger territorial circumscription, but they were not

> Public Economy of Athens, Lamb's Trans., Little & Brown's ed., p. 353.

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 263

necessarily contiguous. It was, in like manner, the germ of
the county, the next territorial aggregate above the township.

Notwithstanding the great changes that had occurred in the
instrumentalities by which the government was administered,
the people were still in a gentile society, and living under gen-
tile institutions. The gens, phratry and tribe were in full vital-
ity, and the recognized sources of power. Before the time of
Solon no person could become a member of this society except
through connection with a gens and tribe. All other persons
were beyond the pale of the government. The council of
chiefs remained, the old and time-honored instrument of gov-
ernment; but the powers of the government were now co-
ordinated between itself, the agora or assembly of the people,
the Court of Areopagus, and the nine archons. It was the
prerogative of the council to originate and mature public
measures for submission to the people, which enabled it to
shape the policy of the government. It doubtless had the
general administration of the finances, and it remained to the
end, as it had been from the beginning, the central feature of
the government. The assembly of the people had now come
into increased prominence. Its functions were still limited to
the adoption or rejection of public measures submitted to its
decision by the council; but it began to exercise a powerful in-
fluence upon public affairs. The rise of this assembly as a
power in the government is the surest evidence of the progress
of the Athenian people in knowledge and intelligence. Un-
fortunately the functions and powers of the council of chiefs
and of the assembly of the people in this early period have
been imperfectly preserved, and but partially elucidated.

In 624 B. C. Draco had framed a body of laws for the Athe-
nians which were chiefly remarkable for their unnecessary se-
verity ; but this code demonstrated that the time was drawing
near in Grecian experience when usages and customs were to
be superseded by written laws. As yet the Athenians had not
learned the art of enacting laws as the necessity for them ap-
peared, which required a higher knowledge of the functions of
legislative bodies than they had attained. They were in that
stage in which lawgivers appear, and legislation is in a scheme

264 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

or In gross, under the sanction of a personal name. Thus slowly
the great sequences of human progress unfold themselves.

When Solon came into the archonship (594 B. C.) the evils
prevalent in society had reached an unbearable degree. The
struggle for the possession of property, now a commanding in-
terest, had produced singular results. A portion of the Athe-
nians had fallen into slavery, through debt, — the person of the
debtor being liable to enslavement in default of payment; oth-
ers had mortgaged their lands and were unable to remove the
encumbrances; and as a consequence of these and other em-
barrassments society was devouring itself In addition to a
body of laws, some of them novel, but corrective of the princi-
pal financial difficulties, Solon renewed the project of Theseus
of organizing society into classes, not according to callings as
before, but according to the amount of their property. It is
instructive to follow the course of these experiments to super-
sede the gentes and substitute a new system, because we shall
find the Roman tribes, in the time of Servius TuUius, trying
the same experiment for the same purpose. Solon divided the
people into four classes according to the measure of their
wealth, and going beyond Theseus, he invested these classes
with certain powers, and imposed upon them certain obliga-
tions. It transferred a portion of the civil powers of the gen-
tes phratries and tribes to the property classes. In proportion
as the substance of power was drawn from the former and in-
vested in the latter, the gentes would be weakened and their
decadence would commence. But so far as classes composed
of persons were substituted for gentes composed of persons,
the government was still founded upon person, and upon rela-
tions purely personal. The scheme failed to reach the sub-
stance of the question. Moreover, in changing the council of
chiefs into the senate of four hundred, the members were taken
in equal numbers from the four tribes, and not from the classes.
But it will be noticed that the idea of property, as the basis of
a system of government, was now incorporated by Solon in
the new plan of property classes. It failed, however, to reach
the idea of political society, which must rest upon territory as
well as property, and deal with persons through their territorial

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 265

relations. The first class alone were eligible to the high offices,
the second performed military service on horseback, the third
as infantry, and the fourth as light-armed soldiers. This last
class were the numerical majority. They were disqualified
/rom holding office, and paid no taxes; but in the popular as-
sembly of which they were members, they possessed a vote
upon the election of all magistrates and officers, with power to
bring them to an account. They also had power to adopt or
reject all public measures submitted by the senate to their de-
cision. Under the constitution of Solon their powers were
real and durable, and their influence upon public affairs was
permanent and substantial. All freemen, though not con-
nected with a gens and tribe, were now brought into the gov-
ernment, to a certain extent, by becoming citizens and mem-
bers of the assembly of the people with the powers named.
This was one of the most important results of the legislation of
Solon.

It will be further noticed that the people were now organized
as an army, consisting of three divisions; the cavalry, the
heavy-armed infantry, and the light-armed infantry, each with
its own officers of different grades. The form of the statement
limits the array to the last three classes, which leaves the first
class in the unpatriotic position of appropriating to themselves
the principal offices of the government, and taking no part in
the military service. This undoubtedly requires modification.
The same plan of organization, but including the five classes,
will re-appear among the Romans under Servius Tullius, by
whom the body of the people wxre organized as an army (ex-
ercitus) fully officered and equipped in each subdivision. The
idea of a military democracy, different in organization but the
same theoretically as that of the previous period, re- appears in
a new dress both in the Solonian and in the Servian constitu-
tion.

In addition to the property element, which entered into the
basis of the new system, the territorial element was partially
incorporated through the naucraries before adverted to, in
which it is probable there was an enrollment of citizens and of
their property to form a basis for mihtary levies and for taxa-

266 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

tion. These provisions, with the senate, the popular assembly
now called the ecclesia, the nine archons, and the Court of
Areopagus, gave to the Athenians a much more elaborate gov-
ernment than they had before known, and requiring a higher
degree of intelligence for its management. It was also essen-.
sentially democratical in harmony with their antecedent ideas
and institutions; in fact a logical consequence of them, and ex-
plainable only as such. But it fell short of a pure system in
three respects: firstly, it was not founded upon territory; sec-
ondly, all the dignities of the state were not open to every cit-
izen; and thirdly, the principle of local self-government in pri-
mary organizations was unknown, except as it may have existed
imperfectly in the naucraries. The gentes, phratries and tribes
still remained in full vitality, but with diminished powers. It
was a transitional condition, requiring further experience to de-
velop the theory of a political system toward which it was a
great advance. Thus slowly but steadily human institutions
are evolved from lower into higher forms, through the logical
operations of the human mind working in uniform but prede-
termined channels.

There was one weighty reason for the overthrow of the gentes
and the substitution of a new plan of government. It was
probably recognized by Theseus, and undoubtedly by Solon.
From the disturbed condition of the Grecian tribes and the un-
avoidable movements of the people in the traditionary period
and in the times prior to Solon, many persons transferred them-
selves from one nation to another, and thus lost their connec-
tion with their own gens without acquiring a connection with
another. This would repeat itself from time to time, through
personal adventure, the spirit of trade, and the exigencies of
warfare, until a considerable number with their posterity would
be developed in every tribe unconnected with any gens. All
such persons, as before remarked, would be without the pale of
the government with which there could be no connection ex-
cepting through a gens and tribe. The fact is noticed by Mr.
Grote. "The phratries and gentes," he remarks, "probably
never at any time included the whole population of the country
— and the population not included in them tended to become

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 267

larger and larger in the times anterior to Kleisthenes, as well as
afterwards."^ As early as the time of Lycurgus there was a
considerable immigration into Greece from the islands of the
Mediterranean, and from the Ionian cities of its eastern coasts,
which increased the number of persons unattached to any gens.
When they came in families they would bring a fragment of a
new gens with them; but they would remain aliens unless the
new gens was admitted into a tribe. This probably occurred in
a number of cases, and it may assist in explaining the unusual
number of gentes in Greece. The gentes and phratries were
close corporations, both of which would have been adulterated
by the absorption of these aliens through adoption into a native
gens. Persons of distinction might be adopted into some gens,
or secure the admission of their own gens into some tribe; but
the poorer class would be refused either privilege. There can
be no doubt that as far back as the time of Theseus, and more
especially in the time of Solon, the number of the unattached
class, exclusive of the slaves, had become large. Having nei-
ther gens nor phratry they were also without direct religious priv-
ileges, which were inherent and exclusive in these organiza-
tions. It is not difficult to see in this class of persons a grow-
ing element of discontent dangerous to the security of society.
The schemes of Theseus and of Solon made imperfect pro-
vision for their admission to citizenship through the classes;
but as the gentes and phratries remained from which they were
excluded, the remedy was still incomplete. Mr. Grote further
remarks, that " it is not easy to make out distinctly what was
the political position of the ancient Gentes and Phratries, as
Solon left them. The four tribes consisted altogether of gentes
and phratries, insomuch that no one could be included in any
one of the tribes who was not also a member of some gens and
phratry. Now the new probouleutic or pre-considering senate
consisted of 400 members, — lOO from each of the tribes: per-
sons not included in any gens and phratry could therefore
have had no access to it. The conditions of eligibility were
similar, according to ancient custom, for the nine archons —
of course, also, for the senate of Areopagus. So that there

1 History of Greece, iii, 65.

268 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

remained only the public assembly, in which an Athenian,
not a member of these tribes, could take part: yet he was a
citizen, since he could give his vote for archons and senators,
and could take part in the annual decision of their account-
ability, besides being entitled to claim redress for wrong from
the archons in his own person — while the alien could only do so
through the intervention of an avouching citizen, or Prostates.
It seems therefore that all persons not included in the four
tribes, whatever their grade or fortune might be, were on the
same level in respect to political privilege as the fourth and
poorest class of the Solonian census. It has already been re-
marked, that even before the time of Solon, the number of
Athenians not included in the gentes or phratries was prob-
ably considerable : it tended to become greater and greater, since
these bodies were close and unexpansive, while the policy of
the new lawgiver tended to invite industrious settlers from other
parts of Greece to Athens."^ The Roman Plebeians originated
from causes precisely similar. They were not members of any
gens, and therefore formed no part of the Populus Romamis.
We may find in the facts stated one of the reasons of the fail-
ure of the gentile organization to meet the requirements of so-
ciety. In the time of Solon, society had outgrown their ability
to govern, its affairs had advanced so far beyond the condition
in which the gentes originated. They furnished a basis too
narrow for a state, up to the measure of which the people had
grown.

There was also an increasing difficulty in keeping the mem-
bers of a gens, phratry and tribe locally together. As parts
of a governmental organic series, this fact of localization was
highly necessary. In the earlier period, the gens held its lands
in common, the phratries held certain lands in common for re-
ligious uses, and the tribe probably held other lands in com-
mon. When they established themselves in country or city,
they settled locally together by gentes, by phratries and by
tribes, as a consequence of their social organization. Each gens
was in the main by itself — not all of its members, for two gen-
tes were represented in every family, but the body who propa-

' History of Greece, iii, 133.

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 269

gated the gens. Those gentes belonging to the same phratry
naturally sought contiguous or at least near areas, and the same
with the several phratries of the tribe. But in the time of So-
lon, lands and houses had come to be owned by individuals in
severalty, with power of alienation as to lands, but not of
houses out of the gens. It doubtless became more and more
impossible to keep the members of a gens locally together, from
the shifting relations of persons to land, and from the creation
of new property by its members in other localities. The unit
of their social system was becoming unstable in place, and also
in character. Without stopping to develop this fact of their
condition further, it must have proved one of the reasons of
the failure of the old plan of government. The township, with
its fixed property and its inhabitants for the time being, yielded
that element of permanence now wanting in the gens. Society
had made immense progress from its former condition of ex-
treme simplicity. It was very different from that which the
gentile organization was instituted to govern. Nothing but the
unsettled condition and incessant warfare of the Athenian tribes,
from their settlement in Attica to the time of Solon, could have
preserved this organization from overthrow. After their estab-
lishment in walled cities, that rapid development of wealth and
numbers occurred which brought the gentes to the final test,
and demonstrated their inability to govern a people now rap-
idly approaching civilization. But their displacement even then
required a long period of time.

The seriousness of the difficulties to be overcome in creating
a political society are strikingly illustrated in the experience of
the Athenians. In the time of Solon, Athens had already pro-
duced able men; the useful arts had attained a very consider-
able development; commerce on the sea had become a nation-
al interest; agriculture and manufactures were well advanced;
and written composition in verse had commenced. They were
in fact a civilized people, and had been for two centuries; but
their institutions of government were still gentile, and of the
type prevalent throughout the Later Period of barbarism. A
great impetus had been given to the Athenian commonwealth
by the new system of Solon; nevertheless, nearly a century

270

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

elapsed, accompanied with many disorders, before the idea of a
state was fully developed in the Athenian mind. Out of the
naucrary, a conception of a township as the unit of a political
system was finally elaborated; but it required a man of the
highest genius, as well as great personal influence, to seize the
idea in its fullness, and give it an organic embodiment. That
man finally appeared in Cleisthenes (509 B. C), who must be
regarded as the first of Athenian legislators — the founder of
the second great plan of human government, that under which
modern civilized nations are organized.

Cleisthenes went to the bottom of the question, and placed
the Athenian political system upon the foundation on which it
remained to the close of the independent existence of the com-
monwealth. He divided Attica into a hundred demes, or
townships, each circumscribed by metes and bounds, and dis-
tinguished by a name. Every citizen was required to register
himself, and to cause an enrollment of his property in the
deme in which he resided. This enrollment was the evidence
as well as the foundation of his civil privileges. The deme
displaced the naucrary. Its inhabitants were an organized
body politic with powers of local self-government, like the
modern American township. This is the vital and the re-
markable feature of the system. It reveals at once its demo-
cratic character. The government was placed in the hands of
the people in the first of the series of territorial organizations.
The demotse elected a demarch (cj^/yuo'pjo?), who had the cus-
tody of the public register; he had also power to convene the"
demotae for the purpose of electing magistrates and judges, for
revising the registry of citizens, and for the enrollment of such
as became of age during the year. They elected a treasurer,
and provided for the assessment and collection of taxes, and
for furnishing the quota of troops required of the deme for the
service of the state. They also elected thirty dicasts or judges,
who tried all causes arising in the deme where the amount in-
volved fell below a certain sum. Besides these powers of local
self-government, which is the essence of a democratic system,
each deme had its own temple and religious worship, and its
own priest, also elected by the demotae. Omitting minor par-

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 271

ticulars, we find the instructive and remarkable fact that the
township, as first instituted, possessed all the powers of local
self-government, and even upon a fuller and larger scale than
an American township. Freedom in religion is also noticeable,
which was placed where it rightfully belongs, under the control
of the people. All registered citizens were free, and equal in
their rights and privileges, with the exception of equal eligibility
to the higher offices. Such was the new unit of organization
in Athenian political society, at once a model for a free state,
and a marvel of wisdom and knowledge. The Athenians
commenced with a democratic organization at the point where
every people must commence who desire to create a free state,
and place the control of the government in the hands of its
citizens.

The second member of the organic territorial series consisted
of ten demes, united in a larger geographical district. It was
called a local tribe i^qjvXov roTrixor), to preserve some part of
the terminology of the old gentile system.^ Each district was
named after an Attic hero, and it was the analogue of the mod-
ern county. The demes in each district were usually contigu-
ous, which should have been true in every instance to render
the analogy complete-; but in a few cases one or more of the
ten were detached, probably in consequence of the local sepa-
ration of portions of the original consanguine tribe who de-
sired to have their deme incorporated in the district of their
immediate kinsmen. The inhabitants of each district or coun-
ty were also a body politic, with certain powers of local self-
government. They elected a phylarch (qtvXapxo?), who com-
manded the cavalry; a taxiarch {raSi'apxo?), who commanded
the foot-soldiers, and a general {ffTpaTj/yo?), who commanded
both; and as each district was required to furnish five triremes,
they probably elected as many trierarchs (Tphjpapxo?) to
command them. Cleisthenes increased the senate to five hun-

' The Latin tridus=trihs, signified originally "a third part," and was used to
designate a third part of the people when composed of three tribes ; but in course
of time, after the Latin tribes were made local instead of consanguine, like the
Athenian local tribes, the term tribe lost its numerical quality, and came, like the
phylon of Cleisthenes to be a local designation. — Fide Mommsen's Hist, of Rome,
I. c, i, 71.

272 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

dred, and assigned fifty to each district. They were elected by
its inhabitants. Other functions of this larger body politic
doubtless existed, but they have been imperfectly explained.

The third and last member of the territorial series was the
Athenian commonwealth or state, consisting of ten local tribes
or districts. It was an organized body politic, embracing the
aggregate of Athenian citizens. It was represented by a sen-
ate, an ecclesia, the court of Areopagus, the archons, and
judges, and the body of elected military and naval com-
manders.

Thus the Athenians founded the second great plan of gov-
ernment upon territory and upon property. They substituted
a series of territorial aggregates in the place of an ascending
series of aggregates of persons. As a plan of government it
rested upon territory which was necessarily permanent, and
upon property which was more or less localized; and it dealt
with its citizens, now localized in denies through their territo-
rial relations. To be a citizen of the state it was necessary to
be a citizen of a deme. The person voted and was taxed in
his deme, and he was called into the military service from his
deme. In like manner he was called by election into the sen-
ate, and to the command of a division of the army or navy
from the larger district of his local tribe. His relations to a
gens or phratry ceased to govern his duties as a citizen. The
contrast between the two systems is as marked as their differ-
ence was fundamental. A coalescence of the people into
bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.

The territorial series enters into the plan of government of
modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we
have the township, the county, the state, and the United States;
the inhabitants of each of whiqh are an organized body politic
with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in
full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere
in which it is supreme. France has a similar series in the com-
mune, the arrondissement, the department, and the empire, now
the republic. In Great l^ritain the series is the parish, the
shire, the kingdom, and the three kingdoms. In the Saxon pe-
riod the hundred seems to have been the analogue of the town-

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 273

ship;^ but already emasculated of the powers of local self-gov-
ernment, with the exception of the hundred court. The in-
habitants of these several areas were organized as bodies poli-
tic, but those below the highest Avith very limited powers.
The tendency to centralization under monarchical institutions
has atrophied, practically, all the lower organizations.

As a consequence of the legislation of Cleisthenes, the gen-
tes phratries and tribes were divested of their influence, be-
cause their powers were taken from them and vested in the
deme, the local tribe and the state, which became from thence-
forth the sources of all political power. They were not dis-
solved, however, even after this overthrow, but remained for
centuries as a pedigree and lineage, and as fountains of relig-
ious life. In certain orations of Demosthenes, where the cases
involved personal or property rights, descents or rights of sep-
ulture, both the gens and phratry appear as living organizations
in his time.^ They were left undisturbed by the new system
so far as their connection with religious rites, w^ith certain crim-
inal proceedings, and with certain social practices were con-
cerned, which arrested their total dissolution. The classes,
however, both those instituted by Theseus and those afterwards
created by Solon, disappeared after the time of Cleisthenes.^

Solon is usually regarded as the founder of Athenian democ-
racy, while some writers attribute a portion of the w'ork to Cleis-
thenes and Theseus. We shall draw nearer the truth of the
matter by regarding Theseus, Solon and Cleisthenes as standing
connected with three great movements of the Athenian people,
not to found a democracy, for Athenian democracy was older
than either, but to change the plan of government from a gentile
into a political organization. Neither sought to change the ex-
isting principles of democracy which had been inherited from
the gentes. They contributed in their respective times to the
great movement for the formation of a state, which required the
substitution of a political in the place of gentile society. The
invention of a township, and the organization of its inhabitants

* Anglo Saxon Lata, by Henry Adams and others, pp. 20, 23.

* See particularly the Orations against Eubulides, and Marcatus.
3 Hermann's Political Antiqiiilies of Greece, I. c, p. 187, s. 96.
18

274

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

as a body politic, was the main feature in the problem. It may
seem to us a simple matter; but it taxed the capacities of the
Athenians to their lowest depths before the idea of a township
found expression in its actual creation. It was an inspiration
of the genius of Cleisthenes; and it stands as the master work
of a master mind. In the new political society they realized
that complete democracy which already existed in every essen-
tial principle, but which required a change in the plan of gov-
ernment to give it a more ample field and a fuller expression.
It is precisely here, as it seems to the writer, that we have been
misled by the erroneous assumption of the great historian, Mr.
Grote, whose general views of Grecian institutions are so sound
and perspicuous, namely, that the early governments of the
Grecian tribes were essentially monareJiieal} On this assump-
tion it requires a revolution of institutions to explain the exist-
ence of that Athenian democracy under which the great men-
tal achievements of the Athenians were made. No such rev-
olution occurred, and no radical change of institutions was ever
effected, for the reason that they were and always had been
essentially democratical. Usurpations not unlikely occurred,
followed by controversies for the restoration of the previous or-
der; but they never lost their liberties, or those ideas of free-
dom and of the right of self-government which had been their
inheritance in all ages.

Recurring for a moment to the basileus, the office tended to
make the man more conspicuous than any other in their affairs.
He was the first person to catch the mental eye of the histo-
rian by whom he has been metamorphosed into a king, notwith-
standing he was made to reign, and by divine right, over a rude
democracy. As a general in a military democracy, the basileus
becomes intelligible, and without violating the institutions that
actually existed. The introduction of this office did not change
the principles of the gentes, phratries and tribes, which in their
organization were essentially democratical, and which of neces-
sity impressed that character on their gentile system. Evi-
dence is not wanting that the popular element was constantly

1 "The primitive Grecian government is essentially monarchical, reposing on
personal feeling and divine right." — History of Greece, ii, 69.

INSTITUTION OF GRECIAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 275

active to resist encroachments on personal rights. The basileus
belongs to the traditionary period, when the powers of govern-
ment were more or less undefined; but the council of chiefs ex-
isted in the centre of the system, and also the gentes, phratries
and tribes in full vitality. These are sufficient to determine the
character of the government.^

The government as reconstituted by Cleisthenes contrasted
strongly \\\\\\ that previous to the time of Solon. But the
transition was not only natural but inevitable if the people fol-
lowed their ideas to their logical results. It was a change of
plan, but not of principles nor even of instrumentalities. The
council of chiefs remained in the senate, the agora in the ec-
clesia; the three highest archons were respectively ministers of
state, of religion, and of justice as before, while the six inferior
archons exercised judicial functions in connection with the
courts, and the large body of dicasts now elected annually for
judicial service. No executive officer existed under the sys-
tem, which is one of its striking peculiarities. The nearest ap-
proach to it was the president of the senate, who was elected
by lot for a single day, without the possibility of a re-election
during the year. For a single day he presided over the popu-
lar assembly, and held the keys of the citadel and of the treas-
ury. Under the new government the popular assembly held
the substance of power, and guided the destiny of Athens.
The new element which gave stability and order to the state
was the deme or township, with its complete autonomy, and
local self-government. A hundred demes similarly organized
would determine the general movement of the commonwealth.
As the unit, so the compound. It is here that the people, as
before remarked, must begin if they would learn the art of
self-government, and maintain equal laws, and equal rights and
privileges. They must retain in their hands all the powers of

* Sparta retained the office of basileus in tlie period of civilization. It was
a dual generalship, and hereditary in a particular family. The powers of govern-
ment were co-ordinated between the Gerousia or council, the popular assembly,
the five ephors, and two military commanders. The ephors were elected annuallv,
with powers analogous to the Roman tribunes. Royalty at Sparta needs qualifica-
tion. The basileis commanded the army, and in their capacity of chief priests
offered the sacrifices to the gods.

276

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

society not necessary to the state to insure an efficient general
administration, as well as the control of the administration
itself.

Athens rose rapidly into influence and distinction under the
new political system. That remarkable development of genius
and intelligence, which raised the Athenians to the highest em-
inence among the historical nations of mankind, occurred under
the inspiration of democratic institutions.

With the institution of political society under Cleisthenes, the
gentile organization was laid aside as a portion of the rags of
barbarism. Their ancestors had lived for untold centuries in
gentilism, with which they had achieved all the elements of
civilization, including a written language, as well as entered
upon a civilized career. The history of the gentile organiza-
tion will remain as a perpetual monument of the anterior ages,
identified as it has been with the most remarkable and extend-
ed experience of mankind. It must ever be ranked as one of
the most remarkable institutions of the human family.

In this brief and inadequate review the discussion has been
confined to the main course of events in Athenian history.
Whatever was true of the Athenian tribes will be found sub-
stantially true of the remaining Grecian tribes, though not ex-
hibited on so broad or so grand a scale. The discussion tends
to render still more apparent one of the main propositions ad-
vanced— that the idea of government in all the tribes of man-
kind has been a growth through successive stages of develop-
ment.

CHAPTER XL

THE ROMAN GENS.

Italian Tribes Organized in Gentes. — Founding of Rome. — Tribes Or-
ganized INTO A Military Democracy.— The Roman Gens. — Definition of
A Gentilis by Cicero. — By Festus. — By Varro. — Descent in Male Line. —
Marrying out of the Gens. — Rights and Obligations of the Members of
A Gens. — Democratic Constitution of Ancient Latin Society. — Number
of Persons in a Gens.

When the Latins, and their congeners the SabelHans, the
Oscans and the Umbrians, entered the ItaHan peninsula proba-
bly as one people, they were in possession of domestic animals,
and probably cultivated cereals and plants.^ At the least they

' "During the period when the Indo-Germanic nations which are now sep-
arated still formed one stock speaking the same language, they attained a certain
stage of culture, and they had a vocabulary corresponding to it. This vocabulary
the several nations carried along with them, in its conventionally established use,
as a common dowry and a foundation for further structures of their own. ... In
this way we possess evidence of the development of pastoral life at that remote
epoch in the unalterably fixed names of domestic animals ; the Sanskrit gdus is the
Latin bos-, the Greek fiovi ; Sanskrit avis, is the Latin ovis, the Greek o'i'i ; San-
skrit agvas, Latin equus, Greek iTdtoZ; Sanskrit hansas, Latin anser, Greek XV"^ 't
... on the other hand, we have as yet no certain proofs of the existence of agricult-
ure at this period. Language rather favors the negative view." — Mommsen's His-
tory of Rome, Dickson's Trans., Scribner's ed., 1871, i, 37. In a note he remarks
that "barley, wheat, and spelt were found growing together in a wild state on the
right bank of the Euphrates, northwest from Anah. The growth of barley and
wheat in a wild state in Mesopotamia had already been mentioned by the Babylonian
historian, Berosus."

Fick remarks upon the same subject as follows: "While pasturage evidently
formed the foundation of primitive social life we can find in it but very slight
beginnings of agriculture. They were acquainted to be sure with a few of the
grains, but the cultivation of these was carried on very incidentally in order to

278 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

were well advanced in the Middle Status of barbarism ; and
when they first came under historical notice they were in the
Upper Status, and near the threshold of civilization.

The traditionary history of the Latin tribes, prior to the
time of Romulus, is much more scanty and imperfect than that
of the Grecian, whose earlier relative literary culture and strong-
er literary proclivities enabled them to preserve a larger pro-
portion of their traditionary accounts. Concerning their an-
terior experience, tradition did not reach beyond their previous
life on the Alban hills, and the ranges of the Appenines east-
ward from the site of Rome. For tribes so far advanced in
the arts of life it would have required a long occupation of
Italy to efface all knowledge of the country from which they
came. In the time of Romulus^ they had already fallen by
segmentation into thirty independent tribes, still united in a
loose confederacy for mutual protection. They also occupied
contiguous territorial areas. The Sabellians, Oscans, and
Umbrians were in the same general condition; their respective
tribes were in the same relations; and their territorial circum-
scriptions, as might have been expected, were founded upon
dialect. All alike, including their northern neighbors the
Etruscans, were organized in gentes, with institutions similar
to those of the Grecian tribes. Such was their general con-
dition when they first emerged from behind the dark curtain of
their previous obscurity, and the light of history fell upon
them.

Roman history has touched but slightly the particulars of a
vast experience anterior to the founding of Rome (about 753

gain a supply of milk and flesh. The material existence of the people rested
ill no way upon agriculture. This becomes entirely clear from the small number
of primitive words which have reference to agriculture. These words are yava,
wild fruit, varka, hoe, or plow, rava, sickle, together with pio, piiisere [to bake]
and mak, Gk. /udddoo, which give indications of threshing out and grinding
of grain." — Kick's Primitive Unity of Indo-European Languages, Gottingen,
1873, p. 280. See also Chips From a German Workshop, ii, 42.

With reference to the possession of agriculture by the Graeco-Italic people, see
Mommsen, i, p. 47, ct scq.

> The use of the word Romulus, and of the names of his successors, does not
involve the adoption of the ancient Roman traditions. These names personify the
great movements which then took place with which we are chiefly concerned.

THE ROMAN GENS. 279

B. C). The Italian tribes had then become numerous and
populous; they had become strictly agricultural in their habits,'
possessed flocks and herds of domestic animals, and had made
great progress in the arts of life. They had also attained the
monogamian family. All this is shown by their condition
when first made known to us; but the particulars of their prog-
ress from a lower to a higher state had, in the main, fallen out
of knowledge. They were back\^•ard in the growth of the
idea of government; since the confederacy of tribes was still
the full extent of their advancement. Although the thirty
tribes were confederated, it was in the nature of a league for
mutual defense, and neither sufficiently close or intimate to
tend to a nationality.

The Etruscan tribes were confederated; and the same was
probably true of the Sabellian, Oscan and Umbrian tribes.
While the Latin tribes possessed numerous fortified towns and
country strongholds, they were spread over the surface of the
country for agricultural pursuits, and for the maintenance of
their flocks and herds. Concentration and coalescence had
not occurred to any marked extent until the great move-
ment ascribed to Romulus which resulted in the foundation
of Rome. These loosely united Latin tribes furnished the
principal materials from which the new city was to draw its
strength. The accounts of these tribes from the time of the
supremacy of the chiefs of Alba down to the time of Servius
Tullius, were made up to a great extent of fables and traditions;
but certain facts remained in the institutions and social usages
transmitted to the historical period which tend, in a remarkable
manner, to illustrate their previous condition. They are even
more important than an outline history of actual events.

Among the institutions of the Latin tribes existing at the
commencement of the historical period were the gentes, curiae
and tribes upon which Romulus and his successors established
the Roman power. The new government was not in all re-
spects a natural growth; but modified in the upper members
of the organic series by legislative procurement. The gentes,
however, which formed the basis of the organization, were nat-
ural growths, and in the main either of common or cognate lin-

28o ANCIENT SOCIETY.

eage. That is, the Lathi gentes were of the same Hneage, while
the Sabine and other gentes, with the exception of the Etrus-
cans, were of cognate descent. In the time of Tarquinius Pris-
cus, the fourth in succession from Romulus, the organization
had been brought to a numerical scale, namely: ten gentes to
a curia, ten curiae to a tribe, and three tribes of the Romans;
giving a total of three hundred gentes integrated in one gentile
society.

Romulus had the sagacity to perceive that a confederacy of
tribes, composed of gentes and occupying separate areas, had
neither the unity of purpose nor sufficient strength to accom-
plish more than the maintenance of an independent existence.
The tendency to disintegration counteracted the advantages of
the federal principle. Concentration and coalescence were the
remedy proposed by Romulus and the wise men of his time.
It was a remarkable movement for the period, and still more
remarkable in its progress from the epoch of Romulus to the
institution of political society under Servius Tullius. Follow-
ing the course of the Athenian tribes and concentrating in one
city, they wrought out in five generations a similar and com-
plete change in the plan of government, from a gentile into a
political organization.

It will be sufficient to remind the reader of the general facts
that Romulus united upon and around the Palatine Hill a hun-
dred Latin gentes, organized as a tribe, the Ramnes ; that by a
fortunate concurrence of circumstances a large body of Sabines
were added to the new community whose gentes, afterwards in-
creased to one hundred, were organized as a second tribe, the
Titles; and that in the time of Tarquinius Priscus a third tribe,
the Luceres, had been formed, composed of a hundred gentes
drawn from surrounding tribes, including the Etruscans. Three
hundred gentes, in about the space of a hundred years, were
thus gathered at Rome, and completely organized under a coun-
cil of chiefs now called the Roman Senate, an assembly of the
people now called the coniitia curiata, and one military com-
mander, the rex ; and with one purpose, that of gaining a mil-
itary ascendency in Italy.

Under the constitution of Romulus, and the subsequent leg-

THE ROMAN GENS. 2 8 1

islation of Servius Tullius, the government was essentially a mil-
itary democracy, because the military spirit predominated in
the government. But it may be remarked in passing that a
new and antagonistic element, the Roman senate, was now in-
corporated in the centre of the social system, which conferred
patrician rank upon its members and their posterity. A priv-
ileged class was thus created at a stroke, and intrenched first
in the gentile and afterwards in the political system, which ul-
timately overthrew the democratic principles inherited from the
gentes. It was the Roman senate, with the patrician class it
created, that changed the institutions and the destiny of the
Roman people, and turned them from a career, analogous to
that of the Athenians, to which their inherited principles nat-
urally and logically tended.

In its main features the new organization was a masterpiece
of wisdom for military purposes. It soon carried them entirely
beyond the remaining Italian tribes, and ultimately into suprem-
acy over the entire peninsula.

The organization of the Latin and other Italian tribes into
gentes has been investigated by Niebuhr, Hermann, Mommsen,
Long and others; but their several accounts fall short of a clear
and complete exposition of the structure and principles of the
Italian gens. This is due in part to the obscurity in which
portions of the subject are enveloped, and to the absence of
minute details in the Latin writers. It is also in part due to a
misconception, by some of the first named writers, of the rela-
tions of the family to the gens. They regard the gens as com-
posed of families, whereas it was composed of parts of families;
so that the gens and not the family was the unit of the social
system. It may be difficult to carry the investigation much
beyond the point where they have left it; but information
drawn from the archaic constitution of the gens may serve to
elucidate some of its characteristics which are now obscure.

Concerning the prevalence of the organization into gentes
among the Italian tribes, Niebuhr remarks as follows: "Should
any one still contend that no conclusion is to be drawn from
the character of the Athenian gennetes to that of the Roman
gentiles, he will be bound to show how an institution which

282 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

runs through the whole ancient world came to have a com-
pletely dififerent character in Italy and in Greece. . . . Every
body of citizens was divided in this manner; the Gephyrseans
and Salaminians as well as the Athenians, the Tusculans as
well as the Romans."^

Besides the existence of the Roman gens, it is desirable to
know the nature of the organization; its rights, privileges and
obligations, and the relations of the gentes to each other, as
members of a social system. After these have been consid-
ered, their relations to the curiae, tribes, and resulting people
of which they for^med a part, will remain for consideration in
the next ensuing chapter.

After collecting the accessible information from various
sources upon these subjects it will be found incomplete in many
respects, leaving some of the attributes and functions of the
gens a matter of inference. The powers of the gentes were
withdrawn, and transferred to new political bodies before his-
torical composition among the Romans had fairly commenced.
There was, therefore, no practical necessity resting upon the
Romans for preserving the special features of a system substan-
tially set aside. Gaius, who wrote his Institutes in the early
part of the second century of our era, took occasion to remark
that the whole jus gentiliciuin had fallen into desuetude, and
that it was then superfluous to< treat the subject.^ But at the
foundation of Rome, and for several centuries thereafter, the
gentile organization was in vigorous activity.

The Roman definition of a gens and of a gentilis, and the
line in which descent was traced should be presented before
the characteristics of the gens are considered. In the Topics
of Cicero a gentilis is defined as follows: Those are gen-
tiles who are of the same name among themselves. This is
insufficient. Who were born of free parents. Even that is not
sufficient. No one of whose ancestors has been a slave.
Something still is wanting. Who have never suffered capital

• History of Ro7iie, I. c, i, 241, 245.

* Qui sint aiitem gentiles, primo comnientario rcttulimus ; ct cum illic ad-
monuerimus, totum gentilicium jus in desuetudinem abisse, superuacuum est, hoc
quoque loco de ea re curiosius tractare. — Inst., iii, 17.

THE ROMAN GENS. 283

diminution. This perhaps may do; for I am not aware that
Scaevola, the Pontiff, added anything to this definition.^ There
is one by Festus: "A gentihs is described as one both sprung
from the same stock, and who is called by the same name."^
Also by Varro : As from an Aemilius men are born Aemilii,
and gentiles ; so from the name Aemilius terms are derived
pertaining to gentilism.^

Cicero does not attempt to define a gens, but rather to fur-
nish certain tests by which the right to the gentile connection
might be proved, or the loss of it be detected. Neither of these
definitions show the composition of a gens; that is, whether all,
or a part only, of the descendants of a supposed genarch were
entitled to bear the gentile name; and, if a part only, what
part. With descent in the male line the gens would include
those only who could trace their descent though males exclu-
sively; and if in the female line, then through females only.
If limited to neither, then all the descendants would be included.
These definitions must have assumed that descent in the male
line was a fact known to all. From other sources it appears
that those only belonged to the gens who could trace their
descent through its male members. Roman genealogies sup-
ply this proof Cicero omitted the material fact that those
were gentiles who could trace their descent through males ex-
clusively from an acknowledged ancestor within the gens. It
is in part supplied by Festus and Varro. From an Aemilius,
the latter remarks, men are born Aemilii, and gentiles; each
must be born of a male bearing the gentile name. But Cicero's
definition also shows that a gentilis must bear the gentile name.

' Gentiles sunt, qui inter se eodem nomine sunt. Non est satis. Qui ab
ingenuis oriundi sunt. Ne id quidem satis est. Quorum majorum nemo servitutem
servivit. Abest etiam nunc. Qui capite non sunt deminuti. Hoc fortasse satis
est. Nihil enim video Scaevolam, Pontificem, ad banc definitionem addidisse.
— Cicero, Topica 6.

* Gentilis dicitur et ex eodem genere ortus, et is qui simili nomine appellatur,
— Quoted in Smith's Die. Gk. Ss' Rom. Antiq., Article, Gens.

* The following is the text extended : Ut in hominibus quaedam sunt agnationes
ac gentilitates, sic in verbis ; ut enim ab Aemilio homines orti Aemilii, ac gentiles ;
sic ab Aemilii nomine declinatae voces in genlilitate nominali; ab eo enim, quod
est impositum recto casu Aemilius, Aemilium, Aemilios, Aemiliorum; et sic
reliqua, ejusdem quae sunt stirpes. — Varro, De Lingua Latina, lib. viii, cap. 4.

284 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

In the address of the Roman tribune Canuleius (445 B. C),
on his proposition to repeal an existing law forbidding inter-
marriage between patricians and plebeians, there is a statement
implying descent in the male line. For what else is there in
the matter, he remarks, if a patrician man shall wed a plebeian
woman, or a plebeian man a patrician woman? What right
in the end is thereby changed? The children surely follow
the father, (nempe patrem sequimtur liberi.) ^

A practical illustration, derived from transmitted gentile
names, will show conclusively that descent was in the male
line. Julia, the sister of Caius Julius Caesar, married Marcus
Attius Balbus. Her name shows that she belonged to the
Julian gens.^ Her daughter Attia, according to custom, took
the gentile name of her father and belonged to the Attian
gens. Attia married Caius Octavius, and became the mother
of Caius Octavius, the first Roman emperor. The son, as usual,
took the gentile name of his father, and belonged to the Oc-
tavian gens.^ After becoming emperor he added the names
Caesar Augustus.

In the Roman gens descent was in the male line from Au-
gustus back to Romulus, and for an unknown period back of
the latter. None were gentiles except such as could trace their
descent through males exclusively from some acknowledged
ancestor within the gens. But it was unnecessary, because im-
possible, that all should be able to trace their descent from the
same common ancestor; and much less from the eponymous
ancestor.

1 Quid enim in re est aliud, si plebeiam patricius duxerit, si patriciam plebeius ?
Quid juris tandem mutatur ? nempe patrem sequuntur liberi. — Livy, lib. iv, cap. 4.

* "When there was only one daughter in a family, she used to be called from
the name of the gens ; thus, Tullia, the daughter of Cicero, Julia, the daughter of
Caesar; Octavia, the sister of Augustus, etc.; and they retained the same name
after they were married. When there were two daughters, the one was called
Major and the other Minor. If there were more than two, they were distinguished
by their number: thus. Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, etc.; or more
softly, TertuUa, Quartilla, Quintilla, etc. . . . During the flourishing state of the
republic, the names of the gentes, and surnames of the familioe, always remained
fixed and certain. They were common to all the children of the family, and
descended to their posterity. But after the subversion of liberty they were changed
and confounded." — Adams's Roman Antiquities, Glasgow ed., 1825, p. 27.

3 Suetonius, I'it. Octaviamis, c. 3 and 4.

THE ROMAN GENS. 285

It will be noticed that in each of the above cases, to which a
large number might be added, the persons married out of the
gens. Such was undoubtedly the general usage by customary
law.

The Roman gens was individualized by the following rights,
privileges and obligations :

I. Mutual rights of succession to the property of deceased
gcjitilcs.
II. The possession of a conimon burial place.

III. Common religions rites; sacra gentilicia.

IV. The obligation not to marry in the gens.
V. The possession of lands in common.

VI. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of
injuries.
VII. TJie right to bear the gentile name.
VIII. The 7'ight to adopt strangers into the gens.

IX. The right to elect and depose its chiefs ; query.

These several characteristics will be considered in the order
named.

I. Mutual rights of succession to the property of deceased gen-
tiles.

When the law of the Twelve Tables was promulgated (45 i
B. C), the ancient rule, which presumptively distributed the in-
heritance among the gentiles, had been superseded by more
advanced regulations. The estate of an intestate now passed,
first, to his sui heredcs, that is, to his children; and, in default
of children, to his lineal descendants through males.^ The
living children took equally, and the children of deceased sons
took the share of their father equally. It will be noticed that
the inheritance remained in the gens; the children of the female
descendants of the intestate, who belonged to other gentes, be-
ing excluded. Second, if there were no sui heredcs, by the same
law, the inheritance then passed to the agnates.^ The agnatic
kindred comprised all those persons who could trace their de-
scent through males from the same common ancestor with the
intestate. In virtue of such a descent they all bore the same

^ Gaius, InsiitiUes, lib. iii, I and 2. The wife was a co-heiress with the children.
» lb., hb. iii, 9.

286 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

gentile name, females as well as males, and were nearer in de-
gree to the decedent than the remaining gentiles. The agnates
nearest in degree had the preference; first, the brothers and
unmarried sisters; second, the paternal uncles and unmarried
aunts of the intestate, and so on until the agnatic relatives were
exhausted. Third, if there were no agnates of the intestate, the
same law called the gentiles to the inheritance.^ This seems at
first sight remarkable; because the children of the intestate's
sisters were excluded from the inheritance, and the preference
given to gentile kinsmen so remote that their relationship to the
intestate could not be traced at all, and only existed in virtue of
an ancient lineage preserved by a common gentile name. The
reason, however, is apparent; the children of the sisters of the
intestate belonged to another gens, and the gentile right pre-
dominated over greater nearness of consanguinity, because the
principle which retained the property in the gens was funda-
mental. It is a plain inference from the law of the Twelve Ta-
bles that inheritance began in the inverse order, and that the
three classes of heirs represent the three successive rules of in-
heritance; namely: first, the gentiles; second, the agnates,
among whom were the children of the decedent after descent
was changed to the male line; and third, the children, to the
exclusion of the remaining agnates.

A female, by her marriage, suffered what was technically
called a loss of franchise or capital diminution (demimitio cap-
itis), by which she forfeited her agnatic rights. Here again
the reason is apparent. If after her marriage she could inherit
as an agnate it would transfer the property inherited from her
own gens to that of her husband. An unmarried sister could
inherit, but a married sister could not.

With our knowledge of the archaic principles of the gens, we
are enabled to glance backward to the time when descent in
the Latin gens was in the female line, when property was in-
considerable, and distributed among the gentiles; not neces-
sarily within the life-time of the Latin gens, for its existence
reached back of the period of their occupation of Italy. That
the Roman gens had passed from the archaic into its historical

1 Gaius, Iiist.f lib. iii, 17.

THE ROMAN GENS.

287

form is partially indicated by the reversion of property in cer-
tain cases to the gentiles.^

"The right of succeeding to the property of members who
died without kin and intestate," Niebuhr remarks, "was that
which lasted the longest; so long indeed, as to engage the at-
tention of the jurists, and even — though assuredly not as any-
thing more than a historical question — that of Gaius, the man-
uscript of whom is unfortunately illegible in this part."^
II. A common burial place.

The sentiment of gentilism seems to have been stronger in
the Upper Status of barbarism than in earlier conditions, through
a higher organization of society, and through mental and
moral advancement. Each gens usually had a burial place for
the exclusive use of its members as a place of sepulture. A few
illustrations will exhibit Roman usages with respect to burial.

Appius Claudius, the chief of the Claudian gens, removed
from Regili, a town of the Sabines, to Rome in the time of
Romulus, where in due time he was made a senator, and thus
a patrician. He brought with him the Claudian gens, and such
a number of clients that his accession to Rome was regarded
as an important event. Suetonius remarks that the gens re-
ceived from the state lands upon the Anio for their clients, and

' A singular question arose between the Marcelli and Claudii, two families of the
Claudian gens, with respect to the estate of the son of a freedman of the IMarcelli ;
the former claiming by right of family, and the latter by right of gens. The law
of the Twelve Tables gave the estate of a freedman to his former master, who by
the act of manumission became his patron, provided he died intestate, and without
stii heredes ; but it did not reach the case of the son of a freedman. The fact that
the Claudii were a patrician family, and the Marcelli were not, could not affect the
question. The freedman did not acquire gentile rights in his master's gens by his
manumission, although he was allowed to adopt the gentile name of his patron ;
as Cicero's freedman, Tyro, was called M. Tullius Tyro. It is not known how the
case, which is mentioned by Cicero {De Oratore, i, 39), and commented upon by
Long (Smith's Die. Gk. (s' Rom. Aniiq., Art. Gens), and Niebuhr, was decided;
but the latter suggests that it was probably against the Claudii {Hisl. of Home, i,
245, note). It is difficult to discover how any claim whatever could be urged by
the Claudii ; or any by the Marcelli, except through an extension of the patronal
right by judicial construction. It is a noteworthy case, because it shows how
strongly the mutual rights with respect to the inheritance of property were in-
trenched in the gens.

* History of Rome, i, 242.

288 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

a burial place for themselves near the capitol.^ This statement
seems to imply that a common burial place was, at that time,
considered indispensable to a gens. The Claudii, having aban-
doned their Sabine connection and identified themselves with
the Roman people, received both a grant of lands and a burial
place for the gens, to place them in equality of condition with
the Roman gentes. The transaction reveals a custom of the
times.

The family tomb had not entirely superseded that of the
gens in the time of Julius Caesar, as was illustrated by the case
of Quintilius Varus, who, having lost his army in Germany,
destroyed himself, and his body fell into the hands of the en-
emy. The half-burned body of Varus, says Paterculus, was
mangled by the savage enemy; his head was cut off, and
brought to Maroboduus, and by him having been sent to Cae-
sar, was at length honored with burial in the gentile sepulchre.^

In his treatise on the laws, Cicero refers to the usages of his
own times in respect to burial in the following language; now
the sacredness of burial places is so great that it is affirmed
to be wrong to perform the burial independently of the sacred
rites of the gens. Thus in the time of our ancestors A. Tor-
quatus decided respecting the Popilian gens.^ The purport of
the statement is that it was a religious duty to bury the dead
with sacred rites, and when possible in land belonging to the
gens. It further appears that cremation and inhumation were
both practiced prior to the promulgation of the Twelve Tables,
which prohibited the burying or burning of dead bodies within
the city.* The columbarium, which would usually accommodate
several hundred urns, was eminently adapted to the uses of a
gens. In the time of Cicero the gentile organization had fallen
into decadence, but certain usages peculiar to it had remained,

' Patricia gens Claudia . . . agrum insuper trans Anienem clientibus locumque
sibi ad sepulturam sub capitolio, publice accepit. — Suet., Vit. Tiberius, cap. i.

* Vari corpus semiustrum hostilis laceraverat feritas ; caput ejus aljscisum, latum-
que ad Maroboduum, et ab eo missum ad Caesarem, gentilitii tumuli sepultura
honoratum est. — Velleius Faterculits, ii, 1 19.

^ lam tanta religio est sepulcrorum, ut extra sacra et gentem inferi fas ncgent
esse; idque apud majores nostros A. Torquatus in genie Popiliajudicavit. — De Leg.,
ii, 22.

* Cicero, De Leg., ii, 23.

THE ROMAN GENS. 289

and that respecting a common burial place among the number.
The family tomb began to take the place of that of the gens, as
the families in the ancient gentcs rose into complete autonomy;
nevertheless, remains of ancient gentile usages with respect to
burial manifested themselves in various ways, and were still
fresh in the history of the past.
III. Covnnon sacred rites ; saera gentilicia.

The Roman sacra embody our idea of divine worship, and
were either public or private. Religious rites performed by a
gens were called sacra privata, or sacra gentilicia. They were
performed regularly at stated periods by the gens.' Cases are
mentioned in which the expenses of maintaining these rites had
become a burden in consequence of the reduced numbers in
the gens. They were gained and lost by circumstances, e. g.,
adoption or marriage.^ "That the members of the Roman gens
had common sacred rites," observes Niebuhr, "is well known;
there were sacrifices appointed for stated days and places."'
The sacred rites, both public and private, were under pontif-
ical regulation exclusively, and not subject to civil cognizance.*

The religious rites of the Romans seem to have had their
primary connection with the gens rather than the family. A
college of pontiffs, of curiones, and of augurs, with an elaborate
system of worship under these priesthoods, in due time grew
into form and became established; but the system was tolerant
and free. The priesthood was in the main elective.^ The head
of every family also was the priest of the household.^ The gen-
tes of the Greeks and Romans were the fountains from which
flowed the stupendous mythology of the classical world.

In the early days of Rome many gentes had each their own
sacellum for the performance of their religious rites. Several
gentes had each special sacrifices to perform, which had been

1 "There were certain sacred rites {^sacra gentilicia) which belonged to a gens,
to the observance of which all the members of a gens, as such, were bound,
whether they were members by birth, adoption or adrogation. A person was
freed from the observance of such sacra, and lost the privileges connected with his
gentile rights when he lost his gens." — Smith's Die. Aniiq., Gens.

* Cicero, Piv Domo, c. 13.
8 History of Rome, i, 241.

* Cicero, De Leg., ii, 23.

^ Dionysius, ii, 22. 6 lb., ii, 21.

290

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

transmitted from generation to generation, and were regarded
as obligatory; as those of the Nautii to Minerva, of the Fabii
to Hercules, and of the Horatii in expiation of the sororicide
committed by Horatius.^ It is sufficient for my purpose to
have shown generally that each gens had its own religious rites
as one of the attributes of the organization.

IV. The obligation not to marry in the gens.

Gentile regulations were customs having the force of law.
The obligation not to marry in the gens was one of the num-
ber. It does not appear to have been turned, at a later day,
into a legal enactment ; but evidence that such was the rule of
the gens appears in a number of ways. The Roman genealo-
gies show that marriage was out of the gens, of which instances
have been given. This, as we have seen, was the archaic rule
for reasons of consanguinity. A woman by her marriage
forfeited her agnatic rights, to which rule there was no ex-
ception. It was to prevent the transfer of property by marriage
from one gens to another, from the gens of her birth to the
gens of her husband. The exclusion of the children of a
female from all rights of inheritance from a maternal uncle or
maternal grandfather, which followed, was for the same reason.
As the female was required to marry out of her gens her
children would be of the gens of their father, and there could
be no privity of inheritance between members of different
gentes.

V. The possession of lands in common.

The ownership of lands in common was so general among
barbarous tribes that the existence of the same tenure amonsf
the Latin tribes is no occasion for surprise. A portion of their
lands seems to have been held in severalty by individuals from
a very early period. No time can be assigned when this was
not the case; but at first it was probably the possessory right
to lands in actual occupation, so often before referred to, which
was recognized as far back as the Lower Status of barbarism.

Among the rustic Latin tribes, lands were held in common
by each tribe, other lands by the gentes, and still other by
households.

* Niebuhr's History of Rome, i, 241.

THE ROMAN GENS. 29 1

Allotments of lands to individuals became common at Rome
in the time of Romulus, and afterwards quite general. Varro
and Dionysius both state that Romulus allotted two jugera
(about two and a quarter acres) to each man.' Similar allot-
ments are said to have been afterwards made by Numa and
Servius Tullius. They were the beginnings of absolute owner-
ship in severalty, and presuppose a settled life as well as a great
advancement in intelligence. It was not only admeasured but
granted by the government, which was very different from a
possessory right in lands growing out of an individual act. The
idea of absolute individual ownership of land was a growth
through experience, the complete attainment of which belongs
to the period of civilization. These lands, however, were taken
from those held in common by the Roman people. Gentes,
curiee and tribes held certain lands in common after civilization
had commenced, beyond those held by individuals in severalty.

Mommsen remarks that "the Roman territory was divided in
the earliest times into a number of clan-districts, which were
subsequently employed in the formation of the earliest rural
wards {tribus riisticce). . . . These names are not, like those
of the districts added at a later period, derived from the locali-
ties, but are formed without exception from the names of the
clans." ^ Each gens held an independent district, and of neces-
sity was localized upon it. This was a step in advance, al-
though it was the prevailing practice not only in the rural dis-
tricts, but also in Rome, for the gentes to localize in separate
areas. Mommsen further observes: "As each household had
its own portion of land, so the clan-household or village, had
clan-lands belonging to it, which, as will afterwards be shown,
were managed up to a comparatively late period after the anal-
ogy of house-lands, that is, on the system of joint possession.
.... These clanships, however, were from the beginning re-
garded not as independent societies, but as integral parts of a

' Bina jugera quod a Romulo primum diuisa [dicebantur] viritim, quae [quod]
haeredem sequerentur, haeredium appellarunt. — Varro, De Re Rustica, lib. i,
cap. 10.

2 History of Rome, i, 62. He names the Camillii, Galerii, Lemonii, Pollii,
Pupinii, Voltinii, Aemilii, Cornelii, Fabii, Horatii, Menenii, Papirii, Romilii,
Sergii, Veturii. — lb., p. 63.

292

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

political community {civitas popiili). This first presents itself
as an aggregate of a number of clan-villages of the same stock,
language and manners, bound to mutual observance of law and
mutual legal redress and to united action in aggression and de-
fense."^ Clan is here used by Mommsen, or his translator, in
the place of gens, and elsewhere canton is used in the place of
tribe, which are the more singular since the Latin language
furnishes specific terms for these organizations which have be-
come historical. Mommsen represents the Latin tribes anterior
to the founding of Rome as holding lands by households, by
gentes and by tribes; and he further shows the ascending series
of social organizations in these tribes ; a comparison of which
with those of the Iroquois, discloses their close parallelism,
namely, the gens, tribe and confederacy.^ The phratry is not
mentioned although it probably existed. The household re-
ferred to could scarcely have been a single family. It is not

' History of Rome, i, 63.

* "A fixed local centre was quite as necessary in the case of such a canton as in
that of a clanship ; but as the members of the clan, or, in other words, the con-
stituent elements of the canton, dwelt in villages, the centre of the canton can-
not have been a town or place of joint settlement in the strict sense. It must,
on the contrary, have been simply a place of common assembly, containing the
seat of justice and the common sanctuary of the canton, where the members of
the canton met every eighth day for purposes of intercourse and amusement, and
where, in case of war, they obtained a safer shelter for themselves and their cattle
than in the villages ; in ordinary circumstances this place of meeting was not at all
or but scantily inhabited. . . . These cantons accordingly, having their rendezvous
in some stronghold, and including a certain number of clanships, form the primi-
tive political unities with which Italian history begins. . . . All of these cantons
were in primitive times politically sovereign, and each of them was governed by its
prince with the co-operation of the council of elders and the assembly of warriors.
Nevertheless the feeling of fellowship based on community of descent and of lan-
guage not only pervaded the whole of them, but manifested itself in an important
religious and political institution — the perpetual league of the collective Latin can-
tons."— Hist, of Rome, i, 64-66. The statement that the canton or tribe was govern-
ed by its prince with the co-operation of the council, etc., is a reversal of the correct
statement, and therefore misleading. We must suppose that the military commander
held an elective office, and that he was deposable at the pleasure of the constituency
who elected him. Further than this, there is no ground for assuming that he pos-
sessed any civil functions. It is a reasonable, if not a necessary conclusion, there-
fore, that the tribe was governed by a council composed of the chiefs of the gentes,
and by an assembly of the warriors, with the co-operation of a general military
commander, whose functions were exclusively military. It was a government of
three powers, common in the Upper Status of barbarism, and identified with insti-
tutions essentially democratical.

THE ROMAN GENS. 293

unlikely that it was composed of related families who occupied
a joint-tenement house, and practiced communism in living in
the household.

VI. Reciprocal obligations of help, defense and redress of in-
juries.
During the period of barbarism the dependence of the gen-
tiles upon each other for the protection of personal rights would
be constant; but after the establishment of political society,
the gentilis, now a citizen, would turn to the law and to the
state for the protection before administered by his gens. This
feature of the ancient system would be one of the first to disap-
pear under the new. Accordingly but slight references to these
mutual obligations are found in the early authors. It does not
follow, however, that the gentiles did not practice these duties to
each other in the previous period; on the contrary, the inference
that they did is a necessary one from the principles of the gen-
tile organization. Remains of these special usages appear, un-
der special circumstances, well down in the historical period.
When Appius Claudius was cast into prison (about 432 B. C),
Caius Claudius, then at enmity with him, put on mourning, as
well as the whole Claudian gens.^ A calamity or disgrace
falling upon one member of the body was felt and shared by
all. During the second Punic war, Niebuhr remarks, "the gen-
tiles united to ransom their fellows who were in captivity, and
were forbidden to do it by the senate. This obligation is an
essential characteristic of the gens."" In the caie of Camillus,
against whom a tribune had lodged an accusation on account
of the Veientian spoil, he summoned to his house before the day
appointed for his trial his tribesmen and clients to ask their ad-
vice, and he received for an answer that they would collect
whatever sum he was condemned to pay; but to clear him was
impossible.^ The active principle of gentilism is plainly illustra-
ted in these cases. Niebuhr further remarks that the obliga-

' Ap. Claudio in vinculo ducto, C. Claudius inimicum Claudiamque omnem
gentem sordidalum fuisse. — Livy, vi, 20.

'^ History of Rome, i, 242.

^ Responsum tulisse, se collecturos, quanti damnatus esset, absolvere eum nou
posse. — Liv., V, 32.

294

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

tion to assist their indigent gentiles rested on the members of the

Roman gens.^

VII. The right to bear the gentile name.

This followed necessarily from the nature of the gens. All
such persons as were born sons or daughters of a male member
of the gens were themselves members, and of right entitled to
bear the gentile name. In the lapse of time it was found im-
possible for the members of a gens to trace their descent back
to the founder, and, consequently, for different families within
the gens to find their connection through a later common an-
cestor. Whilst this inabilit}^ proved the antiquity of the lineage,
it was no evidence that these families had not sprung from a
remote common ancestor. The fact that persons were born
in the gens, and that each could trace his descent through a
series of acknowledged members of the gens, was sufficient
evidence of gentile descent, and strong evidence of the blood
connection of all the gentiles. But some investigators, Nie-
buhr among the number,' have denied the existence of any
blood relationship between the families in a gens, since they
could not show a connection through a common ancestor. This
treats the gens as a purely fictitious organization, and is there-
fore untenable. Niebuhr's inference against a blood connec-
tion from Cicero's definition is not sustainable. If the right of
a person to bear the gentile name were questioned, proof of
the right would consist, not in tracing his descent from the
genarch, but from a number of acknowledged ancestors within
the gens. Without written records the number of generations
through which a pedigree might be traced would be limited.
Few families in the same gens might not be able to find a com-
mon ancestor, but it would not follow that they were not of
common descent from some remote ancestor within the gens.^

^History of Rome, i, 242: citing Dio7iysins, ii, 10: (f'(5fz rovl, TTfAaraS)
r(Sv avaXcoiLtdToav gJs rovi ykvEi Ttpodtjuovrai jnere'xsiy.

2 History of Rome, i, 240.

3 "Nevertheless, affinity in blood always appeared to the Romans to lie at the
root of the connection between the members of the clan, and still more between
those of a family; and the Roman community can only have interfered with these
groups to a limited extent consistent with the retention of their fundamental char-
acter of affinity." — Mommsen's History of Rotne, i, 103.

THE ROMAN GENS. 295

After descent was changed to the male line the ancient
names of the gentes, which not unlikely were taken from ani-
mals,^ or inanimate objects, gave place to personal names.
Some individual, distinguished in the history of the gens, be-
came its eponymous ancestor, and this person, as elsewhere
suggested, was not unlikely superseded by another at long in-
tervals of time. When a gens divided in consequence of sepa-
ration in area, one division would be apt to take a new name;
but such a change of name would not disturb the kinship upon
which the gens was founded. When it is considered that the
lineage of the Roman gentes, under changes of names, ascended
to the time when the Latins, Greeks and the Sanskrit speaking
people of India were one people, without reaching its source,
some conception of its antiquity may be gained. The loss of
the gentile name at any time by any individual was the most
improbable of all occurrences; consequently its possession was
the highest evidence that he shared with his gentiles the sam.e
ancient lineage. There was one way, and but one, of adulter-
ating gentile descent, namely: by the adoption of strangers
in blood into the gens. This practice prevailed, but the extent
of it was small. If Neibuhr had claimed that the blood rela-
tionship of the gentiles had become attenuated by lapse of
time to an inappreciable quantity between some of them, no
objection could be taken to his position; but a denial of all
relationship which turns the gens into a fictitious aggregation
of persons, without any bond of union, controverts the principle
upon which the gens came into existence, and which perpetu-
ated it through three entire ethnical periods.

Elsewhere I have called attention to the fact that the gens
came in with a system of consanguinity which reduced all con-
sanguinei to a small number of categories, and retained their
descendants indefinitely in the same. The relationships of
persons were easily traced, no matter how remote their actual

' It is a curious fact that Cleisthenes of Argos changed the names of the three
Dorian tribes of Sicyon, one to Hyatae, signifying in the singular a boar; anotlier
to Oneatje, signifying an ass, and a third to Choereatae, signifying a little pig.
They were intended as an insult to the Sicyonians ; but they remained during his
life-time, and for si.xty years afterwards. Did the idea of these animal names come
down through tradition ? — See Grote's History of Greece, iii, 33, 36.

296 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

common ancestor. In an Iroquois gens of five hundred per-
sons, all its members are related to each other and each person
knows or can find his relationship to every other; so that the
fact of kin was perpetually present in the gens of the archaic
period. With the rise of the monogamian family, a new and
totally different system of consanguinity came in, under which
the relationships between collaterals soon disappeared. Such
was the system of the Latin and Grecian tribes at the com-
mencement of the historical period. That which preceded it
was, presumptively at least, Turanian, under which the rela-
tionships of the gentiles to each other would have been known.

After the decadence of the gentile organization commenced,
new gentes ceased to form by the old process of segmentation;
and some of those existing died out. This tended to enhance
the value of gentile descent as a lineage. In the times of the
empire, new families were constantly establishing themselves in
Rome from foreign parts, and assuming gentile names to gain
social advantages. This practice being considered an abuse,
the Emperor Claudius (A. D. 40-54), prohibited foreigners from
assuming Roman names, especially those of the ancient gentes.^
Roman families, belonging to the historical gentes, placed the
highest value upon their lineages both under the republic and
the empire.

All the members of a gens were free, and equal in their
rights and privileges, the poorest as well as the richest, the dis-
tinguished as well as the obscure; and they shared equally in
whatever dignity the gentile name conferred which they inher-
ited as a birthright. Liberty, equality and fraternity were car-
dinal principles of the Roman gens, not less certainly than of
the Grecian, and of the American Indian.
VIII. The right of adopting strangers in blood into the gens.

In the times of the republic, and also of the empire, adop-
tion into the family, which carried the person into the gens of
the family, was practiced; but it was attended with formalities
which rendered it difficult. A person who had no children,
and who was past the age to expect them, might adopt a son

' Perigrinae condiiionis homines relati uscorpare Romana nomino, dundax at
gentilicia. — Sueton., Vit. Claudius, cap. 25.

THE ROMAN GENS.

297

with the consent of the pontifices, and of the comitia awiata.
The college of pontiffs were entitled to be consulted lest the
sacred rites of the family, from which the adopted person was
taken, might thereby be impaired;^ as also the assembly, be-
cause the adopted person would receive the gentile name, and
might inherit the estate of his adoptive father. From the precau-
tions which remained in the time of Cicero, the inference is rea-
sonable that under the previous system, which was purely gen-
tile, the restrictions must have been greater and the instances
rare. It is not probable that adoption in the early period was
allowed without the consent of the gens, and of the curia to
which the gens belonged; and if so, the number adopted must
have been limited. Few details remain of the ancient usages
with respect to adoption.
IX. The right of electing and deposing its eJiiefs; query.

The incompleteness of our knowledge of the Roman gentes
is shown quite plainly by the absence of direct information with
respect to the tenure of the office of chief [prineeps). Before
the institution of political society each gens had its chief, and
probably more than one. When the office became vacant it
was necessarily filled, either by the election of one of the gen-
tiles, as among the Iroquois, or taken by hereditary right.
But the absence of any proof of hereditary right, and the pres-
ence of the elective principle with respect to nearly all offices
under the republic, and before that, under the reges, leads to
the inference that hereditary right was alien to the institutions
of the Latin tribes. The highest office, that of rex, was elective,
the office of senator was elective or by appointment, and that
of consuls and of inferior magistrates. It varied with respect
to the college of pontiffs instituted by Numa. At first the
pontiffs themselves filled vacancies by election. Livy speaks
of the election of a pontifex maxinms by the comitia about
2 1 2 B. C.^ By the lex Domitia the right to elect the members
of the several colleges of pontiffs and of priests was transferred
to the people, but the law was subsequently modified by Sulla. ^

' Cicero, Pro Dotno, cap. 13.

* Livy, XXV, 5.

' Smith's Die, Art. Pontifex.

298 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The active presence of the elective principle among the Latin
gentes when they first come under historical notice, and from
that time through the period of the republic, furnishes strong
grounds for the inference that the office of chief was elective in
tenure. The democratic features of their social system, which
present themselves at so many points, were inherited from the
gentes. It would require positive evidence that the office of
chief passed by hereditary right to overcome the presumption
against it. The right to elect carries with it the right to de-
pose from office, where the tenure is for life.

These chiefs, or a selection from them, composed the council
of the several Latin tribes before the founding of Rome, which
was the principal instrument of government. Traces of the
three powers co-ordinated in the government appear among
the Latin tribes as they did in the Grecian, namely: the coun-
cil of chiefs, the assembly of the people, to which we must sup-
pose the more important public measures were submitted for
adoption or rejection, and the military commander. Mommsen
remarks that "All of these cantons [tribes] were in primitive
times politically sovereign, and ,each of them was governed by
its prince, and the co-operation of the council of elders, and
the assembly of the warriors."^ The order of Mommsen's
statement should be reversed, and the statement qualified.
This council, from its functions and from its central position in
their social system, of which it was a growth, held of necessity
the supreme power in civil affairs. It was the council that
governed, and not the military commander. "In all the cities
belonging to civilized nations on the coasts of the Mediterra-
nean," Niebuhr observes, "a senate was a no less essential and
indispensable part of the state, than a popular assembly; it was
a select body of elder citizens; such a council, says Aristotle,
there always is, whether the council be aristocratical or demo-
cratical; even in oligarchies, be the number of sharers in the
sovereignty ever so small, certain councilors are appointed for
preparing public measures."^ The senate of political society
succeeded the council of chiefs of gentile society. Romulus
formed the first Roman senate of a hundred elders; and as

' History of Rome, i, 66. 2 /^_^ j^ 258.

THE ROMAN GENS.

299

there were then but a hundred gentes, the inference is substan-
tially conclusive that they were the chiefs of these gentes. The
office was for life, and non-hereditary ; whence the final infer-
ence, that the office of chief was at the time elective. Had it
been otherwise there is every probability that the Roman sen-
ate would have been instituted as an hereditary body. Evi-
dence of the essentially democratic constitution of ancient so-
ciety meets us at many points, which fact has failed to find its
way into the modern historical expositions of Grecian and Ro-
man gentile society.

With respect to the number of persons in a Roman gens, we
are fortunately not without some information. About 474 B. C.
the Fabian gens proposed to the senate to undertake the Veien-
tian war as a gens, which they said required a constant rather
than a large force. ^ Their offer was accepted, and they march-
ed out of Rome three hundred and six soldiers, all patricians,
amid the applause of their countrymen.^ After a series of
successes they were finally cut off to a man through an am-
buscade. But they left behind them at Rome a single male
under the age of puberty, who alone remained to perpetuate
the Fabian gens.^ It seems hardly credible that three hundred
should have left in their families but a single male child, below
the age of puberty, but such is the statement. This number
of persons would indicate an equal number of females, who,
with the children of the males, would give an aggregate of at
least seven hundred members of the Fabian gens.

Although the rights, obligations and functions of the Roman
gens have been inadequately presented, enough has been ad-
duced to show that this organization was the source of their
social, governmental and rehgious activities. As the unit of
their social system it projects its character upon the higher or-
ganizations into which it entered as a constituent. A much
fuller knowledge of the Roman gens than we now possess is
essential to a full comprehension of Roman institutions in their
origin and development.

1 Livy, ii, 48. 2 /^_^ j;^ ^g_

3 Trecentos sex perisse satis convenit : unum prope pubescem aetate relictum
stirpem gente Fabiae, dubiisque rebus populi Romani sepe domi bellique vel maxi-
mum futurum auxilium. — -Livy, ii, 50; and see Ovid, Fasti, ii, 193.

CHAPTER XIL

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS.

Roman Gentile Society. — Four Stages of Organization — i. The Gens;
2. The Curia, consisting of Ten Gentes; 3. The Tribe, composed of Ten
CuRi^; 4. The Populus Romanus, composed of Three Tribes. — Numer-
ical Proportions — How Produced. — Concentration of Gentes at Rome.
— The Roman Senate. — Its Functions. — The Assembly of the People. —
Its Powers. — The People Sovereign. — Office of Military Commander
(Rex). — Its Powers and Functions. — Roman Gentile Institutions essen-
tially Democratical.

Having considered the Roman gens, it remains to take up
the curia composed of several gentes, the tribe composed of
several curiae, and lastly the Roman people composed of sev-
eral tribes. In pursuing the subject the inquiry will be limited
to the constitution of society as it appeared from the time of
Romulus to that of Servius Tullius, with some notice of the
changes which occurred in the early period of the republic
while the gentile system was giving way, and the new political
system was being established.

It will be found that two governmental organizations were in
existence for a time, side by side, as among the Athenians, one
going out and the other coming in. The first was a society
(societas), founded upon the gentes; and the other a state
(civitas), founded upon territory and upon property, which
was gradually supplanting the former. A government in a
transitional stage is necessarily complicated, and therefore diffi-
cult to be understood. These changes were not violent but
gradual, commencing with Romulus and substantially complet-

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 301

ed, though not perfected, by Servius TulHus; thus embracing a
supposed period of nearly two hundred years, crowded with
events of great moment to the infant commonwealth. In order
to follow the history of the gentes to the overthrow of their
influence in the state it will be necessary, after considering the
curia, tribe and nation, to explain briefly the new political sys-
tem. The last will form the subject of the ensuing chapter.

Gentile society among the Romans exhibits four stages of
organization : first, the gens, which was a body of consanguine!
and the unit of the social system; second, the curia, analogous
to the Grecian phratry, which consisted of ten gentes united in
a higher corporate body; third, the tribe, consisting of ten
curiae, which possessed some of the attributes of a nation under
gentile institutions; and fourth, the Roman people ( Popnbis
Romamis), consisting, in the time of Tullus Hostilius, of three
such tribes united by coalescence in one gentile society, embrac-
ing three hundred gentes. There are facts warranting the con-
clusion that all the Italian tribes were similarly organized at the
commencement of the historical period; but with this differ-
ence, perhaps, that the Roman curia was a more advanced or-
ganization than the Grecian phratry, or the corresponding
phratry of the remaining Italian tribes; and that the Roman
tribe, by constrained enlargement,, became a more comprehen-
sive organization than in the remaining Italian stocks. Some
evidence in support of these statements will appear in the se-
quel.

Before the time of Romulus the Italians, in their various
branches, had become a numerous people. The large number
of petty tribes, into which they had become subdivided, reveals
that state of unavoidable disintegration which accompanies
gentile institutions. But the federal principle had asserted it-
self among the other Italian tribes as well as the Latin, although
it did not result in any confederacy that achieved important re-
sults. Whilst this state of things existed, that great movement
ascribed to Romulus occurred, namely: the concentration of a
hundred Latin gentes on the banks of the Tiber, which was fol-
lowed by a like gathering of Sabine, Latin and Etruscan and
other gentes, to the additional number of two hundred, ending

302 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

in their final coalescence into one people. The foundations of
Rome were thus laid, and Roman power and civilization were
to follow. It was this consolidation of gentes and tribes under
one government, commenced by Romulus and completed by
his successors, that prepared the way for the new political sys-
tem— for the transition from a government based upon persons
and upon personal relations, into one based upon territory and
upon property.

It is immaterial whether either of the seven so-called kings
of Rome were real or mythical persons, or w^hether the legisla-
tion ascribed to either of them is fabulous or true, so far as this
investigation is concerned: because the facts with respect to
the ancient constitution of Latin society remained incorporated
in Roman institutions, and thus came down to the historical
period. It fortunately so happens that the events of human
progress embody themselves, independently of particular men,
in a material record, which is crystallized in institutions, usages
and customs, and preserved in inventions and discoveries.
Historians, from a sort of necessity, give to individuals great
prominence in the production of events; thus placing persons,
who are transient, in the place of principles, which are endur-
ing. The work of society in its totality, by means of which all
progress occurs, is ascribed far too much to individual men,
and far too little to the public intelligence. It will be recog-
nized generally that the substance of human history is bound
up in the growth of ideas, which are wrought out by the peo-
ple and expressed in their institutions, usages, inventions and
discoveries.

The numerical adjustment, before adverted to, of ten gentes
to a curia, ten curiae to a tribe, and three tribes of the Roman
people, was a result of legislative procurement not older, in the
first two tribes, than the time of Romulus. It was made possi-
ble by the accessions gained from the surrounding tribes, by
solicitation or conquest; the fruits of which were chiefly incor-
porated in the Titics and Luceres, as they were successively
formed. But such a precise numerical adjustment could not be
permanently maintained through centuries, especially with re-
spect to the number of gentes in each curia.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 303

We have seen that the Grecian phratiy was rather a religious
and social than a governmental organization. Holding an in-
termediate position between the gens and the tribe, it would be
less important than either, until governmental functions were
superadded. It appears among the Iroquois in a rudimentary
form, its social as distinguished from its governmental character
being at that early day equally well marked. But the Roman
curia, whatever it may have been in the previous period, grew
into an organization more integral and governmental than the
phratry of the Greeks; more is known, however, of the former
than of the latter. It is probable that the gentes comprised in
each curia were, in the main, related gentes; and that their re-
union in a higher organization was further cemented by inter-
marriages, the gentes of the same curia furnishing each other
with wives.

The early writers give no account of the institution of the
curia; but it does not follow that it was a new creation by
Romulus. It is first mentioned as a Roman institution in con-
nection with his legislation, the number of curiae in two of the
tribes having been established in his time. The organiza-
tion, as a phratry, had probably existed among the Latin
tribes from time immemorial.

Livy, speaking of the favor with which the Sabine women
were regarded after the establishment of peace between the
Sabines and Latins through their intervention, remarks that
Romulus, for this reason, when he had divided the people into
thirty curiae bestowed upon them their names.^ Dionysius uses
the term phratry as the equivalent of curia, but gives the latter
also {Houpia),' and observes further, that Romulus divided the
curiae into decades, the ten in each being of course gentes.^
In like manner Plutarch refers to the fact that each tribe con-
tained ten curiae, which some say, he remarks, were called after

' Itaque, quum populum in curias triginta divideret, nomina earum curiis im-
posuit. — Livy, i, 13.

* q>pd.Tpa Sk xai Xoxo'i r) Jiovpia. — Dionys., Antiq. of Rome, ii, 7.

' Siypi;ivTo Ss xai sii SsHocda? at q^parpoci Ttpo? ccvtov, xai ijye/iiGov
ixddrrfv exod/tisi SsxdSapxoZ xard T7]v kittxoipiov yXoorrav itpo-
6ayopEv6nevoi. — Dionys., ii, 7.

304

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the Sabine women. ^ He is more accurate in the use of lan-
guage than Livy or Dionysius in saying that each tribe con-
tained ten curiae, rather than that each was divided into ten, be-
cause the curiae were made of gentes as original unities, and not
the gentes out of a curia by subdivision. The work performed
by Romulus was the adjustment of the number of gentes in
each curia, and the number of curiae in each tribe, which he
was enabled to accomplish through the accessions gained from
the surrounding tribes. Theoretically each curia should have
been composed of gentes derived by segmentation from one or
more gentes, and the tribe by natural growth through the for-
mation of more than one curia, each composed of gentes
united by the bond of a common dialect. The hundred gentes
of the Ramnes were Latin gentes. In their organization into
ten curiae, each composed often gentes, Romulus undoubtedly
respected the bond of kin by placing related gentes in the
same curia, as far as possible, and then reached numerical
symmetry by arbitrarily taking the excess of gentes from
one natural curia to supply the deficiency in another. The
hundred gentes of the tribe Titles were, in the main, Sabine
gentes. These were also arranged in ten curiae, and most likely
on the same principle. The third tribe, the Luceres, was
formed later from gradual accessions and conquests. It was
heterogeneous in its elements, containing, among others, a
number of Etruscan gentes. They were brought into the same
numerical scale of ten curiae each composed of ten gentes.
Under this re-constitution, while the gens, the unit of organiza-
tion, remained pure and unchanged, the curia was raised above
its logical level, and made to include, in some cases, a foreign
element which did not belong to a strict natural phratry; and
the tribe also was raised above its natural level, and made to
embrace foreign elements that did not belong to a tribe as the
tribe naturally grew. By this legislative constraint the tribes,
with their curiae and gentes, were made severally equal, while
the third tribe was in good part an artificial creation under the

' 'Ena'drT/ Se (pvX?) Sena q>paTpia'i ezxev, oci evioi
XiyovGiv tTtovvjuovS eivai tusivoov t(Sv yvvaixwv.

— Plutarch, ViL Romulus, cap. 20.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 305

pressure of circumstances. The linguistic affiliations of the
Etruscans are still a matter of discussion. There is a presump-
tion that their dialect was not wholly unintelligible to the Latin
tribes, otherwise they would not have been admitted into the
Roman social system, which at the time was purely gentile.
The numerical proportions thus secured, facilitated the govern-
mental action of the society as a whole.

Niebuhr, who was the first to gain a true conception of the in-
stitutions of the Romans in this period, who recognized the
fact that the people were sovereign, that the so-called kings ex-
ercised a delegated power, and that the senate was based on the
principle of representation, each gens having a senator, became
at variance with the facts before him in stating in connection
with this graduated scale, that "such numerical proportions are
an irrefragible proof that the Roman houses [gentes]^ were not
more ancient than the constitution; but corporations formed by
a legislator in harmony with the rest of his scheme."^ That a
small foreign element was forced into the curiae of the second
and third tribes, and particularly into the third, is undeniable;
but that a gens was changed in its composition or reconstructed
or made, was simply impossible. A legislator could not make
a gens; neither could he make a curia, except by combining
existing gentes around a nucleus of related gentes; but he
might increase or decrease by constraint the number of gentes in
a curia, and increase or decrease the number of curiae in a tribe.
Niebuhr has also shown that the gens was an ancient and uni-
versal organization among the Greeks and Romans, which ren-
ders his preceding declaration the more incomprehensible.
Moreover it appears that the phratry was universal, at least
among the Ionian Greeks, leaving it probable that the curia,
perhaps under another name, was equally ancient among the
Latin tribes. The numerical proportions referred to were no
doubt the result of legislative procurement in the time of
Romulus, and we have abundant evidence of the sources from

• Whether Niebuhr used the word "house" in the place of gens, or it is a con-
ceit of the translators, I am unable to state. Thirlwall, one of the translators,
applies this term frequently to the Grecian gens, which at best is objectionable.

• History of Rome, i, 244.

3o6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

which the new gentes were obtained with which these propor-
tions might have been produced.

The members of the ten gentes united in a curia were called
ciirialcs among themselves. They elected a priest, curio, who
was the chief officer of the fraternity. Each curia had its sa-
cred rites, in the observance of which the brotherhood partici-
pated; its saccUum as a place of worship, and its place of as-
sembly where they met for the transaction of business. Be-
sides the curio, who had the principal charge of their religious
affairs, the ciirialcs also elected an assistant priest, flaincn ciiri-
alis, who had the immediate charge of these observances.
The curia gave its name to the assembly of the gentes, the
comitia curiata which was the sovereign power in Rome to a
greater degree than the senate under the gentile system.
Such, in general terms, was the organization of the Roman curia
or phratry.^

Next in the ascending scale was the Roman tribe, composed
of ten curiae and a hundred gentes. When a natural growth,
uninfluenced externally, a tribe would be an aggregation of
such gentes as were derived by segmentation from an original
gens or pair of gentes; all the members of which would speak

1 Dionysius has given a definite and circumstantial analysis of the organization
ascribed to Romulus, although a portion of it seems to belong to a later period.
It is interesting from the parallel he runs between the gentile institutions of the
Greeks, with which he was equally familiar, and those of the Romans. In the
first place, he remarks, I will speak of the order of his polity which I consider
the most sufficient of all political arrangements in peace, and also in time of war.
It was as follows : After dividing the whole multitude into three divisions, he
appointed the most prominent man as a leader over each of the divisions ; in the
next place dividing each of the three again into ten, he appointed the bravest men
leaders, having equal rank ; and he called the greater divisions tribes, and the less
curiae, as they are also still called according to usage. And these names inter-
preted in the Greek tongue would be the tribiis, a third part, a phyle {q)v][a}) ; the
curia, a phratry {cpparpa), and also a band (Ao'jo?); and those men who exer-
cised the leadership of the tribes were both phylarchs (cpvXapxoi) and trittyarchs
(rptrrvapxoi), whom the Romans call tribunes; and those who had the com-
mand of the curiee both phratriarchs {(ppar piapxoi) and lochagoi {Xoxocy oi),
whom they call curiones. And the phratries were also divided into decades, and
a leader called in common parlance a decadarch {SsxdSapxoi) had command
of each. And when all had been arranged into tribes and phratries, he divided
the land into thirty equal shares, and gave one full share to each phratry, selecting
a sufficient portion for religious festivals and temples, and leaving a certain piece
of ground for common use. — Antiq. of Rome, ii, 7.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 307

the same dialect. Until the tribe itself divided, by processes
before pointed out, it would include all the descendants of the
members of these gentes. But the Roman tribe, with which
alone we are now concerned, was artificially enlarged for special
objects and by special means, but the basis and body of the
tribe was a natural growth.

Prior to the time of Romulus each tribe elected a chief officer
whose duties were magisterial, military and religious.^ He per-
formed in the city magisterial duties for the tribe, as well as
administered its sacra, and he also commanded its military
forces in the field.^ He was probably elected by the curiae
collected in a general assembly; but here again our information
is defective. It was undoubtedly an ancient office in each Latin
tribe, peculiar in character and held by an elective tenure. It
was also the germ of the still higher office of rex, or general
military commander, the functions of the two offices being
similar. The tribal chiefs are styled by Dionysius leaders of
the tribes {tpiftwv r)yBixoviaz)? When the three Roman tribes
had coalesced into one people, under one senate, one assembly
of the people, and one military commander, the office of tribal
chief was overshadowed and became less important; but the
continued maintenance of the office by an elective tenure con-
firms the inference of its original popular character.

An assembly of the tribe must also have existed, from
a remote antiquity. Before the founding of Rome each
Italian tribe was practically independent, although the tribes
were more or less united in confederate relations. As a
self-governing body each of these ancient tribes had its council
of chiefs (who were doubtless the chiefs of the gentes) its as-
sembly of the people, and its chiefs who commanded its mil-
itary bands. These three elements in the organization of the
tribe ; namely, the council, the tribal chief, and the tribal as-
sembly, were the types upon which were afterwards modeled
the Roman senate, the Roman rex, and the comitia ctiriata.
The tribal chief was in all probability called by the name

1 Dionyshts, ii, 7-

^ Smith's Die, I. c. Art. Tributte.

' Dionysms, ii, 7-

308

ANCIENT SOCIETY,

of rex before the founding of Rome ; and the same remark is
appHcable to the name of senators (scjicx), and the coniitia
(con-ire). The inference arises, from what is known of the
condition and organization of these tribes, that their institutions
were essentially democratical. After the coalescence of the
three Roman tribes, the national character of the tribe was lost
in the higher organization; but it still remained as a necessary
integer in the organic series.

The fourth and last stage of organization was the Roman na-
tion or people, formed, as stated, by the coalescence of three
tribes. Externally the ultimate organization was manifested by
a senate {senatns), a popular assembly {comitia curiata), and a
general military commander [rex). It was further manifested
by a city magistracy, by an army organization, and by a com-
mon national priesthood of different orders.^

A powerful city organization was from the first the central
idea of their governmental and military systems, to which all
areas beyond Rome remained provincial. Under the military
democracy of Romulus, under the mixed democratical and ar-
istocratical organization of the republic, and under the later im-
perialism it was a government with a great city in its centre, a
perpetual nucleus, to which all additions by conquest were
added as increments, instead of being made, with the city, com-
mon constituents of the government. Nothing precisely like
this Roman organization, this Roman power, and the career of
the Roman race, has appeared in the experience of mankind.
It will ever remain the marvel of the ages.

As organized by Romulus they styled themselves the Roman
People {Populiis Romamis), which was perfectly exact. They
had formed a gentile society and nothing more. But the rapid
increase of numbers in the time of Romulus, and the still
greater increase between this period and that of Servius Tul-
lius, demonstrated the necessity for a fundamental change in

* The thirty curiones, as a body, were organized into a college of priests, one
of their number holding the office of cjtrio maximns. He was elected by the
assembly of the gentes. Besides this was the college of augurs, consisting under
the Ogulnian law (300 B. C. ) of nine members, including their chief officer {7iiagis-
ter collegii) ; and the college of pontiffs, composed under the same law of nine
members, including the pontifex tiiaximus.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 309

the plan of government. Romulus and the wise men of his
time had made the most of gentile institutions. We are in-
debted to his legislation for a grand attempt to establish upon
the gentes a great national and military power; and thus for
some knowledge of the character and structure of institutions
which might otherwise have faded into obscurity, if they had
not perished from remembrance. The rise of the Roman power
upon gentile institutions was a remarkable event in human ex-
perience. It is not singular that the incidents that accompanied
the movement should have come to us tinctured with ro-
mance, not to say enshrouded in fable. Rome came into ex-
istence through a happy conception, ascribed to Romulus, and
adopted by his successors, of concentrating the largest possible
number of gentes in a new city, under one government, and
with their united military forces under one commander. Its
objects were essentially military, to gain a supremacy in Italy,
and it is not surprising that the organization took the form of
a military democracy.

Selecting a magnificent situation upon the Tiber, where, after
leaving the mountain range it had entered the campagna, Rom-
ulus occupied the Palatine Hill, the site of an ancient fortress,
with a tribe of the Latins of which he was the chief Tradition
derived his descent from the chiefs of Alba, which is a matter of
secondary importance. The new settlement grew with mar-
velous rapidity, if the statement is reliable that at the close of
his life the military forces numbered 46,000 foot and 1,000 horse,
which would indicate some 200,000 people in the city and in
the surrounding region under its protection. Livy remarks
that it ^yas an ancient device [vetus consiliuni) of the founders
of cities to draw to themselves an obscure and humble multi-
tude, and then set up for their progeny the autocthonic claim.^
Romulus pursuing this ancient policy is said to have opened an
asylum near the Palatine, and to have invited all persons in the
surrounding- tribe, without regard to character or condition, to
share with his tribes the advantages and the destiny of the new
city. A great crowd of people, Livy further remarks, fled to
this place from the surrounding territories, slave as well as free,

' Livy, i, 8.

3 1 o ANCIEN T SOCIE T V.

which was the first accession of foreign strength to the new un-
dertaking.^ Plutarch,^ and Dionysius^ both refer to the asylum
or grove, the opening of which, for the object and with the suc-
cess named, was an event of probable occurrence. It tends to
show that the people of Italy had then become numerous for
barbarians, and that discontent prevailed among them in conse-
quence, doubtless, of the imperfect protection of personal rights,
the existence of domestic slavery, and the apprehension of vio-
lence. Of such a state of things a wise man would naturally
avail himself if he possessed sufficient military genius to handle
the class of men thus brought together. The next important
event in this romantic narrative, of which the reader should be
reminded, was the assault of the Sabines to avenge the entrap-
ment of the Sabine virgins, now the honored wives of their cap-
tors. It resulted in a wise accommodation under which the
Latins and Sabines coalesced into one society, but each division
retaining its own military leader. The Sabines occupied the
Quirinal and Capitoline Hills. Thus was added the principal
part of the second tribe, the Titles, under Titius Tatius their
military chief After the death of the latter they all fell under
the military command of Romulus.

Passing over Numa Pompilius, the successor of Romulus, who
established upon a broader scale the religious institutions of the
Romans, his successor, Tullus Hostilius, captured the Latin city
of Alba and removed its entire population to Rome. They oc-
cupied the Coelian Hill, with all the privileges of Roman citizens.
The number of citizens was now doubled, Livy remarks ;"* but
not likely from this source exclusively. Ancus Martins, the
successor of Tullus, captured the Latin city of Politorium, and
following the established policy, transferred the people bodily to
Rome.^ To them was assigned the Aventine Hill, with similar
privileges. Not long afterwards the inhabitants of Tellini and
Ficana were subdued and removed to Rome, where they also

' Eo ex finiiimis populis turba omnis sine discrimine, liber an servus asset, avida
novarum reruni perfuyit ; idque primum ad coeplam magnitudinem roboris fuit.
— Livy, i, 8.

* Vii. Romulus, cap. 20.

3 Antiq. of Rome, ii, 15.

<> Livy, i, 30. 6 lb., i, 33.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 311

occupied the Av^entine.^ It will be noticed that in each case
the gentes brought to Rome, as well as the original Latin and
Sabine gentes, remained locally distinct. It was the universal
usage in gentile society, both in the Middle and in the Upper
Status of barbarism, when the tribes began to gather in for-
tresses and in walled cities, for the gentes to settle locally to-
gether by gentes and by phratries.^ Such was the manner the
gentes settled at Rome. The greater portion of these accessions
were united in the third tribe, the Luceres, which gave it a
broad basis of Latin gentes. It was not entirely filled until the
time of Tarquinius Prisons, the fourth military leader from Rom-
ulus, some of the new gentes being Etruscan.

By these and other means three hundred gentes were gathered
at Rome and there organized in curiae and tribes, differing
somewhat in tribal lineage; for the Ramnes, as before remarked,
were Latins, the Titles were in the main Sabines and the Lu-
ceres w^ere probably in the main Latins with large accessions
from other sources. The Roman people and organization thus
grew into being by a more or less constrained aggregation of gen-
tes into curiae, of curiae into tribes, and of tribes into one gentile
society. But a model for each integral organization, excepting
the last, had existed arnong them and their ancestors from time
immemorial; with a natural basis for each curia in the kindred
gentes actually united in each, and a similar basis for each tribe in
the common lineage of a greater part of the gentes united in each.
All that was new in organization was the numerical proportions
of gentes to a curia, of curiae to a tribe, and the coalescence of the
latter into one people. It may be called a growth under legisla-
tive constraint, because the tribes thus formed were not entirely
free from the admixture of foreign elements; whence arose the
new name tribiis=d. third part of the people, which now came
in to distinguish this organism. The Latin language must have

1 Livy, i, 38.

« In the pueblo houses in New Mexico all the occupants of each house belonged
to the same tribe, and in some cases a single joint-tenement house contained
a tribe. In the pueblo of Mexico there were four principal quarters, as has been
shown, each occupied by a lineage, probably a phratry; while the Tlatelulcos
occupied a fifth district. At Tlascala there were also four quarters occupied by
four lineages, probably phratries.

312

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

had a term equivalent to the Greek phylon {ipvXov) = tribe,
because they had the same organization; but if so it has dis-
appeared. The invention of this new term is some evidence
that the Roman tribes contained heterogeneous elements, while
the Grecian were pure, and kindred in the lineage of the gentes
they contained.

Our knowledge of the previous constitution of Latin society
is mainly derived from the legislation ascribed to Romulus,
since it brings into view the anterior organization of the Latin
tribes, with such improvments and modifications as the wisdom
of the age was able to suggest. It is seen in the senate as a
council of chiefs, in the coviitia curiata as an assembly of the
the people by curiae, in the office of a general military com-
mander, and in the ascending series of organizations. It is
seen more especially in the presence of the gentes, with their
recognized rights, privileges and obligations. Moreover, the
government instituted by Romulus and perfected by his im-
mediate successors presents gentile society in the highest
structural form it ever attained in any portion of the human
family. The time referred to was immediately before the in-
stitution of political society by Servius Tullius.

The first momentous act of Romulus, as a legislator, was
the institution of the Roman senate. It was composed of a
hundred members, one from each gens, or ten from each curia.
A council of chiefs as the primary instrument of government
was not a new thing among the Latin tribes. From time im-
memorial they had been accustomed to its existence and to its
authority. But it is probable that prior to the time of Romu-
lus it had become changed, like the Grecian councils, into a
pre-considering body, obligated to prepare and submit to an
assembly of the people the most important public measures for
adoption or rejection. This was in effect a resumption by
the people of powers before vested in the council of chiefs.
Since no public measure of essential importance could become
operative until it received the sanction of the popular assembly,
this fact alone shows that the people were sovereign, and not
the council, nor the military commander. It reveals also the
extent to which democratic principles had penetrated their so-

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 313

clal system. The senate instituted by Romulus, although its
functions were doubtless substantially similar to those of the
previous council of chiefs, was an advance upon it in several
respects. It was made up either of the chiefs or of the wise
men of the gentes. Each gens, as Niebuhr remarks, "sending
its decurion who was its alderman,"' to represent it in the sen-
ate. It was thus a representative and an elective body in its
inception, and it remained elective, or selective, down to the
empire. The senators held their office for life, which was the
only term of office then known among them, and therefore not
singular. Livy ascribes the selection of the first senators to
Romulus, which is probably an erroneous statement, for the rea-
son that it would not have been in accordance with the theory
of their institutions. Romulus chose a hundred senators, he
remarks, either because that number was sufficient, or because
there were but a hundred who could be created Fathers.
Fathers certainly they were called on account of their official
dignity, and their descendants were called patricians.^ The
character of the senate as a representative body, the title of
Fathers of the People bestowed upon its members, the life-
tenure of the office, but, more than all these considerations, the
distinction of patricians conferred upon their children and lineal
descendants in perpetuity, established at a stroke an aristocracy
of rank in the centre of their social system where it became
firmly intrenched. The Roman senate, from its high vocation,
from its composition, and from the patrician rank received by
its members and transmitted to their descendants, held a pow-
erful position in the subsequent state. It was this aristocratic
element, now for the first time planted in gentilism, which gave
to the republic its mongrel character, and which, as might have
been predicted, culminated in imperialism, and with it in the
final dissolution of the race. It may perhaps have increased
the military glory and extended the conquests of Rome, whose
institutions, from the first, aimed at a military destiny; but it

' History of Rome, i, 258.

2 Centum creat senatores : sive quia is numerus satis erat ; sive quia soli centum
erant, qui creari Patres possent, Patres certe ab honore, patriciique progenies
eorum appellati. — Liv., \, 8. And Cicero: Principes, qui appellati sunt propter
caritatem, patres. — Dc Rep., ii, 8.

3 1 4 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

shortened the career of this great and extraordinary people, and
demonstrated the proposition that imperiahsm of necessity will
destroy any civilized race. Under the republic, half aristo-
cratic, half democratic, the Romans achieved their fame, which
one can but think would have been higher in degree, and more
lasting in its fruits, had liberty and equality been nationalized,
instead of unequal privileges and an atrocious slavery. The
long protracted struggle of the plebeians to eradicate the aris-
tocratic element represented by the senate, and to recover the
ancient principles of democracy, must be classed among the
heroic labors of mankind.

After the union of the Sabines the senate was increased to
two hundred by the addition of a hundred senators^ from the
gentes of the tribe Titles; and when the Luceres had increased
to a hundred gentes in the time of Tarquinius Priscus, a third
hundred senators were added from the gentes of this tribe.^ Cic-
ero has left some doubt upon this statement of Livy, by saying
that Tarquinius Priscus doubled the original number of the
senators.' But Schmitz well suggests, as an explanation of the
discrepancy, that at the time of the final increase the senate
may have become reduced to a hundred and fifty members, and
been filled up to two hundred from the gentes of the first two
tribes, when the hundred were added from the third. The sen-
ators taken from the tribes Ramnes and Titles were thenceforth
called Fathers of the Greater Gentes i^patres maioriim gentium),
and those of the Luceres Fathers of the Lesser Gentes {patres
viinornm gentiuvi).^ From the form of the statement the infer-
ence arises that the three hundred senators represented the three
hundred gentes, each senator representing a gens. Moreover, as
each gens doubtless had its principal chief [priuaps), it becomes
extremely probable that this person was chosen for the position

' Dionyshis, ii, 47.

2 Nee minus regni sui firmancll, quam augendae republicae, memor, centum in
Patres legit ; qui deinde minorum gentium sunt apjDellati : factio baud dubia regis,
cuius beneficio in curiam venerant. — Liv., i, 35.

3 Isque [Tarquinius] ut de suo imperio legem tulit, principio duplicavit ilium
pristinum patrum numerum ; et antiques patres maiorum gentium appellavit, quos
oriores sententiam rogabat; a se adscitos, minorum. — Cicero, De Rep., ii, 20.

* Cicero, Dc Jiep.,\\, 20.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 315

either by his gens, or the ten were chosen together by the cu-
ria, from the ten gentes of which it was composed. Such a
method of representation and of choice is most in accordance
with what is known of Roman and gentile institutions.' After
the estabhshment of the repubhc, the censors filled the vacan-
cies in the senate by their own choice, until it was devolved
upon the consuls. They were generally selected from the ex-
magistrates of the higher grades.

The powers of the senate were real and substantial. All
public measures originated in this body — those upon which they
could act independently, as well as those which must be sub-
mitted to the popular assembly and be adopted before they
could become operative. It had the general guardianship of
the public welfare, the management of their foreign relations,
the levying of taxes and of military forces, and the general
control of revenues and expenditures. Although the adminis-
tration of religious affairs belonged to the several colleges of
priests, the senate had the ultimate power over religion as well.
From its functions and vocation it was the most influential body
which ever existed under gentile institutions.

The assembly of the people, with the recognized right of
acting upon important public measures to be discussed by them
and adopted or rejected, was unknown in the Lower, and prob-
ably in the Middle Status of barbarism; but it existed in the
Upper Status, in the agora of the Grecian tribes, and attained

1 This was substantially the opinion of Niebuhr. "We may go further and
affirm without hesitation, that originally, when the number of houses [gentes] was
complete, they were represented immediately by the senate, the number of which
was proportionate to theirs. The three hundred senators answered to the three
hundred houses, which was assumed above on good grounds to be the number of
them ; each gens sent its decurion, who was its alderman and the president of its
meetings to represent it in the senate. . . . That the senate should be appointed
by the kings at their discretion, can never have been the original institution.
Even Dionysius supposes that there was an election : his notion of it, however, is
quite untenable, and the deputies must have been chosen, at least originally, by
the houses and not by the curiae." — Hist, of Rome, i, 258. An election by the
curise is, in principle, most probable, if the office did not fall to the chief ex officio,
because the gentes in a curia had a direct interest in the representation of each
gens.- It was for the same reason that a sachem elected by the members of an
Iroquois gens must be accepted by the other gentes of the same tribe before his
nomination was complete.

3i6

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

its highest form in the ecclesia of the Athenians ; and it also
existed in the assembly of the warriors among the Latin tribes,
attaining its highest form in the comitia ciiriata of the Romans.
The growth of property tended to the establishment of the
popular assembly, as a third power in gentile society, for the
protection of personal rights and as a shield against the en-
croachments of the council of chiefs, and of the military com-
mander. From the period of savagery, after the institution of
the gentes, down to the times of Solon and Romulus, the pop-
ular element had always been active in ancient gentile society.
The council of chiefs was usually open in the early conditions
to the orators of the people, and public sentiment influenced
the course of events. But when the Grecian and Latin tribes
first came under historical notice the assembly of the people to
discuss and adopt or reject public measures was a phenomenon
quite as constant as that of a council of chiefs. It was more
perfectly systematized among the Romans under the constitu-
tion of Romulus than among the Athenians in the time of Solon.
In the rise and progress of this institution may be traced the
growth and development of the democratic principle.

This assembly among the Romans was called the comitia
ciiriata, because the members of the gentes of adult age met
in one assembly by curiae, and voted in the same manner.
Each curia had one collective vote, the majority in each was
ascertained separately, and determined what that vote should
be.* It was the assembly of the gentes, who alone were mem-
bers of the government. Plebeians and clients, who already
formed a numerous class, were excluded, because there could
be no connection with the Populns Roniamis, except through
a gens and tribe. This assembly, as before stated, could nei-
ther originate public measures, nor amend such as were sub-
mitted to them; but none of a certain grade could become op-
erative until adopted by the comitia. All laws were passed or
repealed by this assembly; all magistrates and high public
functionaries, including the rex, were elected by it on the nom-
ination of the senate.^ The impcriiim was conferred upon

' Livy, i, 43. Dionys., ii, 14; iv, 20, 84.

2 Numa Pompilius (Cicero, De Rep., ii, 11; Liv., i, 17), Tullus Hostilius
(Cicero, De Rep., ii, 17), and Ancus Martius (Cic., De Rep., ii, 18; Livy, i, 32)

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. ^ij

these persons by a law of the assembly {lex citriata dc iinpcrio),
which was the Roman method of investing with office. Until
the impcriwn was thus conferred, the person, although the elec-
tion was complete, could not enter upon his office. The co7Jt~
itia curiata, by appeal, had the ultimate decision in criminal
cases involving the life of a Roman citizen. It was by a
popular movement that the office of rex was abolished. Al-
though the assembly of the people never acquired the power
of originating measures, its powers were real and influential.
At this time the people were sovereign.

The assembly had no power to convene itself; but it is said
to have met on the summons of the rex, or, in his absence, on
that of the praefect (praefectus iirbi\ In the time of the re-
public it was convened by the consuls, or, in their absence, by
the praetor; and in all cases the person who convened the as-
sembly presided over its deliberations.

In another connection the office of rex has been considered.
The rex was a general and also a priest, but without civil func-
tions, as some writers have endeavored to imply. ^ His powers
as a general, though not defined, were necessarily absolute over
the military forces in the field and in the city. If he exercised
any civil powers in particular cases, it must be supposed that
they were delegated for the occasion. To pronounce him a
king, as that term is necessarily understood, is to vitiate and
mis-describe the popular government to which he belonged, and
the institutions upon which it rested. The form of government
under which the rex and basileus appeared is identified with

were elected by the coniitia curiata. In the case of Tarquinius Priscus, Livy
observes that the people by a great majority elected him rex (i, 35). It was
necessarily by the comitia citriata. Servius Tullius assumed the office which was
afterwards confirmed by the co)?iitia (Cicero, De Rep., ii, 21). The right of elec-
tion thus reserved to the people, shows that the office of rex was a popular one,
and that his powers were delegated.

' Mr. Leonhard Schmitz, one of the ablest defenders of the theory of kingly
government among the Greeks and Romans, with great candor remarks: "It is
very difficult to determine the extent of the king's powers, as the ancient writers
naturally judged of the kingly period by their own republican constitution, and
frequently assigned to the king, the senate, and the comitia of the curicB the
respective powers and functions which were only true in reference to the consuls,
the senate and the comitia of their own time." — Smith's Die. Gk. ^ Rom. Antiq.,
Art. Rex.

3 1 8 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

gentile institutions and disappeared after gentile society was
overthrown. It was a peculiar organization having no parallel
in modern society, and is unexplainable in terms adapted to
monarchical institutions. A military democracy under a sen-
ate, an assembly of the people, and a general of their nomina-
tion and election, is a near, though it may not be a perfect,
characterization of a government so peculiar, which belongs
exclusively to ancient society, and rested on institutions essen-
tially democratical. Romulus, in all probability, emboldened
by his great successes, assumed powers which were regarded
as dangerous to the senate and to the people, and his assassina-
tion by the Roman chiefs is a fair inference from the statements
concerning his mysterious disappearance which have come
down to us. This act, atrocious as it must be pronounced,
evinces that spirit of independence, inherited from the gentes,
which would not submit to arbitrary individual power. When
the office was abolished, and the consulate was established in
its place, it is not surprising that two consuls were created in-
stead of one. While the powers of the office might raise one
man to a dangerous height, it could not be the case with two.
The same subtlety of reasoning led the Iroquois, without orig-
inal experience, to create two war-chiefs of the confederacy in-
stead of one, lest the office of commander-in-chief, bestowed
upon a single man, should raise him to a position too influen-
tial.

In his capacity of chief priest the ;r.r took the auspices on
important occasions, which was one of the highest acts of the
Roman religious system, and in their estimation quite as nec-
essary in the field on the eve of a battle as in the city. He
performed other religious rites as well. It is not surprising
that in those times priestly functions are found among the Ro-
mans, as among the Greeks, attached to or inherent in the
highest military office. When the abolition of this office oc-
curred, it was found necessary to vest in some one the religious
functions appertaining to it, which were evidently special;
whence the creation of the new office of rex sacrificulus, or
rex sacroriun, the incumbent of which performed the religious
duties in question. Among the Athenians the same idea re-

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 319

appears in the second of the nine archons, who was called ar-
chon basilcHS, and had a general supervision of religious affairs.
Why religious functions were attached to the office of rex and
basilcics, among the Romans and Greeks, and to the office of
Tcuctli among the Aztecs ; and why, after the abolition of
the office in the two former cases, the ordinary priesthoods
could not perform them, has not been explained.

Thus stood Roman gentile society from the time of Romulus
to the time of Servius TuUius, through a period of more than
two hundred years, during which the foundations of Roman
power were laid. The government, as before remarked, con-
sisted of three powers, a senate, an assembly of the people, and
a military commander. They had experienced the necessity
for definite written laws to be enacted by themselves, as a sub-
stitute for usages and customs. In the rex they had the ger-
minal idea of a chief executive magistrate, which necessity
pressed upon them, and which was to advance into a more com-
plete form after the institution of political society. But they
found it a dangerous office in those times of limited experience
in the higher conceptions of government, because the powers of
the rex were, in the main, undefined, as well as difficult of def-
inition. It is not surprising that when a serious controversy
arose between the people and Tarquinius Superbus, they de-
posed the man and abolished the office. As soon as something
like the irresponsible power of a king met them face to face
it was found incompatible with liberty and the latter gained
the victory. They were willing, however, to admit into the
system of government a limited executive, and they created the
office in a dual form in the two consuls. This occurred after the
institution of political society.

No direct steps were taken, prior to the time of Servius Tul-
lius, to establish a state founded upon territory and upon prop-
erty; but the previous measures were a preparation for that
event. In addition to the institutions named, they had created
a city magistracy, and a complete military system, including the
institution of the equestrian order. Under institutions purely
gentile Rome had become, in the time of Servius TuUius, the
strongest military power in Italy.

320 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Among the new magistrates created, that of warden of the
city {ciistos 2irbis) was the most important. This officer, who
was chief of the senate {^princcps scnatus), was, in the first in-
stance, according to Dionysius, appointed by Romulus.^ The
senate, which had no power to convene itself, was convened by
him. It is also claimed that the rex had power to summon the
senate. That it would be apt to convene upon his request,
through the call of its own officer, is probable; but that he
could command its convocation is improbable, from its inde-
pendence in functions, from its dignity, and from its represent-
ative character. After the time of the Decemvirs the name
of the office was changed to pra^fect of the city {prcefectus
W'bi), its powers were enlarged, and it was made elective by
the new comitia cent2iriata. Under the republic, the consuls,
and in their absence, the praetor, had power to convene the sen-
ate, and also to hold the comitia. At a later day, the office of
praetor (^praetor iirbamts) absorbed the functions of this an-
cient office and became its successor. A judicial magistrate,
the Roman praetor was the prototype of the modern judge.
Thus, every essential institution in the government or admin-
istration of the affairs of society may generally be traced to a
simple germ, which springs up in a rude form from human
wants, and, when able to endure the test of time and experi-
ence, is developed into a permanent institution.

A knowledge of the tenure of the office of chief, and of the
functions of the council of chiefs, before the time of Romulus,
could they be ascertained, would reflect much light upon the con-
dition of Roman gentile society in the time of Romulus. More-
over, the several periods should be studied separately, because
the facts of their social condition were changing with their ad-
vancement in intelligence. The Italian period prior to Romu-
lus, the period of the seven rcgcs, and the subsequent periods
of the republic and of the empire are marked by great differ-
ences in the spirit and character of the government. But the
institutions of the first period entered into the second, and
these again were transmitted into the third, and remained with
modifications in the fourth. The growth, development and fall

' Dionys., ii, 12.

THE ROMAN CURIA, TRIBE AND POPULUS. 321

of these institutions embody the vital history of the Roman peo-
ple. It is by tracing these institutions from the germ through
their successive stages of growth, on the wide scale of the tribes
and nations of mankind, that we can follow the great move-
ments of the human mind in its evolution from its infancy in
savagery to its present high development. Out of the neces-
sities of mankind for the organization of society came the gens;
out of the gens came the chief, and the tribe with its council
of chiefs; out of the tribe came by segmentation the group of
tribes, afterwards re- united in a confederacy, and finally con-
solidated by coalescence into a nation; out of the experience
of the council came the necessity of an assembly of the people
with a division of the powers of the government between them;
and finally, out of the military necessities of the united tribes
came the general military commander, who became in time a
third power in the government, but subordinate to the two su-
perior powers. It was the germ of the office of the subsequent
chief magistrate, the king and the president. The principal in-
stitutions of civilized nations are simply continuations of those
which germinated in savagery, expanded in barbarism, and
which are still subsisting and advancing in civilization.

As the Roman government existed at the death of Romulus,
it was social, and not political; it was personal, and not terri-
torial. The three tribes were located, it is true, in separate and
distinct areas within the limits of the city; but this was the pre-
vailing mode of settlement under gentile institutions. Their
relations to each other and to the resulting society, as gentes,
curiae and tribes, were wholly personal, the government dealing
with them as groups of persons, and with the whole as the Ro-
man people. Localized in this manner within inclosing ram-
parts, the idea of a township or city ward would suggest itself
when the necessity for a change in the plan of government was
forced upon them by the growing complexity of affairs. It
was a great change that was soon to be required of them, to be
wrought out through experimental legislation — precisely the
same which the Athenians had entered upon shortly before the
time of Servius Tullius. Rome was founded, and its first vic-
tories were won under institutions purely gentile; but the fruits
21

322 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of these achievements by their very magnitude demonstrated
the inability of the gentes to form the basis of a state. But it
required two centuries of intense activity in the growing com-
monweahh to prepare the way for the institution of the second
great plan of government based upon territory and upon prop-
erty. A withdrawal of governing powers from the gentes,
curiae and tribes, and their bestowal upon new constituencies
was the sacrifice demanded. Such a change would become
possible only through a conviction that the gentes could not be
made to yield such a form of government as their advanced
condition demanded. It was practically a question of contin-
uance in barbarism, or progress into civilization. The inaugu-
ration of the new system will form the subject of the next
chapter.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

The Populus. — The Plebeians. — The Clients. — The Patricians. — Limits
OF the Order. — Legislation of Servius Tullius. — Institution of Prop-
erty Classes. — Of the Centuries. — Unequal Suffrage. — Comitia Cen-
TURiATA. — Supersedes Comitia Curiata. — Classes supersede the Gentes.
— The Census. — Plebeians made Citizens. — Institution of City Wards. —
Of Country Townships. — Tribes increased to Four. — Made Local in-
stead of Consanguine. — Character of New Political System. — Decline
AND Disappearance of Gentile Organization. — The Work it Accom-
plished.

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

From the time of Romulus to that of Servius Tullius the
Romans consisted of two distinct classes, the populus and the
plebeians. Both were personally free, and both entered the
ranks of the army; but the former alone were organized in
gentes, curiae and tribes, and held the powers of the govern-
ment. The plebeians, on the other hand, did not belong to
any gens, curia or tribe, and consequently were without the

1 Dionysius, iv, I.

324

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

government.^ They were excluded from office, from the
coDiitia curiata, and from the sacred rites of the gentes.
In the time of Servius tliey had become nearly if not quite as
numerous as the popiilus. They were in the anomalous posi-
tion of being subject to the military service, and of possessing
families and property, which identified them with the interests
of Rome, without being in any sense connected with the gov-
ernment. Under gentile institutions, as we have seen, there
could be no connection with the government except through a
recognized gens, and the plebeians had no gentes. Such a
state of things, affecting so large a portion of the people, was
dangerous to the commonwealth. Admitting of no remedy
under gentile institutions, it must have furnished one of the
prominent reasons for attempting the overthrow of gentile soci-
ety, and the substitution of political. The Roman fabric would,
in all probability, have fallen in pieces if a remedy had not been
devised. It was commenced in the time of Romulus, renewed
by Numa Pompilius, and completed by Servius Tullius.

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

A person was a plebeian because he was not a member of a
gens, organized with other gentes in a curia and tribe. It is
easy to understand how large numbers of persons would have
become detached from the gentes of their birth in the unsettled
times which preceded and followed the founding of Rome.
The adventurers who flocked to the new city from the sur-
rounding tribes, the captives taken in their wars and afterwards
set free, and the unattached persons mingled with the gentes
transplanted to Rome, would rapidly furnish such a class. It
might also well happen that in filling up the hundred gentes
of each tribe, fragments of gentes, and gentes having less than
a prescribed number of persons, were excluded. These unat-

' Niebuhr says: "The existence of the plebs as acknowledgedly a free and
very numerous portion of the nation, may be traced back to the reign of Ancus ;
but before the time of Servius it was only an aggregate of unconnected parts, not
a united regular whole." — History of Rome, I. c, i, 315-

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

325

tached persons, with the fragments of gentes thus excluded
from recognition and organization in a curia, would soon be-
come, with their children and descendants, a great and increas-
ing class. Such were the Roman plebeians, who, as such, were
not members of the Roman gentile society. It seems to be a
fair inference from the epithet applied to the senators of the
Luceres, the third Roman tribe admitted, who were styled
"Fathers of the Lesser Gentes," that the old gentes were reluc-
tant to acknowledge their entire equality. For a stronger rea-
son they debarred the plebeians from all participation in the
government. When the third tribe was filled up with the pre-
scribed number of gentes, the last avenue of admission was
closed, after which the number in the plebeian class would in-
crease with greater rapidity. Niebuhr remarks that the exist-
ence of the plebeian class may be traced to the time of Ancus,
thus implying that they made their first appearance at that
time.^ He also denies that the clients were a part of the ple-
beian body;^ in both of which positions he differs from Dio-
nysius,^ and from Plutarch.'* The institution of the relation of
patron and client is ascribed by the authors last named to Rom-
ulus, and it is recognized by Suetonius as existing in the time
of Romulus.^ A necessity for such an institution existed in
the presence of a class without a gentile status, and without re-
ligious rites, who would avail themselves of this relation for the
protection of their persons and property, and for the access it
gave them to religious privileges. Members of a gens would
not be without this protection or these privileges; neither
would it befit the dignity or accord with the obligations of a
gens to allow one of its members to accept a patron in another
gens. The unattached class, or, in other words, the plebeians,
were the only persons who would naturally seek patrons and

1 History of Rome, i, 315.

* "That the clients were total strangers to the plebeian commonalty and did not
coalesce with it until late, when the bond of servitude had been loosened, partly
from the houses of their patrons dying off or sinking into decay, partly from the
advance of the whole nation toward freedom, will be proved in the sequel of this
history." — History of Rome, \, 315.

3 Dionysius, ii, 8.

■• Plutarch, Vit. Rom., xiii, 16.

' Vit, Tiberius, cap. i.

326 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

become their clients. The clients formed no part of the popu-
lus for the reasons stated. It seems plain, notwithstanding the
weight of Niebuhr's authority on Roman questions, that the
clients were a part of the plebeian body.

The next question is one of extreme difficulty, namely : the
origin and extent of the patrician class — whether it originated
with the institution of the Roman Senate, and was limited to
the senators, and to their children and descendants; or included
the entire popuhis, as distinguished from the plebeians. It is
claimed by the most eminent modern authorities that the entire
populus were patricians. Niebuhr, who is certainly the first on
Roman questions, adopts this view,^ to which Long, Schmitz,
and others have given their concurrence.^ But the reasons as-
signed are not conclusive. The existence of the patrician class,
and of the plebeian class as well, may be traced, as stated, to
the time of Romulus.^ If the populus, \\\\o were the entire body
of the people organized in gentes, were all patricians at this
early day, the distinction would have been nominal, as the ple-
beian class was then unimportant. Moreover, the plain state-
ments of Cicero and of Livy are not reconcilable with this con-
clusion. Dionysius, it is true, speaks of the institution of the pa-
trician class as occurring before that of the senate, and as com-
posed of a limited number of persons distinguished for their
birth, their virtue, and their wealth; thus excluding the poor
and obscure in birth, although they belonged to the historical
gentes.* Admitting a class of patricians without senatorial con-
nection, there was still a large class remaining in the several gen-
tes who were not patricians. Cicero has left a plain statement
that the senators and their children w'ere patricians, and without
referring to the existence of any patrician class beyond their
number. When that senate of Romulus, he remarks, which
was constituted of the best men, whom Romulus himself re-
spected so highly that he wished them to be called fathers, and-
their children patricians, attempted,^ etc. The meaning attached

> Hist, of Rome, i, 256, 450.

s Smith's Du:., Articles Gens, Patricii, and Plcbs.

^Dionysius, ii, 8; Plutarch, Vit. Rom., xiii. ■* Ih., ii, 8.

• Quum ille Romuli Senatus, qui constabat ex optimatibus, quibus ipse Rex
tantum tribuisset, ut eos patres vellet nominari patriciosque eorum liberos,
tentaret, etc. — De Rep., ii, 12.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 327

to the word fathers {patres) as here used was a subject of disa-
greement among the Romans themselves; but the word patricii,
for the class is formed upon patres, thus tending to show the
necessary connection of the patricians with the senatorial office.
Since each senator at the outset represented, in all probability,
a gens, and the three hundred thus represented all the recog-
nized gentes, this fact could not of itself make all the members
of the gentes patricians, because the dignity was limited to the
senators, their children, and their posterity. Livy is equally ex-
plicit. They were certainly called fathers, he remarks, on ac-
count of their official dignity, and their posterity {progenies)
patricians.^ Under the reges and also under the republic, indi-
viduals were created patricians by the government; but apart
from the senatorial office, and special creation by the govern-
ment, the rank could not be obtained. It is not improbable
that a number of persons, not admitted into the senate when it
was instituted, were placed by pubhc act on the same level with
the senators as to the new patrician rank; but this would include
a small number only of the members of the three hundred gen-
tes, all of whom were embraced in the Populus Romanus.

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

1 Patres certe ab honore, patriciique progenies eorum appellati. — Liv., i, 8.

328

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

senators that the suggestion was made that their children and
descendants should be called patricians. The same statement
is repeated by Paterculus.^

It follows that there could be no patrician gens and no ple-
beian gens, although particular families in one gens might be
patricians, and in another plebeians. There is some confusion
also upon this point. All the adult male members of the
Fabian gens, to the number of three hundred and six, were
patricians.^ It must be explained by the supposition that all
the families in this gens could trace their descent from senators,
or to some public act by which their ancestors were raised to
the patriciate. There were of course patrician families in many
gentes, and at a later day patrician and plebeian families in the
same gens. Thus the Claudii and Marcelli, before referred to
{supra p. 287), were two families of the Claudian gens, but the
Claudii alone were patricians. It will be borne in mind, that
prior to the time of Servius Tullius the Romans were divided
into two classes, the populns and the plebeians; but that after
his time, and particularly after the Licinian legislation (367
B. C.) by which all the dignities of the state were opened to
every citizen, the Roman people, of the degree of freemen, fell
into two political classes, which may be distinguished as the
aristocracy and the commonalty. The former class consisted
of the senators, and those descended from senators, together
with those who had held either of the three curule offices,
(consul, praetor, and curule aedilc) and their descendants.
The commonalty were now Roman citizens. The gentile
org-anization had fahen into decadence, and the old division
could no longer be maintained. Persons, who in the first
period as belonging to the popiilus, could not be classed with
the plebeians, would in the subsequent period belong to the
aristocracy without being patricians. The Claudii could trace
their descent from Appius Claudius who was made a senator
in the time of Romulus; but the Marcelli could not trace
their descent from him, nor from any other senator, although,

' Hie centum homines electos, appellatosque Palres, instar habuit consilii publici.
Hanc originem nomen Patriciorum habet. — Vclleus Paterculus, i, 8.
* Livy, ii, 49.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 329

as Niebuhr remarks, "equal to the Apii in the splendor of
the honors they attained to, and incomparably more useful to
the commonwealth."^ This is a sufficient explanation of the
position of the Marcelli without resorting to the fanciful hy-
pothesis of Niebuhr, that the Marcelli had lost patrician rank
through a marriage of disparagement.^

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

When the gentes had ceased to be organizations for govern-
mental purposes under the new political system, the populus no
longer remained as distinguished from the plebeians; but the
shadow of the old organization and of the old distinction re-
mained far into the republic.'* The plebeians* under the new
system were Roman citizens, but they were now the common-
alty; the question of the connection or non-connection with a
gens not entering into the distinction.

From Romulus to Servius Tullius the Roman organization,
as before stated, was simply a gentile society, without relation
to territory or to property. All we find is a series of aggre-
gates of persons, in gentes, curiae and tribes, by means of
which the people were dealt with by the government as groups
of persons forming these several organic unities. Their condi-
tion was precisely like that of the Athenians prior to the time
of Solon. But they had instituted a senate in the place of the

' History of Rome, i, 246, 2 /^_ ^ j^ 246.

3 Livy, iv, 4.

* A plebe consensu populi consulibus negotium mandatur. — Liv., iv. 51.

330

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

old council of chiefs, a comitia curiata in the place of the old
assembly of the people, and had chosen a military commander,
with the additional functions of a priest and judge. With a
government of three powers, co-ordinated with reference to
their principal necessities, and with a coalescence of the three
tribes, composed of an equal number of gentes and curiae, into
one people, they possessed a higher and more complete gov-
ernmental organization than the Latin tribes had before attain-
ed. A numerous class had gradually developed, however, who
were without the pale of the government, and without religious
privileges, excepting that portion who had passed into the re-
lation of clients. If not a dangerous class, their exclusion from
citizenship, and from all participation in the government, was
detrimental to the commonwealth. A municipality was grow-
ing up upon a scale of magnitude unknown in their previous ex-
perience, requiring a special organization to conduct its local
affairs. A necessity for a change in the plan of government
must have forced itself more and more upon the attention of
thoughtful men. The increase of numbers and of wealth, and
the difficulty of managing their affairs, now complex from
weight of numbers and diversity of interests, began to reveal
the fact, it must be supposed, that they could not hold together
under gentile institutions. A conclusion of this kind is requir-
ed to explain the several expedients which were tried.

Numa, the successor of Romulus, made the first significant
movement, because it reveals the existence of an impression,
that a great power could not rest upon gentes as the basis of a
system. He attempted to traverse the gentes, as Theseus did,
by dividing the people into classes, some eight in number, ac-
cording to their arts and trades.^ Plutarch, who is the chief
authority for this statement, speaks of this division of the peo-
ple according to their vocations as the most admired of Numa's
institutions; and remarks further, that it was designed to take
away the distinction between Latin and Sabine, both name and

' ^Hv dl ij Siavo/.t?} Hard rd>? zexyoci, avXrjrwv,
XpvdoxoGov, T£Kt6vo3v, fiacpioav, duvroro^oov,
dHVTodeipcSv, ;faA«££»V, xEpa/usoov.

— Plutarch, Vit. Numa, xvii, 20.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 331

thing, by mixing them together in a new distribution. But as
he did not invest the classes with the powers exercised by the
gentes, the measure failed, like the similar attempt of Theseus,
and for the same reason. Each guild, as we are assured by
Plutarch, had its separate hall, court and religious observances.
These records, though traditionary, of the same experiment in
Attica and at Rome, made for the same object, for similar rea-
sons, and by the same instrumentalities, render the inference
reasonable that the experiment as stated was actually tried in
each case.

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

Imitating Solon, with whose plan of government he was
doubtless familiar, Servius divided the people into five classes,
according to the value of their property, the effect of which

332 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

was to concentrate in one class the wealthiest men of the sev-
eral gentes.^ Each class .was then subdivided into centuries,
the number in each being established arbitrarily without regard
to the actual number of persons it contained, and with one
vote to each century in the comitia. The amount of political
power to be held by each class was thus determined by the
number of centuries given to each. Thus, the first class con-
sisted of eighty centuries, with eighty votes in the comitia cen-
turiata; the second class of twenty centuries, to which two
centuries of artisans were attached, with twenty-two votes;
the third class of twenty centuries, with twenty votes; the
fourth class of twenty, to which two centuries of horn-blowers
and trumpeters were attached, with twenty-two votes; and the
fifth class of thirty centuries, with thirty votes. In addition to
these, the equites consisted of eighteen centuries, with eight-
een votes. To these classes Dionysius adds a sixth class, con-
sisting of one century, with one vote. It was composed of
those who had no property, or less than the amount required
for admission into the fifth class. They neither paid taxes, nor
served in war.^ The whole number of centuries in the six
classes with the equites added, made a total of one hundred
and ninety-three, according to Dionysius.^ Livy, agreeing with
the former as to the number of regular centuries in the five
classes, differs from him by excluding the sixth class, the per-
sons being formed into one century with one vote, and includ-
ed in or attached to the fifth class. He also makes three cen-
turies of horn-blowers instead of two, and the whole number
of centuries one more than Dionysius.'' Cicero remarks that
ninety-six centuries were a minority, which would be equally
true under either statement.^ The centuries of each class were
divided into seniors and juniors, of which the senior centuries
were composed of such persons as were above the age of fifty-
five years, and were charged with the duty, as soldiers, of de-

' The property qualification for the first class was 100,000 asses ; for the second
class, 75,000 asses; for the third, 50,000; for the fourth, 25,000; and for the fifth,
11,000 asses. — Livy, i, 43.

* Dionysius, iv, 20. 3 /^. ^ iv, 16, 17, 18.

* Livy, i, 43.

* De Rep., ii, 20.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 333

fending the city; while the junior centuries consisted of those
persons who were below this age and above seventeen, and
were charged with external military enterprises.^ The arma-
ture of each class was prescribed and made different for each.^

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

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

' Dionysms, iv, 16.
« Livy, i, 43.

3 Livy, i, 43 ; But Dionysius places the equites in the first class, and remarks
that this class was first called. — Dionys., iv, 20.

334

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

The meetings of the comitia were held in the Campus Mar-
tius annually for the election of magistrates and officers, and at
other times when the public necessities required. The people
assembled by centuries, and by classes under their officers, or-
ganized as an army {excrcitiis); for the centuries and classes
were designed to subserve all the purposes of a military as well
as a civil organization. At the first muster under Servius Tul-
lius, eighty thousand citizen soldiers appeared in the Campus
Martius under arms, each man in his proper century, each cen-
tury in its class, and each class by itself^ Every member of a
century was now a citizen of Rome, which was the most impor-
tant fruit of the new political system. In the time of the re-
public the consuls, and in their absence, the praetor, had power
to convene the comitia, which was presided over by the person
who caused it to assemble.

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

Cicero, patriot and noble Roman as he was, approved and
commended this gradation of the people into classes, with the

' Livy, i, 44; Dionysius states the number at 84,700. — iv, 22.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 335

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

The property classes subserved the useful purpose of break-
ing up the gentes, as the basis of a governmental system, by
transferring their powers to a different body. It was evidently
the principal object of the Servian legislation to obtain a de-
liverance from the gentes, which were close corporations, and
to give the new government a basis wide enough to include all
the inhabitants of Rome, with the exception of the slaves.
After the classes had accomplished this work, it might have been
expected that they would have died out as they did at Athens;
and that city wards and country townships, with their inhab-
itants organized as bodies politic, would have become the
basis of the new political system, as they rightfully and logic-

1 Cicero, De Rep., ii, 20.

336 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ally should. But the municipal organization of Rome pre-
vented this consummation. It gained at the outset, and main-
tained to the end the central position in the government, to
which all areas without were made subordinate. It presents
the anomaly of a great central municipal government ex-
panded, in effect, first over Italy, and finally over the con-
quered provinces of three continents. The five classes, with
some modifications of the manner of voting, remained to the
end of the republic. The creation of a new assembly of the
people to take the place of the old, discloses the radical char-
acter of the Servian constitution. These classes would never
have acquired vitality without a newly constituted assembly, in-
vesting them with political powers. With the increase of wealth
and population the duties and responsibilities of this assembly
were much increased. It was evidently the intention of Servius
Tullius that it should extinguish the coviitia ciiriata, and with
it the power of the gentes.

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

One of the first acts ascribed to Servius was the institution
of the census. Livy pronounces the census a most salutary
measure for an empire about to become so great, according to
which the duties of peace and of war were to be performed,
not individually as before, but according to the measure of per-
sonal wealth.^ Each person was required to enroll himself in
the ward of his residence, with a statement of the amount of
his property. It was done in the presence of the censor; and
the lists when completed furnished the basis upon which the
classes were formed.^ This was accompanied by a very re-

1 Censum enim instituit, rem salubenimam tanto futuro imperio : ex quo belli
pacisque munia non viritim, ut ante, sed pro habitu pecuniarum ficrent. — Livy, i, 42.

2 Dionysiiis, iv, 15.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 337

markable act for the period, the creation of four city wards, cir-
cumscribed by boundaries, and distinguished by appropriate
names. In point of time it was earHer than the institution of
the Attic deme by Cleisthenes; but the two were quite differ-
ent in their relations to the government. The Attic deme, as
has been shown, was organized as a body poHtic with a similar
registry of citizens and of their property, and having besides a
complete local self-government, with an elective magistracy,
judiciary and priesthood. On the other hand, the Roman
ward was a geographical area, with a registry of citizens and
of their property, with a local organization, a tribune and other
elective offices, and with an assembly. For a limited number
of special objects the inhabitants of the wards were dealt with
by the government through their territorial relations. But the
gov^ernment of the ward did not possess the solid attributes of
that of the Attic deme. It was a nearer copy of the previous
Athenian naucrary, which not unlikely furnished the model, as
the Solonian classes did of the Servian. Dionysius remarks,
that after Servius Tullius had inclosed the seven hills with one
wall he divided the city into four parts, and gave the names of
the hills to the re-divisions: to the first, Palatina, to the sec-
ond, Suburra, to the third, CoUina, and to the fourth, Esqui-
lina; and made the city consist of four parts, which before con-
sisted of three; and he ordered the people who dwelt in each
of the four regions, like villagers, not to take any other dwell-
ing, nor to pay taxes elsewhere, nor give in their names as sol-
diers elsewhere, nor pay their assessments for military purposes
and other needs, which each must furnish for the common wel-
fare; for these things were no longer to be done according to
the three consanguine tribes iyqjvXai rag yeviMai), but accord-
ing to the four local tribes {(pvXd^ ra? TOTCixa?), which last
had been arranged by himself; and he appointed commanders
over each tribe, as phylarchs or comarchs, whom he directed
to note what house each inhabited.^ Mommsen observes that
"each of these four levy-districts had to furnish the fourth part
not only of the force as a whole, but of each of its military
subdivisions, so that each legion and each century numbered an

' Dionysius, iv, 14.

338

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

equal proportion of conscripts from each region; evidently for
the purpose of merging all distinctions of a gentile and local
nature in one common levy of the community, and especially
of binding, through the powerful leveling influence of the mil-
itary spirit, the mctcoci and the burgesses into one people."^

In like manner, the surrounding country under the govern-
ment of Rome was organized in townships {tribits riisticac),
the number of which is stated at twenty-six by some writers,
and at thirty-one by others; making, with the four city wards,
a total of thirty in one case, and of thirty- five in the other.^
The total number was never increased beyond thirty-five.
These townships did not become integral in the sense of par-
ticipating in the administration of the government.

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

The Romans were now carried fairly out of gentile society
into and under the second great plan of government, founded
upon territory and upon property. They had left gentilism
and barbarism behind them, and entered upon a new career of

> History of Rome, I. c, Scribner's ed., i, 136.

^ Diony silts, iv, 15 ; Niebuhr has furnished the names of sixteen country town-
ships, as follows : Aemilian, Camilian, Cluentian, Cornelian, Fabian, Galerian,
Horatian, Lemonian, Menenian, Papcrian, Romilian, Sergian, Veturnian, Claud-
ian. — Hist, of Rome, i, 320, 7iote.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY.

339

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

As a whole, the Roman government was anomalous. The
overshadowing municipality of Rome, made the centre of the
state in its plan of government, was one of the producing
causes of its novel character. The primary organization of the
people into an army with the military spirit it fostered created
the cohesive force which held the republic together, and after-
wards the empire. With a selective senate holding office for
hfe, and possessing substantial powers; with a personal rank

340 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

passing to their children and descendants; with an elective mag-
istracy graded to the needs of a central metropolis; with an
assembly of the people organized into property classes, pos-
sessing an unequal suffrage, but holding both an affirmative
and a negative upon all legislation; and with an elaborate mil-
itary organization, no other government strictly analogous has
appeared among men. It was artificial, illogical, approaching
a monstrosity; but capable of wonderful achievements, because
of its military spirit, and because the Romans were endowed
with remarkable powers for organizing and managing affairs.
The patchwork in its composition was the product of the su-
perior craft of the wealthy classes who intended to seize the
substance of power while they pretended to respect the rights
and interests of all.

When the new political system became established, the old
one did not immediately disappear. The functions of the sen-
ate and of the military commander remained as before; but
the property classes took the place of the gentes, and the assem-
bly of the classes took the place of the assembly of the gentes.
Radical as the changes were, they were limited, in the main, to
these particulars, and came in Avithout friction or violence.
The old assembly (coviitia curiata) was allowed to retain a
portion of its powers, which kept alive for a long period of
time the organizations of the gentes, curias and consanguine
tribes. It still conferred the inipcritivi upon all the higher
magistrates after their election was completed, though in time
it became a matter of form merely; it inaugurated certain
priests, and regulated the religious observances of the curiae.
This state of things continued down to the time of the first
Punic war, after which the coviitia curiata lost its importance
and soon fell into oblivion. Both the assembly and the curiae
were superseded rather than abolished, and died out from in-
anition ; but the gentes remained far into the empire, not as an
organization, for that also died out in time, but as a pedigree
and a lineage. Thus the transition from gentile into political
society was gradually but effectually accomplished, and the
second great plan of human government was substituted by
the Romans in the place of the first which had prevailed from
time immemorial.

INSTITUTION OF ROMAN POLITICAL SOCIETY. 341

After an immensely protracted duration, running back of
the separate existence of the Aryan family, and received by
the Latin tribes from their remote ancestors, the gentile organ-
ization finally surrendered its existence, among the Romans, to
to the demands of civilization. It had held exclusive posses-
sion of society through these several ethnical periods, and un-
til it had won by experience all the elements of civilization,
which it then proved unable to manage. Mankind owe a debt
of gratitude to their savage ancestors for devising an institution
able to carry the advancing portion of the human race out of
savagery into barbarism, and through the successive stages of
the latter into civilization. It also accumulated by experience
the intelligence and knowledge necessary to devise political
society while the institution yet remained. It holds a position
on the great chart of human progress second to none in its in-
fluence, in its achievements and in its history. As a plan of
government, the gentile organization was unequal to the wants
of civilized man; but it is something to be said in its remem-
brance that it developed from the germ the principal govern-
mental institutions of modern civilized states. Among others,
as before stated, out of the ancient council of chiefs came the
modern senate; out of the ancient assembly of the people came
the modern representative assembly, the two together consti-
tuting the modern legislature; out of the ancient general mil-
itary commander came the modern chief magistrate, whether
a feudal or constitutional king, an emperor or a president, the
latter being the natural and logical result; and out of the an-
cient ciistos ui'bis, by a circuitous derivation, came the Roman
praetor and the modern judge. Equal rights and privileges,
personal freedom and the cardinal principles of democracy
were also inherited from the Rentes. When property had be-
come created in masses, and its influence and power began to
be felt in society, slavery came in; an institution violative of
all these principles, but sustained by the selfish and delusive
consideration that the person made a slave was a stranger in
blood and a captive enemy. With property also came in grad-
ually the principle of aristocracy, striving for the creation of
privileged classes. The element of property, which has con-

342

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

trolled society to a great extent during the comparatively short
period of civilization, has given mankind despotism, imperialism,
monarchy, privileged classes, and finally representative democ-
racy. It has also made the career of the civilized nations essen-
tially a property-making career. But when the intelligence of
mankind rises to the height of the great question of the abstract
rights of property, — including the relations of property to the
state, as well as the rights of persons to property, — a modifi-
cation of the present order of things may be expected. The
nature of the coming changes it may be impossible to conceive;
but it seems probable that democracy, once universal in a ru-
dimentary form and repressed in many civilized states, is des-
tined to become again universal and supreme.

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

CHAPTER XIV.

CHANGE OF DESCENT FROM THE FEMALE TO THE MALE

LINE,

How THE CHANGE MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE. — INHERITANCE OF PROPERTY

THE Motive. — Descent in the Female Line among the Lycians. — The
Cretans. — The Etruscans. — Probably among the Athenians in the time
of Cecrops. — The Hundred Families of the Locrians. — Evidence from
Marriages. — Turanian System of Consanguinity among Grecian Tribes.
— Legend of the Danaid.^

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

A gens in the archaic period, as we have seen, consisted of a
supposed female ancestor and her children, together with the
children of her daughters, and of her female descendants through
females in perpetuity. The children of her sons, and of her male

344

ANCIENT SOCIETY,

descendants, through males, were excluded. On , the other
hand, with descent in the male line, a gens consisted of a sup-
posed male ancestor and his children, together with the children
of his sons and of his male descendants through males in per-
petuity. The children of his daughters, and of his female
descendants, through females, were excluded. Those excluded
in the first case would be members of the gens in the second
case, and vice versa. The question then arises, how could
descent be changed from the female line to the male without
the destruction of the gens?

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

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

Assuming a change of descent among them from the female

CHANGE OF DESCENT. 345

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

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

The natural remedy was a change of descent from the female
line to the male. All that was needed to effect the change was
an adequate motive. After domestic animals began to be
reared in flocks and herds, becoming thereby a source of sub-
sistence as well as objects of individual property, and after tillage
had led to the ownership of houses and lands in severalty, an an-
tagonism would be certain to arise against the prevailing form of
gentile inheritance, because it excluded the owner's children,
whose paternity was becoming more assured, and gave his prop-
erty to his gentile kindred. A contest for a new rule of inher-
itance, shared in by fathers and their children, would furnish a
motive sufficiently powerful to effect the change. With prop-
erty accumulating in masses and assuming permanent forms,
and with an increased proportion of it held by individual own-
ership, descent in the female line was certain of overthrow, and
the substitution of the male line equally assured. Such a change
would leave the inheritance in the gens as before, but it would

346 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

place children in the gens of their father, and at the head of
the agnatic kindred. For a time, in all probability, they would
share in the distribution of the estate with the remaining ag-
nates; but an extension of the principle by which the agnates cut
off the remaining gentiles, would in time result in the exclusion
of the agnates beyond the children and an exclusive inheritance
in the children. Farther than this, the son would now be brought
in the line of succession to the office of his father.

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

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

CHANGE OF DESCENT.

347

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

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

* Rawlinson's HerQdohis, i, 173.

* If a Seneca-Iroquois man marries a foreign woman their children are aliens;
but if a Seneca-Iroquois woman marries an alien, or an Onondaga, their children
are Iroquois of the Seneca tribe ; and of the gens and phratry of their mother.
The woman confers her nationality and her gens upon her children, whoever may
be their father.

348 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

prior to their migration in the legendary period to Lycia, may
afford an explanation of their retention of descent in the female
line to this late period.

Among the Etruscans also the same rule of descent prevail-
ed. "It is singular enough," observes Cramer, "that two cus-
toms peculiar to the Etruscans, as we discover from their mon-
uments, should have been noticed by Herodotus as characteris-
tic of the Lycians and Caunians of Asia Minor. The first is,
that the Etruscans invariably describe their parentage and fam-
ily with reference to the mother, and not the father. The
other, that they admitted their wives to their feasts and ban-
quets."^

Curtius comments on Lycian, Etruscan and Cretan descent
in the female line in the following language: "It would be an
error to understand the usage in question as an homage to the
female sex. It is rather rooted in primitive conditions of so-
ciety, in which monogamy was not yet established with suffi-
cient certainty to enable descent upon the father's side to be
affirmed with assurance. Accordingly the usage extends far
beyond the territory commanded by the Lycian nationality.
It occurs, even to this day, in India; it may be demonstrated
to have existed among the ancient Egyptians; it is mentioned
by Sanchoniathon (p. i6, Orell), where the reasons for its exist-
ence are stated with great freedom; and beyond the confines
of the East it appears among the Etruscans, among the Cre-
tans, who were so closely connected with the Lycians, and who
called their father-land mother-land; and among the Athenians,
consult Bachofen, etc. Accordingly, if Herodotus regards the
usage in question as thoroughly peculiar to the Lycians, it
must have maintained itself longest among them of all the na-
tions related to the Greeks, as is also proved by the Lycian in-
scriptions. Hence we must in general regard the employment
of the maternal name for a designation of descent as the re-
mains of an imperfect condition of social life and family law,
which, as life becomes more regulated, was relinquished in
favor of usages, afterwards universal in Greece, of naming chil-
dren after the father. This diversity of usages, which is ex-

' Descriplion of Ancient Italy, i, 153; citing Lanzi, ii, 314.

CHANGE OF DESCENT. 349

tremely important for the history of ancient civilization, has
been recently discussed by Bachofen in his address above
named. "^

In a work of vast research, Bachofen has collected and dis-
cussed the evidence of female authority (mother-right) and of
female rule (gyneocracy) among the Lycians, Cretans, Athe-
nians, Lemnians, Egyptians, Orchomenians, Locrians, Lesbi-
ans, Mantineans, and among eastern Asiatic nations.^ The
condition of ancient society, thus brought under review, requires
for its full explanation the existence of the gens in its archaic
form as the source of the phenomena. This would bring the
mother and her children into the same gens, and in the com-
position of the communal household, on the basis of gens,
would give the gens of the mothers the ascendency in the
household. The family, which had probably attained the syn-
dyasmian form, was still environed with the remains of that
conjugal system which belonged to a still earlier condition.
Such a family, consisting of a married pair with their children,
would naturally have sought shelter with kindred families in a
communal household, in which the several mothers and their
children would be of the same gens, and the reputed fathers of
these children would be of other gentes. Common lands and
joint tillage would lead to joint-tenement houses and commu-
nism in living; so that gyneocracy seems to require for its crea-
tion, descent in the female line. Women thus entrenched in
large households, supplied from common stores, in which their
own gens so largely predominated in numbers, would produce
the phenomena of mother right and gyneocracy, which Bach-
ofen has detected and traced with the aid of fragments of

' History of Greece, Scribner & Armstrong's ed. , Ward's Trans., i, 94, note.
The Etiocretes, of whom Minos was the hero, were doubtless Pelasgians. They
occupied the east end of the Island of Crete. Sarpedon, a brother of Minos, led
the emigrants to Lycia where they displaced the Solymi, a Semitic tribe probably ;
but the Lycians had become Hellenized, like many other Pelasgian tribes, before
the time of Herodotus, a circumstance quite material in consequence of the deriva-
tion of the Grecian and Pelasgian tribes from a common original stock. In the
time of Herodotus the Lycians were as far advanced in the arts of life as the
European Greeks (Curtius, i, 93 ; Grote, i, 224). It seems probable that descent
in the female line was derived from their Pelasgian ancestors.

« Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1S61.

350 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

history and of tradition. Elsewhere I have referred to the
unfavorable influence upon the position of women which was
produced by a change of descent from the female line to the
male, and by the rise of the monogamian family, which dis-
placed the joint-tenement house, and in the midst of a society
purely gentile, placed the wife and mother in a single house
and separated her from her gentile kindred.^

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

There is an interesting reference by Polybius to the hundred
families of the Locrians of Italy. "The Locrians themselves,"

' Bachofen, speaking of the Cretan city of Lyktos, remarks that "this city was
considered a Lacedaemonian colony, and as also related to the Athenians. It was
in both cases only on the mother's side, for only the mothers were Spartans ; the
Athenian relationship, however, goes back to those Athenian women whom the
Pelasgian Tyrrhenians are said to have enticed away from the Brauron promon-
tory."— Das Mutterrecht, ch. 13, p. 31.

With descent in the male line the lineage of the women would have remained
imnoticed ; but with descent in the female line the colonists would have given their
pedigrees through females only.

* Das Mutterrecht, ch. 38, p. 73.

CHANGE OF DESCENT.

351

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

Evidence of ancient descent in the female line among the Gre-
cian tribes is found in particular marriages which occurred in
the traditionary period. Thus Salmoneus and Kretheus were
own brothers, the sons of yEolus. The former gave his daugh-
ter Tyro in marriage to her uncle. With descent in the male
line, Kretheus and Tyro would have been of the same gens, and
could not have married for that reason; but with descent in the
female line, they would have been of different gentes, and
therefore not of gentile kin. Their marriage in that case
would not have violated strict gentile usages. It is immaterial
that the persons named are mythical, because the legend would
apply gentile usages correctly. This marriage is explainable
on the hypothesis of descent in the female line, which in turn

' Poly bins, xii, extract the second, Hampton's Trans., iii, 242.

352

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

raises a presumption of its existence at the time, or as justified
by their ancient usages which had not wholly died out.

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

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

1 ddeXqjijv yap 6 Ttocitnoi uv/ioi eyipiEv ovx ot.io^n}rpiav. — Demos-
thenes contra Ebulides, 20.

CHANGE OF DESCENT.

353

the desire to transmit it to children furnished adequate motives
for the change to the male line.

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

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

' Demosth. , Etibnl. , 24 ; In his time the registration was in the Deme ; but it
would show who were the phrators, blood relatives, fellow demots and gennetes
of the person registered; as Eu.xitheus says, XEyoo cppdzEpdi, dvyyeredt,
djjuoTati, yEvvrjtaii } vide also Hermann's Folit. Anliq. of Greece, %. lOO.

354 ANCIENT SOCIE T Y.

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

1 Prometheus, 853.

CHANGE OF DESCENT. 355

of ^^gyptus, who pursued them. At Argos the Danaidas de-
clare that they did not depart from Egypt under the sentence
of banishment, but fled from men of common descent with
themselves, scorning unholy marriage with the sons of ^gyp-
tus.^ Their reluctance is placed exclusively upon the fact of
kin, thus implying an existing prohibition against such mar-
riages, which they had been trained to respect. After hearing
the case of the Suppliants, the Argives in council resolved to
afford them protection, which of itself implies the existence of
the prohibition of the marriages and the validity of their ob-
jection. At the time this tragedy was produced, Athenian law
permitted and even required marriage between the children of
brothers in the case of heiresses and female orphans, although
the rule seems to have been confined to these exceptional cases;
such marriages, therefore, would not seem to the Athenians
either incestuous or unlawful; but this tradition of the Danai-
d^E had come down from a remote antiquity, and its whole sig-
nificance depended upon the force of the custom forbidding the
nuptials. The turning-point of the tradition and its incidents
was their inveterate repugnance to the proposed marriages as
forbidden by law and custom. No other reason is assigned,
and no other is needed. At the same time their conduct is
intelligible on the assumption that such marriages were as un-
permissible then, as marriage between a brother and sister
would be at the present time. The attempt of the sons of
/Egyptus to break through the barrier interposed by the Tu-
ranian system of consanguinity may mark the time when this
system was beginning to give way, and the present system,
which came in with monogamy, was beginning to assert itself,
and which was destined to set aside gentile usages and Turan-
ian consanguinity by the substitution of fixed degrees as the
limits of prohibition.

Upon the evidence adduced it seems probable that among
the Pelasgian, Hellenic and Italian tribes descent was origin-
ally in the female line, from which, under the influence of prop-

' aW avroyersi cpv^avopia,
ydpLov Aly-Ditvov Ilaidoov a6Ef5rJ r'
6yoTa'C,6fi£vai. — Aeschylus, Sajip., 9.

356 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

erty and inheritance, it was changed to the male Hne. Whether
or not these tribes anciently possessed the Turanian system of
consanguinity, the reader will be better able to judge after that
system has been presented, with the evidence of its wide prev-
alence in ancient society.

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

CHAPTER XV.

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY.

The Scottish Clan. — The Irish Sept. — Germanic Tribes. — Traces of
A prior Gentile System.— Gentes in Southern Asiatic Tribes. — In
Northern. — In Uralian Tribes. — Hundred Families of Chinese. — He-
brew Tribes. — Composed of Gentes and Phratries Apparently. — Gentes
IN African Tribes. — In Australian Tribes. — Subdivisions of Fejees and
Pewas. — Wide Distribution of Gentile Organization.

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

The Celtic branch of the Aryan family retained, in the
Scottish clan and Irish sept, the organization into gentes to
a later period of time than any other branch of the family,
unless the Aryans of India are an exception. The Scottish
clan in particular was existing in remarkable vitality in the
Highlands of Scotland in the middle of the last century. It
was an excellent type of the gens in organization and in
spirit, and an extraordinary illustration of the power of the
gentile life over its members. The illustrious author of
Waverley has perpetuated a number of striking characters
developed under clan life, and stamped with its peculiari-
ties. Evan Dhu, Torquil, Rob Roy and many others rise
before the mind as illustrations of the influence of the gens
in molding the character of individuals. If Sir Walter ex-
aggerated these characters in some respects to suit the emer-

358

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

gencies of a tale, they had a real foundation. The same
clans, a few centuries earlier, when clan life was stronger and
external influences were weaker, would probably have veri-
fied the pictures. We find in their feuds and blood revenge,
in their localization by gentes, in their use of lands in com-
mon, in the fidelity of the clansman to his chief and of the
members of the clan to each other, the usual and persistent
features of gentile society. As portrayed by Scott, it was a
more intense and chivalrous gentile life than we are able to
find in the gentes of the Greeks and Romans, or, at the other
extreme, in those of the American aborigines. Whether
the phratric organization existed among them does not ap-
pear ; but at some anterior period both the phratry and the
tribe doubtless did exist. It is well known that the British
government were compelled to break up the Highland clans,
as organizations, in order to bring the people under the
authority of law and the usages of political society. Descent
was in the male line, the children of the males remaining
members of the clan, while the children of its female mem-
bers belonged to the clans of their respective fathers.

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

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 359

ing a common hearth and common meals during several
generations." '

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

Caesar remarks that the Germans were not studious of
agriculture, the greater part of their food consisting of milk,
cheese and meat ; nor had any one a fixed quantity of land,
or his own individual boundaries, but the magistrates and
chiefs each year assigned to the gentes and kinsmen who

' Early History of Institutions, Holt's ed., p. 7. '"' Ccrniaiiia, c. ii.

36o gje:ntes in other tribes of human family.

had united in one body {gcntibiis cognatioiiibusque hoininum,
qui una cocriiii) as much land, and in such places as seemed
best, compelling them the next year to remove to another
place.* To give effect to the expression in parenthesis, it
must be supposed that he found among them groups of
persons, larger than a family, united on the basis of kin, to
whom, as groups of persons, lands were allotted. It ex-
cludes individuals, and even the family, both of whom were
merged in the group thus united for cultivation and sub-
sistence. It seems probable, from the form of the state-
ment, that the German family at this time was syndyas-
mian; and that several related families were united in house-
holds and practiced communism in living.

Tacitus refers to a usage of the German tribes in the
arrangement of their forces in battle, by which kinsmen
were placed side by side. It would have no significance, if
kinship were limited to near consanguinei. And what is an
especial incitement of their courage, he remarks, neither
chance nor a fortuitous gathering of the forces make up the
squadron of horse, or the infantry wedge ; but they were
formed according to families and kinships {fainilice ct propin-
quitatcs)^' This expression, and that previously quoted from
Caesar, seem to indicate the remains at least of a prior gen-
tile organization, which at this time was giving place to the
mark or local district as the basis of a still imperfect politi-
cal system.

The German tribes, for the purpose of military levies, had
the mark {jiiarkgcnosscnscJiaff), which also existed among
the English Saxons, and a larger group, the gau, to which
Cffisar and Tacitus gave the name oi pagus^ It is doubtful
whether the mark and the gaii were then strictly geographi-
cal districts, standing to each other in the relations of town-

' De Bell. Gall., vi, 22.

"^ Germania, cap. 7. The line of battle, this author remarks, is formed by
wedges. Acies per cuneos componitur. — Ger., c. 6. Kohlrausch observes that
"the confederates of one mark or hundred, and of one race or sept, fought
united." — History of Germany, Appletons' ed., trans, by J. D. Haas, p. 28.

' De Bell. Gall., iv, i. Gcrmania, cap. 6.

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 361

ship and county, each circumscribed by bounds, with the
people in each politically organized. It seems more proba-
ble that WiQ gau was a group of settlements associated with
reference to military levies. As such, the mark and the gau
were the germs of the future township and county, pre-
cisely as the Athenian naucrary and trittys were the rudi-
ments of the Cleisthenean deme and local tribe. These
organizations seemed transitional stages between a gentile
and a political system, the grouping of the people still rest-
ing on consanguinity.'

We naturally turn to the Asiatic continent, where the
types of mankind are the most numerous, and where, conse-
quently, the period of human occupation has been longest,
to find the earliest traces of the gentile organization. But
here the transformations of society have been the most
extended, and the influence of tribes and nations upon each
other the most constant. The early development of Chinese
and Indian civilization and the overmastering influence of
modern civilization have wrought such changes in the con-

* Dr. Freeman, who has studied this subject specially, remarks : " The lowest
unit in the political system is that which still exists under various names, as the
mark, i\\e geminde, the commune, or ihe. pa7'isk. This, as we have seen, is one
of many forms of the gens or clan, that in which it is no longer a wandering or
a mere predatory body, but when, on the other hand, it has not joined with
others to form one component element of a city commonwealth. In this stage
the gens takes the form of an agricultural body, holding its common lands — the
germ of the ager publicus of Rome, and of the folkland of England. This is
the T?iarkgenossenschaft, the village community of the West. This lowest politi-
cal unit, this gathering of real or artificial kinsmen, is made up of families, each
living under the rule, the miird of its own father, that patria potestas which
survived at Rome to form so marked and lasting a feature of Roman law. As
the union of families forms the gens, and as the gens in its territorial aspect
forms the markgenossenschaft, so the union of several such village communities
and their marks or common lands forms the next higher political union, the
hundred, a name to be found in one shape or another in most lands into which
the Teutonic race has spread itself. .... Above the hundred comes the
pagtis, the gau, the Danish syssel, the English shiir, that is, the tribe looked at
as occupying a certain territory. And each of these divisions, greater and

smaller, had its chiefs The hundred is made up of villages, marks,

geminden, whatever we call the lowest unit ; the shire, the gau, the pagus, is
made up of hundreds." — Comp:irative Politics, McMillan & Co.'s ed.,p. 116.

362

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAivJiLY.

dition of Asiatic stocks that their ancient institutions are not
easily ascertainable. Nevertheless, the whole experience of
mankind from savagery to civilization was worked out upon
the Asiatic continent, and among its fragmentary tribes the
remains of their ancient institutions must now be sought.

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

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

" The Munnieporees, and the following tribes inhabiting
the hills round Munniepore — the Koupooes, the Mows,
the Murams, and the Murring — are each and all divided into
four families — Koomul, Looang, Angom, and Ningthaja.
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 these families may be
recognized four gentes in each of these tribes. Bell, speak-
ing of the Tclihh of the Circassians, remarks that " the tra-

* Descriptive Ethnology, i, So. * McLennan's Primitive Mania^e, p. 109.

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 363

dition in regard to them is, that the members of each and
all sprang from the same stock or ancestry ; and thus they

may be considered as so many septs or clans These

cousins german, or members of the same fraternity, are not
only themselves interdicted from intermarrying, but their
serfs, too, must wed with serfs of another fraternity." ' It
is probable that the telAsh is a gens.

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

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

The Mongolians approach the American aborigines quite

' Quoted in Pii?nitive Maniage, p. loi.

* Letter to the Author, by Rev. Gopenath Nundy, a Native Bengalese, India.
' Early History of Mankind, p. 282.

* Primitive Culture, Holt & Co.'s ed., ii, 235.

3^4

GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

nearly in physical characteristics. They are divided into
numerous tribes. " The connection," says Latham, " be-
tween the members of a tribe is that of blood, pedigree, or
descent ; the tribe being, in some cases, named after a real
or supposed patriarch. The tribe, by which we translate
the native name aimaiik, or ainidk, is a large division falling
into so many kokhuvis, or banners." * The statement is
not full enough to show the existence of gentes. Their
neighbors, the Tungusians are composed of subdivisions
named after animals, as the horse, the dog, the reindeer,
which imply the gentile organizations, but it cannot be
asserted without further particulars.

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

A peculiar family system prevails among the Chinese
which seems to embody the remains of an ancient gentile
organization. Mr. Robert Hart, of Canton, in a letter to
the author remarks, " that the Chinese expression for the
people is Pih-sing, which means the Hundred Family Names ;
but whether this is mere word-painting, or had its origin at
a time when the Chinese general family consisted of one
hundred subfamilies or tribes [gentes?] I am unable to de-
termine. At the present day there are about four hundred

' Descriptive Ethnology, i, 2go. ' Origin of Civilization, 96,

^ Desciiptive Ethnology, i. 475-

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 365

family names in this country, among which I find some that
have reference to animals, fruits, metals, natural objects,
etc., and which may be translated as Horse, Sheep, Ox,
Fish, Bird, Phcenix, Plum, Flower, Leaf, Rice, Forest,
River, Hill, Water, Cloud, Gold, Hide, Bristles, etc., etc.
In some parts of the country large villages are met with, in
each of which there exists but one family name ; thus in
one district will be found, say, three villages, each contain-
ing two or three thousand people, the one of the Horse,
the second of the Sheep, and the third of the Ox family
name Just as among the North American In-
dians husbands and wives are of different tribes [gentes], so
in China husband and wife are always of different families,
i.e.y of different surnames. Custom and law alike prohibit
intermarriage on the part of people having the same family
surname. The children are of the father's family, that is,

they take his family surname Where the father

dies intestate the property generally remains undivided, but
under the control of the oldest son during the life of the
widow. On her death he divides the property between him-
self and his brothers, the shares of the juniors depending
entirely upon the will of the elder brother."

The family here described appears to be a gens, analogous
to the Roman in the time of Romulus ; but whether it was
reintegrated, with other gentes of common descent, in a
phratry does not appear. Moreover, the gentiles are still
located as an independent consanguine body in one area, as
the Roman gentes were localized in the early period, and
the names of the gentes are still of the archaic type. Their
increase to four hundred by segmentation might have been
expected ; but their maintenance to the present time, after
the period of barbarism has long passed away, is the remark-
able fact, and an additional proof of their immobility as a
people. It may be suspected also that the monogamian
family in these villages has not attained its full develop-
ment, and that communism in living, and in wives as well,
may not be unknown among them. Among the wild abo-
riginal tribes, who still inhabit the mountain regions of

366 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

China and who speak dialects different from the Mandarin,
the gens in its archaic form may yet be discovered. To
these isolated tribes, we should naturally look for the an-
cient institutions of the Chinese.

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

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

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

Hebrew history commences essentially with Abraham,
the account of whose forefathers is limited to a pedigree
barren of details. A few passages will show the extent of
the progress then made, and the status of advancement in
which Abraham appeared. He is described as " very rich
in cattle, in silver, and in gold.'" For the cave of Mach-
pelah "Abraham weighed to Ephron the silver, which he

* Genesis, xiii, 2

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 367

had named in the audience of the sons of Heth, four hun-
dred shekels of silver, current money with the merchant." *
With respect to domestic life and subsistence, the following
passage may be cited: "And Abraham hastened into the
tent unto Sarah, and said. Make ready quickly three meas-
ures of fine meal ; knead it, and make cakes upon the
hearth." ' " And he took butter and milk, and the calf
which he had dressed, and set it before them."' With
respect to implements, raiment and ornaments: "Abraham
took the fire in his hand and a knife." " " And the servant
brought forth jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and rai-
ment, and gave them to Rebekah : he gave also to her
brother and to her mother precious things." ^ When she
met Isaac, Rebekah " took a veil and covered herself" ' In
the same connection are mentioned the camel, ass, ox, sheep
and goat, together with flocks and herds ; the grain mill,
the water pitcher, earrings, bracelets, tents, houses and
cities. The bow and arrow, the sword, corn and wine, and
fields sown with grain, are mentioned. They indicate the
Upper Status of barbarism for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Writing in this branch of the Semitic family was probably
then unknown. The degree of development shown corre-
sponds substantially with that of the Homeric Greeks.

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

With an existing gens and descent in the female line
Abraham and Sarah would have belonged to different gentes,
and although of blood kin they were not of gentile kin, and

* Genesis, xxiii, 16. * lb., xviii, 6. ' lb., xviii, 8. * lb., xxii, 6.

' lb., xxiv, 53. ^ lb., xxiv, 65. ' lb., xx, 12.

368 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

could have married by gentile usage. The case would have
been reversed in both particulars with descent in the male
line. Nahor married his niece, the daughter of his brother
Haran; ' and Amram, the father of Moses, married his aunt,
the sister of his father, who became the mother of the
Hebrew lawgiver.^ In these cases, with descent in the
female line, the persons marrying would have belonged to
different gentes ; but otherwise with descent in the male
line. While these cases do not prove absolutely the exist-
ence of gentes, the latter would afford such an explanation
of them as to raise a presumption of the existence of the
gentile organization in its archaic form.

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

Tribe of Levi.
I. Gershon. 7,500 Males.
II. Kohath. 8,600 "
III. Mcrari. 6,200 "■

I. Gershonite Phratry.
Gentes. — i. Libni. 2. SJiimei.

II. Kohatliite Phratry.

Gentes. — i. Amram. 2. Izhar. 3. Hebron. 4. Uzziel.

III. Merarite PJiratry.
Gentes.— I. MaJili. 2. Mushi.

' Genesis, xi, 29. * Exodus, vi, 20.

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 369

" Number the children of Levi after the house of their

fathers, by their families And these were the sons

of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari,
And these were the names of the sons of Gershon by their
families ; Libni, and Shimei. And the sons of Kohath by
their families ; Amram, and Izhar, Hebron, and Uzzicl. And
the sons of Merari by their families ; Mahli, and Mushi.
These are the families of the Levites by the house of their
fathers." '

The description of these groups sometimes commences
with the upper member of the series, and sometimes with
the lower or the unit. Thus : " Of the children of Simeon,
by their generations, after their families, by the house of
their fathers." ^ Here tJie children of Simeon^ ivitJi their gen-
erations, constitute the tribe; ihQ families are ihe phratries;
and the house of the father is the gens. Again : " And the
chief of the house of the father of the families of the
Kohathites shall be Elizaphan the son of Uzziel." ' Here
we find the gens first, and then the phratry, and last the
tribe. The person named was the chief of the phratry.
Each house of the father also had its ensign or banner to
distinguish it from others. " Every man of the children of
Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of
their father's house." * These terms describe actual organ-
izations; and they show that their military organization
was by gentcs, by phratries and by tribes.

With respect to the first and smallest of these groups,
"the house of the father," it must have numbered several
hundred persons from the figures given of the number in
each phratry. The Hebrew term bcth' ab, s'lgm^es pater-
nal honse, house of the father, and family house. If the
Hebrews possessed the gens, it was this group of persons.
The use of two terms to describe it would leave a doubt,
unless individual families under monogany had then be-
come so numerous and so prominent that this circumlocu-
tion was necessary to cover the kindred. We have literally,
the house of Amram, of Izhar, of Hebron, and of Uzziel ;

' Numbtj-s, iii, 15-20. ^ lb., i, 22. ' lb., iii, 30. ■• lb,, ii, 2.

370 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

but as the Hebrews at that time could have had no con-
ception of a house as now applied to a titled family, it
probably signified, as used, kindred or lineage/ Since each
division and subdivision is headed by a male, and since
Hebrew descents are traced through males exclusively,
descent among them, at this time, was undoubtedly in the
male line. Next in the ascending scale is \\\& family, which
seems to be a phratry. The Hebrew term for this organiza-
tion, mishpacah, signifies Jinion, clanship. It was composed
of two or more houses of the father, derived by segmenta-
tion from an original group, and distinguished by a phratric
name. It answers very closely to the phratry. The family
or phratry had an annual sacrificial feast." Lastly, the tribe,
called in Hebrew viatteh, which signifies a branch, stem or
shoot, is the analogue of the Grecian tribe.

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

The Hebrews styled themselves the " People of Israel,"

'Kiel and Delitzschs, in their commentaries on Exodus vi, 14, remark, that
" ' father's house ' was a technical term applied to a collection of families called by
the name of a common ancestor." This is a fair definition of a gens.

* I Samuel, xx, 6, 29.

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 3/1

and also a "Congregation." ' It is a direct recognition of
the fact that their organization was social, and not political.

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

Although the home of the Negro race, it is well known that
their numbers are limited and their areas small. Latham
significantly remarks that " the negro is an exceptional
African." " The Ashiras, Aponos, Ishogos and Ashangos,
between the Congo and the Niger, visited by Du Chaillu,
are of the true negro type. " Each village," he remarks,
" had its chief, and further in the interior the villages seemed
to be governed by elders, each elder with his people having
a separate portion of the village to themselves. There was
in each clan the ifoumou, fumou, or acknowledged head of
the clan (ifoumou meaning the source, the fatJicr'). I have
never been able to obtain from the natives a knowledge
concerning the splitting of their tribes into clans; they
seemed not to know how it happened, but the formation of
new clans does not take place now among them. . .
The house of a chief or elder is not better than those of his
neighbors. The despotic form of government is unknown.
. A council of the elders is necessary before one is

put to death Tribes and clans intermarry with

each other, and this brings about a friendly feeling among
the people. People of the same clan cannot intermarry
with each other. The least consanguinity is considered an
abomination; nevertheless the nephew has not the slightest
objection to take his uncle's wives, and, as among the Balakai,
the son takes his father's wives, except his own mother.
. . . . Polygamy and slavery exist everywhere among

'^Numbers, i, 2. ^ Descript. Eth., ii, 1S4.

372 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

the tribes I have visited The law of inheritance

among the Western tribes is, that the next brother inherits
the wealth of the eldest (women, slaves, etc.), but that if the
youngest dies the eldest inherits his property, and if there
are no brothers that the nephew inherits it. The headship
of the clan or family is hereditary, following the same law
as that of the inheritance of property. In the case of all the
brothers having died, the eldest son of the eldest sister inher-
its, and it goes on thus until the branch is extinguished, for
all clans are considered as descended from the female side."*

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

Among the Banyai of the Zambezi river, who are a people
of higher grade than the negroes. Dr. Livingstone observed
the following usages : " The government of the Banyai is
rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal republicanism. The
chief is elected, and they choose the son of a deceased chief's
sister in preference to his own offspring. When dissatisfied
with one candidate, they even go to a distant tribe for a
successor, who is usually of the family of the late chief, a
brother, or a sister's son, but never his own son or daugh-
ter All the wives, goods, and children of his

predecessor belong to him." "^ Dr. Livingstone does not

* Ashango Land, Appletons' ed., p. 425, et seq.

" Travels in South Africa, Appletons' ed., ch. 30, p. 660. — "When a young
man takes a liking for a girl of another village, and the parents have no objec-
tion to the match, he is obliged to come and live at their village. He has to

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 373

give the particulars of their social organization ; but the de-
scent of the office of chief from brother to brother, or from
uncle to nephew, implies the existence of the gens with
descent in the female line.

The numerous tribes occupying the country watered by
the Zambezi, and from thence southward to Cape Colony,
are regarded by the natives themselves, according to Dr.
Livingstone, as one stock in three great divisions, the Bech-
uanas, the Basutos, and the Kafirs.^ With respect to the for-
mer, he remarks that " the Bechuana tribes are named after
certain animals, showing probably that in ancient times
they were addicted to animal worship like the ancient
Egyptians. The term Bakatla means 'they of the Mon-
key' ; Bakuona, 'they of the Alligator' ; Batlapi, ' they of
the Fish ' ; each tribe having a superstitious dread of the

animal after which it is called A tribe never eats

the animal which is its namesake We find traces

of many ancient tribes in individual members of those now
extinct ; as Batau, ' they of the Lion ' ; Banoga, ' they of the
Serpent,' though no such tribes now exist." * These ani-
mal names are suggestive of the gens rather than the tribe.
Moreover, the fact that single individuals are found, each
of whom was the last survivor of his tribe, would be more
likely to have occurred if gens were understood in the
place of tribe. Among the Bangalas of the Cassange Val-
ley, in Argola, Livingstone remarks that " a chief's brother
inherits in preference to his sons. The sons of a sister be-
long to her brother ; and he often sells his nephews to pay
his debts." ^ Here again we have evidence of descent in the
female line; but his statements are too brief and general in
these and other cases to show definitely whether or not
they possessed the gens.

Among the Australians the gentes of the Kamilaroi have
already been noticed. In ethnical position the aborigines

perform certain services for the mother-in-law If he becomes tired

of living in this slate of vassalage, and wishes to return to his own family, he is

obliged to leave all his children behind — they belong to his wife." — lb., p. 667.

' Travels in South Africa, p. 219. * lb., p. 471. ' lb., p. 471.

374 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

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

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

Among the Australians, whose institutions are normal
and homogeneous, the organization into gentes is not con-
fined to the Kamilaroi, but seems to be universal. The
Narrinyeri of South Australia, near Lacepede Bay are or-
ganized in gentes named after animals and insects. Rev.
George Taplin, writing to my friend Mr. Fison, after stating
that the Narrinyeri do not marry into their own gens, and
that the children were of the gens of their father, continues
as follows : " There are no castes, nor are there any classes,
similar to those of the Kamilaroi-speaking tribes of New

ANCIENT SOCIETY. 375

South Wales. But each tribe or family (and a tribe is a
family) has its totem, or ngaitye; and indeed some individ-
uals have this ngaitye. It is regarded as the man's tutelary

genius. It is some animal, bird, or insect The

natives are very strict in their marriage arrangements. A
tribe [gens] is considered a family, and a man never marries
into his own tribe."

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

From the existence of the gentile organization among
the tribes named its general prevalence among the Austra-
lian aborigines is rendered probable ; although the institu-
tion, as has elsewhere been pointed out, is in the incipient
stages of its dev^elopment.

Our information with respect to the domestic institutions
of the inhabitants of Polynesia, Micronesia and the Papuan
Islands is still limited and imperfect. No traces of the
gentile organization have been discovered among the Ha-
waiians, Samoans, Marquesas Islanders or New Zealanders.
Their system of consanguinity is still primitive, shoAving
that their institutions have not advanced as far as this
organization presupposes." In some of the Micronesian
Islands the office of chief is transmitted through females ;'
but this usage might exist independently of the gens. The
Fijians are subdivided into several tribes speaking dialects

' See also Taylor's Early History of Mankind, p. 284.
^ Systems of Consangicitiity, etc., loc. cit., pp. 451, 482.
' Missionary Herald, 1 853, p. 90.

n^ GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMILY.

of the same stock language. One of these, the Rewas, con-
sists of four subdivisions under distinctive names, and each
of these is again subdivided. It does not seem probable
that the last subdivisions are gentes, for the reason, among
others, that its members are allowed to intermarry. De-
scent is in the male line. In like manner the Tongans are
composed of divisions, which are again subdivided the same
as the Rewas.

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

This concludes the discussion of the organization into
gentes, and the range of its distribution. The organization
has been found among the Australians and African Negroes,
with traces of the system in other African tribes. It has
been found generally prevalent among that portion of the
American aborigines who when discovered were in the
Lower Status of barbarism ; and also among a portion of
the Village Indians who were in the Middle Status of bar-
barism. In like manner it existed in full vitality among
the Grecian and Latin tribes in the Upper Status of bar-
barism ; with traces of it in several of the remaining branches
of the Aryan family. The organization has been found, or
traces of its existence, in the Turanian, Uralian and Mon-
golian families; in the Tungusian and Chinese stocks, and

ANCIENT SOCIETY. ^t??

in the Semitic family among the Hebrews. Facts sufficient-
ly numerous and commanding have been adduced to claim
for it an ancient universality in the human family, as well
as a general prevalence through the latter part of the period
of savagery, and throughout the period of barbarism.

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

Whether the gens originates spontaneously in a given
condition of society, and would thus repeat itself in discon-
nected areas ; or whether it had a single origin, and was
propagated from an original center, through successive mi-
grations, over the earth's surface, are fair questions for specu-
lative consideration. The latter hypothesis, with a simple
modification, seems to be the better one, for the following
reasons : We find that two forms of marriage, and two forms
of the family preceded the institution of the gens. It required
a peculiar experience to attain to the second form of mar-
riage and of the family, and to supplement this experience
by the invention of the gens. This second form of the family
was the final result, through natural selection, of the reduc-
tion within narrower limits of a stupendous conjugal system
w^hich enfolded savage man and held him with a powerful
grasp. His final deliverance was too remarkable and too
improbable, as it would seem, to be repeated many different
times, and in widely separated areas. Groups of consan-

378 GENTES IN OTHER TRIBES OF HUMAN FAMIIY.

guinei, united for protection and subsistence, doubtless, ex-
isted from the infancy of the human family; but the gens
is a very different body of kindred. It takes a part and
excludes the remainder ; it organized this part on the bond
of- kin, under a common name, and with common rights
and privileges. Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited
to secure the benefits of marrying out with unrelated per-
sons. This was a vital principle of the organism as well as
one most difficult of establishment. Instead of a natural
and obvious conception, the gens was essentially abstruse;
and, as such, a product of high intelligence for the times in
which it originated. It required long periods of time, after
the idea was developed into life, to bring it to maturity
with its uses evolved. The Polynesians had this punaluan
family, but failed of inventing the gens ; the Australians
had the same form of the family and possessed the gens.
It originates in the punaluan family, and whatever tribes
had attained to it possessed the elements out of which the
gens was formed. This is the modification of the hypothe-
sis suggested. In the prior organization, on the basis of
sex, the germ of the gens existed. When the gens had
become fully developed in its archaic form it would propa-
gate itself over immense areas through the superior powers
of an improved stock thus created. Its propagation is more
easily explained than its institution. These considerations
tend to show the improbability of its repeated reproduction
in disconnected areas. On the other hand, its beneficial
effects in producing a stock of savages superior to any then
existing upon the earth must be admitted. When migra-
tions were flights under the law of savage life, or move-
ments in quest of better areas, such a stock would spread
in wave after wave until it covered the larger part of the
earth's surface. A consideration of the principal facts now
ascertained bearing upon this question seems to favor the
hypothesis of a single origin of the organization into gen-
tes, unless we go back of this to the Australian classes,
which gave the punaluan family out of which the gens orig-
inated, and regard these classes as the original basis of

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

379

ancient society. In this event wherever the classes were
estabhshed, the gens existed potentially.

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

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

PART III.
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF THE FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

THE ANCIENT FAMILY.

Five SUCCESSIVE Forms OF THE Family. — First, the Consanguine Fam-
ily.— It created the Malayan System of Consanguinity and Affinity.
— Second, the Punaluan. — It created the Turanian and Ganowa-
kian System. — Third, the Monogamian. — It created the Aryan,
Semitic, and Uralian System. — The Syndyasmian and Patriarchal
Families Intermediate. — Both failed to create a System of Consan-
guinity.— These Systems Natural Grow^ths. — Tvi^o Ultimate Forms.
— One Classificatory, the other Descriptive. — General Principles
OF these Systems. — Their persistent Maintenance.

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

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

384 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

I. The Consanguine Family.

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

II. TJic Piinaluan Family.

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

III. TJie Syndyasmian or Pairing- Family.

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

IV. The Patriarchal Family.

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

V. The Monogamian Family.

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

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

THE ANCIENT FAMIL Y. 385

to be elucidated and established are, that they have sprung
successively one from the other, and that they represent
collectively the growth of the idea of the family.

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

The most primitive system of consanguinity yet discov-
ered is found among the Polynesians, of which the Hawaiian
will be used as typical. I have called it the Malayan system.
Under it all consanguinei, near and remote, fall within some
one of the following relationships ; namely^ parent, child,
grandparent, grandchild, brother^ and sister^ No other
blood relationships are recognized. Beside these are the
marriage relationships. This system of consanguinity came
in with the first form of the family, the consanguine, and
contains the principal evidence of its ancient existence. It
may seem a narrow basis for so important an inference:

' Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii.

386

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

but if we are justified in assuming that each relationship
as recognized was the one which actually existed, the infer-
ence is fully sustained. This system prevailed very gener-
ally in Polynesia, although the family among them had
passed out of the consanguine into the punaluan. It re-
mained unchanged because no motive sufficiently strong,
and no alteration of institutions sufficiently radical had oc-
curred to produce its modification. Intermarriage between
brothers and sisters had not entirely disappeared from the
Sandwich Islands when the American missions, about fifty
years ago, were established among them. Of the ancient
general prevalence of this system of consanguinity over
Asia there can be no doubt, because it is the basis of the
Turanian system still prevalent in Asia. It also underlies
the Chinese.

In course of time, a second great system of consanguin-
ity, the Turanian, supervened upon the first, and spread over
a large part of the earth's surface. It was universal among
the North American aborigines, and has been traced suffi-
ciently among those of South America to render probable
its equally universal prevalence among them. Traces of it
have been found in parts of Africa; but the system of the
African tribes in general approaches nearer the Malayan.
It still prevails in South India among the Hindus who
speak dialects of the Dravidian language, and also, in a
modified form, in North India, among the Hindus who
speak dialects of the Gaura language. It also prevails in
Australia in a partially developed state, where it seems to
have originated either in the organization into classes,
or in the incipient organization into gentes, which led to
the same result. In the principal tribes of the Turanian and
Ganowanian families, it owes its origin to punaluan mar-
riage in the group and to the gentile organization, the
latter of which tended to repress consanguine marriages.
It has been shown how this was accomplished by the pro-
hibition of intermarriage in the gens, which permanently
excluded own brothers and sisters from the marriage rela-
tion. AVhen the Turanian system of consanguinity came

THE ANCIENT FAMIL V. 387

in, the form of the family was punaluan. This is proven
by the fact that punaluan marriage in the group explains
-the principal relationships under the system ; showing
them to be those which would actually exist in virtue of
this form of marriage. Through the logic of the facts we
are enabled to show that the punaluan family was once as
wide-spread as the Turanian system of consanguinity. To
the organization into gentes and the punaluan family, the
Turanian system of consanguinity must be ascribed. It will
be seen in the sequel that this system was formed out of
the Malayan, by changing those relationships only which
resulted from the previous intermarriage of brothers and
sisters, own and collateral, and which were, in fact, changed
by the gentes ; thus proving the direct connection between
them. The powerful influence of the gentile organization
upon society, and particularly upon the punaluan group, is
demonstrated by this change of systems.

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

When the American aborigines were discovered, the fam-
ily among them had passed out of the punaluan into the
syndyasmian form ; so that the relationships recognized by
the system of consanguinity were not those, in a number
of cases, which actually existed in the syndyasmian family.
It was an exact repetition of what had occurred under the

388 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Malayan system, where the family had passed out of the
consanguine into the punaluan, the system of consanguinity
remaining unchanged ; so that while the relationships given
in the Malayan system were those which actually existed
in the consanguine family, they were untrue to a part of
those in the punaluan family. In like manner, while the
relationships given in the Turanian system are those which
actually existed in the punaluan family, they were untrue
to a part of those in the syndyasmian. The form of the
family advances faster of necessity than systems of consan-
guinity, which follow to record the family relationships. As
the establishment of the punaluan family did not furnish
adequate motives to reform the Malayan system, so the
growth of the syndyasmian family did not supply adequate
motives to reform the Turanian. It required an institution
as great as the gentile organization to change the Malayan
system into the Turanian; and it required an institution as
great as property in the concrete, with its rights of owner-
ship and of inheritance, together with the monogamian
family which it created, to overthrow the Turanian system
of consanguinity and substitute the Aryan.

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

The last four forms of the family have existed within the
historical period ; but the first, the consanguine, has disap-
peared. Its ancient existence, however, can be deduced
from the Malayan system of consanguinity. We have
then three radical forms of the family, which represent
three great and essentially different conditions of life, with
three different and well-marked systems of consanguinity,

THE ANCIENT FA MIL Y. 389

sufficient to prove the existence of these families, if they
contained the only proofs remaining. This affirmation will
serve to draw attention to the singular permanence and
persistency of systems of consanguinity, and to the value of
the evidence they embody with respect to the condition of
ancient society.

Each of these families ran a long course in the tribes of
mankind, with a period of infancy, of maturity, and of
decadence. The monogamian family o\ves its origin to
property, as the syndyasmian, which contained its germ,
owed its origin to the gens. When the Grecian tribes first
came under historical notice, the monogamian family ex-
isted; but it did not become completely established until
positive legislation had determined its status and its rights.
The growth of the idea of property in the human mind,
through its creation and enjoyment, and especially through
the settlement of legal rights with respect to its inherit-
ance, are intimately connected with the establishment of
this form of the family. Property became sufficiently pow-
erful in its influence to touch the organic structure of so-
ciety. Certainty with respect to the paternity of children
would now have a significance unknown in previous con-
ditions. Marriage between single pairs had existed from
the Older Period of barbarism, under the form of pairing
during the pleasure of the parties. It had tended to grow
more stable as ancient society advanced, with the improve-
ment of institutions, and with the progress of inventions
and discoveries into higher successive conditions ; but the
essential element of the monogamian family, an exclusive
cohabitation, was still wanting. Man far back in barbar-
ism began to exact fidelity from the wife, under savage
penalties, but he claimed exemption for himself. The obli-
gation is necessarily reciprocal, and its performance correla-
tive. Among the Homeric Greeks, the condition of woman
in the family relation was one of isolation and marital dom-
ination, with imperfect rights and excessive inequality. A
comparison of the Grecian family, at successive epochs,
from the Homeric age to that of Pericles, shows a sensible

390

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

improvement, with its gradual settlement into a defined
institution. The modern family is an unquestionable im-
provement upon that of the Greeks and Romans ; because
woman has gained immensely in social position. From
standing in the relation of a daughter to her husband, as
among the Greeks and Romans, she has drawn nearer to an
equality in dignity and in acknowledged personal rights.
We have a record of the monogamian family, running back
nearly three thousand years, during which, it may be
claimed, there has been a gradual but continuous improve-
ment in its character. It is destined to progress still
further, until the equality of the sexes is acknowledged,
and the equities of the marriage relation are completely
recognized. We have similar evidence, though not so per-
fect, of the progressive improvement of the syndyasmian
family, which, commencing in a low type, ended in the
monogamian. These facts should be held in remembrance,
because they are essential in this discussion.

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

Some impression is thus gained of the ages which elapsed
while these two forms of the family were running their
courses of growth and development. But the creation of
five successive forms of the family, each differing from the
other, and belonging to conditions of society entirely dis-
simihir, augments our conception of the length of the pe-
riods during which the idea of the family was developed

THE ANCIENT FAMIL V.

from the consanguine, through intermediate forms, into the
still advancing monogamian. No institution of mankind
has had a more remarkable or more eventful history, or em-
bodies the results of a more prolonged and diversified ex-
perience. It required the highest mental and moral efforts
through numberless ages of time to maintain its existence
and carry it through its several stages into its present form.
Marriage passed from the punaluan through the syndyas-
mian into the monogamian form without any material
change in the Turanian system of consanguinity. This sys-
tem, which records the relationships in punaluan families,
remained substantially unchanged until the establishment
of the monogamian family, when it became almost totally
untrue to the nature of descents, and even a scandal upon
monogamy. To illustrate : Under the Malayan system a
man calls his brother's son his son, because his brother's
wife is his wife as well as his brother's ; and his sister's son
is also his son because his sister is his wife. Under the
Turanian system his brother's son is still his son, and for the
same reason, but his sister's son is now his nephew, because
under the gentile organization his sister has ceased to be
his wife. Among the Iroquois, where the family is sj'ndyas-
mian, a man still calls his brother's son his son, although
his brother's wife has ceased to be his wife ; and so with a
large number of relationships equally inconsistent with the
existing form of marriage. The system has survived the
usages in which it originated, and still maintains itself
among them, although untrue in the main, to descents as
they now exist. No motive adequate to the overthrow of
a great and ancient system of consanguinity had arisen.
Monogamy when it appeared furnished that motive to the
Aryan nations as they drew near to civilization. It assured
the paternity of children and the legitimacy of heirs. A
reformation of the Turanian system to accord with monoga-
mian descents was impossible. It was false to monogamy
through and through. A remedy, however, existed, at once
simple and complete. The Turanian system was dropped,
and the descriptive m.ethod, which the Turanian tribes

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

always employed when they wished to make a given rela-
tionship specific, was substituted in its place. They fell
back upon the bare facts of consanguinity and described
the relationship of each person by a combination of the
primary terms. Thus, they said brother's son, brother's
grandson ; father's brother, and father's brother's son.
Each phrase described a person, leaving the relationship
a matter of implication. Such was the system of the Aryan
nations, as we find it in its most ancient form among the
Grecian, Latin, Sanskritic, Germanic, and Celtic tribes ;
and also in the Semitic, as witness the Hebrew Scripture
genealogies. Traces of the Turanian system, some of
which have been referred to, remained among the Aryan
and Semitic nations down to the historical period ; but it
was essentially uprooted, and the descriptive system substi-
tuted in its place.

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

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

THE ANCIENT TAMIL Y. 3X95

vailed, although both may have advanced into a higher stage
while the system of consanguinity remained unchanged.

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

■A

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

they contain is of the highest value, as well as of the most
suggestive character. It reveals the condition of ancient
society in the plainest manner with unerring directness.

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

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

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

Relationships^ are of two kinds: First, by consanguinity
or blood ; second, by affinity or marriage. _Coj[isan^yja4++ty

THE ANCIENT TAMIL Y. 395

isjilso of two ldnd^^injsal..aiid..xoilateral. Lineal consan-
guinity is the connection which subsists among persons of
whom one is descended from the other. Collateral consan-
guinity is the connection which exists between persons who
are descended from common ancestors, but not from each
other. Marriage relationships exist by custom.

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

The first collateral line, male, consists of my brother and
his descendants; and the first, female, of my sister and her
descendants. The second collateral line, male, on the fa-
ther's side, consists of my father's brother and his descend-
ants ; and the second, female, of my father's sister and her
descendants : the second, male, on the mother's side, is
composed of my mother's brother and his descendants ;
and the second, female, of my mother's sister and her

396

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

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

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

With such a mass of divisions and branches, embracing
such a multitude of consanguinci, it will be seen at once
that a method of arrangement and of description which
maintained each distinct and rendered the whole intclli-

THE ANCIENT TAMIL Y. 397

gible would be no ordinary achievement. This task was per-
fectly accomplished by the Roman civilians, whose method
has been adopted by the principal European nations, and is
so entirely simple as to elicit admiration.' The develop-
ment of the nomenclature to the requisite extent must have
been so extremely difficult that it would probably never have
occurred except under the stimulus of an urgent necessity,
namely, the need of a code of descents to regulate the inher-
itance of property.

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

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

It will be noticed that the two radical forms — the classi-
ficatory and the descriptive — yield nearly the exact line of
demarkation between the barbarous and civilized nations.
Such a result might have been predicted from the law of

^ Pandects, lib. xxxviii, title x. De gradibus, et ad finibus et nominibus
eorum : and Insiitziies of yusdniafi, lib. iii, title vi. De gradibus cogna-
tionem.

* Our term aunt is from amita, and uncle from avunculus. Avtts, grand-
father, gives av'Miculus by adding the diminutive. It tlierefore signifies a
' little grandfather." Matertera is supposed to be derived from ?nater and altera,
■=■ another mother.

398

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

progress revealed by these several forms of marriage and
of the family.

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

It will not be supposed that a system so elaborate as the
Turanian could be maintained in different nations and fami-
lies of mankind in absolute identicalness. Divergence in
minor particulars is found, but the radical features are, in
the main, constant. The system of consanguinity of the Ta-
mil people, of South India, and that of the Seneca-Iroquois,
of New York, are still identical through two hundred rela-
tionships ; an application of natural logic to the facts of the
social condition without a parallel in the history of the hu-
man mind. There is also a modified form of the system,
which stands alone and tells its own story. It is that of the
Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, and other people of North India,
formed by a combination of the Aryan and Turanian systems.
A civilized people, the Brahmins, coalesced with a barbarous

THE ANCIENT TAMIL V. 399

stock, and lost their language in the new vernaculars named,
which retain the grammatical structure of the aboriginal
speech, to which the Sanskrit gave ninety per cent, of its vo-
cables. It brought their two systems of consanguinity into
collision, one founded upon monogamy or syndyasmy, and
the other upon plural marriages in the group, resulting in a
mixed system. The aborigines, who preponderated in num-
ber, impressed upon it a Turanian character, while the San-
skrit element introduced such modifications as saved the
monogamian family from reproach. The Slavonic stock
seems to have been derived from this intermixture of races.
A system of consanguinity which exhibits but two phases
through the periods of savagery and of barbarism and pro-
jects a third but modified form far into the period of civili-
zation, manifests an element of permanence calculated to
arrest attention.

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

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

An explanation of the origin of these systems of consan-
guinity and affinity will be offered in succeeding chapters.
They will be grounded upon the forms of marriage and of

' Herrera's Hist, of Amer., i, 216, 218, 348.

400

A NCIENT SO CIE T Y.

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

CHAPTER II.

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY.

Former. Existence of this Family. — Proved by Malayan System
OF Consanguinity. — Hawaiian System used as Typical. — Five Grades
OF Relations. — Details of System. — Explained by the Intermarriage
OF Brothers and Sisters in a Group. — Early State of Society in the
Sandwich Islands. — Nine Grades of Relations of the Chinese. —
Identical in Principle with the Hawaiian. — Five Grades of Relations
IN Ideal Republic of Plato. — Table of Malayan System of Consan-
guinity and Affinity.

The existence of the Consanguine family must be proved
by other evidence than the production of the fam.ily itself.
As the first and most ancient form of the institution, it has
ceased to exist even among the lowest tribes of savages.
It belongs to a condition of society out of which the least
advanced portion of the human race have emerged. Single
instances of the marriage of a brother and sister in barbar-
ous and even in civilized nations have occurred within the
historical period ; but this is very different from the inter-
marriage of a number of them in a group, in a state of so-
ciety in which such marriages predominated and formed
the basis of a social system. There are tribes of savages in
the Polynesian and Papuan Islands, and in Australia, seem-
ingly not far removed from the primitive state; but they
have advanced beyond the condition the consanguine fam-
ily implies. Where, then, it may be asked, is the evidence
that such a family ever existed among mankind ? What-
ever proof is adduced must be conclusive, otherwise the
26

402 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

proposition is not established. It is found in a system of
consanguinity and affinity which has outlived for unnum-
bered centuries the marriage customs in which it originated,
and which remains to attest the fact that such a family
existed when the system was formed.

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

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

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

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 403

Turanian, with the establishment of the organization into
gentes.

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

It is evident that the Malayan could not have been de-
rived from any existing system, because there is none, of
which any conception can be formed, more elementary. The
only blood relationships recognized are the primary, which
are five in number, without distinguishing sex. All consan-
guinei, near and remote, are classified under these relation-
ships into five categories. Thus, myself, my brothers and
sisters, and my first, second, third, and more remote male
and female cousins, are the first grade or category. All these,
without distinction, are my brothers and sisters. The word
cousin is here used in our sense, the relationship being un-
known in Polynesia. My father and mother, together with
their brothers and sisters, and their first, second, and more
remote cousins, are the second grade. All these, without
distinction, are my parents. My grandfathers and grand-
mothers, on the father's side and on the mother's side,
with their brothers and sisters, and their several cousins, are
the third grade. All these are my grandparents. Below me,
my sons and daughters, with their several cousins, as before,
are the fourth grade. All these, without distinction, are
my children. My grandsons and granddaughters, with their
several cousins, are the fifth grade. All these in like manner

' The Rotuman is herein for the first time published. It was worked out by
the Rev. John Osborn, Wesleyan missionary at Rotuma, and procured and for-
warded to the author by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, of Sydney, Australia.

404 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

are my grand-children. Moreover, all the individuals of the
same grade are brothers and sisters to each other. In this
manner all the possible kindred of any given person are
brought into five categories; each person applying to every
other person in the same category with himself or herself
the same term of i"elationship. Particular attention is in-
vited to the five grades of relations in the Malayan system,
because the same classification appears in the " Nine Grades
of Relations " of the Chinese, which are extended so as to
include two additional ancestors and two additional de-
scendants, as will elsewhere be shown. A fundamental con-
nection between the two systems is thus discovered.

There are terms in Hawaiian for grandparent, Kiipihtd ;
for ^3.reni, Md 1*21 a ; for c\\\\d, Kaikec ; and for grandchild^
Moopund. Gender is expressed by adding the terms Kdtta,
for male, and Wdhccna, for female ; thus, Kiipiind Kdiia =
grandparent male, and Kiipund Wdhccna, grandparent fe-
male. They are equivalent to grandfather and grandmother,
and express these relationships in the concrete. Ancestors
and descendants, above and below those named, are distin-
guished numerically, as first, second, third, when it is neces-
sary to be specific; but in common usage Kjtpund is applied
to all persons above grandparent, and Moopund is applied
to all descendants below grandchild.

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

Elder Brother, Male Speaking, KaiMadna. Female Speaking, Kaikiitiiina.
Younger Brother, " " Kaikaina. " " Kaikitncina.

Elder Sister, " " Kai kiiwdheena. " " Kciiknadna.

Younger Sister, " " Kai kiizvdheena. " " Kaikaina.^

It will be observed that a man calls his elder brother
Kaikuadna, and that a woman calls her elder sister the
same ; that a man calls his younger brother Kaikaina, and a
woman calls her younger sister the same : hence these terms

' a as in ale ; a as a in father ; S as a in at ; t as i in it ; li as oo in food.

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 405

are in common gender, and suggest the same idea found
in the Karen system, namely, that of predecessor and
successor in birth.' A single term is used by the males for
elder and younger sister, and a single term by the females
for elder and younger brother. It thus appears that while
a man's brothers are classified into elder and younger, his
sisters are not ; and, while a woman's sisters are classified
into elder and younger, her brothers are not. A double set
of terms are thus developed, one of which is used by the
males and the other by the females, a peculiarity which re-
appears in the system of a number of Polynesian tribes.^
Among savage and barbarous tribes the relationships of
brother and sister are seldom conceived in the abstract.

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

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

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

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

Second collateral line. In the male branch on the fa-»
ther's side my father's brother is my father, and calls me

' Systems of Consangiiinily, loc. cit., p. 445. "^ lb., pp. 525, 573.

4o6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

his son ; his children are my brothers and sisters, elder or
younger; their children are my sons and daughters; and
the children of the latter are my grandchildren, each of them
in the preceding and succeeding cases applying to me the
proper correlative. My father's sister is my mother ; her
children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger; their
children are my sons and daughters ; and the children of
the latter are my grandchildren.

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

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

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

In the same line on the mother's side, my grandmo-
ther's brother is my grandfather ; his sister is my grand-
mother ; and their respective children and descendants fall

THE CONSANGUINE FA MIL V. 407

into the same categories as those in the first branch of this
line.

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

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

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

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

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

408 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Poverty of language or indifference to relationships exer-
cised no influence whatever upon the formation of the sys-
tem, as will appear in the sequeL

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

From this system the antecedent existence of the con-
sanguine family, with the kind of marriage appertaining
thereto, is plainly deducible. Presumptively it is a natural
and real system, expressing the relationships which actually
existed when the system was formed, as near as the parent-
age of children could be known. The usages with respect
to marriage which then prevailed may not prevail at the
present time. To sustain the deduction it is not necessary
that they should. Systems of consanguinity, as before
stated, are found to remain substantially unchanged and in
full vigor long after the marriage customs in which they
originated have in part or wholly passed away. The small
number of independent systems of consanguinity created
during the extended period of human experience is suffi-
cient proof of their permanence. They are found not to
change except in connection with great epochs of progress.
For the purpose of explaining the origin of the Malayan
system, from the nature of descents, we are at liberty to
assume the antecedent intermarriage of own and collateral
brothers and sisters in a group; and if it is then found that
the principal relationships recognized are those that would
actually exist under this form of marriage, then the system
itself becomes evidence conclusive of the existence of such
marriages. It is plainly inferable that the system origi-
nated in plural marriages of consanguinei, including own
brothers and sisters ; in fact commenced with the inter-
marriage of the latter, and gradually enfolded the collateral

' Systems of Consanguinity, etc., 1. c, Table iii, pp. 542, 573

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 409

brothers and sisters as the range of the conjugal system
widened. In course of time the evils of the first form of
marriage came to be perceived, leading, if not to its direct
abolition, to a preference for wives beyond this degree.
Among the Australians it was permanently abolished by
the organization into classes, and more widely among the
Turanian tribes by the organization into gentes. It is im-
possible to explain the system as a natural growth upon
any other hypothesis than the one named, since this form
of marriage alone can furnish a key to its interpretation.
In the consanguine family, thus constituted, the husbands
lived in polygyny, and the wives in polyandry, which are
seen to be as ancient as human society. Such a family was
neither unnatural nor remarkable. It would be difficult to
show any other possible beginning of the family in the
primitive period. Its long continuance in a partial form
among the tribes of mankind is the greater cause for sur-
prise ; for all traces of it had not disappeared among the
Hawaiians at the epoch of their discovery.

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

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

It should be remembered that the relationships which grow
out of the family organization are of two kinds : those of
blood determined by descents, and those of affinity deter-
mined by marriage. Since in the consanguine family there
are two distinct groups of persons, one of fathers and one

410 ANCIEXT SOCIETY.

of mothers, the affiliation of the children to both groups
would be so strong that the distinction between relation-
ships by blood and by affinity would not be recognized in
the system in every case.

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

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

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

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

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

This is purely a question of relationship by marriage.
My several brothers being my husbands, their children by
other wives would be my step-children, which relationship
being unrecognized, they naturally fall into the category
of my sons and daughters. Otherwise they would pass
v/ithout the system. Among ourselves a step-mother is
called mother, and a step-son a son.

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

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

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

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

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

Reason : The husbands of my sisters are my husbands
as well as theirs. This difference, however, exists : I can
distinguish my own children from those of my sisters, to
the latter of whom I am a step-mother. But since this
relationship is not discriminated, they fall into the category

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 4II

of my sons and daughters. Otherwise they would fall with-
out the system.

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

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

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

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

Reasons, as in I, III, and VI.

X. All the brothers of my mother are my fathers.
Reason : They are my mother's husbands.

XI. All the sisters of my mother are my mothers.
Reasons, as in VI.

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

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

412

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

XIII. All the children of the latter are my grandchildren.
Reasons, as in II.

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

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

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

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

TONGAN.

Hawaiian.

My Brother's Wife, Male speaking,

Unoho,

My Wife.

Waheena, My Wife.

" Wife's Sister,

Unoho,

Waheena, " Wife.

" Husband's Brother, Female "

Unoho,

" Husband.

Kane, " Husband.

" Father's Brother's 1 n^- , ,,
Son's Wife, \ ^^'^

Unoho,

" Wife.

Waheena, " Wife.

" Mother's Sister's ( „ „
Son's Wife, 1

Unoho,

" "

Waheena, " "

" Father's Brother's \ „ .
Daughter's Husb. } ^"^^^'^

Unoho,

" Husband.

Kaikoeka, " Bro. -in-law.

" Mother's Sister's ( ,, „
Daughter's Husb. f

Unoho,

Kaikoeka, " "

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

From the evidence embodied in this system of consan-

' Among the Kafirs of South Africa, the wife of my father's brother's son, of
my father's sister's son, of my mother's brother's son, and of my mother's sister's
son, are all alike my vvive^, as well as theirs, as appears by their system of con-
sanguinity.

THE CONSA NG VINE FA MIL Y. 4 1 3

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

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

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

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

' Races of Man, Appleton's ed. 1S76, p. 232.

414 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

overthrown when the monogamian family appeared, intro-
ducing the Aryan system of consanguinity.

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

Its antecedent existence is rendered probable by the con-
dition of society in the Sandwich Islands when it first
became thoroughly known. At the time the American
missions were established upon these Islands (1820), a state
of society was found which appalled the missionaries. The
relations of the sexes and their marriage customs excited
their chief astonishment. They were suddenly introduced
to a phase of ancient society where the monogamian family
was unknown, where the syndyasmian family was unknown ;
but in the place of these, and without understanding the
organism, they found the punaluan family, with own broth-
/ ers and sisters not entirely excluded, in which the males
were living in polygyny, and the females in polyandry.
It seemed to them that they had discovered the lowest level
of human degradation, not to say of depravity. But the
innocent Hawaiians, who had not been able to advance
themselves out of savagery, were living, no doubt respect-
ably and modestly for savages, under customs and usages
which to them had the force of laws. It is probable that
they were living as virtuously in their faithful observance,
as these excellent missionaries were in the performance of
their own. The shock the latter experienced from their dis-
coveries expresses the profoundness of the expanse which
separates civilized from savage man. The high moral sense
and refined sensibilities, which had been a growth of the
ages, were brought face to face with the feeble moral sense
and the coarse sensibilities of a savage man of all these
periods ago. As a contrast it was total and complete. The
Rev. Hiram Bingham, one of these veteran missionaries,
has given us an excellent history of the Sandwich Islands,
founded upon original investigations, in which he pictures
the people as practicing the sum of human abominations.

THE CONSA NG UINE FA MIL V. 4 1 5

"Polygamy, implying plurality of husbands and wives,"
he observes, " fornication, adultery, incest, infant murder,
desertion of husband and wives, parents and children ;
sorcery, covetousness, and oppression extensively prevailed,
and seem hardly to have been forbidden by their religion." '
Punaluan marriage and the punaluan family dispose of the
principal charges in this grave indictment, and leave the
Hawaiians a chance at a moral character. The existence of
morality, even among savages, must be recognized, although
low in type; for there never could have been a time in
human experience when the principle of morality did not
exist. Wakea, the eponymous ancestor of the Havv'aiians,
according to Mr. Bingham, is said to have married his eld-
est daughter. In the time of these missionaries brothers
and sisters married without reproach. " The union of
brother and sister in the highest ranks," he further remarks,
"became fashionable, and continued until the revealed will
of God was made known to them." ^ It is not singular that
the intermarriage of brothers and sisters should have sur-
vived from the consanguine family into the punaluan in
some cases, in the Sandwich Islands, because the people had
not attained to the gentile organization, and because the
punaluan family was a growth out of the consanguine not
yet entirely consummated. Although the family was sub-
stantially punaluan, the system of consanguinity remained
unchanged, as it came in with the consanguine family, Avith
the exception of certain marriage relationships.

It is not probable that the actual family, among the
Hawaiians, was as large as the group united in the mar-
riage relation. Necessity would compel its subdivision into
smaller groups for the procurement of subsistence, and for
mutual protection ; but each smaller family would be a
miniature of the group. It is not improbable that individ-
uals passed at pleasure from one of these subdivisions into
another in the punaluan as well as consanguine family,
giving rise to that apparent desertion by husbands and
wives of each other, and by parents of their children, mcn-

* Bingham's Sandiu'ch IsL^tids, Hartford ed., 1847, p. 2i. " 11/., p. 23.

4l6 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

tioned by Mr. Bingham. Communism in living must, of
necessity, have prevailed both in the consanguine and in
the punaluan family, because it was a requirement of their
condition. It still prevails generally among savage and
barbarous tribes.

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

" The degrees of kindred in a family are like the stream-
lets of a fountain, or the branches of a tree ; although the
streams differ in being more or less remote, and the branches
in being more or less near, yet there is but one trunk and
one fountain head." '

The Hawaiian system of consanguinity realizes the nine
grades of relations (conceiving them reduced to five by
striking off the two upper and the two lower members)
more perfectly than that of the Chinese at the present time."
While the latter has changed through the introduction of
Turanian elements, and still more through special additions
to distinguish the several collateral lines, the former has
held, pure and simple, to the primary grades which pre-
sumptively were all the Chinese possessed originally. It is
evident that consanguinei, in the Chinese as in the Hawai-
ian, are generalized into categories by generations ; all col-
laterals of the same grade being brothers and sisters to each

* Systems of ConsangMtnity , etc., p. 415.

' Il>., p. 432. where the Chinese system is presented in full.

THE CONSA NG VINE FA MIL V. 4 1 7

Other. Moreover, marriage and the family are conceived as
forming within the grade, and confined, so far as husbands
and wives are concerned, within its limits. As explained by
the Hawaiian categories it is perfectly intelligible. At the
same time it indicates an anterior condition among the re-
mote ancestors of the Chinese, of which this fragment pre-
serves a knowledge, precisely analogous to that reflected by
the Hawaiian. In other words, it indicated the presence
of the punaluan family when these grades were formed,
of which the consanguine was a necessary predecessor.

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

Finally, it will be perceived that the state of society indi-

' Tlmnus, c. ii, Davis's trans.
27

4 1 8 ANCIENT SO CIE T V.

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

' Descent of Man, ii, 360.

THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY.

419

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ANCIENT SOCIETY.

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A NCI EN T SOCIE T Y.

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THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY.

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CO o o H ci m ;*• >n^

CHAPTER III.

THE PUNALUAN FAMILY.

The Punaluan Family supervened upon the Consanguine. — Tran-
sition, HOW produced. — Hawaiian Custom of Punalua. — Its probable
ancient Prevalence over wide Areas. — The Gentes originated proba-
bly in Punaluan Groups. — The Turanian System of Consanguinity. —
Created by the Punaluan Family.— It proves the Existence of this
Family when the System was formed. — Details of System. — Ex-
planation of its Relationships in their Origin. — Table of Turanian
and Ganow.vnian Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity.

The Punaluan family has existed in Europe, Asia, and
America within the historical period, and in Polynesia
within the present century. With a wide prevalence in the
tribes of mankind in the Status of Savagery, it remained
in some instances among tribes who had advanced into
the Lower Status of barbarism, and in one case, that of
the Britons, among tribes who had attained the INIiddle
Status.

In the course of human progress it followed the consan-
guine family, upon 'yvhich it supervened, and of which it
was a modification. The transition from one into the other
was produced by the gradual exclusion of own brothers and
sisters from the marriage relation, the evils of which could
not forever escape human observation. It maybe impossi-
ble to recover the events which led to deliverance ; but we
are not without some evidence tending to show how it oc-
curred. Although the facts from which these conclusions
are drawn are of a dreary and forbidding character, they

THE PUN ALU AN FAMILY.

425

will not surrender the knowledge they contain without a
patient as well as careful examination.

Given the consanguine family, which involved own broth-
ers and sisters and also collateral brothers and sisters in the
marriage relation, and it was only necessary to exclude the
former from the group, and retain the, latter, to change the
consanguine into the punaluan family. To effect the exclu-
sion of the one class and the retention of the other was a
difficult process, because it involved a radic:tl change in the
composition of the family, not to say in the ancient plan of
domestic life. It also required the surrender of a privilege
which savages would be slow to make. Commencing, it
may be supposed, in isolated cases, and with a slow recog-
nition of its adv^antages, it remained an experiment through
immense expanses of time; introduced partially at first,
then becoming general, and finally universal among the
advancing tribes, still in savagery, among whom the move-
ment originated. It affords a good illustration of the opera-
tion of the principle of natural selection.

The significance of the Australian class system presents
itself anew in this connection. It is evident from the man-
ner in which the classes were formed, and from the rule
with respect to marriage and descents, that their primary
object was to exclude own brothers and sisters from the
marriage relation, while the collateral brothers and sisters
were retained in that relation. The former object is im-
pressed upon the classes by an external law; but the latter,
which is not apparent on the face of the organization, is
made evident by tracing their descents.' It is thus found
that first, second, and more remote cousins, who are collat-
eral brothers and sisters under their system of consanguinity,
are brought perpetually back into the marriage relation,
while own brothers and sisters are excluded. The number

'The Ippais and Kapotas are married in a group. Ippai begets Murri, and
Murri in turn begets Ippai ; in like manner Kapota begets Mata, and Mata in
turn begets Kapota ; so that the grandchildren of Ippai and Kapota are them-
selves Ippais and Kapotas, as well as collateral brothers and sisters ; and as
such are born husbands and wives.

426 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of persons in the Australian punaluan group is greater than
in the Hawaiian, and its composition is slightly different ;
but the remarkable fact remains in both cases, that the
brotherhood of the husbands formed the basis of the mar-
riage relation in one group, and the sisterhood of the wives
the basis in the other. This difference, however, existed
with respect to the Hawaiians, that it does not appear as
yet that there w^re any classes among them between whom
marriages must occur. Since the Australian classes gave
birth to the punaluan group, which contained the germ of
the gens, it suggests the probability that this organization
into classes upon sex once prevailed among all the tribes
of mankind who afterwards fell under the gentile organiza-
tion. It would not be surprising if the Hawaiians, at some
anterior period, were organized in such classes.

Remarkable as it may seem, three of the most important
and most wide-spread institutions of mankind, namely, the
punaluan family, the organization into gentes, and the Tura-
nian system of consanguinity, root themselves in an ante-
rior organization analogous to the punaluan group, in which
the germ of each is found. Some evidence of the truth of
this proposition will appear in the discussion of this family.

As punaluan marriage gave the punaluan family, the lat-
ter would give the Turanian system of consanguinity, as
soon as the existing system was reformed so as to express
the relationships as they actually existed in this family. But
something more than the punaluan group was needed to
produce this result, namely, the organization into gentes,
which permanently excluded brothers and sisters from the
marriage relation by an organic law, who before that, must
have been frequently involved in that relation. When this
exclusion was made complete it would work a change in
all these relationships which depended upon these mar-
riages ; and when the system of consanguinity was made to
conform to the new state of these relationships, the Turanian
system would supervene upon the Malayan. The Hawai-
ians had the punaluan family, but neither the organization
into gentes nor the Turanian system of consanguinity.

THE PUN ALU AN FAMILY. 427

Their retention of the old system of the consanguine fam-
ily leads to a suspicion, confirmed by the statements of Mr.
Bingham, that own brothers and sisters were frequently in-
volved in the punaluan group, thus rendering a reformation
of the old system of consanguinity impossible. Whether
the punaluan group of the Hawaiian type can claim an
equal antiquity with the Australian classes is questionable,
since the latter is more archaic than any other known con-
stitution of society. But the existence of a punaluan group
of one or the other type was essential to the birth of the
gentes, as the latter were essential to the production of the
Turanian system of consanguinity. The three institutions
will be considered separately.
I. The Piinaliiafi Family.

In rare instances a custom has been discovered in a con-
crete form usable as a key to unlock some of the mysteries
of ancient society, and explain what before could only be
understood imperfectly. Such a custom is the Punaliia of
the Hawaiians. In i860 Judge Lorin Andrews, of Honolulu,
in a letter accompanying a schedule of the Hawaiian system
of consanguinity, commented upon one of the Hawaiian
terms of relationship as follows: "The relationship of
punaliia is rather amphibious. It arose from the fact that
two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more
sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each
other in common ; but the modern use of the word is that
o{ dear friend, or intimate companion.'' That which Judge
Andrews says they were inclined to do, and which may then
have been a declining practice, their system of consanguin-
ity proves to have been once universal among them. The
Rev. Artemus Bishop, lately deceased, one of the oldest mis-
sionaries in these Islands, sent to the author the same year,
with a similar schedule, the following statement upon the
same subject : " This confusion of relationships is the re-
sult of the ancient custom among relatives of the living
together of husbands and wives in common." In a pre-
vious chapter the remark of Mr. Bingham was quoted that
the polygamy of which he was writing, " implied a plurality

428 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of husbands and wives." The same fact is reiterated by
Dr. Bartlett : " The natives had hardly more modesty or
shame than so many animals. Husbands had many wives,
and wives many husbands, and exchanged with each other
at pleasure."' The form of marriage which they found cre-
ated a punaluan group, in which the husbands and wives
were jointly intermarried in the group. Each of these
groups, including the children of the marriages, was a
punaluan family; for one consisted of several brothers and
their wives, and the other of several sisters with their hus-
bands.

If we now turn to the Hawaiian system of consanguinity,
in the Table, it will be found that a man calls his wife's sis-
ter his wife. All the sisters of his wife, own as well as col-
lateral, are also his wives. But the husband of his wife's
sister he caXls pu^ialiia, i. e., his intimate companion ; and all
the husbands of the several sisters of his wife the same.
They were jointly intermarried in the 'group. These hus-
bands were not, probably, brothers ; if they were, the blood
relationship would naturally have prevailed over the affin-
eal ; but their wives were sisters, own and collateral. In
this case the sisterhood of the wives was the basis upon
which the group was formed, "and their husbands stood to
each other in the relationship o^ pfmalua. In the other
group, which rests upon the brotherhood of the husbands,
a woman calls her husband's brother her husband. All the
brothers of her husband, own as well as collateral, were also
her husbands. But the wife of her husband's brother she
QdiWs pilnalu a, and the several wives of her husband's broth-
ers stand to her in the relationship oi pfinalua. These wives
were not, probably, sisters of each other, for the reason
stated in the other case, although exceptions doubtless ex-
isted under both branches of the custom. All these wives
stood to each other in the relationship oi piinaliia.

It is evident that the punaluan family was formed out of
the consanguine. Brothers ceased to marry their own sis-
ters ; and after the gentile organization had worked upon

' Historical Sketch of the Missions, etc., in the Sandwich Islands, etc., p. 5.

THE PUN ALU AN FAMILY.

429

society its complete results, their collateral sisters as well.
But in the interval they shared their remaining wives in
common. In like manner, sisters ceased m.arrying their
own brothers, and after a long period of time, their collat-
eral brothers ; but they shared their remaining husbands in
common. The advancement of society out of the consan-
guine into the punaluan family was the inception of a great
upward movement, preparing the way for the gentile or-
ganization which gradually conducted to the syndyasmian
family, and ultimately to the monogamian.

Another remarkable fact with respect to the custom of
punalua, is the necessity which exists for its ancient preva-
lence among the ancestors of the Turanian and Ganowanian
families when their system of consanguinity was formed.
The reason is simple and conclusive. Marriages in puna-
luan groups explain the relationships in the system. Pre-
sumptively they are those which actually existed when this
system was formed. The existence of the system, there-
fore, requires the antecedent prevalence of punaluan mar-
riage, and of the punaluan family. Advancing to the civil-
ized nations, there seems to have been an equal necessity
for the ancient existence of punaluan groups among the
remote ancestors of all such as possessed the gentile organ-
ization— Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts, Hebrews — for it
is reasonably certain that all the families of mankind who
rose under the gentile organization to the practice of
monogamy possessed, in prior times, the Turanian system
of consanguinity which sprang from the punaluan group.
It will be found that the great movement, which com-
menced in the formation of this group, was, in the main,
consummated through the organization into gentes, and
that the latter was generally accompanied, prior to the rise
of monogamy, by the Turanian system of consanguinity.

Traces of the punaluan custom remained, here and there,
down to the Middle Period of barbarism, in exceptional
cases, in European, Asiatic, and American tribes. The most
remarkable illustration is given by Caesar in stating the
marriage customs of the ancient Britons. He observes

.oQ ANCIENT SOCIETY.

that, " by tens and by twelves, husbands possessed their
wives in common ; and especially brothers with brothers
and parents with their children." ^

This passage reveals a custom of intermarriage in the
group \^\\\c:}i\ pilnahla explains. Barbarian mothers would
not be expected to show ten and twelve sons, as a rule, or
even in exceptional cases ; but under the Turanian system
of consanguinity, which we are justified in supposing the
Britons to have possessed, large groups of brothers are
always found, because male cousins, near and remote, fall
into this category with Ego. Several brothers among the
Britons, according to Caesar, possessed their wives in com-
mon. Here we find one branch of the punaluan custom,
pure and simple. The correlative group which this presup-
poses, where several sisters shared their husbands in com-
mon, is not suggested directly by Caesar; but it probably
existed as the complement of the first. Something beyond
the first he noticed, namely, that parents, with their children,
shared their wives in common. It is not unlikely that these
wives were sisters. Whether or not Caesar by this expres-
sion referred to the other group, it serves to mark the ex-
tent to which plural marriages in the group existed among
the Britons ; and which was the striking fact that arrested
the attention of this distinguished observer. Where sev-
eral brothers were married to each other's wives, these
wives were married to each other's husbands.

Herodotus, speaking of the Massagetae, who were in the
Middle Status of barbarism, remarks that every man had
one wife, yet all the wives were common.' It may be im-
plied from this statement that the syndyasmian family had
begun to supervene upon the punaluan. Each husband
paired with one wife, who thus became his principal wife,
but within the limits of the group husbands and wives
continued in common. If Herodotus intended to intimate

' Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes, et maxima fratres cum
fratribus parentesque cum liberis. — De Bell. Gall., v, 14.

"^ yvvaiKa fxiv yausei snadroi, ravrijdi Se tziKoiva xP^ovtai. —
Lib. i, c. 216.

THE P UNAL UAN FA MIL V. 43 1

a state of promiscuity, it probably did not exist. The
Massagetae, although ignorant of iron, possessed flocks and
herds, fought on horseback armed with battle-axes of cop-
per and with copper-pointed spears, and manufactured and
used the wagon (ajja^a). It is not supposable that a
people living in promiscuity could have attained such a
degree of advancement. He also remarks of the Agathyrsi,
who were in the same status probably, that they had their
wives in common that they might all be brothers, and, as
members of a common family, neither envy nor hate one
another.^ Punaluan marriage in the group affords a more
rational and satisfactory explanation of these, and similar
usages in other tribes mentioned by Herodotus, than poly-
gamy or general promiscuity. His accounts are too mea-
ger to illustrate the actual state of society among them.

Traces of the punaluan custom were noticed in some of
the least advanced tribes of the South American aborigines ;
but the particulars are not fully given. Thus, the first
navigators who visited the coast tribes of Venezuela found
a state of society which suggests for its explanation puna-
luan groups. " They observe no law or rule in matrimony,
but took as many wives as they would, and they as many
husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without reckon-
ing any wrong done on either part. There was no such
thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased
them, without taking offence at one another. . . . The
houses they dwelt in were common to all, and so spacious
that they contained one hundred and sixty perons, strongly
built, though covered with palm-tree leaves, and shaped
like a bell.' These tribes used earthen vessels and were
therefore in the Lower Status of barbarism ; but from this
account were but slightly, removed from savagery. In this

' ETtiHotvov Se Tc3v yvvatHwv trjv /.ilciv vcoievvrat, iva xa6iyvrjToi
TE dXXjjXGoy SGodt xai oim'jioi eovteZ iravrsi jur}re (pBovay uyjz ex^e'i
^(pioovrai ti aA^.?jXovi. — Lib. iv, c. 104.

^ Herrera's History of America, 1. c, i, 216. Speaking of the coast tribes of
Brazil, Herrera further remarks that " they live in bohios, or large thatched
cottages, of which there are about eight in every village, full of people, with

4^2 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

case, and in those mentioned by Herodotus, the observa-
tions upon which the statements were made were super-
ficial. It shows, at least, a low condition of the family and
of the marriage relation.

When North America was discovered in its several parts,
the punaluan family seems to have entirely disappeared.
No tradition remained among them, so far as I am aware, of
the ancient prevalence of the punaluan custom. The fam-
ily generally had passed out of the punaluan into the syn-
dyasmian form; but it was environed with the remains of
an ancient conjugal system which points backward to puna-
luan groups. One custom may be cited of unmistakable
punaluan origin, which is still recognized in at least forty
North American Indian tribes. Where a man married the
eldest daughter of a family he became entitled by custom to
all her sisters as wives when they attained the marriageable
age. It was a right seldom enforced, from the difficulty, on
the part of the individual, of maintaining several families,
although polygamy was recognized universally as a privilege
of the males. We find in this the remains of the custom of
punalua among their remote ancestors. Undoubtedly there
was a time among them when own sisters went into the mar-
riage relation on the basis of their sisterhood ; the husband
of one being the husband of all, but not the only husband,
for other males were joint husbands with him in the group.
After the punaluan family fell out, the right remained with
the husband of the eldest sister to become the husband of
all her sisters if he chose to claim it. It may Avith reason
be regarded as a genuine survival of the ancient punaluan
custom.

Other traces of this family among the tribes of mankind
might be cited from historical works, tending to show not
only its ancient existence, but its wide prevalence as well.
It is unnecessary, however, to extend these citations, be-

their nests or hammocks to lye in. . . . They live in a beastly manner,
without any regard to justice or decency." — Ib.^ iv, 94. Garcilasso de la
Vega gives an equally unfavorable account of the marriage relation among
some of the lowest tribes of Peru. — Royal Com. of rent, 1. c, pp. 10 and 106.

THE P UNAL UA N FA MIL V. 43 3

cause the antecedent existence of the punaluan family
among the ancestors of all the tribes who possess, or did
possess, the Turanian system of consanguinity can be de-
duced from the system itself.

II. Origin of tJie Organization into Gentcs.

It has before been suggested that the time, when this
institution originated, was the period of savagery, firstly,
because it is found in complete development in the Lower
Status of barbarism ; and secondly, because it is found in
partial development in the Status of savagery. Moreover,
the germ of the gens is found as plainly in the Australian
classes as in the Hawaiian punaluan group. Thegentes are
also found among the Australians, based upon the classes,
with the apparent manner of their organization out of them.
Such a remarkable institution as the gens would not be
expected to spring into existence complete, or to grow out
of nothing, that is, without a foundation previously formed
by natural growth. Its birth must be sought in pre-exist-
ing elements of society, and its maturity would be expected
to occur long after its origination.

Two of the fundamental rules of the gens in its archaic
form are found in the Australian classes, namely, the pro-
hibition of intermarriage between brothers and sisters, and
descent in the female line. The last fact is made entirely
evident when the gens appeared, for the children are then
found in the gens of their mothers. The natural adaptation
of the classes to give birth to the gens is sufficiently obvious
to suggest the probability that it actually so occurred.
Moreover, this probability is strengthened by the fact that
the gens is here found in connection with an antecedent and
more archaic organization, which was still the unit of a
social system, a place belonging of right to the gens.

Turning now to the Hawaiian punaluan group, the same
elements are found containing the germ of the gens. It is
confined, however, to the female branch of the custom,
where several sisters, own and collateral, shared their hus-
bands in common. These sisters, with their children and
descendants through females, furnish the exact membership
28

434 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of a gens of the archaic type. Descent would necessarily
be traced through females, because the paternity of children
was not ascertainable with certainty. As soon as this spe-
cial form of marriage in the group became an established
institution, the foundation for a gens existed. It then re-
quired an exercise of intelligence to turn this natural pu-
naluan group into an organization, restricted to these
mothers, their children, and descendants in the female line.
The Hawaiians, although this group existed among them,
did not rise to the conception of a gens. But to precisely
such a group as this, resting upon the sisterhood of the
mothers, or to the similar Australian group, resting upon
the same principle of union, the origin of the gens must
be ascribed. It took this group as it found it, and organ-
ized certain of its members, with certain of their posterity,
into a gens on the basis of kin.

To explain the exact manner in which the gens origi-
nated is, of course, impossible. The facts and circumstances
belong to a remote antiquity. But the gens may be traced
back to a condition of ancient society calculated to bring it
into existence. This is all I have attempted to do. It be-
longs in its origin to a low stage of human development,
and to a very ancient condition of society ; though later in
time than the first appearance of the punaluan family. It
is quite evident that it sprang up in this family, which con-
sisted of a group of persons coincident substantially with
the membership of a gens.

The influence of the gentile organization upon ancient
society was conservative and elevating. After it had be-
, come fully developed and expanded over large areas, and
\ after time enough had elapsed to Avork its full influence
upon society, wives became scarce in place of their former
abundance, because it tended to contract the size of the
punaluan group, and finally to overthrow it. The syndyas-
mian family was gradually produced within the punaluan,
after the gentile organization became predominant over an-
cient society. The intermediate stages of progress are not
well ascertained; but, given the punaluan family in the Sta-

THE P UNA L UA N FA MIL V. 435

tus of savagery, and the syndyasmian family in the Lower
Status of barbarism, and the fact of progress from one into
the other may be deduced with reasonable certainty. It
was after the latter family began to appear, and punaluan
groups to disappear, that wives came to be sought by pur-
chase and by capture. Without discussing the evidence
still accessible, it is a plain inference that the gentile organ-
ization was the efficient cause of the final overthrow of
the punaluan family, and of the gradual reduction of the
stupendous conjugal system of the period of savagery.
While it originated in the punaluan group, as we must sup-
pose, it nevertheless carried society beyond and above its
plane.

III. T/ie Turanian or Ganozudnian System of Consan-
guinity.

This system and the gentile organization, when in its
archaic form, are usually found together. They are not
mutually dependent ; but they probably appeared not far
apart in the order of human progress. But systems of con-
sanguinity and the several forms of the family stand in
direct relations. The family represents an active principle.
It is never stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher
form as society advances from a lower to a higher condi-
tion, and finally passes out of one form into another of
higher grade. Systems of consanguinity, on the contrary,
are passive ; recording the progress made by the family at
long intervals apart, and only changing radically when the
family has radically changed.

The Turanian system could not have been formed unless
punaluan marriage and the punaluan family had existed at
the time. In a society wherein by general usage several
sisters were married in a group to each other's husbands, and
several brothers in a group to each other's wives, the condi-
tions were present for the creation of the Turanian system.
Any system formed to express the actual relationships as
they existed in such a family would, of necessity, be the
Turanian ; and would, of itself, demonstrate the existence
of such a family when it was formed.

436 ANCIENT SOCIE T V.

It is now proposed to take up this remarkable system as
it still exists in the Turanian and Ganowanian families, and
offer it in evidence to prove the existence of the punaluan
family at the time it was established. It has come down to
the present time on two continents after the marriage cus-
toms in which it originated had disappeared, and after the
family had passed out of the punaluan into the syndyas-
mian form.

In order to appreciate the evidence it will be necessary
to examine the details of the system. That of the Seneca-
Iroquois will be used as typical on the part of the Gano-
wanian tribes of America, and that of the Tamil people of
South India on the part of the Turanian tribes of Asia.
These forms, which are substantially identical through
upwards of two hundred relationships of the same person,
will be found in a Table at the end of this chapter. In a
previous work' I have presented in full the system of con-
sanguinity of some seventy American Indian tribes ; and
among Asiatic tribes and nations that of the Tamil, Telugu,
and Canarese people of South India, among all of whom
the system, as given in the Table, is now in practical daily
use. There are diversities in the systems of the different
tribes and nations, but the radical features are constant.
All alike salute by kin, but with this difference, that among
the Tamil people where the person addressed is younger
than the speaker, the term of relationship must be used ;
but when older the option is given to salute by kin or by
the personal name. On the contrary, among the American
aborigines, the address must always be by the term of rela-
tionship. They use the system in addresses because it is a
system of consanguinity and affinity. It was also the means
by which each individual in the ancient gentes was able to
trace his connection with every member of his gens until
monogany broke up the Turanian system. It will be found,
in many cases, that the relationship of the same person to

' Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii.

THE P UNA L UA N FA MIL V. 437

E^o is different as the sex of £^0 is changed. For this
reason it was found necessary to state the question twice,
once with a male speaking, and again with a female. Not-
withstanding the diversities it created, the system is logical
throughout. To exhibit its character, it will be necessary
to pass through the several lines as was done in the Malayan
system. The Seneca-Iroquois will be used.

The relationships of grandfather {Hoc'-sote), and grand-
mother {Oc'-sotc), and of grandson {Ha-yd'-da), and grand-
daughter {Ka-yd'-da), are the most remote recognized either
in the ascending or descending series. Ancestors and dcr.
scendants above and below these, fall into the same cateories
respectively.

The relationships of brother and sister are conceived in
the twofold form of elder and younger, and not in the
abstract ; and there are special terms for each, as follow :

Elder Brother, Ila'-je. Elder Sister, Ah'-je.

Younger Brother, Ua'-gd. Younger Sister, Ka -gd.

These terms are used by the males and females, and are
applied to all such brothers or sisters as are older or younger
than the person speaking. In Tamil there are two sets of
terms for these relationships, but they are now used indis-
criminately by both sexes.

First Collateral Line. With myself a male, and speaking
as a Seneca, my brother's son and daughter are my son and
daughter [Ha-ah'-zvuk, and Ka-aJi'-wuk), each of them call-
ing me father {Hd'-niJi). This is the first indicative feature
of the system. It places my brother's children in the same
category with my own. They are my children as well as
his. My brother's grandchildren are my grandsons and
granddaughters {Ha-yd'-da, and Ka-yd'-da, singular), each
of them calling me grandfather {Hoc'-sote). The relation-
ships here given are those recognized and applied ; none
others are known.

Certain relationships will be distinguished as indica-
tive. They usually control those that precede and follow.
When they agree in the systems of different tribes, and
even of different families of mankind, as in the Tura-

438 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

nian and Ganowanian, they establish their fundamental
identity.

In the female branch of this line, myself still a male,
my sister's son and daughter are my nephew and niece
{Ha-yd'-zvan-da, and Ka-yd'-wan-da), each of them calling
me uncle {Hoc-no' -sc/i). This is a second indicative feature.
It restricts the relationships of nephew and niece to the
children of a man's sisters, own or collateral. The children
of this nephew and niece are my grandchildren as before,
each of them applying to me the proper correlative.

With myself a female, a part of these relationships are
reversed. My brother's son and daughter are my nephew
and niece {Ha-soh'-nck, and Ka-soh'-nch), each of them call-
ing me aunt {Ah-ga'-hiic). It will be noticed that the
terms for nephew and niece used by the males are different
from those used by the females. The children of these
nephews and nieces are my grandchildren. In the female
branch, my sister's son and daughter are my son and
daughter, each of them calling me mother {Noh-yeh'), and
their children are my grandchildren, each of them calling
me grandmother [Oc'-sote).

The wives of these sons and nephews are my daughters-
in-law (Ka'-sd), and the husbands of these daughters and
nieces are my sons-in-law {Oc-r/a'-/iose, each term singular),
and they apply to me the proper correlative.

Second Collateral Line. In the male branch of this line,
on the father's side, and irrespective of the sex o{ Ego, my
father's brother is my father, and calls me his son or daugh-
ter as I am a male or a female. Third indicative feature.
All the brothers of a father are placed in the relation of
fathers. His son and daughter are my brother and sister,
elder or younger, and I apply to them the same terms I
use to designate own brothers and sisters. Fourth indica-
tive feature. It places the children of brothers in the rela-
tionship of brothers and sisters. The children of these
brothers, myself a male, are my sons and daughters, and
their children are my grandchildren ; whilst the children of
these sisters are my nephews and nieces, and the children of

THE P UNAL UAN FAMIL Y. 439

the latter are my grandchildren. But with myself a female
the children of these brothers are my nephews and nieces,
the children of these sisters are my sons and daughters, and
their children, alike are my grandchildren. It is thus seen
that the classification in the first collateral line is carried
into the second, as it is into the third and more remote as
far as consanguinei can be traced.

My father's sister is my aunt, and calls me her nephew if
I am a male. Fifth indicative feature. The relationship
of aunt is restricted to the sisters of my father, and to the
sisters of such other persons as stand to me in the relation
of a father, to the exclusion of the sisters of my mother.
My father's sister's children are my cousins {Ah-garc'-seh,
singular), each of them calling me cousin. With myself a
male, the children of my male cousins are my sons and
daughters, and of my female cousins are my nephews and
nieces ; but with myself a female these last relationships are
reversed. All the children of the latter are my grand-
children.

On the mother's side, myself a male, my mother's brother
is my uncle, and calls me his nephew. Sixth indicative
feature. The relationship of uncle is restricted to the
brothers of my mother, own and collateral, to the exclusion
of my father's brothers. His children are my cousins, the
children of my male cousins are my sons and daughters, of
my female cousins are my nephews and nieces ; but with
myself a female these last relationships are reversed, the
children of all alike are my grandchildren.

In the female branch of the same line my mother's sis-
ter is my mother. Seventh indicative feature. All of sev-
eral sisters, own and collateral, are placed in the relation of
a mother to the children of each other. My mother's sis-
ter's children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger.
Eighth indicative feature. It establishes the relationship
of brother and sister among the children of sisters. The
children of these brothers are my sons and daughters,
of these sisters are my nephews and nieces ; and the chil-
dren of the latter are my grandchildren. With myself a

440 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

female the same relationships are reversed as in previous
cases.

Each of the wives of these several brothers, and of these
several male cousins is my sister-in-law {Ah-ge-a/i -ne-ah) ,
each of them calling me brother-in-law {Ha-ya'-o). The
precise meaning of the former term is not known. Each of
the husbands of these several sisters and female cousins is
my brother-in-law, and they all apply to me the proper
correlative. Traces of the punaluan custom remain here and
there in the marriage relationship of the American aborig-
ines, namely, between Ego and the wives of several broth-
ers and the husbands of several sisters. In Mandan my
brother's wife is my wife, and in Pawnee and Arickaree the
same. In Crow my husband's brother's wife is " my com-
rade " {^Bot-ze -no-pd-cJic), in Creek my " present occupant "
(C/ni-hji'-cho-iud), and in Munsee " my friend " [Naiu-jose'').
In Winnebago and Achaotinne she is '' my sister." My
wife's sister's husband, in sonie tribes is "my brother," in
others my " brother-in-law," and in Creek " my little separ-
2A.ex'\Un-kd-pu' -die), whatever that may mean.

Third Collateral Line. As the relationships in the several
branches of this line are the same as in the corresponding
branches of the second, with the exception of one additional
ancestor, it will be sufficient to present one branch out of
the four. My father's father's brother is my grandfather,
and calls me his grandson. This is a ninth indicative fea-
ture, and the last of the number. It places these brothers
in the relation of grandfathers, and thus prevents collateral
ascendants from passing beyond this relationship. The
principle which merges the collateral lines in the lineal line
works upward as well as downward. The son of this grand-
father is my father ; his children are my brothers and sisters ;
the children of these brothers are my sons and daughters,
of these sisters are my nephews and nieces; and their chil-
dren are my grandchildren. With myself a female the same
relationships are reserved as in previous cases. Moreover,
the correlative term is applied in every instance.

Fourth Collateral Line. It will be sufficient, for the same

THE PUNAL UAN FAMIL V. 44I

reason, to give but a single branch of this line. My grand-
father's father's brother is my grandfather ; his son is also
my grandfather; the son of the latter is my father; his son
and daughter are my brother and sister, elder or younger;
and their children and grandchildren follow in the same
relationships to E^o as in other cases. In the fifth colla-
teral line the classification is the same in its several branches
as in the corresponding branches of the second, with the
exception of additional ancestors.

It follows, from the nature of the system, that a knowl-
edge of the numerical degrees of consanguinity is essen-
tial to a proper classification of kindred. But to a native
Indian accustomed to its daily use the apparent maze of
relationships presents no difficulty.

Among the remaining marriage relationships there are
terms in Seneca-Iroquois for father-in-law {Oc-/ia'-/iosc), for
a wife's father, and {Hd-ga-sd) for a husband's father. The
former term is also used to designate a son-in-law, thus
showing it to be reciprocal. There are also terms for step-
father and step-mother {^Hoc'-no-cse) and {Oc'-no-ese), and
for step-son and step-daughter {Ha -no and Ka'-nd). In a
number of tribes two fathers-in-law and two mothers-in-
law are related, and there are terms to express the connec-
tion. The opulence of the nomenclature, although made
necessary by the elaborate discriminations of the system, is
nevertheless remarkable. For full details of the Seneca-
Iroquois and Tamil system reference is made to the Table.
Their identity is apparent on bare inspection. It shows
not only the prevalence of punaluan marriage amongst
their remote ancestors when the system was formed, but
also the powerful impression which this form of marriage
made upon ancient society. It is, at the same time, one of
the most extraordinary applications of the natural logic of
the human mind to the facts of the social system pre-
served in the experience of mankind.

That the Turanian and Ganowanian system was engrafted
upon a previous Malayan, or one like it in all essential
respects, is now demonstrated. In about one-half of all the

442 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

relationships named, the two are identical. If those are
examined, in which the Seneca and Tamil differ from the
Hawaiian, it will be found that the difference is upon those
relationships which depended on the intermarriage or non-
intermarriage of brothers and sisters. In the former two,
for example, my sister's son is my nephew, but in the lat-
ter he is my son. The two relationships express the differ-
ence between the consanguine and punaluan families. The
change of relationships which resulted from substituting
punaluan in the place of consanguine marriages turns the
Malayan into the Turanian system. But it may be asked
why the Hawaiians, who had the punaluan family, did not
reform their system of consanguinity in accordance there-
with? The answer has elsewhere been given, but it maybe
repeated. The form of the family keeps in advance of the
system. In Polynesia it was punaluan while the system
remained Malayan ; in America it was syndyasmian while
the system remained Turanian ; and in Europe and Western
Asia it became monogamian while the system seems to have
remained Turanian for a time, but it then fell into deca-
dence, and was succeeded by the Aryan. Furthermore,
although the family has passed through five forms, but
three distinct systems of consanguinity were created, so far
as is now known. It required an organic change in society
attaining unusual dimensions to change essentially an estab-
lished system of consanguinity. I think it will be found
that the organization into gentes was sufficiently influen-
tial and sufficiently universal to change the Malayan system
into the Turanian ; and that monogamy, when fully estab-
lished in the more advanced branches of the human family,
was sufficient, with the influence of property, to overthrow
the Turanian system and substitute the Aryan.

It remains to explain the origin of such Turanian rela-
tionships as differ from the Malayan. Punaluan marriages
and the gentile organizations form the basis of the explana-
tion.

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

THE P UNA LUAN FA MIL V. 443

Reasons : Speaking as a Seneca, all the wives of my sev-
eral brothers are mine as well as theirs. We are now
speaking of the time when the system was formed. It is
the same in the Malayan, where the reasons are assigned.

II. All the children of my several sisters, own and collat-
eral, myself a male, are my nephews and nieces.

Reasons : Under the gentile organization these females,
by a law of the gens, cannot be my wives. Their children,
therefore, can no longer be my children, but stand to me in
a more remote relationship; whence the new relationships
of nephew and niece. This differs from the Malayan.

III. With myself a female, the children of my several
brothers, own and collateral, are my nephews and nieces.

Reasons, as in II. This also differs from the Malayan.

IV. With myself a female, the children of my several sis-
ters, own and collateral, and of my several female cousins,
are my sons and daughters.

Reasons : All their husbands are my husbands as well.
In strictness these children are my step-children, and are so
described in Ojibwa and several other Algonkin tribes ; but
in the Seneca-Iroquois, and in Tamil, following the ancient
classification, they are placed in the category of my sons
and daughters, for reasons given in the Malayan.

V. All the children of these sons and daughters are my
grandchildren.

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

VI. All the children of these nephews and nieces are my
grandchildren.

Reason : These were the relationships of the same per-
sons under the Malayan system, which presumptively pre-
ceded the Turanian. No new one having been invented,
the old would remain.

VII. All the brothers of my father, own and collateral,
are my fathers.

Reason : They are the husbands of my mother. It is the
same in Malayan.

VIII. All the sisters of my father, own and collateral,
are my aunts.

Reason : Under the gentile organization neither can be

444

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the wife of my father ; wherefore the previous relationship
of mother is inadmissible. A new relationship, therefore,
was required : whence that of aunt.

IX. All the brothers of my mother, own and collateral,
are my uncles.

Reasons : They are no longer the husbands of my mother,
and must stand to me in a more remote relationship than
that of father : whence the new relationship of uncle.

X. All the sisters of my mother, own and collateral, are
my mothers.

Reasons, as in IV.

XI. All the children of my father's brothers, and all the
children of my mother's sisters, own and collateral, are my
brothers and sisters.

Reasons : It is the same in Malayan, and for reasons
there given.

XII. All the children of my several uncles and all the
children of my several aunts, own and collateral, are my
male and female cousins.

Reasons: Under the gentile organization all these uncles
and aunts are excluded from the marriage relation with my
father and mother ; wherefore their children cannot stand
to me in the relation of brothers and sisters, as in the Ma-
layan, but must be placed in one more remote : whence the
new relationship of cousin.

XIII. In Tamil all the children of my male cousins, my-
self a male, are my nephews and nieces, and all the children
of my female cousins are my sons and daughters. This is
the exact reverse of the rule among the Seneca-Iroquois.
It tends to show that among the Tamil people, when the
Turanian system came in, all my female cousins were my
wives, whilst the wives of my male cousins were not. It is
a singular fact that the deviation on these relationships is
the only one of any importance between the two systems
in the relationships to Ego of some two hundred persons.

XIV. All the brothers and sisters of my grandfather and
of my grandmother are my grandfathers and grandmothers.

Reason: It is the same in Malayan, and for the reasons
there given.

THE PUNALUAN FAMILY. 445

It is now made additionally plain that both the Tura-
nian and Ganowanian systems, which are identical, super-
vened upon an original Malayan system ; and that the
latter must have prevailed generally in Asia before the
Malayan migration to the Islands of the Pacific. More-
over, there are good grounds for believing that the system
was transmitted in the Malayan form to the ancestors of the
three families, with the streams of the blood, from a com-
mon Asiatic source, and afterward, modified into its present
form by the remote ancestors of the Turanian and Gano-
wanian families.

The principal relationships of the Turanian system have
now been explained in their origin, and are found to be
those which would actually exist in the punaluan family as
near as the parentage of children could be known. The
system explains itself as an organic growth, and since it
could not have originated without an adequate cause, the
inference becomes legitimate as well as necessary that it
was created by punaluan families. It will be noticed, how-
ever, that several of the marriage relationships have been
changed.

The system treats all brothers as the husbands of each
other's wives, and all sisters as the wives of each other's
husbands, and as intermarried in a group. At the time the
system was formed, wherever a man found a brother, own
or collateral, and those in that relation Avere numerous, in
the wife of that brother he found an additional wife. In
like manner, wherever a woman found a sister, own or col-
lateral, and those in that relation were equally numerous,
in the husband of that sister she found an additional hus-
band. The brotherhood of the husbands and the sisterhood
of the wives formed the basis of the relation. It is fully
expressed by the Hawaiian Q.w%\.ova oi punali'ta. Theoreti-
cally, the family of the period was coextensive with the
group united in the marriage relation ; but, practically, it
must have subdivided into a number of smaller families for
convenience of habitation and subsistence. The brothers,
by tens and twelves, of the Britons, married to each other's
wives, would indicate the size of an ordinary subdivision of

446 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

a punaluan group. Communism in living seems to have
originated in the 'necessities of the consanguine family, to
have been continued in the punaluan, and to have been
transmitted to the syndyasmian among the American abo-
rigines, with whom it remained a practice down to the
epoch of their discovery, Punaluan marriage is now un-
known among them, but the system of consanguinity it
created has survived the customs in which it originated.
The plan of family life and of habitation among savage
tribes has been imperfectly studied. A knowledge of their
usages in these respects and of their mode of subsistence
would throw a strong light upon the questions under con-
sideration.

Two forms of the family have now been explained in their
origin by two parallel systems of consanguinity. The
proofs seem to be conclusive. It gives the starting point
of human society after mankind had emerged from a still
lower condition and entered the organism of the consan-
guine family. [From this first form to the second the
transition was natural ; a development from a lower into a
higher social condition through observation and experience. ^
It was a result of the improvable mental and moral qualities
which belong to the human species. The consanguine and
punaluan families represent the substance of human pro-
gress through the greater part of the period of savagery.
Although the second was a great improvement upon the
first, it was still very distant from the monogamian. An
impression may be formed by a comparison of the several
forms of the family, of the slow rate of progress in savagery,
where the means of advancement were slight, and the ob-
stacles were formidable. Ages upon ages of substantially
stationary life, with advanceand decline, undoubtedly marked
the course of events ; but the general movement of society
was from a lower to a higher condition, otherwise mankind
would have remained in savagery. It is something to find
an assured initial point from which mankind started on
their great and marvelous career of progress, even though
so near the bottom of the scale, and though limited to a
form of the family so peculiar as the consanguine.

THE PUNAL UAN FAMIL V.

447

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ONNcinctnciNn

CHAPTER IV.

THE SYNDYASMIAN AND THE PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES.

The Syndyasmian Family. — How Constituted. — Its Characteristics.
— Influence upon it of the Gentile Organization. — Propensity to
Pair a late Development. — Ancient Society should be studied where
the highest Exemplifications are found. — The Patriarchal Family. —
Paternal Power its Essential Characteristic. — Polygamy subordi-
nate.— The Roman Family similar. — Paternal Power unknown in
previous Families.

When the American aborigines were discovered, that por-
tion of them who were in the Lower Status of barbarism,
had attained to the syndyasmian or pairing family. The
large groups in the marriage relation, which must have
existed in the previous period, had disappeared ; and in
their places were married pairs, forming clearly marked,
though but partially individualized families. In this family,
may be recognized the germ of the monogamian, but it was
below the latter in several essential particulars.

The syndyasmian family was special and peculiar. Sev-
eral of them were usually found in one house, forming a
communal household, in which the principle of communism
in living was practiced. The fact of the conjunction of
several such families in a common household is of itself an
admission that the family was too feeble an organization
to face alone the hardships of life. Nevertheless it was
founded upon marriage between single pairs, and possessed
some of the characteristics of the monogamian .family.
The woman was now something more than the principal

454

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

wife of her husband ; she was his companion, the preparer
of his food, and the mother of children whom he now
began with some assurance to regard as his own. The
birth of children, for whom they jointly cared, tended to
cement the union and render it permanent.

But the marriage institution was as peculiar as the fam-
ily. Men did not seek wives as they are sought in civil-
ized society, from affection, for the passion of love, which
required a higher development than they had attained,
was unknown among them. Marriage, therefore, was not
founded upon sentiment but upon convenience and necessity.
It was left to the mothers, in effect, to arrange the mar-
riages of their children, and they were negotiated generally^
without the knowledge of the parties to be married, and
without asking their previous consent. It sometimes hap-
pened that entire strangers were thus brought into the
marriage relation. At the proper time they were notified
when the simple nuptial ceremony would be performed.
Such were the usages of the Iroquois and many other
Indian tribes. Acquiescence in these maternal contracts
was a duty which the parties seldom refused. Prior to the
marriage, presents to the gentile relatives of the bride,
nearest in degree, partaking of the nature of purchasing
gifts, became a feature in these matrimonial transactions.
The relation, however, continued during the pleasure of
the parties, and no longer. It is for this reason that it is
properly distinguished as the pairing family. The husband
could put away his wife at pleasure and take another with-
out offence, and the woman enjoyed the equal right of
leaving her husband and accepting another, in which the
usages of her tribe and gens were not infringed. But a
public sentiment gradually formed and grew into strength
against such separations. When alienation arose between a
married pair, and their separation became imminent, the
gentile kindred of each attempted a reconciliation of the
parties, in which they were often successful ; but if they
were unable to remove the difficulty their separation was
approved. The wife then left the home of her husband,

SYND YASMIAN AND PA TRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 45 5

taking with her their children, who were regarded as exclu-
sively her own, and her personal effects, upon which her
husband had no claim ; or where the wife's kindred pre-
dominated in the communal household, which was usually
the case, the husband left the home of his wife.' Thus
the continuance of the marriage relation remained at the
option of the parties.

There was another feature of the relation which shows
that the American aborigines in the Lower Status of barbar-
ism had not attained the moral development implied by
monogamy. Among the Iroquois, who were barbarians of
high mental grade, and among the equally advanced Indian
tribes generally, chastity had come to be required of the
wife under severe penalties which the husband might inflict ;
but he did not admit the reciprocal obligation. The one
cannot be permanently realized without the other. More-
over, polygamy was universally recognized as the right of
the males, although the practice was limited from inability
to support the indulgence. There were other usages, that
need not be mentioned, tending still further to show that
they were below a conception of monogamy, as that great

' The late Rev. Ashur Wright, for many years a missionary among the Sen-
ecas, wrote the author in 1873 on this subject as follows : " As to their family
systefti, when occupying the old long-houses, it is probable that some one clan
predominated, the women taking in husbands, however, from the other clans ;
and sometimes, for a novelty, some of their sons bringing in their young wives
until they felt brave enough to leave their mothers. Usually, the female por-
tion ruled the house, and were doubtless clannish enough about it. The stores
were in common ; but woe to the luckless husband or lover who was too shift-
less to do his share of the providing. No matter how many children, or what-
ever goods he might have in the house, he might at any time be ordered to pick
up his blanket and budge ; and after such orders it would not be healthful for
him to attempt to disobey. The house would be too hot for him ; and, unless
saved by the intercession of some aunt or grandmother, he must retreat to his
own clan ; or, as was often done, go and start a new matrimonial alliance in
some other. The women were the great power among the clans, as everywhere
else. They did not hesitate, when occasion required, ' to knock off the horns,'
as it was technically called, from the head of a chief, and send him back to the
ranks of the warriors. The original nomination of the chiefs also always rested
with them." These statements illustrate the gyneocracy discussed by Bachofen
in " Das Mutterrecht."

456

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

institution is properly defined. Exceptional cases very-
likely existed. It will be found equally true, as I believe,
of barbarous tribes in general. The principal feature which
distinguished the syndyasmian from the monogamian fami-
ly, although liable to numerous exceptions, was the absence
of an exclusive cohabitation. The old conjugal system, a
record of which is still preserved in their system of consan-
guinity, undoubtedly remained, but under reduced and
restricted forms.

Among the Village Indians in the Middle Status of bar-
barism the facts were not essentially different, so far as they
can be said to be known. A comparison of the usages of
the American aborigines, with respect to marriage and
divorce, shows an existing similarity sufficiently strong to
imply original identity of usages. A few only can be no-»
ticed. Clavgero remarks that among the Aztecs " the pa-
rents were the persons who settled all marriages, and none
were ever executed without their consent," ' "A priest tied
a point of the Jmepilli, or gown of the bride, with the til-
inatli, or mantle of the bridegroom, and in this ceremony
the matrimonial contract chiefly consisted." "^ Herrera, after
speaking of the same ceremony, observes that " all that the
bride brought was kept in memory, that in case they should
be unmarried again, as was usual among them, the goods
might be parted ; the man taking the daughters, and the
wife the sons, with liberty to marry again." ^

It will be noticed that the Aztec Indian did not seek his
wife personally any more than the Iroquois. Among both
it was less an individual than a public or gentile affair, and
therefore still remained under parental control exclusively.
There was very little social intercourse between unmarried
persons of the two sexes in Indian life; and as attachments
were not contracted, none were traversed by these mar-
riages, in which personal wishes were unconsidered, and in
fact unimportant. It appears further, that the personal
effects of the wife were kept distinct among the Aztecs as

^ History of Mexico, Phil, ed., 1S17, Cullen's trans., ii, 99. "^ lb., ii, lOl.
' History of Ameiica, 1. c, iii, 217.

SYND YASMIAAT AND PA TRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 457

among the Iroquois, that in case of separation, which was
a common occurrence as this writer states, she might
retain them in accordance with general Indian usage.
Finally, while among the Iroquois in the case of divorce
the wife took all the children, the Aztec husband was
entitled to the daughters, and the wife to the sons ; a modi-
fication of the ancient usage which implies a prior time
when the Iroquois Indian rule existed among the ancestors
of the Aztecs,

Speaking of the people of Yucatan generally Herrera
further remarks that " formerly they were wont to marry at
twenty years of age, and afterwards came to twelve or four-
teen, and having no affection for their wives were divorced
for every trifle." ' The Mayas of Yucatan were superior to
the Aztecs in culture and development ; but where mar-
riages were regulated on the principle of necessity, and not
through personal choice, it is not surprising that the rela-
tion was unstable, and that separation was at the option of
either party. Moreover, polygamy was a recognized right
of the males among the Village Indians, and seems to have
been more generally practiced than among the less ad-
vanced tribes. These glimpses at institutions purely Indian
as well as barbarian reveal in a forcible manner the actual
condition of the aborigines in relative advancement. In a
matter so personal as the marriage relation, the wishes or
preferences of the parties were not consulted. No better
evidence is needed of the barbarism of the people.

We are next to notice some of the influences which de-
veloped this family from the punaluan. In the latter there
was more or less of pairing from the necessities of the social
state, each man having a principal wife among a number of
wives, and each woman a principal husband among a num-
ber of husbands ; so that the tendency in the punaluan
family, from the first, was in the direction of the syndyas-
mian.

The organization into gentes was the principal instru-
mentality that accomplished this result ; but through long

' History of America., iv, 171.

458 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

and gradual processes. Firstly. It did not at once break
up intermarriage in the group, which it found established
by custom ; but the prohibition of intermarriage in the
gens excluded own brothers and sisters, and also the chil-
dren of own sisters, since all of these were of the same
gens. Own brothers could still share their wives in com-
mon, and own sisters their husbands; consequently the
gens did not interfere directly with punaluan marriage,
except to narrow its range. But it withheld permanently
from that relation all the descendants in the female line of
each ancestor within the gens, which was a great innova-
tion upon the previous punaluan group. When the gens
subdivided, the prohibition followed its branches, for long
periods of time, as has been shown was the case among the
Iroquois. Secondly. The structure and principles of the
organization tended to create a prejudice against the mar-
riage of consanguinei, as the advantages of marriages be-
tween unrelated persons were gradually discovered through
the practice of marrying out of the gens. This seems
to have grown apace until a public sentiment was finally
arrayed against it which had become very general among
the American aborigines when discovered.* For example,
among the Iroquois none of the blood relatives enumer-
ated in the Table of Consanguinity were marriageable.
Since it became necessary to seek wives from other gentes
they began to be acquired by negotiation and by purchase.
The gentile organization must have led, step by step,
as its influence became general, to a scarcity of wives
in place of their previous abundance ; and as a conse-
quence, have gradually contracted the numbers in the
punaluan group. This conclusion is reasonable, because
there are sufficient grounds for assuming the existence of
such groups when the Turanian system of consanguinity
was formed. They have now disappeared although the sys-

' A case among the Shyans was mentioned to the author, by one of their
chiefs, where first cousins had married ai^ainst their usages There was no
penahy for the act ; but they were ridiculed so constantly by their associates
that they voluntarily separated rather than face the prejudice.

Sy.Vn YASMIAN AND PA TRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 459

tern remains. These groups must have gradually declined,
and finally disappeared with the general establishment of
the syndyasmian family. Fourthly. In seeking wives, they
did not confine themselves to their own, nor even to
friendly tribes, but captured them by force from hostile
tribes. It furnishes a reason for the Indian usage of spar-
ing the lives of female captives, while the males were put to
death. When wives came to be acquired by purchase and.
by capture, and more and more by effort and sacrifice, they
would not be as readily shared with others. It would tend,
at least, to cut off that portion of the theoretical group not
immediately associated for subsistence ; and thus reduce
still more the size of the family and the range of the conju-
gal system. Practically, the group would tend to limit
itself, from the first, to own brothers who shared their
wives in common, and to own sisters who shared their hus-
bands in common. Lastly. The gentes created a higher
organic structure of society than had before been known,
with processes of development as a social system adequate
to the wants of mankind until civilization supervened. With
the progress of society under the gentes, the way was pre-
pared for the appearance of the syndyasmian family.

The influence of the new practice, which brought unre-1
lated persons into the marriage relation, must have given 1
a remarkable impulse to society. It tended to create a more
vigorous stock physically and mentally. There is a gain by
accretion in the coalescence of diverse stocks which has
exercised great influence upon human development. When
two advancing tribes, with strong mental and physical char-
acters, are brought together and blended into one people
by the accidents of barbarous life, the new skull and brain
would widen and lengthen to the sum of the capabilities of
both. Such a stock would be an improvement upon both,
and this superiority would assert itself in an increase of
intelligence and of numbers.

It follows that the propensity to pair, now so powerfully
developed in the civilized races, had remained unformed in
the human mind until the punaluan custom began to dis-

460

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

appear. Exceptional cases undoubtedly occurred where
usages would permit the privilege ; but it failed to become
general until the syndyasmian family appeared. This pro-
pensity, therefore, cannot be called normal to mankind, but
is, rather, a growth through experience, like all the great
passions and powers of the mind.

Another influence may be adverted to which tended to
retard the growth of this family. Warfare among barba-
rians is more destructive of life than among savages, from
improved weapons and stronger incentives. The males, in
all periods and conditions of society, have assumed the
trade of fighting, which tended to change the balance of the
sexes, and leave the females in excess. This would mani-
festly tend to strengthen the conjugal system created by
marriages in the group. It would, also, retard the advance-
ment of the syndyasmian family by maintaining sentiments
of low grade with respect to the relations of the sexes, and
the character and dignity of woman.

On the other hand, improvement in subsistence, which
followed the cultivation of maize and plants among the
American aborigines, must have favored the general ad-
vancement of the family. It led to localization, to the use
of additional arts, to an improved house architecture, and to
a more intelligent life. Industry and frugality, though lim-
ited in degree, with increased protection of life, must have
accompanied the formation of families consisting of single
pairs. The more these advantages were realized, the more
stable such a family would become, and the more its in-
dividuality would increase. Having taken refuge in a
communal household, in which a group of such families
succeeded the punaluan group, it now drew its support
from itself, from the household, and from the gentes to
which the husbands and wives respectively belonged. The
great advancement of society indicated by the transition
from savagery into the Lower Status of barbarism, would
carry with it a corresponding improvement in the condition
of the family, the course of development of which was
steadily upward to the monogamian. If the existence of

SYNDYASMIAN AND PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 461

the syndyasmian family were unknown, given the punaluan
toward one extreme, and the monogamian on the other,
the occurrence of such an intermediate form might have
been predicted. It has had a long duration in human ex-
perience. Springing up on the confines of savagery and
barbarism, it traversed the Middle and the greater part of
the Later Period of barbarism, when it was superseded by
a low form of the monogamian. Overshadowed by the con-
jugal system of the times, it gained in recognition with the
gradual progress of society. [The selfishness of mankind,
as distinguished from womankind, delayed the realization
of strict monogamy until that great fermentation of the
human mind which ushered in civilization.]

Two forms of the family had appeared before the syndy-
asmian and created two great systems of consanguinity, or
rather two distinct forms of the same system; but this third
family neither produced a new system nor sensibly modified
the old. Certain marriage relationships appear to have
been changed to accord with those in the new family ; but
the essential features of the system remained unchanged.
In fact, the syndyasmian family continued for an unknown
period of time enveloped in a system of consanguinity,
false in the main, to existing relationships, and which it
had no power to break. It was for the sufficient reason
that it fell short of monogamy, the coming power able to
dissolve the fabric. Although this family has no distinct
system of consanguinity to prove its existence, like its pre-
decessors, it has itself existed over large portions of the
earth within the historical period, and still exists in numer-
ous barbarous tribes.

In speaking thus positively of the several forms of the
family in their relative order, there is danger of being mis-
understood. I do not mean to imply that one form rises
complete in a certain status of society, flourishes univer-
sally and exclusively wherever tribes of mankind are found
in the same status, and then disappears in another, which
is the next higher form. Exceptional cases of the puna-
luan family may have appeared in the consanguine, and

462 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

•vice versa ; exceptional cases of the syndyasmian may have
appeared in the midst of the punaluan, and vice versa ; and
exceptional cases of the monogamian in the midst of the
syndyasmian, and vice versa. Even exceptional cases of
the monogamian may have appeared as low down as the
punaluan, and of the syndyasmian as low down as the con-
sanguine. Moreover, some tribes attained to a particular
form earlier than other tribes more advanced ; for example,
the Iroquois had the syndyasmian family while in the Lower
Status of barbarism, but the Britons, who were in the Mid-
dle Status, still had the punaluan. The high civilization
on the shores of the Mediterranean had propagated arts and
inventions into Britain far beyond the mental development
of its Celtic inhabitants, and which they had imperfectly
appropriated. They seem to have been savages in their
brains, while wearing the art apparel of more advanced tribes.
That which I have endeavored to substantiate, and for which
the proofs seem to be adequate, is, that the family began
in the consanguine, low down in savagery, and grew, by
progressive development, into the monogamian, through
two well-marked intermediate forms. Each was partial in
its introduction, then general, and finally universal over
large areas ; after which it shaded off into the next succeed-
ing form, which, in turn, was at first partial, then general,
and finally universal in the same areas. In the evolution
of these successive forms the main direction of progress
was from the consanguine to the monogamian. With dexia_-.
tions from uniformity in the progress oF malTToh^ through
these several forms, it will generally be found that the con-
sanguine and punaluan families belong to the status of sav-
agery— the former to its lowest, and the latter to its highest
condition — while the punaluan continued into the Lower
Status of barbarism; that the syndyasmian belongs to the
Lower and to the Middle Status of barbarism, and continued
into the Upper ; and that the monogamian belongs to the
Upper Status of barbarism, and continued to the period of
civilization.

It will not be necessary, even if space permitted, to trace

SYNDYASMIAN AND PATRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 463

the syndyasmian family through barbarous tribes in gene-
ral upon the partial descriptions of travelers and observers.
The tests given may be applied by each reader to cases with-
in his information. Among the American aborigines in
the Lower Status of barbarism it, was the prevailing form
of the family at the epoch of their discovery. Among
the Village Indians in the Middle Status, it was undoubt-
edly the prevailing form, although the information given
by the Spanish writers is vague and general. The com-
munal character of their joint-tenement houses is of itself
strong evidence that the family had not passed out of the
syndyasmian form. It had neither the individuality nor the
exclusiveness which monogamy implies.

The foreign elements intermingled with the native cul-
ture in sections of the Eastern hemisphere produced an ab-
normal condition of society, where the arts of civilized life
were remolded to the aptitudes and wants of savages and
barbarians.' Tribes strictly nomadic have also social pe-
culiarities, growing out of their exceptional mode of life,
which are not well understood. Through influences, de-
rived from the higher races, the indigenous culture of many
tribes has been arrested, and so far adulterated as to change
the natural flow of their progress. Their institutions and
social state became modified in consequence.

It is essential to systematic progress in Ethnology that
the condition both of savage and of barbarous tribes should
be studied in its normal development in areas where the
institutions of the people are homogeneous. Polynesia and
Australia, as elsewhere suggested, are the best areas for
the study of savage society. Nearly the whole theory of
savage life may be deduced from their institutions, usages
and customs, inventions and discoveries. North and South
America, when discovered, afforded the best opportuni-
ties for studying the condition of society in the Lower and

' Iron, has been smelted from the ore by a number of African tribes, including
tha, Hottentots, as far back as our knowledge of them extends. After pro-
ducing the metal by rude processes acquired from foreign sources, they have
succeeded in fabricating rude implements and weapons.

464 ANCIENT SOCIETY,

in the Middle Status of barbarism. Tlie aborigines, one
stock in blood and lineage, with the exception of the Es-
kimos, had gained possession of a great continent, more
richly endowed for human occupation than the Eastern con-
tinents, save in animals capable of domestication. It af-
forded them an ample field for undisturbed development.
They came into its possession apparently in a savage state ;
but the establishment of the organization into gentes put
them into possession of the principal germs of progress
possessed by the ancestors of the Greeks and Romans.*
Cut off thus early, and losing all further connection with
the central stream of human progress, they commenced
their career upon a new continent with the humble mental
and moral endowments of savages. The independent evo-
lution of the primary ideas they brought with them com-
menced under conditions insuring a career undisturbed by
foreign influences. It holds true alike in the growth of the
idea of government, of the family, of household life, of prop-
erty, and of the arts of subsistence. Their institutions, in-
ventions and discoveries, from savagery, through the Lower
and into the Middle Status of barbarism, are homogeneous,
and still reveal a continuity of development of the same
original conceptions.

In no part of the earth, in modern times, could a more
perfect exemplification of the Lower Status of barbarism
be found than was afforded by the Iroquois, and other
tribes of the United States east of the Mississippi. With
their arts indigenous and unmixed, and with their institu-
tions pure and homogeneous, the culture of this period, in
its range, elements and possibilities, is illustrated by them
in the fullest manner. A systematic exposition of these

' The Asiatic origin of the American aborigines is assumed. But it follows
as a consequence of the unity of origin of mankind — another assumption, but
one toward which all the facts of anthropology tend. There is a mass of evi-
dence sustaining both conclusions of the most convincing character. Their
advent in America could not have resulted from a deliberate migration ; but
must have been due to the accidents of the sea, and to tlie great ocean currents
from Asia to tlie North-west coast.

SYND YA SMIAN AND PA TRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 465

several subjects ought to. be made, before the facts are
allowed to disappear.

In a still higher degree all this was true with respect to
the Middle Status of barbarism, as exemplified by the
Village Indians of New Mexico, Mexico, Central America,
Grenada, Ecuador, and Peru. In no part of the earth was
there to be found such a display of society in this Status, in
the sixteenth century, with its advanced arts and inven-
tions, its improved architecture, its nascent manufactures
and its incipient sciences. American scholars have a poor
account to render of work done in this fruitful field. It was
in reality a lost condition of ancient society which was sud-
denly unveiled to European observers with the discovery of
America ; but they failed to comprehend its meaning, or to
ascertain its structure.

There is one other great condition of society, that of the
Upper Status of barbarism, not now exemplified by exist-
ing nations ; but it may be found in the history and tradi-
tions of the Grecian and Roman, and later of the German
tribes. It must be deduced, in the main, from their institu-
tions, inventions and discoveries, although there is a large
amount of information illustrative of the culture of this
period, especially in the Homeric poems.

When these several conditions of society have been stud-
ied in the areas of their highest exemplification, and are
thoroughly understood, the course of human development
from savagery, through barbarism to civilization, will be-
come intelligible as a connected whole. The course of
human experience will also be found as before suggested to
have run in nearly uniform channels.

The patriarchal family of the Semitic tribes requires but
a brief notice, for reasons elsewhere stated ; and it will be
limited to little more than a definition. It belongs to the
Later Period of barbarism, and remained for a time after
the commencement of civilization. The chiefs, at least,
lived in polygamy; but this was not the material principle
of the patriarchal institution. The organization of a num-
ber of persons, bond and free, into a family, under pater-
30

466 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

nal power, for the purpose of holding lands, and for the care
of flocks and herds, was the essential characteristic of this
family. Those held to servitude, and those employed as
servants, lived in the marriage relation, and, with the patri-
arch as their chief, formed a patriarchal family. Authority
over its members and over its property was the material
fact. It was the incorporation of numbers in servile and
dependent relations, before that time unknown, rather than
polygamy, that stamped the patriarchal family with the
attributes of an original institution. In the great move-
ment of Semitic society, which produced this family, pater-
nal power over the group was the object sought ; and with
it a higher individuality of persons.

The same motive precisely originated the Roman family
under paternal power [pairia potestas) ; with the power in
the father of life and death over his children and descend-
ants, as well as over the slaves and servants who formed its
nucleus and furnished its name; and with the absolute own-
ership of all the property they created. Without polygamy,
the pater faniilias was a patriarch and the family under
him was patriarchal. In a less degree, the ancient family of
the Grecian tribes had the same characteristics. It marks
that peculiar epoch in human progress when the individu-
ality of the person began to rise above the gens, in which it
had previously been merged, craving an independent life,
and a wider field of individual action. Its general influence
tended powerfully to the establishment of the monogamian
family, which was essential to the realization of the objects
sought. These striking features of the patriarchal families,
so unlike any form previously known, have given to it a
commanding position ; but the Hebrew aiid Roman forms
were exceptional in human experience. In the consan-
guine and punaluan families, paternal authority was impossi-
ble as well as unknown ; under the syndyasmian it began to
appear as a feeble influence ; but its growth steadily ad-
vanced as the family became more and more individualized,
and became fully established under monogamy, which as-
sured the paternity of children. In the patriarchal family

SVJVn YASMIAN AND PA TRIARCHAL FAMILIES. 467

of the Roman type, paternal authority passed beyond the
bounds of reason into an excess of domination.

No new system of consanguinity was created by the
Hebrew patriarchal family. The Turanian system would
harmonize with a part of its relationships ; but as this form
of the family soon fell out, and the monogamian became
general, it was followed by the Semitic system of consan-
guinity, as the Grecian and Roman were by the Aryan.
Each of the three great systems — the Malayan, the Tura-
nian, and the Aryan — indicates a completed organic move-
ment of society, and each assured the presence, with unerr-
ing certainty, of that form of the family whose relationships
it recorded.

CHAPTER V.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY.

This Family comparatively Modern. — The Term Familia. — Family of
Ancient Germans. — Of Homeric Greeks. — Of civilized Greeks. — Seclue
sioN OF Wives. — Obligations of Monogamy not respected by thf
Males. — The Roman Family. — Wives under Power. — Aryan System of
Consanguinity. — It came in under Monogamy. — Previous System
probably Turanian. — Transition from Turanian into Aryan. — Roman
and Arabic Systems of Consanguinity. — Details of the Former. —
Present Monogamian Family. — Table.

The origin of society has been so constantly traced to
the monogamian family that the comparatively modern
date now assigned to this family bears the semblance of
novelty. Those writers who have investigated the origin
of society philosophically, found it difficult to conceive of
its existence apart from the family as its unit, or of the
family itself as other than monogamian. They also found
it necessary to regard the married pair as the nucleus of a
group of persons, a part of whom were servile, and all of
whom were under power; thus arriving at the conclusion
that society began in the patriarchal family, when it first
became organized. Such, in fact, was the most ancient
form of the institution made known to us among the Latin,
Grecian and Hebrew tribes. Thus, by relation, the patri-
archal family was made the typical family of primitive
society, conceived either in the Latin or Hebrew form,
paternal power being the essence of the organism.

The gens, as it appeared in the later period of barbarism,

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL Y. 469

was well understood, but it was erroneously supposed to be
subsequent in point of time to the monogamian family.
A necessity for some knowledge of the institutions of bar-
barous and even of savage tribes, is becoming constantly
more apparent as a means for explaining our own insti-
tutions. With the assumption made that the monogamian
family was the unit of organization in the social system,
the gens was treated as an aggregation of families, the
tribe as an aggregation of gentes, and the nation as an
aggregate of tribes. The error lies in the first proposition.
It has been shown that the gens entered entire in the
phratry, the phratry into the tribe, and the tribe into the
nation ; but the family could not enter entire into the gens,
because husband and wife were necessarily of different
gentes. The wife, down to the latest period, counted her-
self of the gens of her father, and bore the name of his gens
among the Romans. As all the parts must enter into the
whole, the family could not become the unit of the gentile
organization. That place was held by the gens. Moreover,
the patriarchal family, whether of the Roman or of the
Hebrew type^ was entirely unknown throughout the period
of savagery, through the Older, and probably through the
Middle, and far into the Later Period of barbarism. After
the gens had appeared, ages upon ages, and even period
upon period, rolled away before the monogamian family
came into existence. It was not until after civilization
commenced that it became permanently established.

Its modern appearance among the Latin tribes may be
inferred from the signification of the word family, derived
from fainilia, which contains the same element ?i?> fanuiliis,
= servant, supposed to be derived from tlie Oscan faniel, =
servus, a slave.' In its primary meaning the word family
had no relation to the married pair or their children, but to
the body of slaves and servants who labored for its main-
tenance, and were under the power of the pater familias.
Familia in some testamentary dispositions is used as equiv-

* Famuli origo ab Oscis dependet, apud quo servus Famul nominabuntur,
Mn^t familia vocata, — Festtis, p. 87.

470

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

alent to patrimonijuu, tlie inheritance which passed to the
heir.' It was introduced in Latin society to define a new
organism, the head of which held wife and children, and a
body of servile persons under paternal power. Mommsen
uses the phrase ''body of servants" as the Latin significa-
tion of faviilia.^ This term, therefore, and the idea it
represents, are no older than the iron-clad family system of
the Latin tribes, which came in after field agriculture and
after legalized servitude, as well as after the separation of
the Greeks and Latins. If any name was given to the
anterior family it is not now ascertainable.

In two forms of the family, the consanguine and punaluan,
paternal power was impossible. When the gens appeared
in the midst of the punaluan group it united the several
sisters, with their children and descendants in the female
line, in perpetuity, in a gens, which became the unit of
organization in the social system it created. Out of this
state of things the syndyasmian family was gradually
evolved, and with it the germ of paternal power. The
growth of this power, at first feeble and fluctuating, then
commenced, and it steadily increased, as the new family
more and more assumed monogamian characteristics, with
the upward progress of society. When property began to
be created in masses, and the desire for its transmission to
children had changed descent from the female line to the
male, a real foundation for paternal power was for the first
time established. Among the Hebrew and Latin tribes,
when first known, the patriarchal family of the Hebrew
type existed among the former, and of the Roman type
among the latter; founded in both cases upon the limited
or absolute servitude of a number of persons with their fami-
lies, all of whom, with the wives and children of the patri-
arch in one case, and of the pater familias in the other,
were under paternal power. It was an exceptional, and,
in the Roman family, an excessive development of paternal
authority, which, so far from being universal, was restricted

' Amico familiam suam, id est patrimonium suum mancipio dabat. — Gains,
Inst., ii, I02. "^ IIisto)y of Rome, 1. c, t, 95.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 47 1

in the main to the people named. Gaius declares that the
power of the Roman father over his children was peculiar
to the Romans, and that in general no other people had the
same power.'

It will be sufficient to present a few illustrations of the
early monogamian family from classical writers to give
an impression of its character. Monogamy appears in a
definite form in the Later Period of barbarism. Long prior
to this time some of its characteristics had undoubtedly
attached themselves to the previous syndyasmian family;
but the essential element of the former, an exclusive cohab-
itation, could not be asserted of the latter.

One of the earliest and most interesting illustrations was
found in the family of the ancient Germans. Their institu-
tions were homogeneous and indigenous ; and the people
were advancing toward civilization. Tacitus, in a few lines,
states their usages with respect to marriage, without giving
the composition of the family or defining its attributes.
After stating that marriages were strict among them, and
pronouncing it commendable, he further remarks, that al-
most alone among barbarians they contented themselves
with a single wife — a. very few excepted, who were drawn
into plural marriages, not from passion, but on account of
their rank. That the wife did not bring a dowry to her
husband, but the husband to his wife, .... a capari-
soned horse, and a shield, with a spear and sword. That
by virtue of these gifts the wife was espoused." The pres-
ents, in the nature of purchasing gifts, which probably in
an earlier condition went to the gentile kindred of the
bride, were now presented to the bride.

Elsewhere he mentions the two material facts in which
the substance of monogamy is found :* firstly, that each man
was contented with a single wife {singulis uxoribus contcnti

* Item in potestate nostra sunt liberi nostri, quos justis nuptiis procreauimus,
quod jus proprium ciuium Romanorum est : fere enim nulli alii sunt homines,
qui talem in filios sues habetit potestatem, qualem nos habemus. — Inst., i, 55.
Among other things they had the power of life and death — ^jus vitse necisque.
' Gerniania, c. 18. ^ lb., c. ig.

4/2

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

sunt) ; and, secondly, that the women h'ved fenced around
with chastity {scptce pudicitia agu?it). It seems probable,
from what is known of the condition of the family in differ-
ent ethnical periods, that this of the ancient Germans was
too weak an organization to face alone the hardships of life ;
and, as a consequence, sheltered itself in a communal house-
hold composed of related families. When slavery became
an institution, these households would gradually disappear.
German society was not far enough advanced at this time
for the appearance of a high type of the monogamian
family.

With respect to the Homeric Greeks, the family, although
monogamian, was low in type. Husbands required chastity
in their wives, which they sought to enforce by some degree
of seclusion ; but they did not admit the reciprocal obli-
gation by which alone it could be permanently secured.
Abundant evidence appears in the Homeric poems that
woman had ^qw rights men were bound to respect. Such
femala captives as were swept into their vessels by the Gre-
cian chiefs, on their way to Troy, were appropriated to their
passions without compunction and without restraint. It
must be taken as a faithful picture of the times, whether the
incidents narrated in the poems were real or fictitious.
Although the persons were captives, it reflects the low esti-
mate placed upon woman. Her dignity was unrecognized,
and her personal rights were insecure. To appease the re-
sentment of Achilles, Agamemnon proposed, in a council
of the Grecian chiefs, to give to him, among other things,
seven Lesbian women excelling in personal beauty, reserved
for himself from the spoil of that city, Briseis herself to go
among the number ; and should Troy be taken, the further
right to select twenty Trojan women, the fairest of all next
to Argive Helen.' " Beauty and Booty" were the watch-
words of the Heroic Age unblushingly avowed. The treat-
ment of their female captives reflects the culture of the
period with respect to women in general. Men having no
regard for the parental, marital or personal rights of their

^ Iliad, ix, 128.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL V. 473

enemies, could not have attained to any high conception of
their own.

In describing the tent life of the unwedded Achilles,
and of his friend Patroclus, Homer deemed it befitting the
character and dignity of Achilles as a chief to show, that
he slept in the recess of his well-constructed tent, and by
his side lay a female, fair-cheeked Diomede, whom he had
brought from Lesbos. And that Patroclus on the other
side reclined, and by him also lay fair-waisted Iphis, whom
noble Achilles gave him, having captured her at Scyros.'
Such usages and customs on the part of unmarried as well
as married men, cited approvingly by the great poet of the
period, and sustained by public sentiment, tend to show
that whatever of monogamy existed, was through an en-
forced constraint upon wives, while their husbands were
not monogamists in the preponderating number of cases.
Such a family has quite as' many syndyasmian as mono-
gamian characteristics.

The condition of woman in the Heroic Age is supposed
to have been more favorable, and her position in the house-
hold more honorable than it was at the commencement
of civilization, and even afterwards under their highest
development. It may have been true in a far anterior
period before descent was changed to the male line, but
there seems to be little room for the conjecture at the time
named. A great change for the better occurred, so far as
the means and mode of life were concerned, but it served
to render more conspicuous the real estimate placed upon
her through the Later Period of barbarism.

Elsewhere attention has been called to the fact, that when
descent was changed from the female line to the male, it
operated injuriously upon the position and rights of the
wife and mother. Her children were transferred from her
owa—ge^s to that of her husband, and she forfeited her
'agnatic rights by her marriage without obtaining an
etjtrrvalent. Before the change, the members of her own
gens, in all probability, predominated in the household,

'//.,ix, 663.

474 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

which gave full force to the maternal bond, and made the
woman rather more than the man the center of the family.
After the change she stood alone in the household of her
husband, isolated from her gentile kindred. It must have
weakened the influence of the maternal bond, and have
operated powerfully to lower her position and arrest her
progress in the social scale. Among the prosperous classes,
her condition of enforced seclusion, together with the avowed
primary object of marriage, to beget children in lawful
wedlock {naidoTtoieiaBai yvr^aicos), lead to the inference
that her position was less favorable in the Heroic Age than
in the subsequent period, concerning which we are much
better informed.

From first to last among the Greeks there was a principle
of egotism or studied selfishness at work among the males,
tending to lessen the appreciation of woman, scarcely found
among savages. It reveals itself in their plan of domestic
life, which in the higher ranks secluded the wife to enforce
an exclusive cohabitation, without admitting the reciprocal
obligation on the part of her husband. It implies the ex-
istence of an antecedent conjugal system of the Turanian
type, against which it was designed to guard. So power-
fully had the usages of centuries stamped upon the minds
of Grecian women a sense of their inferiority, that they did
did not recover from it to the latest period of Grecian
ascendency. It was, perhaps, one of the sacrifices required
of womankind to bring this portion of the human race out
of the syndyasmian into the monogamian family. It still
remains an enigma that a race, with endowments great
enough to impress their mental life upon the world, should
have remained essentially barbarian in their treatment of
the female sex at the height of their civilization. Women
were not treated with cruelty, nor with discourtesy within
the range of the privileges allowed them ; but their educa-
tion was superficial, intercourse with the opposite sex was
.denied them, and their inferiority was inculcated as a prin-
ciple, until it came to be accepted as a fact by the women
themselves. The wife was not the companion and the

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 475

equal of her husband, but stood to him in the relation of
a daughter ; thus denying the fundamental principle of
monogamy, as the institution in its highest form must be
understood. The wife is necessarily the equal of her hus-
band in dignity, in personal rights and in social position.
We may thus discover at what a price of experience and
endurance this great institution of modern society has been
won.

Our information is quite ample and specific with respect
to the condition of Grecian women and the Grecian family
during the historical period. Becker, with the marvelous
research for which his works are distinguished, has collected
the principal facts and presented them with clearness and
force.* His statements, while they do not furnish a com-

' The following condensed statement, taken from Charicles {Excitrsus, xii,
Longman's ed., Metcalfe's trans.), contains the material facts illustrative of the
subject. After expressing the opinion that the women of Homer occupied a
more honorable position in the household than the women of the historical
period, he makes the following statements with respect to the condition of
women, particularly at Athens and Sparta, during the high period of Grecian
culture. He observes that the only excellence of which a woman was thought
capable differed but little from that of a faithful slave (p. 464) ; that her utter
want of independence led to her being considered a minor all her life long ;
that there were neither educational institutions for girls, nor any private teachers
at home, their whole instruction being left to the mothers, and to nurses, and
limited to spinning and weaving and other female avocations (p. 465) ; that
they were almost entirely deprived of that most essential promoter ot female
culture, the society of the other sex ; strangers as well as their nearest relatives
being entirely excluded ; even their fathers and husbands saw them but little,
the men being more abroad than at home, and when at home inhabiting their
own apartments ; that the gyneeconitis, though not exactly a prison, nor yet a
locked harem, was still the confined abode allotted for life to the female portion
of the household ; that it was particularly the case with the maidens, who lived
in the greatest seclusion until their marriage, and, so to speak, regularly under
lock and key (p. 465) ; that it was unbecoming for a young wife to leave the
house without her husband's knowledge, and in fact she seldom quitted it ; she
was thus restricted to the society of her female slaves ; and her husband, if he
chose to exercise it, had the power of keeping her in confinement (p. 466) ; that
at those festivals, from which men were excluded, the women had an opportunity
of seeing something of each other, which they enjoyed all the more from their
ordinary seclusion ; that women found it difficult to go out of their houses from
these special restrictions ; that no respectable lady thought of going without
the attendance of a female slave assigned to her for that purpose by her hus-

476 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

plete picture of the family of the historical period, are
quite sufficient to indicate the great difference between the
Grecian and the modern civilized family, and also to show
the condition of the monogamian family in the early stages
of its development.

Among the facts stated by Becker, there are two that
deserve further notice: first, the declaration that the chief
object of marriage was the procreation of children in law-
ful wedlock; and second, the seclusion of women to insure
this result. The two are intimately connected, and throw
some reflected light upon the previous condition from which
they had emerged. In the first place, the passion of love

band (p. 469) ; that this method of treatment had the efiect of rendering the
girls excessively bashful and even prudish, and that even a married woman
shrunk back and blushed if she chanced to be seen at the window by a man
(p. 471); that marriage in reference to the procreation of children was consid-
ered by the Greeks a necessity, enforced by their duty to the gods, to the state
and to their ancestors ; that until a very late period, at least, no higher consid-
eration attached to matrimony, nor was strong attachment a frequent cause of
marriage (p. 473) ; that whatever attachment existed sprang from the soil of
sensuality, and none other than sensual love was acknowledged between man
and wife (p. 473) ; that at Athens, and probably in the other Grecian states as
well, the generation of children was considered the chief end of marriage, the
choice of the bride seldom depending on previous, or at least intimate acquaint-
ance ; and more attention was paid to the position of the damsel's family, and
the amount of her dowry, than to her personal qualities ; that such marriages
were unfavorable to the existence of real affection, wherefore coldness, indiffer-
ence, and discontent frequently prevailed (p. 477) ; that the husband and wife
took their meals together, provided no other men were dining with the master of
the house, for no woman who did not wish to be accounted a courtesan, would
think even in her own house of participating in the symposia of the men, or of
being present when her husband accidentally brought home a friend to dinner
(p. 490) ; that the province of the wife was the management of the entire
household, and the nurture of the children — of the boys until they were placed
under a master, of the girls until their marriage ; that the infidelity of the wife
was judged most harshly ; and while it might be supposed that the woman, from
her strict seclusion, was generally precluded from transgressing, they very fre-
quently found means of deceiving their husbands ; that the law imposed the
duty of continence in a very unequal manner, for while the husband required
from the wife the strictest fidelity, and visited with severity any dereliction on
her part, he allowed himself to have intercourse with hetcerce, which conduct,
though not exactly approved, did not meet with any marked censure, and much
less was it considered any violation of matrimonial rights (p. 494).

• THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL Y. 477

was unknown among the barbarians. They are below the
sentiment, which is the offspring of civilization and super-
added refinement. The Greeks in general, as their marriage
customs show, had not attained to a knowledge of this pas-
sion, although there were, of course, numerous exceptions.
Physical worth, in Grecian estimation, was the measure of
all the excellences of which the female sex were capable.
Marriage, therefore, was not grounded upon sentiment, but
upon necessity and duty. These considerations are those
which governed the Iroquois and the Aztecs ; in fact they
originated in barbarism, and reveal the anterior barbarous
condition of the ancestors of the Grecian tribes. It seems
strange that they were sufficient to answer the Greek ideal
of the family relation in the midst of Grecian civilization.

!The growth of property and the desire for its transmission
to children was, in reality, the moving power which brought
in monogamy to insure legitimate heirs, and to limit their
number to the actual progeny of the married pair. A
knowledge of the paternity of children had begun to be
realized under the syndyasmian family, from which the
Grecian form was evidently derived, but it had not attained
the requisite degree of certainty because of the survival of
some portion of the ancienty^r^z conjugialia. It explains the
new usage which made its appearance in the Upper Status
of barbarism; namely, the seclusion of wives. An implica-
tion to this effect arises from the circumstance that a neces-
sity for the seclusion of the wife must have existed at the
time, and which seems to have been so formidable that the
plan of domestic life among the civilized Greeks was, in
reality, a system of female confinement and restraint. Al-
though the particulars cited relate more especially to the
family among the prosperous classes, the spirit it evinces
was doubtless general.

Turning next to the Roman family, the condition of
woman is more favorable, but her subordination the same.

She was treated with respect in Rome as in Athens,
but in the Roman family her influence and authority were
greater. As mater familias she was mistress of the fam-

478

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ily. She went into the streets freely without restraint on
the part of her husband, and frequented with the men the
theaters and festive banquets. In the house she was not
confined to particular apartments, neither was she excluded
from the table of the men. The absence of the worst
restrictions placed upon Grecian females was favorable to
the growth of a sense of personal dignity and of independ-
ence among Roman women. Plutarch remarks that after
the peace with the Sabines, effected through the interven-
tion of the Sabine women, many honorable privileges were
conferred upon them ; the men were to give them the way
when they met on the street ; they were not to utter a vul-
gar word in the presence of females, nor appear nude before
them.' Marriage, however, placed the wife in the power
of her husband {in inaniim viri); the notion that she must
remain under power following, by an apparent necessity,
her emancipation by her marriage from paternal power.
The husband treated his wife as his daughter, and not as
his equal. Moreover, he had the power of correction, and
of life and death in case of adultery ; but the exercise of
this last power seems to have been subject to the concur-
rence of the council of her gens.

Unlike other people, the Romans possessed three forms
of marriage. All alike placed the wife in the hand of her
husband, and recognized as the chief end of marriage the
procreation of children in lawful wedlock {libcrorum qiicreti-
doriim causd)? These forms [confarrcatio, coemptio, and
iisus) lasted through the Republic, but fell out under the
Empire, M^hen a fourth form, the free marriage, was gener-
ally adopted, because it did not place the wife in the power
of her husband. Divorce, from the earliest period, was
at the option of the parties, a characteristic of the syndy-
asmian family, and transmitted probably from that source.
They rarely occurred, however, until near the close of the
Republic'

' Vit. Rom., c. 20. "^ Quinctilian.

' With respect to the conjugal fidelity of Roman women, Becker remarks
" that in the earlier times excesses on either side seldom occurred," which must

THE MONOGAMIAN FA MIL Y.

479

The licentiousness which prevailed in Grecian and Roman
cities at the height of civilization has generally been
regarded as a lapse from a higher and purer condition of
virtue and morality. But the fact is capable of a different,
or at least of a modified explanation. They had never
attained to a pure morality in the intercourse of the sexes
from which to decline. Repressed or moderated in the
midst of war and strife endangering the national existence,
the license revived with peace and prosperity, because the
moral elements of society had not risen against it for its
extirpation. This licentiousness was, in all probability, the
remains of an ancient conjugal system, never fully eradicated,
which had followed down from barbarism as a social taint,
and now expressed its excesses in the new channel of
hetaerism. If the Greeks and Romans had learned to
respect the equities of monogamy, instead of secluding
their wives in the gynseconitis in one case, and of holding
them under power in the other, there is reason to believe
that society among them would have presented a very dif-
ferent aspect. Since neither one nor the other had devel-
oped any higher morality, they had but little occasion to
mourn over a decay of public morals. The substance of
the explanation lies in the fact that neither recognized in
its integrity the principle of monogamy, which alone was
able to place their respective societies upon a moral basis.
The premature destruction of the ethnic life of these re-
markable races is due in no small measure to their failure
to develop and utilize the mental, moral and conservative

be set down as a mere conjecture ; but " when morals began to deteriorate, we
first meet with great lapses from this fidelity, and men and women outbid each
other in wanton indulgence. The original modesty of the women became
gradually more rare, while luxury and extravagance waxed stronger, and of
many women it could be said, as Clitipho complained of his Bacchis (Ter.,
Heaiit., ii, i, 15), Afea est petax, procax, magnijica, sunipliiosa, tiobi/is. Many
Roman ladies, to compensate for the neglect of their husbands, had a lover of
their own, who, under the pretense of being the procurator of the lady, accom-
panied her at all times. As a natural consequence of this, celibacy continually
increased amongst the men, and there was the greatest levity respecting
divorces " — Gallus, Excursus, i, p. 155, Longman's ed., Metcalfe's trans.

48o ANCIENT SOCIETY.

forces of the female intellect, which were not less essential
than their own corresponding forces to their progress and
preservation. After a long protracted experience in bar-
barism, during which they won the remaining elements of
civilization, they perished politically, at the end of a brief
career, seemingly from the exhilaration of the new life they
had created.

Among the Hebrews, whilst the patriarchal family in the
early period was common with the chiefs, the monogamian,
into which the patriarchal soon subsided, was common
among the people. But with respect to the constitution
of the latter, and the relations of husband and wife in the
family, the details are scanty.

Without seeking to multiply illustrations, it is plain that
the monogamian family had grown into the form in which
it appeared, at the commencement of the historical period,
from a lower type ; and that during the classical period it
advanced sensibly, though without attaining its highest
form. It evidently sprang from a previous syndyasmian
family as its immediate germ ; and while improving with
human progress it fell short of its true ideal in the classical
period. Its highest known perfection, at least, was not
attained until modern times. The portraiture of society in
the Upper Status of barbarism by the early writers implies
the general practice of monogamy, but with attending cir-
cumstances indicating that it was the monogamian family
of the future struggling into existence under adverse influ-
ences, feeble in vitality, rights and immunities, and still
environed with the remains of an ancient conjugal system.

As the Malayan system expressed the relationships that
existed in the consanguine family, and as the Turanian
expressed those which existed in the punaluan, so the
Aryan expressed those which existed in the monogamian ;
each family resting upon a different and distinct form of
marriage.

It cannot be shown absolutely, in the present state of our
knowledge, that the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian families
of mankind formerly possessed the Turanian system of

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 48 1

consanguinity, and that it fell into desuetude under mo-
nogamy. Such, however, would be the presumption from
the body of ascertained facts. All the evidence points in
this direction so decisively as to exclude any other hypo-
thesis. Firstly. The organization into gentes had a natural
origin in the punaluan family, where a group of sisters
married to each other's husbands furnished, with their
children and descendants in the female line, the exact
circumscription as well as the body of a gens in its archaic
form. The principal branches of the Aryan family were
organized in gentes when first known historically, sustain-
ing the inference that, when one undivided people, they
were thus organized. From this fact the further presump-
tion arises that they derived the organization through a
remote ancestry who lived in that same punaluan condition
which gave birth to this remarkable and wide-spread insti-
tution. Besides this, the Turanian system of consanguinity
is still found connected with the gens in its archaic form
among the American aborigines. This natural connection
would remain unbroken until a change of social condition
occurred, such as monogamy would produce, having power
to work its overthrow. Secondly. In the Aryan system of
consanguinity there is some evidence pointing to the same
conclusion. It may well be supposed that a large portion
of the nomenclature of the Turanian system would fall out
under monogamy, if this system had previously prevailed
among the Aryan nations. The application of its terms to
categories of persons, whose relationships would now be
discriminated from each other, would compel their aban-
donment. It is impossible to explain the impoverished
condition of the original nomenclature of the Aryan system
except on this hypothesis. All there was of it common to
the several Aryan dialects are the terms for father and
mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter; and a
common term {Sdin., naptar ; Lat., ncpos ; Gr., avetpios -^
applied indiscriminately to nephew, grandson, and cousin.
They could never have attained to the advanced condition
implied by monogamy with such a scanty nomenclature of
31

482

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

blood relationships. But with a previous system, analogous
to the Turanian, this impoverishment can be explained.
The terms for brother and sister were now in the abstract,
and new creations, because these relationships under the
Turanian system were conceived universally as elder and
younger ; and the several terms were applied to categories
of persons, including persons not own brothers and sisters.
In the Aryan systerri this distinction is laid aside, and for
the first time these relationships were conceived in the
abstract. Under monogamy the old terms were inapplica-
ble because they were applied to collaterals. Remains of
a prior Turanian system, however, still appear in the system
of the Uralian family, as among the Hungarians, where
brothers and sisters are classified into elder and younger by
special terms. In French, also, besides /rrrr, and soeur, we
find ainc\ elder brother, pAnd and cadet, younger brother,
and aiiiife and cadcttc, elder and younger sister. So also in
Sanskrit we find agrajar, and amujar, and agrajri, and
amujri for the same relationships ; but whether the latter
are from Sanskrit or aboriginal sources, I am unable to
state. In the Aryan dialects the terms for brother and
sister are the same words dialectically changed, the Greek
having substituted aSaXqioZ for (ppocT)p. If common terms
once existed in these dialects for elder and younger brother
and sister, their previous application to categories of
persons would render them inapplicable, as an exclusive
distinction, to own brothers and sisters. The falling out
from the Aryan system of this striking and beautiful feature
of the Turanian requires a strong motive for its occurrence,
which the previous existence and abandonment of the
Turanian system would explain. It would be difficult to
find any other. It is not supposable that the Aryan nations
were without a term for grandfather in the original speech,
a relationship recognized universally among savage and
barbarous tribes ; and yet there is no common term for
this relationship in the Aryan dialects. In Sanskrit we
\id.-vQ pitanicha, in Greek TrdrrTto?, in Latin az'ns, in Russian
djed, in Welsh hendad, which last is a compound like the

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 483

German grossvader and the English grandfather. These
terms are radically different. But with a term under a
previous system, which was applied not only to the grand-
father proper, his brothers, and his several male cousins,
but also to the brothers and several male cousins of his
grandmother, it could not be made to signify a lineal
grandfather and progenitor under monogamy. Its aban-
donment would be apt to occur in course of time. The
absence of a term for this relationship in the original
speech seems to find in this manner a sufficient explana-
tion. Lastly. There is no term for uncle and aunt in the
abstract, and no special terms for uncle and aunt on the
father's side and on the mother's side running through the
Aryan dialects. We find pitroya, Tcarpoj';, and patruus
for paternal uncle in Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin ; stryc in
Slavonic for the same, and a common term, earn, ooin, and
oJieim in Anglo-Saxon, Belgian, and German, and none in the
Celtic. It is equally inconceivable that there was no term
in the original Aryan speech for maternal uncle, a rela-
tionship made so conspicuous by the gens among barbar-
ous tribes. If their previous system was Turanian, there
was necessarily a terrn for this uncle, but restricted to the
own brothers of the mother, and to her several male
cousins. Its application to such a number of persons in a
category, many of whom could not be uncles under mo-
nogamy, would, for the reasons stated, compel its abandon-
ment. It is evident that a previous system of some kind
must have given place to the Aryan.

Assuming that the nations of the Aryan, Semitic and
Uralian families formerly possessed the Turanian system of
consanguinity, the transition from it to a descriptive system
was simple and natural, after the old system, through mo-
nogamy, had become untrue to descents as they would then
exist. Every relationship under monogamy is specific.
The new system, formed under such circumstances, would
describe the persons by means of the primary terms or a
combination of them : as brother's son for nephew, father's
brother for uncle, and father's brother's son for cousin.

484 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Such was the original of the present system of the Aryan,
Semitic and Uralian families. The generalizations they now
contain were of later introduction. All the tribes possess-
ing the Turanian system describe their kindred by the same
formula, when asked in what manner one person was related
to another. A descriptive system precisely like the Aryan
always existed both with the Turanian and the Malayan,
not as a system of consanguinity, for they had a permanent
system, but as a means of tracing relationships. It is plain
from the impoverished conditions of their nomenclatures
that the Aryan, Semitic and Uralian nations must have
rejected a prior system of consanguinity of some kind. The
conclusion, therefore, is reasonable that when the monoga-
mian family became generally established these nations fell
back upon the old descriptive form, always in use under the
Turanian system, and allowed the previous one to die out
as useless and untrue to descents. This would be the natu-
ral and obvious mode of transition from the Turanian into
the Aryan system ; and it explains, in a satisfactory manner,
the origin as well as peculiar character of the latter.

In order to complete the exposition of the monogamian
family in its relations to the Aryan system of consanguinity,
it will be necessary to present this system somewhat in de-
tail, as has been done in the two previous cases.

A comparison of its forms in the several Aryan dialects
shows that the original of the present system was purely
descriptive.* The Krse, which is the typical Aryan form,
and the Esthonian, which is the typical Uralian, are still
descriptive. In the Erse the only terms for the blood rela-
tionships are the primary, namely, those for father and
mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter. All the
remaining kindred are described by means of these terms,
but commencing in the reverse order: thus brother, son
of brother, and son of son of brother. The Aryan system
exhibits the actual relationships under monogamy, and
assumes that the paternity of children is known.

In course of time a method of description, materially

' Systems of Consanguinity, Table I, p. 7g.

THE MONOGAMIAN FA MIL Y. 485

different from the Celtic, was engrafted upon the new sys-
tem ; but without changing its radical features. It was
introduced by the Roman civilians to perfect the framework
of a code of descents, to the necessity for which we are
indebted for its existence. Their improved method has
been adopted by the several Aryan nations among whom
the Roman influence extended. The Slavonic system has
some features entirely peculiar and evidently of Turanian
origin.* To obtain a knowledge historically of our present
system it is necessary to resort to the Roman, as perfected
by the civilians.* The additions were slight, but they
changed the method of describing kindred. They consisted
chiefly, as elsewhere stated, in distinguishing the relation-
ships of uncle and aunt on the father's side from those on
the mother's side, with the invention of terms to express
these relationships in the concrete ; and in creating a term
for grandfather to be used as the correlative of iiepos. With
these terms and the primary, in connection with suitable
augments, they were enabled to systematize the relation-
ships in the lineal and in the first five collateral lines, which
included the body of the kindred of every individual. The
Roman is the most perfect and scientific system of con-
sanguinity under monogamy which has yet appeared ; and
it has been made more attractive by the invention of an
unusual number of terms to express the marriage relation-
ships. From it we may learn our own system, which has
adopted its improvements, better than from the Anglo-
Saxon or Celtic. In a table, at the end of this chapter, the
Latin and Arabic forms are placed side by side, as repre-
sentatives, respectively, of the Aryan and Semitic systems.
The Arabic seems to have passed through processes similar
to the Roman, and with similar results. The Roman only
will be explained.

From Ego to tritavus, in the lineal line, are six genera-
tions of ascendants, and from the same to trincpos are the
same number of descendants, in the description of which

' Systems of Consanguinitv , etc., p. 40.

^ Fandects, lib. xxviii, tit. x, and Institutes of Justinian, lib. iii, lit. vi.

486

AXCIENT SOCIETY.

but four radical terms are used. If it were desirable to
ascend above the sixth ancestor, tritaviis would become a
new starting-point of description ; thus, tritavi pater, the
father of tritaviis, and so upward to tritavi tritaviis, who is
the twelfth ancestor of Ego in the lineal right line, male.
In our rude nomenclature the phrase grandfather's grand-
father must be repeated six times to express the same rela-
tionship, or rather to describe the same person. In like
manner trincpotis trincpos carries us to the twelfth descend-
ant of Ego in the right lineal male line.

The first collateral line, male, which commences with
brother, />'(7/rr, runs as follows : Fratris filius, son of brother,
fratris ncpos, grandson of brother, fratris proncpos, great-
grandson of brother, and on to fratris trincpos, the great-
grandson of the great-grandson of the brother of Ego. If
it were necessary to extend the description to the twelfth
di^szQ.xid.diViX., fratris trincpos would become a second start-
ing-point, from which we should h.2iW& fratris trincpotis tri-
ncpos, as the end of the series. By this simple method
fratcr is made the root of descent in this line, and every
person belonging to it is referred to him by the force of
this term in the description ; and we know at once that
each person thus described belongs to the first collateral
line, male. It is therefore specific and complete. In like
manner, the same line, female, commences with sister, soror,
giving for the series, sororis filia, sister's daughter, sororis
ncptis, sister's gv3.ndd:i\xg\\t&v, sororis proncptis, sister's great-
granddaughter, and on to sororis trincptis, her sixth de-
scendant, and to sororis trincptis trincptis, her twelfth de-
scendant. While the two branches of the first collateral
line originate, in strictness, in the father, /(7/fr, the common
bond of connection between them, yet, by making the
brother and sister the root of descent in the description,
not only the line but its two branches are maintained
distinct, and the relationship of each person to Ego is spe-
cialized. This is one of the chief excellences of the sys-
tem, for it is carried into ail the lines, as a purely scientific
method of distin^uishintr and describing kindred.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 487

The second collateral line, male, on the father's side,
commences with father's brother, patriius, and is composed
of him and his descendants. Each person, by the terms
used to describe him, is referred with entire precision to
his proper position in the line, and his relationship is indi-
cated specifically; ihns, patrni Jilins, son of paternal uncle,
patrui ncpos, grandson of, and patnii proncpos, great-grand-
son of paternal uncle, and on to patrui trimpos, the sixth
descendant of patruns. If it became necessary to extend
this line to the twelfth generation we should have, after-
passing through the intermediate degrees, patrui triiupotis
trinepos, who is the great-grandson of the great-grandson
oi patrui trinepos, the great-grandson of the great-grandson
oi patruus. It will be observed that the term for cousin is
rejected in the formal method used in the Pandects. He is
described as patrui filius, but he was also called a brother
patrual, /r^/^r patriielis, and among the people at large by
the common term coiisobrinus, from which our term cousin
is derived.' The second collateral line, female, on the
father's side, commences with father's sister, aiiiita, pater-
nal aunt; and her descendants are described according to
the same general plan ; thus, amitcs Jilia, paternal aunt's
daughter, ai/iitce ncptis, paternal aunt's granddaughter, and
on to amitce triiuptis, and to aniitce trineptis trineptis. In
this branch of the line the special term for this cousin, ami-
tina, is also set aside for the descriptive phrase amitce filia.

In like manner the third collateral line, male, on the
father's side commences with grandfather's brother, who is
styled patruus viagnus, or great paternal uncle. At this
point in the nomenclature, special terms fail, and compounds
are resorted to, although the relationship itself is in the
concrete. It is evident that this relationship was not dis-
criminated until a comparatively modern period. No ex-

' Item fratres patrueles, sorores patrueles, id est qui quse-ve ex duobus fratri-
bus progenerantur ; item consobrini consobrince, id est qui quee-ve ex duobus
sororibus nascuntur (quasi consorini) ; item amitini amitinre, id est qui quse-ve
ex fratre ex sorore propagantur ; sed fere vulgos istos omnes communi appella-
tione coiisobrinus vocat. — Pand., lib. xxxviii, tit. x.

488 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

isting language, so far as the inquiry has been extended,
possesses an original term for this relationship, although
without it this line cannot be described except by the Celtic
method. If he were called simply graiidfatJicrs brother,
the phrase would describe a person, leaving the relationship
to implication ; but if he is styled a great-uncle, it expresses
a relationship in the concrete. With the first person in this
branch of the line thus made definite, all of his descendants
are referred to him, by the form of the description, as the
root of descent ; and the line, the side, the particular branch,
and the degree of the relationship of each person are at once
fully expressed. ' This line also may be extended to the
twelfth descendant, which would giv^e for the series patrui
magni filius, son of the paternal great-uncle, patriii magm
nepos, and on to patrui inagni trincpos, and ending with
patrui magni trincpotis trincpos. The same line, female,
commences Avith grandfather's sister, ainita juagiia, great
paternal aunt; and her descendants are similarly described.

The fourth and fifth collateral lines, male, on the father's
side, commence, respectively, with great-grandfather's broth-
er, who is styled patriuis viajor, greater paternal uncle, and
with great-great-grandfather's brother, patriuis maximus,
greatest paternal uncle. In extending the series we have
in the fourth /^/rz/z niajoris filins, and on "lo patrui majoris
trinepos ; and in the ^{\\\ patrui max ivii fil ins, -ass.^ on \.o pa-
trui maxivii trincpos. The female branches commence, re-
spectively, with ai/iita major, greater, and amita maxima,
greatest paternal aunt ; and the description of persons in
each follows in the same order.

Thus far the lines have been on the father's side only.
The necessity for independent terms for uncle and aunt
on the mother's side to complete the Roman method of
description is now apparent ; the relatives on the mother's
side being equally numerous, and entirely distinct. These
terms were found in avunculus, maternal uncle, and mater-
tera, maternal aunt. In describing the relatives on the
mother's side, the lineal female line is substituted for the
male, but the first collateral line remains the same. In the

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL Y.

489

second collateral line, male, on the mother's side, we have
for the series aviincuhis, maternal uncle, avjmacli films,
avunculi Jiepos, and on to avunciili trinepos, and ending
with avimctili trinepotis trinepos. In the female branch,
matertcra, maternal aunt, inatertera; filia, and on as before.
The third collateral line, male and female, commence,
respectively, with avunculus viagmis, and matertcra magna,
great maternal uncle, and aunt ; the fourth with avunculus
major, and matertcra major, greater maternal uncle, and
aunt ; and the fifth with avunculus maximus, and matertcra
maxima, greatest maternal uncle, and aunt. The descrip-
tions of persons in each line and branch are in form corre-
sponding with those previously given.

Since the first five collateral lines embrace as wide a circle
of kindred as it was necessary to include for the practical
objects of a code of descents, the ordinary formula of the
Roman civilians did not extend beyond this number.

In terms for the marriage relationships, the Latin lan-
guage is remarkably opulent, whilst our mother English
betrays its poverty by the use of such unseemly phrases
as father-in-law, son-in-law, brother-in-law, step-father, and
step-son, to express some twenty very common, and very
near relationships, nearly all of which are provided with
special terms in the Latin nomenclature.

It will not be necessary to pursue further the details of
the Roman system of consanguinity. The principal and
most important of its features have been presented, and in
a manner sufficiently special to render the whole intelli-
gible. For simplicity of method, felicity of description,
distinctness of arrangement by lines and branches, and
beauty of nomenclature, it is incomparable. It stands in
its method pre-eminently at the head of all the systems of
relationship ever perfected by man, and furnishes one of
many illustrations that to whatever the Roman mind had
occasion to give organic form, it placed once for all upon a
solid foundation.

No reference has been made to the details of the Arabic
system ; but, as the two forms are given in the Table, the

490 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

explanation made of one will suffice for the other, to which
it is equally applicable.

With its additional special terms, and its perfected meth-
od, consanguine! are assumed to be connected, in virtue of
their descent, through married pairs, from common ances-
tors. They arrange themselves in a lineal and several collat-
eral lines ; and the latter are perpetually divergent from the
former. These are necessary consequences of monogamy.
The relationship of each person to the central Ego is ac-
curately defined and, except as to those who stand in an
identical relationship, is kept distinct from every other
by means of a special term or descriptive phrase. It also
implies the certainty of the parentage of every individual,
which monogamy alone could assure. Moreover, it de-
scribes the relationships in the monogamian family as they
actually exist. Nothing can be plainer than that this form
of marriage made this form of the family, and that the lat-
ter created this system of consanguinity. The three are
necessary parts of a whole where the descriptive system is
exclusive. What we know by direct observation to be true
with respect to the monogamian family, its law of marriage
and its system of consanguinity, has been shown to be
equally true with respect to the punaluan family, its law of
marriage and its system of consanguinity ; and not less so
of the consanguine family, its form of marriage and its
system of consanguinity. Any of these three parts being
given, the existence of the other two with it, at some one
time, may be deduced with certainty. If any difference
could be made in favor of the superior materiality of any
one of the three, the preference would belong to systems
of consanguinity. They have crystallized the evidence
declaring the marriage law and the form of the family in
the relationship of every individual person ; thus preserving
not only the highest evidence of the fact, but as many con-
curring declarations thereto as there are members united
by the bond of consanguinity. It furnishes a test of the
high rank of a domestic institution, which must be sup-
posed incapable of design to pervert the truth, and which,

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMILY. 49 1

therefore, may be trusted implicitly as to whatever it neces-
sarily teaches. Finally, it is with respect to systems of
consanguinity that our information is most complete.

The five successive forms of the family, mentioned at the
outset, have now been presented and explained, with such
evidence of their existence, and such particulars of their
structure as our present knowledge furnishes. Although
the treatment of each has been general, it has touched the
essential facts and attributes, and established the main prop-
osition, that the family commenced in the consanguine, and
grew, through successive stages of development, into the
monogamian. There is nothing in this general conclusion
which might not have been anticipated from a priori con-
siderations; but the difficulties and the hindrances which
obstructed its growth are seen to have been far greater than
would have been supposed. As a growth with the ages of
time, it has shared in all the vicissitudes of human experi-
ence, and now reveals more expressively, perhaps, than any
other institution, the graduated scale of human progress
from the abyss of primitive savagery, through barbarism, to
civilization. It brings us near to the daily life of the human
family in the different epochs of its progressive develop-
ment, indicating, in some measure, its hardships, its strug-
gles and also its victories, when different periods are con-
trasted. We should value the great institution of the family,
as it now exists, in some proportion to the expenditure of
time and of intelligence in its production ; and receive it as
the richest legacy transmitted to us by ancient society,
because it embodies and records the highest results of its
varied and prolonged experience.

When the fact is accepted that the family has passed
through four successive forms, and is now in a fifth, the
question at once arises whether this form can be permanent
in the future. The only answer that can be given is, that
it must advance as society advances, and change as society
changes, even as it has done in the past. It is the creature
of the social system, and will reflect its culture. As the
monogamian family has improved greatly since the com-

492

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

mencement of civilization, and very sensibly in modern
times, it is at least supposable that it is capable of still far-
ther improvement until the equality of the sexes is attained.
Should the monogamian family in the distant future fail to
answer the requirements of society, assuming the contin-
uous progress of civilization, it is impossible to predict the
nature of its successor.

THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL V.

49:

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CHAPTER VI.

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE
FAMILY.

Sequence in part Hypothetical. — Relation of these Institutions
IN THE Order of their Origination. — Evidence of their Origination
IN the Order named. — Hypothesis of Degradation considered. — The
Antiquity of Mankind.

It remains to place in their relations the customs and
institutions which have contributed to the growth of the
family through successive forms. Their articulation in a
sequence is in part hypothetical; but there is an intimate
and undoubted connection between them.

This sequence embodies the principal social and domestic
institutions which have influenced the growth of the fam-
ily from the consanguine to the monogamian.' They are to
be understood as originating in the several branches of the
human family substantially in the order named, and as ex-
isting generally in these branches while in the correspond-
ing status.

First Stage of Sequence.
I. Promiscuous Intercourse.

II. Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters, ozun and col-
lateral, in a Group : Giving, —
III. The Consanguine Family. [First Stage of the Fam-
ily) : Givitig, —

* It is a revision of the sequence presented in Systems of Consanguinity, etc.,
p. 480.

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 499

IV. The Malayan System of Consanguinity and Affinity.
Second Stage of Sequence.

V. TJie Organization npon the basis of Sex, and the Pu-
naliian Custom, tending to check the intermarriage
of brothers and sisters : Giving, —
VI. The Punaluan Family. {Second Stage of the Family) :

Giving, —
VII. The Organization into Gentes,zvhicJi excluded brothers
and sisters frojn the marriage relation : Giving, — ■
VIII. TJie Turanian and Ganowdnian System of Consan-
guinity and Affinity.
Third Stage of Sequence.

IX. Increasing Influence of Gentile Organization and im-
provement in the arts of life, advancing a portion
of mankind into the lozver Status of barbarism :
Giving, —
X. Alarriage betzvccn Single Pairs, but without an ex-
clusive cohabitation : Giving, —
XI. The Syndyasmian Family. {Third Stage of the Fam-
ily.)
Fourth Stage of Sequence.
XII. Pastoral life on the plains in limited areas : Giving, —
XIII. The Patriarchal Family. {Fourth, but exceptional
Stage of the Family.)
Fifth Stage of Sequence.
XIV. Rise of Property, and settlement of lineal succession to

estates : Giving, —
XV. The Monogamian Family. ( Fifth Stage of the Fam-
ily ) : Giving, —
XVI. The Aryan, Semitic and Uralian system of Consan-
guinity and Affinity ; and causing the overthrow of
the Ttiranian.
A few observations upon the foregoing sequence ot cus-
toms and institutions, for the purpose of tracing their con-
nection and relations, will close this discussion of the growth
of the family.

Like the successive geological formations, the tribes of

500

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

mankind may be arranged, according to their relative con-
ditions, into successive strata. When thus arranged, they
reveal with some degree of certainty the entire range of
human progress from savagery to civilization. A thorough
study of each successive stratum will develop whatever is
special in its culture and characteristics, and yield a definite
conception of the whole, in their differences and in their
relations. When this has been accomplished, the successive
stages of human progress will be definitely understood.
Time has been an important factor in the formation of these
strata; and it must be measured out to each ethnical pe-
riod in no stinted measure. Each period anterior to civili-
zation necessarily represents many thousands of years.

Promiscuous Intercourse. — This expresses the lowest con-
ceivable stage of savagery — it represents the bottom of
the scale. Man in this condition could scarcely be distin-
guished from the mute animals by whom he was sur-
rounded. Ignorant of marriage, and living probably in a
horde, he was not only a savage, but possessed a feeble
intellect and a feebler moral sense. His hope of elevation
rested in the vigor of his passions, for he seems always to
have been courageous ; in the possession of hands physi-
cally liberated, and in the improvable character of his
nascent mental and moral powers. In corroboration of this
view, the lessening volume of the skull and its increasing
animal characteristics, as we recede from civilized to sav-
age man, deliver some testimony concerning the necessary
inferiority of primitive man. Were it possible to reach
this earliest representative of the species, we must descend
very far below the lowest savage now living upon the
earth. The ruder flint implements found over parts of the
earth's surface, and not used by existing savages, attest the
extreme rudeness of his condition after he had emerged
from his primitive habitat, and commenced, as a fisherman,
his spread over continental areas. It is with respect to this
primitive savage, and with respect to him alone, that pro-
miscuity may be inferred.

It will be asked whether any evidence exists of this ante-

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 50I

cedent condition. As an answer, it may be remarked that
the consanguine family and the Malayan system of consan-
guinity presuppose antecedent promiscuity. It was limited,
not unlikely, to the period when mankind were frugivorous
and within their primitive habitat, since its continuance
would have been improbable after they became fishermen
and commenced their spread over the earth in dependence
upon food artificially acquired. Consanguine groups would
then form, with intermarriage in the group as a necessity,
resulting in the formation of consanguine families. At all
events, the oldest form of society which meets us in the
past through deduction from systems of consanguinity is
this family. It would be in the nature of a compact on the
part of several males for the joint subsistence of the group,
and for the defense of their common wives against the
violence of society. In the second place, the consanguine
family is stamped with the marks of this supposed antece-
dent state. It recognized promiscuity within defined lim-
its, and those not the narrowest, and it points through its
organism to a worse condition against which it interposed a
shield. Between the consanguine family and the horde
living in promiscuity, the step, though a long one, does
not require an intermediate condition. If such existed, no
known trace of it remains. The solution of this question,
however, is not material. It is sufficient, for the present at
least, to have gained the definite starting-point far down in
savagery marked out by the consanguine family, which car-
ries back our knowledge of the early condition of mankind
well toward the primitive period.

There were tribes of savages and even of barbarians
known to the Greeks and Romans who are represented as
living in promiscuity. Among them were the Auseans of
North Africa, mentioned by Herodotus,' the Garamantes
of ^Ethiopia, mentioned by Pliny,'' and the Celts of Ireland,

' f.aliv Se ETtiHoivov rcSv yvvaiHcov TtoiEOvrai, ovrs dwoiHsovTE?
KvyjvrjSov re /mdyojiievoi. — Lib. iv, c. 180.

- Garamantes matrimonium exsortes passim cum femines degunt. — A^a(, Hisi.,
lib. V, c. 8.

502

ANCIENT SOCIETY,

mentioned by Strabo.' The latter repeats a simnar state-
ment concerning the Arabs." It is not probable that any
people within the time of recorded human observation have
lived in a state of promiscuous intercourse like the grega-
rious animals. The perpetuation of such a people from the
infancy of mankind would evidently have been impossible.
The cases cited, and many others that might be added, are
better explained as arising under the punaluan family, which,
to the foreign observer, with limited means of observation,
would afford the external indications named by these au-
thors. Promiscuity may be deduced theoretically as a neces-
sary condition antecedent to the consanguine family; but
it lies concealed in the misty antiquity of mankind beyond
the reach of positive knowledge.

II. Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters, own ajid collat-
eral, in a Group. — In this form of marriage the family had its
birth. It is the root of the institution. The Malayan system
of consanguinity affords conclusive evidence of its ancient
prevalence. With the ancient existence of the consanguine
family established, the remaining forms can be explained as
successive derivations from each other. This form of mar-
riage gives (III.) the consanguine family and (IV.) the Ma-
layan system of consanguinity, which disposes of the third
and fourth members of the sequence. This family belongs
to the Lower Status of savagery.

V. The Punaluan Custom. — In the Australian male and fe-
male classes united in marriage, punaluan groups are found.
Among the Hawaiians, the same group is also found, ^yith
the marriage custom it expresses. It has prevailed among
the remote ancestors of all the tribes of mankind who now
possess or have possessed the Turanian system of consan-
guinity, because they must have derived it from punaluan
ancestors. There is seemingly no other explanation of the
origin of this system. Attention has been called to the fact
that the punaluan family included the same persons found

' — 7iai (pavsfjciji /iiidyedSai raid re aXXtui yvvatci nai fxr/rpcxdi
Hal ddeXcpcxli. — Lib. iv. c. 5, ^4. " Lib. xvi, c. 4, § 25.

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 503

in the previous consanguine, with the exception of own
brothers and sisters, who were theoretically if not in every
case excluded. It is a fair inference that the punaluan cus-
tom worked its way into general adoption through a dis-
covery of its beneficial influence. Out of punaluan marriage
came (VI.) the punaluan family, which disposes of the sixth
member of the sequence. This family originated, probably,
in the Middle Status of savagery.

VII. TJie Organization into Gcntcs. — The position of this
institution in the sequence is the only question here to be
considered. Among the Australian classes, the punaluan
group is found on a broad and systematic scale. The people
are also organized in gentes. Here the punaluan family is
older than the gens, because it rested upon the classes which
preceded the gentes. The Australians also have the Tura-
nian system of consanguinity, for which the classes laid the
foundation by excluding own brothers and sisters from the
punaluan group united in marriage. They were born mem-
bers of classes who could not intermarry. Among the
Hawaiians, the punaluan family was unable to create the
Turanian system of consanguinity. Own brothers and sis-
ters were frequently involved in the punaluan group, which
the custom did not prevent, although it tended to do so.
This system requires both the punaluan family and the
gentile organization to bring it into existence. It follows
that the latter came in after and upon the former. In its
relative order it belongs to the Middle Status of savagery.

VIII. and IX. These have been sufficiently considered.
X. and XI. Marriage between Single Pairs, and the Svn-

dyasmian Fajnily. — After mankind had advanced out of sav-
agery and entered the Lower Status of barbarism, their
condition was immensely improved. More than half the
battle for civilization was won. A tendency to reduce the
groups of married persons to smaller proportions must have
begun to manifest itself before the close of savagery, because
the syndyasmian family became a constant phenomenon in
the Lower Status of barbarism. The custom which led the
more advanced savage to recognize one among a number of

504

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

wives as |iis principal wife, ripened in time into the practice
of pairing, and in making this wife a companion and associate
in the maintenance of a family. With the growth of the pro-
pensity to pair came an increased certainty of the paternity
of children. But the husband could put away his wife, and
y tne wife could leave her husband, and each seek a new mate
£^t pleasure. Moreover, the man did not recognize, on his
part, the obligations of the marriage tie, and therefore had
no right to expect its recognition by his wife. The old con-
jugal system, now reduced to narrower limits by the gradual
disappearance of the punaluan groups, still environed the
advancing family, which it was to follow to the verge of
civilization. Its reduction to zero was a condition prece-
dent to the introduction of monogamy. It finally disap-
peared in the new form of hetaerism, which still follows man-
kind in civilization as a dark shadow upon the family. The
contrast between the punaluan and syndyasmian families
was greater than between the latter and the monogamian.
It was subsequent in time to the gens, which was largely
instrumental in its production. That it was a transitional
stage of the family between the two is made evident by its
inability to change materially the Turanian system of con-
sanguinity, which monogamy alone was able to overthrow.
From the Columbia River to the Paraguay, the Indian fam-
ily was syndyasmian in general, punaluan in exceptional
areas, and monogamian perhaps in none.

XII. and XIII. Pastoi'al Life and the PatriarcJial Family.
— It has been remarked elsewhere that polygamy was not
the essential feature of this family, which represented a
movement of society to assert the individuality of persons.
Among the Semitic tribes, it was an organization of servants
and slaves under a patriarch for the care of flocks and herds,
for the cultivation of lands, and for mutual protection
and subsistence. Polygamy was incidental. With a single
male head and an exclusive cohabitation, this family was an
advance upon the syndyasmian, and therefore not a retro-
grade movement. Its influence upon the human race was
limited ; but it carries with it a confession of a state of

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 505

society in the previous period against which it was des-igned
to form a barrier.

XIV. Rise of Property and the establishment of lineal suc-
cession to Estates. — Independently of the movement which
culminated in the patriarchal family of the Hebrew and
Latin types, property, as it increased in variety and amount,
exercised a steady and constantly augmenting influence in
the direction of monogamy. It is impossible to overesti-
mate the influence of property in the civilization of man-
kind. It was the power that brought the Aryan and Semi-
tic nations out of barbarism into civilization. The growth
of the idea of property in the human mind commenced in
feebleness and ended in becoming its master passion. Gov-
ernments and laws are instituted with primary reference to
its creation, protection and enjoyment. It introduced hu-
man slavery as an instrument in its production ; and, after
the experience of several thousand years, it caused the
abolition of slavery upon the discovery that a freeman was
a better property-making machine. The cruelty inherent
in the heart of man, which civilization and Christianity have
softened without eradicating, still betrays the savage origin
of mankind, and in noway more pointedly than in the prac-
tice of human slavery, through all the centuries of recorded
history. With the establishment of the inheritance of pro-
perty in the children of its owner, came the first possibility
of a strict monogamian family. Gradually, though slowly,
this form of marriage, with an exclusive cohabitation, be-
came the rule rather than the exception*; but it was not
until civilization had commenced that it became perma-
nently established.

XV. The Monogamian Family. — As finally constituted,
this family assured the paternity of children, substituted the
individual ownership of real as well as personal property
for joint ownership, and an exclusive inheritance by chil-
dren in the place of agnatic inheritance. Modern society
reposes upon the monogamian family. The whole previous
experience and progress of mankind culminated and crystal-
lized in this pre-eminent institution. It was a slow growth,

5o6

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

planting its roots far back in the period of savagery — a
final result toward which the experience of the ages steadily-
tended. Although essentially modern, it was the product
of a vast and varied experience.

XVI. The Aryan, Semitic and Uralian systems of consan-
guinity, which are essentially identical, were created by the
monogamian family. Its relationships are those which ac-
tually existed under this form of marriage and of the family.
A system of consanguinity is not an arbitrary enactment,
but a natural growth. It expresses, and must of necessity
express, the actual facts of consanguinity as they appeared
to the common mind when the system w^as formed. As the
Aryan system establishes the antecedent existence of a
monogamian family, so the Turanian establishes the an-
tecedent existence of a punaluan family, and the Malayan
the antecedent existence of a consanguine family. The
evidence they contain must be regarded as conclusive, be-
cause of its convincing character in each case. With the
existence established of three kinds of marriage, of three
forms of the family, and of three systems of consanguinity,
nine of the sixteen members of the sequence are sustained.
The existence and relations of the remainder are warranted
by sufficient proof.

The views herein presented contravene, as I am aware,
an assumption which has for centuries been generally ac-
cepted. It is the hypothesis of human degradation to ex-
plain the existence of barbarians and of savages, who were
found, physically and mentally, too far below the conceived
standard of a supposed original man. It was never a sci-
entific proposition supported by facts. It is refuted by
the connected series of inventions and discoveries, by the
progressive development of the social system, and by the
successive forms of the family. The Aryan and Semitic
peoples descended from barbarous ancestors. The question
then meets us, how could these barbarians have attained
to the Upper Status of barbarism, in which they first ap-
pear, without previously passing through the experience and
acquiring the arts and development of the Middle Status ;
and, further than this, how could they have attained to the

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 507

Middle Status without first passing through the experience
of the Lower. Back of these is the further question, how
a barbarian could exist without a previous savage. This hy-
pothesis of degradation leads to another necessity, namely;
that of regarding all the races of mankind without the Aryan
and Semitic connections as abnormal races — races fallen
away by degeneracy from their normal state. The Aryan
and Semitic nations, it is true, represent the main streams
of human progress, because they have carried it to the
highest point yet attained ; but there are good reasons for
supposing that before they became differentiated into Aryan
and Semitic tribes, they formed a part of the indistinguish-
able mass of barbarians. As these tribes themselves sprang
remotely from barbarous, and still more remotely from
savage ancestors, the distinction of normal and abnormal
races falls to the ground.

This sequence, moreover, contravenes some of the con-
clusions of that body of eminent scholars who, in their
speculations upon the origin of society, have adopted the
patriarchal family of the Hebrew and Latin types as the
oldest form of the family, and as producing the earliest
organized society. ' The human race is thus invested from
its infancy with a knowledge of the family under paternal
power. Among the latest, and holding foremost rank
among them, is Sir Henry Maine, whose brilliant researches
in the sources of ancient law, and in the early history of
institutions, have advanced so largely our knowledge of
them. The patriarchal family, it is true, is the oldest made
known to us by ascending along the lines of classical and
Semitic authorities ; but an investigation along these lines is
unable to penetrate beyond the Upper Status of barbarism,
leaving at least four entire ethnical periods untouched, and
their connection unrecognized. It must be admitted, how-
ever, that the facts with respect to the early condition of
mankind have been but recently produced, and that judi-
cious investigators are justly careful about surrendering old
doctrines for new.

Unfortunately for the hypothesis of degradation, inven-
tions and discoveries would come one by one ; the knowledge

508 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

of a cord must precede the bow and arrow, as the knowledge
of gunpowder preceded the musket, and that of the steam-en-
gine preceded the railway and the steamship ; so the arts of
subsistence followed each other at long intervals of time, and
human tools passed through forms of flint and stone before
they were formed of iron. In like manner institutions of
government are a growth from primitive germs of thought.
Growth, development and transmission, must explain thefr
existence among civilized nations. Not less clearly was the
monogamian family derived, by experience, through the
syndyasmian from the punaluan, and the still more ancient
consanguine family. If, finally, we are obliged to surrender
the antiquity of the monogamian family, we gain a knowl-
edge of its derivation, which is of more importance, be-
cause it reveals the price at which it was obtained.

The antiquity of mankind upon the earth is now estab-
lished by a body of evidence sufficient to convince unpre-
judiced minds. The existence of the race goes back defi-
nitely to the glacial period in Europe, and even back of it
into the anterior period. We are now compelled to recog-
nize the prolonged and unmeasured ages of man's existence.
The human mind is naturally and justly curious to know
something of the life of man during the last hundred thou-
sand or more years, now that we are assured his days have
been so long upon the earth. All this time could not have
been spent in vain. His great and marvelous achievements
prove the contrary, as well as imply the expenditure of
long protracted ethnical periods. The fact that civiliza-
tion was so recent suggests the difficulties in the way
of human progress, and affords some intimation of the
lowness of the level from which mankind started on their
career.

'^ The foregoing sequence may require modification, and
perhaps essential change in some of its members; but it
affords both a rational and a satisfactory explanation of
the facts of human experience, so far as they are known,
and of the course of human progress, in developing the
ideas of the family and of government in the tribes of man-
kind.

NOTE.

MR. J. F. MCLENNAN'S " PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE."

As these pages are passing through the press, I have obtained an enlarged
edition of the above-named work. It is a reprint of the original, with several
Essays appended ; and is now styled "Studies in Ancient History Comprising
a Reprint of Primitive Marriage."

In one of these Essays, entitled " The Classificatory System of Relation-
ships," Mr. McLennan devotes one section (41 pages) to an attempted refu-
tation of my explanation of the origin of the classificatory system ; and another
(36 pages) to an explanation of his own of the origin of the same system. The
hypothesis first referred to is contained in my work on the " Systems of Consan-
guinity and Affinity of the Human Family " (pp. 479-486). The facts and their
explanation are the same, substantially, as those presented in preceding chap-
ters of this volume (Chaps. II. and III., Part III.). " Primitive Marriage " was
first published in 1865, and " Systems of Consanguinity," etc., in 1871.

Having collected the facts which established the existence of the classifica-
tory system of consanguinity, I ventured to submit, with the Tables, an hypoth-
esis explanatory of its origin. That hypotheses are useful, and often indispen-
sable to the attainment of truth, will not be questioned. The validity of the
solution presented in that work, and repeated in this, will depend upon its
sufficiency in explaining all the facts of the case. Until it is superseded by one
better entitled to acceptance on this ground, its position in my work is legit-
mate, and in accordance with the method of scientific inquiry.

Mr. McLennan has criticised this hypothesis with great freedom. His con-
clusion is stated generally as follows (Studies, etc., p. 371) : " The space I have
devoted to the consideration of the solution may seem disproportioned to its
importance ; but issuing from the press of the Smithsonian Institution, and its
preparation having been aided by the United States Government, Mr. Morgan's
work has been very generally quoted as a work of authority, and it seemed
worth while to take the trouble necessary to show its utterly unscientific char,-
acter." Not the hypothesis alone, but the entire work is covered by the charge.

That work contains 187 pages of "Tables of Consanguinity and Affinity,"
exhibiting the systems of 139 tribes and nations of manliind representing four-
fifths, numerically, of the entire human family. It is singular that the bare
facts of consanguinity and affinity expressed by terms of relationship, even

5IO

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

when placed in tabular form, should possess an " utterly unscientific character."
The body of the work is taken up with the dry details of these several systems.
There remains a final chapter, consisting of 43 out of 590 pages, devoted to
a comparison of these several systems of consanguinity, in which this solution
or hypothesis appears. It was the first discussion of a large mass of new mate-
rial, and had Mr. McLennan's charge been limited to this chapter, there
would have been little need of a discussion here. But he has directed his
main attack against the Tables ; denying that the systems they exhibit are sys-
tems of consanguinity and affinity, thus going to the bottom of the subject.

Mr. McLennan's position finds an explanation in the fact, that as systems of
consanguinity and affinity they antagonize and refute the principal opinions and
the principal theories propounded in "Primitive Marriage." The author of
" Primitive Marriage " would be expected to stand by his preconceived opinions.

As systems of consanguinity, for example : (i.) They show that Mr. McLen-
nan's new terms, " Exogamy and Endogamy " are of questionable utility — that
as used in " Primitive Marriage," their positions are reversed, and that " endog-
amy " has very little application to the facts treated in that work, wliile " exog-
amy " is simply a rule of a gens, and should be stated as such. (2.) They refute
Mr. McLennan's phrase, " kinship through females only," by showing that kin-
ship through males was recognized as constantly as kinship through females by
the same people. (3.) They show that the Nair and Tibetan polyandry could
never have been general in the tribes of mankind. (4.) They deny both the
necessity and the extent of "wife stealing" as propounded in " Primitive Mar-
riage."

An examination of the grounds, upon which Mr. McLennan's charge is made,
will show not only the failure of his criticisms, but the insufficiency of the the-
ories on which these criticisms are based. Such an examination leads to results
disastrous to his entire work, as will be made evident by the discussion of the
following propositions, namely :

I. That the principal terms and theoiies employed in '' Primitive Marriage"
have no valne in Ethnology.

IL That Mr. McLennan's hypothesis to accotmt for the origin of the classifica-
tory system of relationship does not account for its origin.

IIL That Air. McLennan's objections to the hypothesis presented in ^^ Systems
of Consanguinity," etc., are of no force.

These propositions will be considered in the order named.

I. That the principal terms and theoiies employed in "Primitive Marriage"
have no value in Ethnology .

When this work appeared it was received with favor by ethnologists, because
as a speculative treatise it touched a number of questions upon which they
had long been working. A careful reading, however, disclosed deficiencies in
definitions, unwarranted assumptions, crude speculations and erroneous conclu-
sions. Mr. Herbert Spencer in his " Principles of Sociology " (Advance Sheets,
. « — — — ■

1 "The ra/Vw, however, are the main results of this investigation. In their importance
and vahie they reach beyond any present use of their contents the writer may be able to
indicate."— 5vj/tv«j 0/ Consanguzntty, etc., Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol.
xvii, p. 8.

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 5 1 1

Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1877, p. 272), has pointed out a number of
them. At the same time he rejects the larger part of Mr. McLennan's theories
respecting "Female Infanticide," "Wife Stealing," and "Exogamy and
Endogamy." What he leaves of this work, beyond its collocation of certain
ethnological facts, it is difficult to find.

It will be sufficient under this head to consider three points.

I. Mr. McLennan's use of the terms "Exogamy" and "Endogamy."

"Exogamy" and "endogamy" — terms of his own coinage — imply, respec-
tively, an obligation to " marry out," and an obligation to " marry in," a parti-
cular group of persons.

These terms are applied so loosely and so imprecisely by Mr. McLennan to
the organized groups made known to him by the authors he cites, that both his
terms and his conclusions are of little value. It is a fundamental difficulty
with " Primitive Marriage " that the gens and the tribe, or the groups they repre-
sent, are not distinguished from each other as members of an organic series, so
that it might be known of which group " exogamy " or " endogamy " is asserted.
One of eight gentes of a tribe, for example, may be " exogamous " with respect to
itself, and " endogamous " with respect to the seven remaining gentes. More-
over, these terms, in such a case, if correctly applied, are misleading. Mr.
McLennan seems to be presenting tivo great principles, representing distinct con-
ditions of society which have influenced human affairs. In point of fact, while
"endogamy" has very little application to conditions of society treated in
" Primitive Marriage," " exogamy " has reference to a rule or law of a gens — an
institution — and as such the unit of organization of a social system. It is the
gens that has influenced human affairs, and which is the primary fact. We are
at once concerned to know its functions and attributes, with the rights, privi-
leges and obligations of its members. Of these material circumstances Mr.
McLennan makes no account, nor does he seem to have had the slightest con-
ception of the gens as a governing institution of ancient society. Two of its
rules are the following : (r.) Intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. This is Mr.
McLennan's " exogamy " — restricted as it always is to a gens, but stated by
him without any reference to a gens. (2.) In the archaic form of the gens
descent is limited to the female line, which is Mr. McLennan's " kinship through
females only," and which is also stated by him without any reference to a
gens.

Let us follow this matter further. Seven definitions of tribal system, and of
tribe are given {Studies, etc., 113-115).

" Exogamy Pure. — I. Tribal (or family) system. — Tribes separate. All the
members of each tribe of the same blood, or feigning themselves to be so.
Marriage prohibited between the members of the tribe.

" 2. Tribal system. — Tribe a congeries of family grottps, falling into divisions,
clans, thums, etc. No connubium between members of same division : connu-
bium between all the division.s.

"3. Tribal system. — Tribe a congeries of family groups. * * * N« con-
nubium between persons whose family name points them out as being of the
same stock.

"4. Tribal system. — Tribe in divisions. No connubium between members

5 1 2 ANCIENT SOCIE T Y.

of the same divisions : connubium between some of the divisions ; only partial
connubium between others. * * *

"5. Ti'ibal system. — Tribe in divisions. No connubium between persons of
the same stocl: : connubium between each division and some other. No con-
nubium between some of the divisions. Caste.

" Endogamy Pure. 6. Tribal (or family) system. — Tribes separate. All the
members of each tribe of the same blood, or feigning themselves to be so. Con-
nubium between members of the tribe : marriage without the tribe forbidden
and punished.

"7. Tribal system indistinct." * * * The italics are mine.
Seven definitions of the tribal system ought to define the group called a tribe,
with sufficient distinctness to be recognized.

The first definition, however, is a puzzle. There are several tribes in a tribal
system, but no term for the aggregate of tribes. They are not supposed to form
a united body. Plow the separate tribes fall into a tribal system or are held
together does not appear. All the members of each tribe are of the same
blood, or pretend to be, and therefore cannot intermarry. This might answer
for a description of a gens ; but the gens is never found alone, separate from
other gentes. There are several gentes intermingled by marriage in every
tribe composed of gentes. But Mr. McLennan could not have used tribe here as
equivalent to gens, nor as a congeries of family groups. As separate bodies of
consanguinei held together in a tribal system, the bodies undefined and the system
unexplained, we are offered something altogether new. Definition 6 is much the
same. It is not probable that a tribe answering to either of these definitions
ever existed in any part of the earth ; for it is neither a gens, nor a tribe com-
posed of gentes, nor a nation formed by the coalescence of tribes.

Definitions 2d, 3d, 4th, and 5th are somewhat more intelligible. They
show in each case a tribe composed of gentes, or divisions based upon kin.
But it is a gentile rather than a tribal system. As marriage is allowed be-
tween the clans, thums, or divisions of the same tribe, " exogamy" cannot be
asserted of the tribe in either case. The clan, thum, or division is " exogamous,"
with respect to itself, but " endogamous" with respect to the other clans, thums,
or divisions. Particular restrictions are stated to exist in some instances.

When Mr. McLennan applies the terms "exogamy" or "endogamy "to a
tribe, how is it to be known whether it is one of several separate tribes in a
tribal system, whatever this may mean, or a tribe defined as a congeries of family
groups ? On the next page (iT6)he remarks : " The separate endogamous tribes
are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate
exogamous tribes." If he uses tribe as a congeries of family groups, which is a
tribe composed of gentes, then " exogamy " cannot be asserted of the tribe.
There is not the slightest probability that "exogamy" ever existed in a tribe
composed of gentes in any part of the earth. Wherever the gentile organization
has been found intermarriage in the gens is forbidden. It gives what Mr.
McLennan calls "exogamy." But, as an equally general rule, intermarriage
between the members of a gens and the members of all the other gentes of the
same tribe is permitted. The gens is "exogamous," and the tribe is essentially
" endogamous." In these cases, if in no others, it was material to know the

SEQ UENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 5 1 3

group covered hy the word tribe. Take another ilkistration (p. 42) : " If it can
be shown, firstly, that exogamous tribes exist, or have existed ; and, secondly,
that in ruder times the relations of separate tribes were uniformly, or almost
uniformly, hostile, we have found a set of circumstances in which men could get
wives only by capturing them." Here we find the initial point of Mr. McLen-
nan's theory of wife stealing. To make the " set of circumstances " (namely,
hostile and therefore independent tribes), tribe as used here must refer to the
larger group, a tribe composed of gentes. For the members of the several
gentes of a tribe are intermingled by marriage in every family throughout the
area occupied by the tribe. All the gentes must be hostile or none. If the
term is applied to the smaller group, the gens, then the gens is " exogamous,"
and the tribe, in the given case, is seven-eighths " endogamous," and what be-
comes of the " sec of circumstances " necessitating wife stealing?

The principal cases cited in " Primitive Marriage " to prove " exogamy" are
the Khonds, Kalmucks, Circassians, Yurak Samoyeds, certain. tribes of India and
Australia, and certain Indian tribes of America, the Iroquois among the number
(pp. 75—100). The American tribes are generally composed of gentes. A man
cannot marry a woman of the same gens with himself; but he may marry a
woman of any other gens of his own tribe. For example, a man of the Wolf
gens of the Seneca tribe of the Iroquois is prohibited from marrying a woman
of the same gens, not only in the Seneca tribe, but also in either of the five
remaining Iroquois tribes. Here we have Mr. McLennan's "exogamy," but
restricted, as it always is, to the gens of the individual. But a man may marry
a woman in either of the seven remaining Seneca gentes. Here we have
" endogamy" in the tribe, practiced by the members of each gens in the seven
remaining Seneca gentes. Both practices exist side by side at the same time, in
the sam2 tribe, and have so existed from time immemorial. The same fact is
true of the American Indian tribes in general. They are cited, nevertheless,
by Mr. McLennan, as examples of "exogamous tiibes"; and thus enter into the
basis of his theories.

With respect to " endogamy," Mr. McLennan would probably refrain from
using it in the above case : firstly, because " exogamy" and "endogamy" fail
here to represent two opposite principles as they exist in his imagination ; and,
secondly, because there is, in reality, but one fact to be indicated, namely, that
intermarriage in the gens is prohibited. American Indians generally can marry
in their own or in a foreign tribe as they please, but not in their gens. Mr.
McLennan was able to cite one fair case of " endogamy," that of the Mantchu
Tartars (p. 116), "who prohibited marriage between persons whose family
names are different." A few other similar cases have been found among exist-
ing tribes.

If the organizations, for example, of the Yurak Samoyeds of Siberia (82),
the Magars of Nepaul (83), the Munnieporees, Koupooees, Mows, Muram and
Murring tribes of India (S7), were examined upon the original evidence, it
is highly probable that they would be found exactly analogous to the Iroquois
tribes ; the "divisions " and "thums" being gentes. Latham, speaking of the
Yurak or Kasovo group of the Samoyeds, quotes from Klaproth, as follows :
" This division of the kinsmanship is so rigidly oljserved that no Samoyed takes
33

514 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

a wife from the kinsmansliip to which he himself belongs. On the contrary,
he seeks her in one of the other two." ^ The same author, speaking of the
Magars, remarks : " There are twelve thunis. All individuals belonging to
the same thum are supposed to be descended from the same male ancestor ;
descent from the same great mother being by no means necessary. So husband
and wife must belong to different thums. With one and the same there is no
marriage. Do you wish for a wife ? If so, look to the thum of your neighbor ;
at any rate look beyond your own. This is the first time I have had occasion
to mention this practice. It will not be the last : on the contrary, the princi-
ple it suggests is so common as to be almost universal." ^ The Murring and
other tribes of India are in divisions, with the same rule in respect to marriage.
In these cases it is probable that we have tribes composed of gentes, with inter-
marriage in the gens prohibited. Each gens is "exogamous" with respect to
itself, and " endogamous " with respect to the remaining gentes of the tribe.
They are cited by Mr. McLennan, nevertheless, rtj ^xaw/Z^fj of " exogafnous"
tribes. The principal Australian tribes are known to be organized in gentes,
with intermarriage in the gens prohibited. Here again the gens is " exogamous "
and the tribe "endogamous."

Where the gens is " exogamous" with respect to itself, and " endogamous "
with respect to the remaining gentes of the same tribe, of what use is this pair
of terms to mark what is but a single fact — the prohibition of intermarriage in
the gens? " Exogamy" and "endogamy" are of no value as a pair of terms,
pretending as they do to represent or express opposite conditions of society.
They have no application in American ethnology, and probably none in Asiatic
or European. " Exogamy," standing alone and applied to the small group (the
gens), of which only it can be asserted, might be tolerated. There are no
"exogamous" tribes in America, but a plenty of "exogamous" gentes; and
when the gens is found, we are concerned with its rules, and these should
always be stated as rules of a gens. Mr. McLennan found the clan, thum,
division, "exogamous," and the aggregate of clans, thums, divisions, "endoga-
mous " ; but he says nothing about the " endogamy." Neither does he say the
clan, division, or thum is "exogamous," but that the tribe is "exogamous."
We might suppose he intended to use tribe as equivalent to clan, thum, and
division ; but we are met with the difficulty that he defines a " tribe [as] a
congeries of family groups, falling into divisions, clans, thums, etc." (114),
and immediately (116) he remarks that "the separate endogamous tribes are
nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate ex-
ogamous tribes." If we take his principal definitions, it can be said without
fear of contradiction that Mr. McLennan has not produced a single case of an
" exogamous " tribe in his volume.

There is another objection to this pair of terms. They are set over against
each other to indicate opposite and dissimilar conditions of society. Which
of the two is the ruder, and which the more advanced ? Abundant cautions
are here thrown out by Mr. McLennan. "They may represent a progression
from exogamy to endogamy, or from endogamy to exogamy " (115) I " tliey may

* Descriptive Ethnology, Lond. ed., 1859, i, 475. * lb., i, 80.

SEQ UENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 5 1 5

be equally archaic " (116) ; and " they are in some respects " equally rude (116) ;
but before the discussion ends, " endogamy " rises to the superior position,
and stands over toward civilization, vifhile " exogamy " falls back in the direc-
tion of savagery. It became convenient in Mr. McLennan's speculations for
"exogamy" to introduce heterogeneity, which " endogamy " is employed to
expel, and bring in homogeneity ; so that " endogamy " finally gets the better ol
" exogamy " as an influence for progress.

One of Mr. Mcl.ennan's mistakes was his reversal of the positions of these
terms. What he calls " endogamy " precedes " exogamy " in the order of human
progress, and belongs to the lowest condition of mankind. Ascending to the
time when the Malayan system of consanguinity was formed, and which pre-
ceded the gens, we find consanguine groups in the marriage relation. The sys-
tem of consanguinity indicates both the fact and the character of the groups,
and exhibits "endogamy" in its pristine force. Advancing from this state of
things, the first check upon " endogamy " is found in the punaluan group, which
sought to exclude own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation, while
it retained in that relation first, second, and more remote cousins, still under
the name of brothers and sisters. The same thing precisely is found in the
Australian organization upon sex. Next in the order of time the gens ap-
peared, with descent in the female line, and with intermarriage in the gens
prohibited. It brought in Mr. McLennan's "exogamy." From this time for-
ward " endogamy " may be dismissed as an influence upon human affairs.

According to Mr. McLennan, "exogamy" fell into decay in advancing com-
munities ; and when descent was changed to the male line it disappeared in the
Grecian and Roman tribes (p. 220). So far from this being the case, what he
calls " exogamy " commenced in savagery with the gens, continued through bar-
barism, and remained intocivilization. It existed as completely in the gentes
of the Greeks and Romans in the time of Solon and of Servius Tullius as it
now exists in the gentes of the Iroquois. " Exogamy " and " endogamy" have
been so thoroughly tainted by the manner of their use in " Primitive Marriage,"
that the best disposition which can now be made of them is to lay them aside.

2. Mr. McLennan'' s phrase : " the system of kinship through females only."

" Primitive Marriage " is deeply colored with this phrase. It asserts that this
kinship, where it prevailed, was the only kinship recognized ; and thus has an
error written on its face. The Turanian, Ganowanian and Malayan systems
of consanguinity show plainly and conclusively that kinship through males was
recognized as constantly as kinship through females. A man had brothers and
sisters, grandfathers and grandmothers, grandsons and granddaughters, traced
through males as well as through females. The maternity of children was
ascertainable with certainty, while their paternity was not ; but they did not
reject kinship through males because of uncertainty, but gave the benefit of the
doubt to a number of persons — probable fathers being placed in the category
of real fathers, probable brothers in that of real brothers, and probable sons in
that of real sons.

After the gens appeared, kinship through females had an increased importance,
because it now signified _<rt'«///d' kin, as distinguished from ;;^«-^r«// A" /('/«. This
was the kinship, in a majority of cases, made known to Mr. IMcLennan by tlie

5 16 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

authors he cites. The children of the female members of the gens remained
within it, while the children of its male members were excluded. Every member
of the gens traced his or her descent through females exclusively when descent
was in the female line, and through males exclusively when descent was in the
male line. Its members were an organized body of consanguine! bearing a
common gentile name. They were bound together by affinities of blood, and
by the further bond of mutual rights, privileges, and obligations. Gentile kin
became, in both cases, superior to other kin ; sot because no other kin was
recognized, but because it conferred the rights and privileges of a gens. Mr.
McLennan's failure to discover this difference indicates an insufficient investi-
gation of the subject he was treating. With descent in the female line, a man
had grandfathers and grandmothers, mothers, brothers and sisters, uncles,
nephews and nieces, and grandsons and granddaughters in his gens ; some own
and some collateral ; while he had the same out of his gens with the exception
of uncles ; and in addition, fathers, aunts, sons and daughters, and cousins. A
woman had the same relatives in the gens as a man, and sons and daughters in
addition, while she had the same relatives out of the gens as a man. Whether
in or out of the gens, a brother was recognized as a brother, a father as a father,
a son as a son, and the same term was applied in either case without discrimi-
nation between them. Descent in the female line, which is all that " kinship
through females only " can possibly indicate, is thus seen to be a rule of a gens,
and nothing more. It ought to be stated as such, because the gens is the pri-
mary fact, and gentile kinship is one of its attributes.

Prior to the gentile organization, kinship through females was undoubtedly
superior to kinship through males, and was doubtless the principal basis upon
which the lower tribal groups were organized. But the body of facts treated
in "Primitive Marriage" have little or no relation to that condition of man-
kind which existed prior to the gentile system.

3. There is no evidence of the general prevalence of the Nair and Tibetan
polyandry.

These forms of polyandry are used in Mr. McLennan's speculations as
though universal in practice. He employs them in his attempted explanation
of the origin of the classificatory system of relationship. The Nair polyandry is
where several unrelated persons have one wife in common (p. 146). It is called
the rudest form. The Tibetan polyandry is where several brothers have one
wife in common. He then makes a rapid flight through the tribes of mankind
to show the general prevalence of one or the other of these forms of polyandry,
and fails entirely to show their prevalence. It does not seem to have occurred
to Mr. McLennan that these forms of polyandry are exceptional, and that they
could not have been general even in the Neilgherry Hills or in Tibet. If an
average of three men had one wife in common (twelve husbands to one wife
was the Nair limit, p. 147), and this was general through a tribe, two-thirds of
the marriageable females would be without husbands. It may safely be asserted
that such a state of things never existed generally in the tribes of mankind, and
without better evidence it cannot be credited in the Neilgherry Hills or in
Tibet. The facts in respect to the Nair polyandry are not fully known. " A
Nair may be one in several combinations of husbands ; that is, he may have any

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 5 1 7

number of wives " (p. 14S). This, however, would not help the unmarried females
to husbands, although it would increase the number of husbands of one wife.
Female infanticide cannot be sufficiently exaggerated to raise into general
prevalence these forms of polyandiy. Neither can it be said with truth that
they have exercised a general influence upon human affairs.

The Malayan, Turanian and Ganowanian systems of consanguinity and affin-
ity, however, bring to light forms of polygyny and polyandry which have influ-
enced human affairs, because they were as universal in prevalence as these
systems were, when they respectively came into existence. In the Malayan
system, we find evidence of consanguine groups founded upon brother and sister
marriages, but including collateral brothers and sisters in the group. Here
the men lived in polygyny, and the women in polyandry. In the Turanian and
Ganowanian system we find evidence of a more advanced group — the punaluan
in two forms. One was founded on the brotherhood of the husbands, and the
other on the sisterhood of the wives ; own brothers and sisters being now ex-
cluded from the marriage relation. In each group the men were polygynous, and
the women polyandrous. Both practices are found in the same group, and
both are essential to an explanation of their system of consanguinity. The
last-named system of consanguinity and affinity presupposes punaluan marriage
in the group. This and the Malayan exhibit the forms of polygyny and poly-
andry with which ethnography is concerned ; while the Nair and Tibetan forms
of polyandry are not only insufficient to explain the systems, but are of no
general importance.

These systems of consanguinity and affinity, as they stand in the Tables, have
committed such havoc with the theories and opinions advanced in " Primitive
Marriage" that I am constrained to ascribe to this fact Mr. McLennan's assault
upon my liypodiesis explanatory of their origin ; and his attempt to substitute
another, denying them to be systems of consanguinity and affinity.

II. That Mr. ]\IcLe7inans hypothesis to account for the origin of the classif-
catory system does not account for its origin.

■ Mr. McLennan sets out with the statement (p. 372) that " the phenomena
presented in all the forms [of the classificatory system] are ultimately refer-
able to the marriage law ; and that accordingly its origin must be so also.'
This is the basis of my explanation ; it is but partially that of his own.

The marriage-law, under which he attempts to explain the origin of the Ma-
layan system, is that found in the Nair polyandry ; and the marriage-law under
which he attempts to explain the origin of the Turanian and Ganowanian
system is that indicated by the Tibetan polyandry. But he has neither the
Nair nor Tibetan system of consanguinity and affinity, with which to explain or
to test his hypothesis. He starts, then, without any material from Nair or
Tibetan sources, and with forms of marriage-law that never existed among the
tribes and nations possessing the classificatory system of relationship. We
thus find at the outset that the explanation in question is a mere random specu-
lation.

Mr. McLennan denies that the systems in the Tsihl&s {Consangtiinity, -p^.
298-382 ; 523-567) are systems of consanguinity and affinity. On the contrary,
he asserts that together jhey are "a system of modes of addressing persons."

5l8 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

He is not unequivocal in his denial, but the purport of his language is to that
effect. In my work of Consanguinity I pointed out the fact that the American
Indians in familiar intercourse and in formal salutation addressed each other
by the exact relationship in which they stood to each other, and never by the
personal name ; and that the same usage prevailed in South India and in
China. They use the system in salutation because it is a system of consanguin-
ity and affinity — a reason paramount. Mr. McLennan wishes us to believe
that these all-embracing systems were simply conventional, and formed to ena-
ble persons to address each other in salutation, and for no other purpose. It is
a happy way of disposing of these systems, and of throwing away the most
remarkable record in existence respecting the early condition of mankind.

Mr. McLennan imagines there must have been a system of consanguinity
somewhere entirely independent of the system of addresses; "for it seems
reasonable to believe," he remarks (p. 373), " that the system of blood-ties and
the system of addresses would begin to grow up together, and for some little
time would have a common history." A system of blood-ties is a system of
consanguinity. Where, then, is the lost system ? Mr. McLennan neither pro-
duces it nor shows its existence. But I find he uses the systems in the
Tables rtj systems of consangtiinity and affinity, so far as they serve his hypothe-
sis, without taking the trouble to modify the assertion that they are simply
" modes of addressing persons."

That savage and barbarous tribes the world over, and through untold ages,
should have been so solicitous concerning the proper mode of addressing rela-
tions as to have produced the Malayan, Turanian and Ganowanian systems,
in their fullness and complexity, for that purpose and no other, and no other
systems than these two — that in Asia, Africa, Polynesia, and America they
should have agreed, for example, that a given person's grandfather's brother
should be addressed as grandfather, that brothers older than one's self should be
addressed as elder brothers, and those younger as younger brothers, merely to
provide a conventional mode of addressing relatives — are coincidences so re-
markable and for so small a reason, that it will be quite sufficient for the author
of this brilliant conception to believe it.

A system of modes of addressing persons would be ephemeral, because all con-
ventional usages are ephemeral. They would, also, of necessity, be as diverse as
the races of mankind. But a system of consanguinity is a very different thing.
Its relationships spring from the family and the marriage-law, and possess even
greater permanence than the family itself, which advances while the system
remains unchanged. These relationships expressed the actual facts of the so-
cial condition when the system was formed, and have had a daily importance in
the life of mankind. Their uniformity over immense areas of the earth, and
their preservation through immense periods of time, are consequences of their
connection with the marriage-law.

When the Malayan system of consanguinity was formed, it may be supposed
that a mother could perceive that her own son and daughter stood to her in
certain relationships that could be expressed by suitable terms ; that her own
mother and her mother's own mother stood to her in certain other relation-
ships ; that the other children of her own mother stood to her in still other

SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS. 519

relationships ; and that the children of her own daughter stood to her in still
others — all of which might be expressed by suitable terms. It would give the
beginning of a system of consanguinity founded upon obvious blood-ties. It
would lay the foundation of the five categories of relations in the Malayan sys-
tem, and without any reference to marriage-law.

When marriage in the group and the consanguine family came in, of both of
•which the Malayan system affords evidence, the system would spread over the
group upon the basis of these primary conceptions. With the intermarriage of
brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group, the resulting system of con-
sanguinity and affinity would be Malayan. Any hypothesis explanatory of the
origin of the Malayan system must fail if these facts are ignored. Such a form
of marriage and of the family would create the Malayan system. It would be
a system of consanguinity and affinity from the beginning, and explainable
only as such.

If these views are correct, it will not be necessary to consider in detail the
points of Mr. McLennan's hypothesis, which is too obscure for a philosophical
discussion, and utterly incapable of affording an explanation of the origin of
these systems.

III. That Air. McLtnnan^s objections to the hypothesis presented in '^Systems
of Consanguinity ," etc. , are of nc foire.

The same misapprehension of the facts, and the same confusion of ideas
which mark his last Essay, also appear in this. He does not hold distinct
the relationships by consanguinity and those by marriage, when both exist be-
tween the same persons ; and he makes mistakes in the relationships of the
systems also. ,

It will not be necessary to follow step by step Mr. Mcl.ennan's criticisms
upon this hypothesis, some of which are verbal, others of which are distorted,
and none of which touch the essence of the questions involved. The first pro-
position he attempts to refute is stated by him as follows : " The Malayan
system of relationships is a system of blood-relationships. Mr. Morgan assumes
this, and says nothing of the obstacles to making the assumption " (p. 342). It
is in part a system of blood-relationships, and in part of marriage-relationships.
The fact is patent. The relationships of father and mother, brother and sister,
elder or younger, son and daughter, uncle and aunt, nephew and niece and
cousin, grandfather and mother, grandson and daughter ; and also of brother-
in-law and sister-in-law, son-in-law and daughter-in-law, besides others, are
given in the Tables and were before Mr. McLennan. These systems speak
for themselves, and could say nothing else but that they are systems of consan-
guinity and affinity. Does Mr. Mcl^ennan suppose that the tribes named had
a system other or different from that presented in the Tables? If he did, he
was bound to produce it, or to establish the fact of its existence. He does
neither.

Two or three of his special points may be considered. " And indeed," he
remarks (p. 346), " if a man is called the son of a woman who did not bear
him, his being so called clearly defies explanation on the principle of natural
descents. The reputed relationship is not, in that case, the one actually exist-
ing as near as the parentage of individuals could be known ; and accordingly

520

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

Mr. Morgan's proposition is not made out." On the face of the statement the
question involved is not one of parentage, but of marriage-relationship. A man
calls his mother's sister his mother, and she calls him her son, although she did
not bear him. This is the case in the Malayan, Turanian and Ganowanian sys-
tems. Whether we have consanguine or punaluan marriages, a man's mother's
sister is the wife of his reputed father. She is his step-mother as near as our
system furnishes an analogue ; and among ourselves a stepmother is called
mother, and she calls her step-son, son. It defies explanation, it is true, as a
blood-relationship, which it does not pretend to be, but as a marriage-relation-
ship, which it pretends to be, this is the explanation. The reasoning of Mr.
McLennan is equally specious and equally faulty in a number of cases.

Passing from the Malayan to the Turanian system, he remarks (p. 354) : " It
follows from this that a man's son and his sister's daughter, while reptitea
brother and sister, would have been free, when the ' tribal organization ' had
been established, to intermany, for they belonged to different tribes of descent."
From this he branches out in an argument of two or three pages to prove that
"Mr. Morgan's reason, then, is insufficient." If Mr. McLennan had studied
the Turanian or the Ganowanian system of consanguinity with very moderate
attention, he would have found that a " man's son and his sister's daughter "
are not " reputed brother and sister." On the contrary, they are cottsiiis. This
is one of the most obvious as well as important differences between the Malayan
and Turanian systems, and the one which expresses the difference between the
consanguine family of the Malayan, and the punaluan family of the Turanian
system.

The general reader will hardly take the trouble necessary to master the
details of these systems. Unless he can follow the relationships with ease and
freedom, a discussion of the system will be a source of perplexity rather than
of pleasure. Mr. McLennan uses the terms of relationship freely, but without,
in all cases, using them correctly.

In another place (p. 360), Mr. McLennan attributes to me a distinction
between marriage and cohabitation which I have not made ; and foil' jws it with
a rhetorical flourish quite equal to the best in " Primitive Marriage."

Finally, Mr. McLennan plants himself upon two alleged mistakes which
vitiate, in his opinion, my explanation of the origin of the classificatory system.
" In attempting to explain the origin of the classificatory system, Mr. Morgan
made two radical mistakes. His first mistake was, that he did not steadily
contemplate the main peculiarity of the system — its classification of the con-
nected persons ; that he did not seek the origin of the system in the origin
of the classification " (p. ^60). What is the diff'erence in this case, between the
system and the classi/id^tn? The two mean the same thing, and cannot by
any possibility be made to mean anything different. To seek the oiigin of one
is to seek the origin of the other.

"The second mistake, or rather I should say error, was to have so lightly
assumed the system to be a system of blood ties" (p. 361). There is no error
here, since the persons named in the Tables are descended from common ances-
tors, or connected by marriage with some one or more of them. They are the
same persons who are described in the Table showing the Aryan, Semitic, and

si: q uence of ins titu tions. 5 2 1

Uralian systems (Consanguinity, pp. 79-127). In each and all of these sys-
tems they are bound to each other in fact by consanguinity and affinity. In the
latter each relationship is specialized ; in the former they are classified in cate-
gories ; but in all alike the ultimate basis is the same, namely, actual consan-
guinity and affinity. Marriage in the group in the former, and marriage
between single pairs in the latter, produced the difference between them. In the
Malayan, Turanian and Ganowanian systems, there is a solid basis for the blood-
relationships they exhibit in the common descent of the persons ; and for the
marriage-relationships we must look to the form of marriage they indicate.
Examination and comparison show that two distinct forms of marriage are
requisite to explain the Malayan and Turanian systems ; whence the applica-
tion, as tests of consanguine marriage in one case, and a punaluan marriage
in the other.

While the terms of relationship are constantly used in salutation, it is because
they are terms of relationship that they are so used. Mr. McLennan's attempt
to turn them into conventional modes of addressing persons is futile. Although
he lays great stress upon this view he makes no use of them as " modes of ad-
dress " in attempting to explain their origin. So far as he makes any use of them
he employs them strictly as terms of consanguinity and affinity. It was as im-
possible that " a system of modes of addressing persons" should have grown
up independently of the system of consanguinity and affinity (p. 373), as that
language should have grown up independently of the ideas it represents and
expresses. What could have given to these terms their significance as used in
addressing relatives, but the relationship whether of consanguinity or affinity
which they expressed ? The mere want of a mode of addressing persons could
never have given such stupenduous systems, identical in minute details over
immense sections of the earth.

Upon the essential difference between Mr. INIcLennan's explanation of the
origin of the classificatory system, and the one presented in this volume —
whether it is a system of modes of addressing persons, or a system of consan-
guinity and affinity — I am quite content to submit the question to the judgment
of the reader.

PART IV.
GROWTH OF THE IDEA OF PROPERTY.

CHAPTER I.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE.

Property in the Status of Savagery. — Slow Rate of Progress. —
First Rule of Inheritance. — Property Distributed among the Gen-
tiles.— Property in the Lower Status of Barbarism. — Germ of Second
Rule of Inheritance. — Distributed among Agnatic Kindred. — Im-
proved Character of Man. — Property in Middle Status. — Rule ok
Inheritance imperfectly Known. — Agnatic Inheritance Probable.

It remains to consider the growth of property in the
several ethnical periods, the rules that sprang up with re-
spect to its ownership and inheritance, and the influence
which it exerted upon ancient society.

The earliest ideas of property were intimately associated
with the procurement of subsistence, which was the primary
need. The objects of ownership would naturally increase
in each successive ethnical period with the m uTtlpTic a t i o n
of those arts upon which the means of subsistence de-
j^e^dod • Til e "grcr^' llr "uF-pi'upei Ly w untd Ih li s"Teep~p"are' i
with the progress of inventions and discoveries. Each
ethnical period shows a marked advance upon its predeces-
sor, not only in the number of inventions, but also in the
variety and amount of property which resulted therefrom.
The multiplicity of the forms of property would be accom-
panied by the growth of certain regulations with reference
to its possession and inheritance. The customs upon which
these rules of proprietary possession and inheritance de-
pend, are determined and modified by the condition and
progress of the social organization. The growth of prop-

526

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

erty is thus closely connected with the increase of inven-
tions and discoveries, and with the improvement of social
institutions which mark the several ethnical periods of hu-
man progress.

I. Property in the Status of Savagery.

In any view of the case, it is difficult to conceive of the
condition of mankind in this early period of their existence,
when divested of all they had gained through inventions
and discoveries, and through the growth of ideas em-
bodied in institutions, usages and customs. Human pro-
gress from a state of absolute ignorance and inexperience
was slow in time, but geometrical in ratio. Mankind may
be traced by a chain of necessary inferences back to a time
when, ignorant of fire, without articulate language, and
without artificial weapons, they depended, like the wild
animals, upon the spontaneous fruits of the earth. Slow-
ly, almost imperceptibly, they advanced through savagery,
from gesture language and imperfect sounds to articulate
speech ; from the club, as the first weapon, to the spear
pointed with flint, and finally to the bow and arrow ; from the
flint-knife and chisel to the stone axe and hammer ; from
the ozier and cane basket to the basket coated with clay,
which gave a vessel for boiling food with fire ; and, finally,
to the art of pottery, which gave a vessel able to withstand
the fire. In the means of subsistence, they advanced from
natural fruits in a restricted habitat to scale and shell fish
on the coasts of the sea, and finally to bread roots and
game. Rope and string-making from filaments of bark, a
species of cloth made of vegetable pulp, the tanning of
skins to be used as apparel and as a covering for tents, and
finally the house constructed of poles and covered with
bark, or made of plank split by stone wedges, belong, with
those previously named, to the Status of Savagery. Among
minor inventions may be mentioned the fire-drill, the moc-
casin and the snow-shoe.

Before the close of this period, mankind had learned to
support themselves in numbers in comparison with primi-
tive times; they had propagated themselves over the face

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. $2/

of the earth, and come into possession of all the possibili-
ties of the continents in favor of human advancement. In
social organization, they had advancediiQia the consanguine
horde into tribes organized in gentes, and thus became
possessed of the germs of the principal governmental insti-
tutions. The human race was now successfully launched
upon its great career for the attainment of civilization,
which even then, with articulate language among inven-
tions, with the art of pottery among arts, and with the
gentes among institutions, was substantially assured.

The period of savagery wrought immense changes in the
condition of mankind. That portion, which led the advance,
had finally organized gentile society and developed small
tribes with villages here and there which tended to stimu-
late the inventive capacities. Their rude energies and ruder
arts had been chiefly devoted to subsistence. They had
not attained to the village stockade for defense, nor to fari-
naceous food, and the scourge of cannibalism still pursued
them. The arts, inventions and institutions named repre-
sent nearly the sum of the acquisitions of mankind in sav-
agery, with the exception of the marvelous progress in-
language. In the aggregate it seems small, but it was im-
mense potentially ; because it embraced the rudiments of
language, of government, of the family, of religion, of house
architecture and of property, together with the principal
germs of the arts of life. All these their descendants
wrought out more fully in the period of barbarism, and
their civilized descendants are still perfecting.

But the property of savages was inconsiderable. Their
ideas concerning its value, its desirability and its inherit-
ance were feeble. Rude weapons, fabrics, utensils, appa-
rel, implements of flint, stone and bone, and personal orna-
ments represent the chief items of property in savage life.
A passion for its possession had scarcely been formed in their
minds, because the thing itself scarcely existed." It was left
to the then distant period of civilization to develop into
L full vitality that " greed of gain " {studiuni lucri), which is
^now such a commanding force in the human mind. Lands,
\

528 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

as yet hardly a subject of property, were owned by the tribes
in common, while tenement houses were owned jointly by
their occupants. Upon articles purely personal, which were
increasing with the slow progress of inventions, the great
%^ passion was'nbhrrsHing its nascenTpowers. Those esteemed
^ jnost^ valuable were dej30sked_in_Jtlxe.^aY^.^fjth

proprietor for his continued use_m-tlie...spirit4and. What
remained was sufficient to raise the question of its inherit-
ance. Of the manner of its distribution before the organ-
ization into gentes, our information is limited, or altogether
wanting. With the institution of the gens came in the first
great rule of inheritance, which distributed the effects of a
deceased person among his gentiles. Practically they were
appropriated by the nearest of kin ; but the principle was
general, that the property should remain in the gens of
the decedent, and be distributed among its members. This
principle was maintained into civilization by the Grecian
and Latin gentes. Children inherited from their mother,
but took nothing from their reputed father.
II. Property in the Lower Status of Barbarism.
From the invention of pottery to the domestication of
animals, or, as an equivalent, the cultivation of maize and
plants by irrigation, the duration of the period must have
been shorter than that of savagery. With the exception
of the art of pottery, finger weaving and the art of culti-
vation, in America, which gave farinaceous food, no great
invention or discovery signalized this ethnical period. It
was more distinguished for progress in the development of
institutions. Finger weaving, with warp and woof, seems
to belong to this period, and it must rank as one of the
greatest of inventions ; but it cannot be certainly affirmed
that the art was not attained in savagery. The Iroquois
and other tribes of America in the same status, manu-
factured belts and burden-straps with warp and woof of
excellent quality and finish ; using fine twine made of fila-
ments of elm and basswood bark.* The principles of this
great invention, which has since clothed the human family,

' League of the Iroquois, p. 364.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE.

529

were perfectly realized ; but they were unable to extend it
to the production of the woven garment. Picture writing
also seems to have made its first appearance in this period.
If it originated earlier, it now received a very considerable
development. It is interesting as one of the stages of an
art which culminated in the invention of a phonetic alpha-
bet. The series of connected inventions seem to have been
the following: i. Gesture Language, or the language of
personal symbols ; 2. Picture Writing, or idiographic sym-
bols ; 3. Hieroglyphs, or conventional symbols ; 4. Hiero-
glyphs of phonetic power, or phonetic symbols used in a
syllabus; and 5, a Phonetic Alphabet, or written sounds.
Since a language of written sounds was a growth through
successive stages of development, the rise of its antecedent
processes is both important and instructive. The charac-
ters on the Copan monuments are apparently hieroglyphs
of the grade of conventional symbols. They show that the
American aborigines, who practiced the first three forms,
were proceeding independently in the direction of a pho-
netic alphabet.

The invention of the stockade as a means of village
defense, of a raw-hide shield as a defense against the arrow,
which had now become a deadly missile, of the several vari-
eties of the war-club, armed with an encased stone or with a
point of deer horn, seem also to belong to this period. At
all events they were in common use among the American In-
dian tribes in the Lower Status of barbarism when discov-
ered. The spear pointed with flint or bone was not a cus-
tomary weapon with the forest tribes, though sometimes
used.* This weapon belongs to the period of savagery, be-
fore the bow and arrow were invented, and reappears as a
prominent weapon in the Upper Status of barbarism, when
the copper-pointed spear came into use, and close combat
became the mode of warfare. The bow and arrow and the
war-club were the principal weapons of the American abo-

' For example, the Ojibwas used the lance or spear, She-ma'-gun, pointed
with flint or bone.
34

530 ANCIENT SOCIRTY.

rigines in the Lower Status of barbarism. Some progress
was made in pottery in the increased size of the vessels pro-
duced, and in their ornamentation;' but it remained ex-
tremely rude to the end of the period. There was a sensible
advance in house architecture, in the size and mode of con-
struction. Among minor inventions were the air-gun for
bird-shooting, the wooden mortar and pounder for reducing
maize to flour, and the stone mortar for preparing paints ;
earthen and stone pipes, with the use of tobacco ; bone and
stone implements of higher grades, with stone hammers and
mauls, the handle and upper part of the stone being encased
in raw hide ; and moccasins and belts ornamented with por-
cupine quills. Some of these inventions were borrowed,
not unlikely, from tribes in the Middle Status ; for it was by
this process constantly repeated that the more advanced
tribes lifted up those below them, as fast as the latter were
able to appreciate and to appropriate the means of progress.

Thoxultivation of maize and plants gave the people un-
leavened bread, the Indian siiccotaslirand hominy. It also
tended to_introduce a new species of property, namely, cul-
tivated lands or gar^ns. AltliouglTTTands were ownedjn
common by the tribe, a possessory right to cultivated land
was now recognized in the individual, or in the group, which
became a subject of inheritance. The group united in a
common household were mostly of the same gens, and the
rule of inheritance would not allow it to be detached from
the kinship.

The property and effects of husband and wife were kept
distinct, and remained after their demise in the gens to
which each respectively belonged. The wife and children
took nothing from the husband and father, and the husband
took nothing from the wife. Among the Iroquois, if a man
died leaving a wife and children, his property was distri-
buted among his gentiles in such a manner that his sisters

* The Creeks made earthen vessels holding from two to ten gallons (Adair's
History of American Indians, p. 424) ; and the Iroquois ornamented their jars
and pipes with miniature human faces attached as buttons. This discovery was
recently made by Air. Y . A. Gushing, of the Smithsonian Institution.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 531

and their children, and his maternal uncles, would receive the
most of it. His brothers might receive a small portion. If
a woman died, leaving a husband and children, her children,
her sisters, and her mother and her sisters inherited her
effects ; but the greater portion was assigned to her children.
In each case the property remained in the gens. Among
the Ojibwas, the effects of a mother were distributed among
her children, if old enough to use them ; otherwise, or in
default of children, they went to her sisters, and to her
mother and her sisters, to the exclusion of her brothers.
Although they had changed descent to the male line, the
inheritance still followed the rule which prevailed when
descent was in the female line.

The variety and amount of property were greater than in
savagery, but still not sufficient to develop a strong senti-
ment in relation to inheritance. Ln^the mode of distribu-
t i onabove given may be recognized, as elsewhere stated,
the germ of the second great rule of inheritance, which
gave the property to the^aghatic Icmdred, to the exclusion
of the remaining gentiles. Agnation and agnatic kindred,
as now defined, assume descent in the male line; but the
persons included would be very different from those with
descent in the female line. The principle is the same in
both cases, and the terms seem as applicable in the one as
in the other. With descent in the female line, the agnates
are those persons who can trace their descent through fe-
males exclusively from the same common ancestor with the
intestate ; in the other case, who can trace their descent ■
through males exclusively. It is the blood connection of
persons within the gens by direct descent, in a given line,
from the same common ancestor which lies at the founda-
tion of agnatic relationship.

At the present time, among the advanced Indian tribes,
repugnance to gentile inheritance has begun to manifest
itself. In some it has been overthrown, and an exclusive
inheritance in children substituted in its place. Evidence
of this repugnance has elsewhere been given, among the
Iroquois, Creeks, Cherokees, Choctas, Menominees, Crows

532

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

and Ojibwas, with references to the devices adopted to
enable fathers to give their property, now largely increased
in amount, to their children.

The diminution of cannibalism, that brutalizing scourge
of savagery, was very marked in the Older Period of bar-
barism. It was abandoned as a common practice; but re-
mained as a war practice, as elsewhere explained, through
this, and into the Middle Period. In this form it was found
in the principal tribes of the United States, Mexico, and
Central America. The acquisition of farinaceous food was
the principal means of extricating mankind from this sav-
age custom.

We have now passed over, with a mere glance, two ethni-
cal periods, which covered four-fifths, at least, of the entire
existence of mankind upon the earth. While in the Lower
Status, the higher attributes of man began to manifest
themselves. Personal dignity, eloquence in speech, relig-
ious sensibility, rectitude, manliness and courage were now
common traits of character; but cruelty, treachery and
fanaticism were equally common. Element worship in
religion, with a dim conception of personal gods, and of a
Great Spirit, rude verse-making, joint-tenement houses, and
bread from maize, belong to this period. jft_gjso produced
.the syndyasmian family, and the confederacy of tribes or-
ganized in gentes and phratrics. The imagination, that
great faculty which has contributed so largely to the eleva-
tion of mankind, was now producing an unwritten litera-
ture of myths, legends and traditions, which had already
become a powerful stimulus upon the race.

III. Property in the Uliddle Status of Barbarism.

The condition of mankind in this ethnical period has
been more completely lost than that of any other. It was
exhibited by the Village Indians of North and South Amer-
ica in barbaric splendor at the epoch of their discovery.
Their governmental institutions, their religious tenets, their
plan of domestic life, their arts and their rules in relation
to the ownership and inheritance of property, might have
been completely obtained ; but the opportunity was allowed

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 533

to escape. All that remains are scattered portions of the
truth buried in misconceptions and romantic tales.

This period opens in the Eastern hemisphei'e with the
domestication of animals, and in the Western with the ap-
pearance of the Village Indians, living in large joint-tene-
ment houses of adobe brick, and, in some areas, of stone
laid in courses. It was attended with the cultivation of
maize and plants by irrigation, which required artificial
canals, and garden beds laid out in squares, with raised

ridcres to contain the water until absorbed. When discov-
fc> »

ered, they were well advanced toward the close of the Mid-
dle Period, a portion of them having made bronze, which
brought them near the higher process of smelting iron ore./
The joint-tenement house was in the nature of a fortress,'
and held an intermediate position between the stockaded
village of the Lower, and the walled city of the Upper
Status. There were no cities, in the proper sense of the
term, in America when discovered. In the art of war they
had made but little progress, except in defense, by the con-
struction of great houses generally impregnable to Indian
assault. But they had invented the quilted mantle {escau-
piles), stuffed with cotton, as a further shield against the
arrow,' and the two-edged sword [inacuahuitr)^ each edge
having a row of angular flint points imbedded in the wooden
blade. They still used the bow and arrow, the spear, and
the war-club, flint knives and hatchets, and stone imple-
ments,' although they had the copper axe and chisel, which
for some reason never came into general use.

To maize, beans, squashes and tobacco, were now added
cotton, pepper, tomato, cacao, and the care of certain fruits.
A beer was made by fermenting the juice of the maguey.
The Iroquois, however, had produced a similar beverage by
fermenting maple sap. Earthen vessels of capacity to hold
several gallons, of fine texture and superior ornamentation,
w-ere produced by improved methods in the ceramic art.
Bowls, pots and water-jars were manufactured in abun-

' Hen-era, 1. c., iv, 16. ^ lb., iii, 13 ; iv, 16, 137. Clavigero, ii, 165.

^ Clavigero, ii, 23S. Herrera, ii, 145 ; iv, 133.

5 34 ANCIENT SOCIE TY.

dance. The discovery and use of the native metals first for
ornaments, and finally for implements and utensils, such as
the copper axe and chisel, belong to this period. The melt-
ing of these metals in the crucible, with the probable use of
the blow-pipe and charcoal, and casting them in moulds,
the production of bronze, rude stone sculptures, the woven
garment of cotton,^ the house of dressed stone, ideographs
or hieroglyphs cut on the grave-posts of deceased chiefs,
the calendar for measuring time, and the solstitial stone for
marking the seasons, cyclopean walls, the domestication of
the llama, of a species of dog, of the turkey and other
fowls, belong to the same period in America. A priesthood
organized in a hierarchy, and distinguished by a costume,
personal gods with idols to represent them, and human
sacrifices, appear for the first time in this ethnical period.
Two large Indian pueblos, Mexico and Cusco, now appear,
containing over twenty thousand inhabitants, a number un-
known in the previous period. The aristocratic element in
society began to manifest itself in feeble forms among the
chiefs, civil and military, through increased numbers under
the same government, and the growing complexity of
affairs.

Turning to the Eastern hemisphere, we find its native
tribes, in the corresponding period, with domestic animals
yielding them a meat and milk subsistence, but probably
without horticultural and without farinaceous food. When
the great discovery was made that the wild horse, cow,
sheep, ass, sow and goat might be tamed, and, when pro-
duced in flocks and herds, become a source of permanent
subsistence, it must have given a powerful impulse to
human progress. But the effect would not become general
until pastoral life for the creation and maintenance of flocks
and herds became established. Europe, as a forest area in
the main, was unadapted to the pastoral state ; but the
grass plains of high Asia, and upon the Euphrates, the
Tigris and other rivers of Asia, were the natural homes of
the pastoral tribes. Thither they would naturally tend ; and

' Hakluyt's Coll. of Voyages, 1. c, iii, 377-

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 535

to these areas we trace our own remote ancestors, where
they were found confronting like pastoral Semitic tribes.
The cultivation of cereals and plants must have preceded
their migration from the grass plains into the forest areas
of Western Asia and of Europe, It would be forced upon
them by the necessities of the domestic animals now incor-
porated in their plan of life. There are reasons, therefore,
for supposing that the cultivation of cereals by the Aryan
tribes preceded their western migration, with the exception
perhaps of the Celts. Woven fabrics of flax and wool, and
bronze implements and weapons appear in this period in
the Eastern hemisphere.

Such were the inventions and discoveries which signalized
the Middle Period of barbarism. Society was now more
highly organized, and its affairs were becoming more com-
plex. Differences in the culture of the two hemispheres
now existed in consequence of their unequal endowments;
but the main current of progress was steadily upward to a
knowledge of iron and its uses. To cross the barrier into
the Upper Status, metallic tools able to hold an edge and
point were indispensable. Iron was the only metal able to
answer these requirements. The most advanced tribes were
arrested at this barrier, awaiting the invention of the process
of smelting iron ore.

From the foregoing considerations it is evident that a
large increase of personal property had now occurred, and
some changes in the relations of persons to land. The ter-
ritorial domain still belonged to the tribe in common ; but
a portion was now set apart for the support of the govern-
ment, another for religious uses, and another and more im-
portant portion, that from which the people derived their
subsistence, was divided among the several gentes, or com-
munities of persons who resided in the same pueblo {supra,
p. 200). That any persons owned lands or houses in his own
right, with power to sell and convey in fee-simple to whom-
soever he pleased, is not only unestablished but improbable.
Their mode of owning their lands in common, by gentes,
or by communities of persons, their j oint-tenement houses,

536 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

and their mode of occupation by related families, precluded
the individual ownership of houses or of lands. A right to
sell an interest in such lands or in such houses, and to trans-
fer the same to a stranger, would break up their plan of life.*
The possessory right, which we must suppose existed in in-
dividuals or in families, was inalienable, except within the
gens, and on the demise of the person would pass by inher-
itance to his or her gentile heirs. Joint-tenement houses,
and lands in common, indicate a plan of life adverse to in-
dividual ownership.

The Moqui Village Indians, besides their seven large pue-
blos and their gardens, now have flocks of sheep, horses
and mules, and considerable other personal property. They
manufacture earthen vessels of many sizes and of excellent
quality, and woolen blankets in looms, and with yarn of
their own production. Major J. W. Powell noticed the fol-
lowing case at the pueblo of Oraybe, which shows that the
husband acquires no rights over the property of the wife, or
over the children of the marriage. A Zunian married an
Oraybe woman, and had by her three children. He resided
with them at Oraybe until his wife died, which occurred
while Major Powell was at the pueblo. The relatives of the
deceased wife took possession of her children and of her
household property; leaving to him his horse, clothing and
weapons. Certain blankets which belonged to him he was
allowed to take, but those belonging to his Avife remained.
He left the pueblo with Major Powell, saying he would go
with him to Santa Fe, and then return to his own peo-
ple at Zuni. Another case of a similar kind occurred at

' The Rev. Samuel Gorman, a missionary among the Laguna Pueblo Indians,
remarks in an address before the Historical Society of New Mexico (p. 12), that
" the right of property belongs to the female part of the family, and descends in
that line from mother to daughter. Their land is held in common, as the pro-
perty of the community, but after a person cultivates a lot he has personal claim

\.<:>\\., which he can sell to one of the community Their women,

generally, have control of the granary, and they are more provident than their
Spanish neighboi-s about the future. Ordinarily they try to have a year's pro-
visions on hand. It is only when two years of scarcity succeed each other, that
Pueblos, as a community, suii'er hunger."

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 537

another of the Moqui pueblos (She-po\v-e-luv-ih), which
also came to the notice of my informant. A woman died,
leaving children and a husband, as well as property. The
children and the property were taken by the deceased
wife's relatives ; all the husband was allowed to take was
his clothing. Whether he was a Moqui Indian or from
another tribe, Major Powell, who saw the person, did not
learn. It appears from these cases that the children be-
longed to the mother, and not to the father, and that he was
not allowed to take them even after the mother's death.
Such also was the usage among the Iroquois and other
northern tribes. Furthermore, the property of the wife was
kept distinct, and belonged to her relatives after her death.
It tends to show that the wife took nothing from her hus-
band, as an implication from the fact that the husband took
nothing from the wife. Elsewhere it has been shown that
this was the usage among the Village Indians of Mexico.

Women, as well as men, not unlikely, had a possessory
right to such rooms and sections of these pueblo houses as
they occupied ; and they doubtless transmitted these rights
to their nearest of kin, under established regulations. We
need to know how these sections of each pueblo are owned
and inherited, whether the possessor has the right to sell
and transfer to a stranger, and if not, the nature and limits
of his possessory right. We also need to know who inherits
the property of the males, and who inherits the property of
the females. A small amount of well-directed labor would
furnish the information now so much desired.

The Spanish writers have left the land tenure of the south-
ern tribes in inextricable confusion. When they found a
community of persons owning lands in common, which they
could not alienate, and that one person among them was
recognized as their chief, they at once treated these lands
as a feudal estate, the chief as a feudal lord, and the people
who owned the lands in common as his vassals. At best,
it was a perversion of the facts. One thing is plain, namely,
that these lands were owned in common by a community
of persons ; but one, not less essential, is not given, namely,

538

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

the bond of union which held these persons together. If a
gens, or a part of a gens, the whole subject would be at
once understood.

Descent in the female line still remained in some of the
tribes of Mexico and Central America, while in others, and
probably in the larger portion, it had been changed to the
male line. The influence of property must have caused the
change, that children might participate as agnates in the
inheritance of their father's property. Among the Mayas,
descent was in the male line, while among the Aztecs,
Tezcucans, Tlacopans and Tlascalans, it is difficult to deter-
mine whether it was in the male or the female line. It is
probable that descent was being changed to the male line
among the Village Indians generally, with remains of the
archaic rule manifesting themselves, as in the case of the
office of Teuctli. The change would not overthrow gentile
inheritance. It is claimed by a number of Spanish writers
that the children, and in some cases the eldest son, inherited
the property of a deceased father ; but such statements,
apart from an exposition of their system, are of little value.

Among the Village Indians, we should expect to find
the second great rule of inheritance which distributed the
property among the agnatic kindred. With descent in the
male line, the children of a deceased person would stand
at the head of the agnates, and very naturally receive the
greater portion of the inheritance. It is not probable that
the third great rule, which gave an exclusive inheritance to
the children of the deceased owner, had become established
among them. The discussion of inheritances by the earlier
and later writers is unsatisfactory, and devoid of accurate
information. Institutions, usages and customs still gov-
ernod the question, and could alone explain the system.
Without better evidence than we now possess, an exclusive
inheritance by children cannot be asserted.

CHAPTER II.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE — CONTINUED.

Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism. — Slavery. — Tenure
OF Lands in Grecian Tribes. — Culture of the Period. — Its Bril-
liancy.— Third Rule of Inheritance. — Exclusively in Children. —
Hebrew Tribes. — Rule of Inheritance. — Daughters of Zelophehad.
— Property remained in the Phratry, and probably in the Gens.^
The Reversion. — Athenian Inheritance. — Exclusively in Children.
— The Reversion. — Inheritance remained in the Gens. — Heiresses. —
Wills. — Roman Inheritance. — The Reversion. — Property remained in
the Gens. — Appearance of Aristocracy. — Property Career of the
Human Race. — Unity of Origin of Mankind.

The last great period of barbarism was never entered by
the American aborigines. It commenced in the Eastern,
according to the scheme adopted, with the production and
use of iron.

The process of smelting iron ore was the invention of
inventions, as elsewhere suggested, beside which all other
inventions and discoveries hold a subordinate position.
Mankind, notwithstanding a knowledge of bronze, were still
arrested in their progress for the want of efficient metallic
tools, and for the want of a metal of sufficient strength and
hardness for mechanical appliances. All these qualities
were found for the first time in iron. The accelerated pro-
gress of human intelligence dates from this invention. This
ethnical period, which is made forever memorable, was, in
many respects, the most brilliant and remarkable in the
entire experience of mankind. It is so overcrowded with

540 ANCIENT SO CIE T V.

achievements as to lead to a suspicion that many of the
works ascribed to it belong to the previous period.

IV. Property in the Upper Status of Barbarism. — Near
the end of this period, property in masses, consisting of
many kinds and held by individual ownership, began to be
common, through selfTe'd^agriculture, manufactures, local
tradeand foreign commerce ; but the old tenure of lands
under which they were held in common had not given
place, except in part, to ownership in severalty. System-
atic slavery originated ia _this status. It stands directly^
connected with the production of property. Out of it
came the patriarchal family of the Hebrew type, and the
similar family of the Latin tribes under paternal power, as
well as a modified form of the same family among the
Grecian tribes. From these causes, but more particularly
from the increased abundance of subsistence through field
agriculture, nations began to develop, numbering many
thousands under one government, where before they would
be reckoned by a few thousands. The localization of tribes
in fixed areas and in fortified cities, with the increase of
the numbers of the people, intensified the struggle for the
possession of the most desirable territories. It tended to
advance the art of war, and to increase the rewards of indi-
vidual prowess. These changes of condition and of the plan
of life indicate the approach of civilization, which was to
overthrow gentile and establish political society.

Although the inhabitants of the Western hemisphere
had no part in the experience which belongs to this status,
they were following down the same lines on which the
inhabitants of the Eastern had passed. They had fallen
behind the advancing column of the human race by just
the distance measured by the Upper Status of barbarism
and the superadded years of civilization.

We are now to trace the growth of the idea of property
in this status of advancement, as shown by its recognition
in kind, and by the rules that existed with respect to its
ownership and inheritance.

The earliest laws of the Greeks, Romans and Hebrews,

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 541

after civilization had commenced, did little more than turn
into legal enactments the results which their previous ex-
perience had embodied in usages and customs. Having
the final laws and the previous archaic rules, the interme-
diate changes, when not expressly known, may be inferred
with tolerable certainty.

At the close of the Later Period of barbarism, great
changes had occurred in the tenure of lands. It was gradu-
ally tending to two forms of ownership, namely, by the state
and by individuals. But this result was not fully secured
until after civilization had been attained. Lands among
the Greeks were still held, as we have seen, some by the
tribes in common, some by the phratry in common for
religious uses, and some by the gens in common ; but the
bulk of the lands had fallen under individual ownership in
severalty. \\~\ the time of Solon, while Athenian society
was still gentile, lands in general were owned by individuals,
who had already learned to mortgage them ; ' but individual
ownership was not then a new thing. The Roman tribes,
from their first establishment, had a public domain, the A^cr
Ronianns ; while lands were held by the curia for religious
uses, by the gens, and by individuals in severalty. After
these social corporations died out, the lands held by them
in common gradually became private property. Very little
is known beyond the fact that certain lands were held by
these organizations for special uses, while individuals were
gradually appropriating the substance of the national areas.

These several forms of ownership tend to show that the
oldest tenure, by which land was held, was by the tribe in
common ; that after its cultivati^ began, a portion of the
tribe lands was divided aiiLorLg-tlie-gentes^each of which
held their portion in common; and that this was followed,
in course oTlmveZhy aHotm-eiits-to-i-ndivid-uals, which allot-

'^EUVvvEzai yap 'SoXcov kv Tovzoii, on ryji re itpoijitomiixivrji

'^OpovS dvElXs TtoXXaxy itETtrfyorai'
7rpd6$£j' ds dovXevovGa, vvv kXev^ipa.

— riutarch, in Solon, c. xv.

542 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

ments finally ripened into individual ownership in severalty.
Unoccupied and waste lands still remained as the common
property of the gens, the tribe and the nation. This, sub-
stantially, seems to have been the progress of experience
with respect to the ownership of land. Personal property,
generally, was subject to individual ownership.

The monogamian family made its first appearance in the
Upper Status of barbarism, the growth of which out of a
previous syndyasmian form was intimately connected with
the increase of property, and with the usages in respect to
its inheritance. Descent had been changed to the male
line; but all property, real as well as personal, remained, as
it had been from time immemorial, hereditary in the gens.

Our principal information concerning the kinds of prop-
erty, that existed among the Grecian tribes in this period, is
derived from the Homeric poems, and from the early laws
of the period of civilization which reflect ancient usages.
Mention is made in the Iliad oi fences'^ around cultivated
fields, of an cnchmire of fifty acres {jtEvrrjKovroyvoi), half
of which was fit for vines and the remainder for tillage ; * and
it is said of Tydeus that he lived in a mansion rich in
resources, and had corn-producing fields in abundance.'
There is no reason to doubt that lands were then fenced
and measured, and held by individual ownership. It indi-
cates a large degree of progress in a knowledge of prop-
erty and its uses. Breeds of horses were already distin-
guished for particular excellence.* Herds of cattle and
flocks of sheep possessed by individuals are mentioned, as
" sheep of a rich man standing countless in the fold." ^
Coined money was still unknown, consequently trade was
by barter of commodities, as indicated by the follow-
ing lines : " Thence the long-haired Greeks bought wine,
some for brass, some for shining iron, others for hides,
some for the oxen themselves, and some for slaves.'" Gold
in bars, however, is named as passing by weight and esti-

^ Iliad, V, go. ^ lb., ix, 577. ^ H'-, xiv, 121. ^ Ih., v, 265.

'//'., iv, 433, Buckley's trans, "/<''•, vii, 472, Buckley's trans.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 543

mated by talents.' Manufactured articles of gold, silver,
brass and iron, and textile fabrics of linen and woolen in
many forms, together with houses and palaces, are men-
tioned. It will not be necessary to extend the illustrations.
Those given are sufficient to indicate the great advance
society had attained in the Upper Status of barbarism, in
contrast with that in the immediately previous period.

After houses and lands, flocks and herds, and exchange-
able commodities had become so great in quantity, and had
come to be held by individual ownership, the question of
their inheritance would press upon human attention until
the right was placed upon a basis which satisfied the grow-
ing intelligence of the Greek mind. Archaic usages would
be modified in the direction of later conceptions. The do-
mestic animals were a possession of greater value than all
kinds of property previously known put together. They
served for food, were exchangeable for other commodities,
were usable for redeeming captives, for paying fines, and in
sacrifices in the observance of their religious rites. More-
over, as they were capable of indefinite multiplication in
numbers, their possession revealed to the human mind its
first conception of wealth. Following upon this, in course
of time, was the systematical cultivation of the earth, which
tended to identify the family with the soil, and render it a
property-making organization. It soon found expression, in
the Latin, Grecian and Hebrew tribes, in the family under
paternal power, involving slaves and servants. Since the
labor of the father and his children became incorporated
more and more with the land, with the production of do-
mestic animals, and with the creation of merchandise, it
would not only tend to individualize the family, now mono-
gamian, but also to suggest the superior claims of children
to the inheritance of the property they had assisted in creat-
ing.. Before lands were cultivated, flocks and herds would
naturally fall under the joint ownership of persons united
in a group, on a basis of kin, for subsistence. Agnatic in-
heritance would be apt to assert itself in this condition of

^ Iliad, xii, 274.

544 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

things. But when lands had become the subject of prop-
erty, and allotments to individuals had resulted in individ-
ual ownership, the third great rule of inheritance, which
gave the property to the children of the deceased owner,
was certain to supervene upon agnatic inheritance. There
is no direct evidence that strict agnatic inheritance ever
existed among the Latin, Grecian or Hebrew tribes, ex-
cepting in the reversion, established alike in Roman, Gre-
cian and Hebrew law; but that an exclusive agnatic inher-
itance existed in the early period may be inferred from the
reversion.

When field agriculture had demonstrated that the whole
surface of the earth could be made the subject of property
owned by individuals in severalty, and it was found that the
head of the family became the natural center of accumula-
tion, the new property career of mankind was inaugurated.
It was fully done before the close of the Later Period of
barbarism. A little reflection must convince any one of
the powerful influence property would now begin to exer-
cise upon the human mind, and of the great awakening of
new elements of character it was calculated to produce.
Evidence appears, from many sources, that the feeble im-
pulse aroused in the ,savage mind had now become a tre-
mendous passion in the splendid barbarian of the heroic
age. Neither archaic nor later usages could maintain them-
selves in such an advanced condition. The time had now
arrived when monogamy, having assured the paternity of
children, would assert and maintain their exclusive right to
inherit the property of their deceased father.'

In the Hebrew tribes, of whose experience in barbarism

' The Gecm^'tribes when first known historically were in the Upper Status
of barbanSnP'^^ They used iron, but in limited quantities, possessed flocks and
herds, cultivated the cereals, and manufactured coarse textile fabrics of linen
and woolen ; but they had not then attained to the idea of individual owner-
ship in lands. According to the account of Cresar, elsewhere cited, the arable
lands were allotted annually by the chiefs, while the pasture lands were held in
common. It would seem, therefore, that the idea of individual property in
lands was unknown in Asia and Europe in the Middle Period of barbarism,
but came in durinsj the Later Period.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 545

very little is known, individual ownership of lands existed
before the commencement of their civilization. The pur-
chase from Ephron by Abraham of the cave of Machpelah
is an illustration.' They had undoubtedly passed through
a previous experience in all respects similar to that of the
Aryan tribes ; and came out of barbarism, like them, in pos-
session of the domestic animals and of the cereals, together
with a knowledge of iron and brass, of gold and silver,
of fictile wares and of textile fabrics. But their knowledge
of field agriculture was limited in the time of Abraham.
The reconstruction of Hebrew society, after the Exodus,
on the basis of consanguine tribes, to which on reaching
Palestine territorial areas were assigned, shows that civili-
zation found them under gentile institutions, and below a
knowledge of political society. With respect to the own-
ership and inheritance of property, their experience seems
to have been coincident with that of the Roman and Gre-
cian tribes, as can be made out, with some degree of clear-
ness, from the legislation of Moses, Inheritance was strictly
within the phratry, and probably within the gens, namely
" the house of the father." The archaic rule of inheritance
among the Hebrews is unknown, except as it is indicated
by the reversion, which was substantially the same as in the
Roman law of the Twelve Tables. We have this law of
reversion, and also an illustrative case, showing that after
children had acquired an exclusive inheritance, daughters
succeeded in default of sons. Marriage would then transfer
their property from their own gens to that of their hus-
band's, unless some restraint, in the case of heiresses, was
put on the right. Presumptively and naturally, marriage
within the gens was prohibited. This presented the last great
question which arose with respect to gentile inheritance.
It came before Moses as a question of Hebrew inheritance,
and before Solon as a question of Athenian inheritance, the
gens claiming a paramount right to its retention within its
membership; and it was adjudicated by both, in the same
manner. It may be reasonably supposed that the same

' Genesis, xxiii, 13.

546 ANCIENT SOCIETY.

question had arisen in the Roman gentes, and was in part
met by the rule that the marriage of a female worked a
deminiitio capitis, and with it a forfeiture of agnatic rights.
Another question was involved in this issue ; namely, whe-
ther marriage should be restricted by the rule forbidding
it within the gens, or become free ; the degree, and not
the fact of kin, being the measure of the limitation. This
last rule was to be the final outcome of human experience
with respect to marriage. With these considerations in
mind, the case to be cited sheds a strong light upon the
early institutions of the Hebrews, and shows their essential
similarity with those of the Greeks and Romans under
gentilism.

Zelophehad died leaving daughters, but no sons, and the
inheritance was given to the former. Afterwards, these
daughters being about to marry out of the tribe of Joseph,
to which they belonged, the members of the tribe objecting
to such a transfer of the property, brought the question
before Moses, saying: " If they be married to any of the
sons of the other tribes of the children of Israel, then shall
the inheritance be taken from the inheritance of our fathers,
and shall be put to the inheritance of the tribe whereunto
they are received: so shall it be taken from the lot of our
inheritance." ^ Although this language is but the state-
ment of the results of a proposed act, it implies a grievance ;
and that grievance was the transfer of the property from
the gens and tribe to which it was conceived as belonging
by hereditary right. The Hebrew lawgiver admits this
right in the language of his decision. " The tribe of the
sons of Joseph hath spoken well. This is the thing which
the Lord doth command concerning the daughters of Zelo-
phehad, saying, Let them marry to whom they think best :
only to the family of the tribe of their father shall they
marry. So shall not the inheritance of the children of Is-
rael remove from tribe to tribe : for every one of the chil-
dren of Israel shall keep himself to the inheritance of the
tribe of his fathers. And every daughter that possesseth

^Numbers, xxxvi, 4.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 547

an inheritance in any tribe of the children of Israel shall be
wife unto one of the family of the tribe of her father, that
the children of Israel may enjoy every man the inheritance
of his fathers." ' They were required to marry into their
own phratry {supra, p. 368), but not necessarily into their
own gens. The daughters of Zelophehad were accordingly
" married to their father's brother's sons," " who were not
only members of their own phratry, but also of their own
gens. They were also their nearest agnates.

On a previous'occasion, Moses had established the rule of
inheritance and of reversion in the following explicit lan-
guage. " And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel,
saying, If a man die and have no son, then you shall cause
his inheritance to pass unto his daughters. And if he have
no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance unto his
brothers. And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his
inheritance unto his father's brethren. And if his father
have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto
his kinsman, that is next to him of his family, and he shall
possess it." ^

Three classes of heirs are here named; first, the children
of the deceased owner; second, the agnates, in the order of
their nearness; and third, the gentiles, restricted to the
members of the phratry of the decedent. The first class of
heirs were the children ; but the inference would be that
the sons took the property, subject to the obligation of
maintaining the daughters. We find elsewhere that the
eldest son had a double portion. In default of sons, the
daughters received the inheritance. The second class were
the agnates, divided into two grades ; first, the brethren of
the decedent, in default of children, received the inherit-
ance; and second, in default of them, the brethren of the
father of the decedent. The third were the gentiles, also in
the order of their nearness, namely, '"his kinsman that is
next to him of his family." As the " family of the tribe " is
the analogue of the phratry {supra, p. 369), the property, in
default of children and of agnates, went to the nearest phra-

' Numbers, xxxvi, 5-9. * lb., xxxvi, 11. ' lb., xxvii, 8-1 1.

548

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

tor of the deceased owner. It excluded cognates from the
inheritance, so that a phrator, more distant than a father's
brother, would inherit in preference to the children of a
sister of the decedent. Descent is shown to have been in
the male line, and the property must remain hereditary in
the gens. It will be noticed that the father did not inherit
from his son, nor the grandfather from his grandson. In
this respect and in nearly all respects, the Mosaic law
agrees with the law of the Twelve Tables. It affords a
striking illustration of the uniformity of human experience,
and of the growth of the same ideas in parallel lines in dif-
ferent races.

At a later day, the Levitical law established marriage upon
a new basis independent of gentile law. It prohibited its
occurrence within certain prescribed degrees of consanguin-
ity and affinity, and declared it free beyond those degrees.
This uprooted gentile usages in respect to marriage among
the Hebrews ; and it has now become the rule of Christian
nations.

Turning to the laws of Solon concerning inheritances, we
find them substantially the same as those of Moses. From
this coincidence, an inference arises that the antecedent
usages, customs and institutions of the Athenians and He-
brews were much the same in relation to property. In the
time of Solon, the third great rule of inheritance was fully
established among the Athenians. The sons took the estate
of their deceased father equally ; but charged with the obli-
gation of maintaining the daughters, and of apportioning
them suitably on their marriage. If there were no sons,
the daughters inherited equally. This created heiresses
{ininki) pi€) by investing women with estates, who like the
daughters of Zelophehad, would transfer the property, by
their marriage, from their own gens to that of their hus-
band. The same question came before Solon that had
been brought before Moses, and was decided in the same
way. To prevent the transfer of property from gens to
gens by marriage, Solon enacted that the heiress should
marry her nearest male agnate, although they belonged to

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. e^^g

the same gens, and marriage between them had previously
been prohibited by usage. This became such a fixed rule
of Athenian law, that M. De Coulanges, in his original and
suggestive work, expresses the opinion that the inheritance
passed to the agnate, subject to the obligation of marrying
the heiress.' Instances occurred where the nearest agnate,
already married, put away his wife in order to marry the
heiress, and thus gain the estate. Protomachus, in the Eu-
bulides of Demosthenes, is an example.^ But it is hardly
supposable that the law compelled the agnate to divorce
his wife and marry the heiress, or that he could obtain
the estate without becoming her husband. If there were
no children, the estate passed to the agnates, and in de-
fault of agnates, to the gentiles of the deceased owner.
Property was retained within the gens as inflexibly among
the Athenians as among the Hebrews and the Romans.
Solon turned into a law what, probably, had before become
an established usage.

The progressive growth of the idea of property is illus-
trated by the appearance of testamentary dispositions estab-
lished by Solon. This right was certain of ultimate adop-
tion ; but it required time and experience for its develop-
ment. Plutarch remarks that Solon acquired celebrity by
his law in relation to testaments, which before that was not
allowed; but the property and homestead must remain in
the gens {yevsi) of the decedent. When he permitted a
person to devise his own property to any one he pleased, in
case he had no children, he honored friendship more than
kinship, and made property the rightful possession of the
owner." This law recognized the absolute individual owner-
ship of property by the person while living, to which was

* TAe Ancient City, Lee & Shepard's ed.. Small's trans., p. gg.
^Demosthenes against Eubul., 41.

* Ev6oxi)J.r]<jE ds xdv raJ Ttepl SiaStjHcov vco/icp- Ttporspov yap ovk
l^rjv, ttAA' iv r(^ yivei rou rsSyrfHozoi edai rd jprjjjara xai rov
oiHov MarafiEVEtv, o 5' g5 fiovT^Evai. rii iTCirps'ipai, si urj Ttaldei shv
avrca, dovvai rd avrov, cpiXiav te 6vyyEVEiai iri/urjoE i.i6cXXov
nai xdpiv avdyxrjr.Mai rd xP}/Mo:tlx Mzij/iara tc^v Lxoyvooy litoL-
rj6EV. — Plutarch, Vita Solon, c, 21.

550

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

now superadded the power of disposing of it by will to
whomsoever he pleased, in case he had no children ; but
the gentile right to the property remained paramount so
long as children existed to represent him in the gens. Thus
at every point we meet the evidence that the great princi-
ples, which now govern society, were elaborated step by
step, proceeding in sequences, and tending invariably in
the same upward direction. Although several of these
illustrations are drawn from the period of civilization, there
is no reason for supposing that the laws of Solon were new
creations independent of antecedents. They rather em-
bodied in positive form those conceptions, in relation to
property, which had gradually developed through experi-
ence, to the full measure of the laws themselves. Positive
law was now substituted for customary lavv.

The Roman law of the Twelve Tables (first promulgated
449 B. c.) * contain the rules of inheritance as then estab-
lished. The property passed first to the children, equally
with whom the wife of the decedent was a co-heiress ; in
default of children and descendants in the male line, it
passed to the agnates in the order of their nearness; and in
default of agnates it passed to the gentiles.^ Here we find
again, as the fundamental basis of the law, that the property
must remain in the gens. Whether the remote ancestors
of the Latin, Grecian and Hebrew tribes possessed, one
after the other, the three great rules of inheritance under
consideration, we have no means of knowing, excepting
through the reversion. It seems a reasonable inference that
inheritance was acquired in the inverse order of the law as
it stands in the Twelve Tables; that inheritance by the gen-
tiles preceded inheritance by the agnates, and that inherit-
ance by the agnates preceded an exclusive inheritance by
the children.

' Livy, iii, 54, 57.

" Intestatorum hereditat.es lege xii tabularum prinium ad suos heredes perti-
nent.— Gaius, Inst., iii, i. Si nuUus sit suorum heredum, tunc hereditas
pertinet ex eadem lege xii tabularum ad adgnatos. — lb., iii, 9. Si r.ullus
agnalus sit, eadem lex xii tabularum gentiles ad hereditatem uocat. — //'., iii, 17.

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 551

During the Later Period of barbarism a new element, that
of aristocracy, had a marked development. The individual-
ity of persons, and the increase of wealth now possessed by
individuals in masses, were laying the foundation of per-
sonal influence. Slavery, also, by permanently degrading
a portion of the people, tended to establish contrasts of
condition unknown in the previous ethnical periods. This,
with property and official position, gradually developed the
sentiment of aristocracy, which has so deeply penetrated
modern society, and antagonized the democratical principles
created and fostered by the gentes. It soon disturbed the
balance of society by introducing unequal privileges, and
degrees of respect for individuals among people of the same
nationality, and thus became the source of discord and
strife.

In the Upper Status of barbarism, the office of *chief in
its different grades, originally hereditary in the gens and
elective among its members, passed, very likely, among the
Grecian and Latin tribes, from father to son, as a rule.
That it passed by hereditary right cannot be admitted upon
existing evidence ; but the possession of either of the offices
of archon, phylo-basileiis, or basileus among the Greeks, and
Q){ princeps and rex among the Romans, tended to strengthen
in their families the sentiment of aristocracy. It did not,
however, become strong enough to change essentially the
democratic constitution of the early governments of these
tribes, although it attained a permanent existence. Prop-
erty and office were the foundations upon which aristocracy
planted itself.

Whether this principle shall live or die has been one of
the great problems with which modern society has been
engaged through the intervening periods. As a question
between equal rights and unequal rights, between equal laws
and unequal laws, between the rights of wealth, of rank
and of official position, and the power of justice and intel-
ligence, there can be little doubt of the ultimate result.
Although several thousand years have passed -^way without
the overthrow of privileged classes, excepting in the United

552 ANCIENT SOCIETY,

States, their burdensome character upon society has been
demonstrated.

Since the advent of civilization, the outgrowth of pro-
/ perty has been so immense, its forms so diversified, its uses
so expanding and its management so intelligent in the
interests of its owners, that it has become, on the part of
\ the people, an unmanageable power. The human mind
stands bewildered in the presence of its own creation. The
time will come, nevertheless, when human intelligence will
rise to the mastery over property, and define the relations
of the state to the property it protects, as well as the obli-
gations and the limits of the rights of its owners. The in-
terests of society are paramount to individual interests, and
the two must be brought into just and harmonious relations.
I A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind,
\if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of
the past. The time which has passed away since civiliza-
tion began is but a fragment of the past duration of man's
existence ; and but a fragment of the ages yet to come,
't'he dissolution of society bids fair to become the termina-
tion of a career of which property is the end and aim ; be-
cause such a career contains the elements of self-destruction.
Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality
in rights and privileges, and universal education, foreshadow
the next higher plane of society to which experience, intel-
ligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a
revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and frater-
nity of the ancient gentes.

Some of the principles, and some of the results of the
growtft of the idea of property in the human mind have
now been presented. Although the subject has been inad-
equately treated, its importance at least has been shown.

With one principle of intelligence and one physical form,
in virtue of a common origin, the results of human experi-
ence have been substantially the same in all times and areas
in the same ethnical status.

The principle of intelligence, although conditioned in its
powers within narrow limits of variation, seeks ideal stand-

THE THREE RULES OF INHERITANCE. 553

ards invariably the same. Its operations, consequently,
have been uniform through all the stages of human pro-
gress. No argument for the unity of origin of mankind
can be made, which, in its nature, is more satisfactory. A
common principle of intelligence meets us in the savage, in
the barbarian, and in civilized man. It was in virtue of
this that mankind were able to produce in similar conditions
the same implements and utensils, the same inventions, and
to develop similar institutions from the same original germs
of thought. There is something grandly impressive in a
principle which has wrought out civilization by assiduous
application from small beginnings ; from the arrow head,
which expresses the thought in the brain of a savage, to
the smelting of iron ore, v>'hich represents the higher intel-
ligence of the barbarian, and, finally, to the railway train in
motion, which may be called the triumph of civilization.
It must be regarded as a marv^lojAsJa£t_tlia.t_a4)prtioa_Df
mankind five thousand-y-ear^-aga,,less.-or.-..mQxe, attained to
civilization. In strictness but two families, the Semitic
and the Aryan, accomplished the work through unassisted
self-development. The Aryan family represents the central
stream of human progress, because it produced the highest
type of mankind, and because it has proved its intrinsic
superiority by gradually assuming the control of the earth.
And yet civilization must be regarded as an accident of cir-
cumstances. Its attainment at some time was certain ; but
that it should have been accomplished when it was, is still
an extraordinary fact. The hindrances that held mankind in
savagery were great, and surmounted with difficulty. After
reaching the Middle Status of barbarism, civilization hung
in the balance while barbarians were feeling their way, by
experiments with the native metals, toward the process of
smelting iron ore. Until iron and its uses were known,
civilization was impossible. If mankind had failed to the
present hour to cross this barrier, it would have afforded no
just cause for surprise. When we recognize the duration
of man's existence upon the earth, the wide vicissitudes
through which he has passed in savagery and in barbarism.

554

ANCIENT SOCIETY.

and the progress he was compelled to make, civilization
might as naturally have been delayed for several thou-
sand years in the future, as to have occurred when it did in
the good providence of God. We are forced to the conclu-
sion that it was the result, as to the time of its achievement,
of a series of fortuitous circumstances. It may well serve
to remind us that we owe our present condition, with its
multiplied means of safety and of happiness, to the struggles,
the sufferings, the heroic exertions and the patient toil of
our barbarous, and more remotely, of our savage ancestors.
Their labors, their trials and their successes were a part of
the plan of the Supreme Intelligence to develop a barbarian
out of a savage, and a civilized man out of this barbarian.

INDEX.

Abipones, 183.

Adair, James, 15, 77, note ; 83, 530.

Adams, Prof. Henry, 273.

Adoption, ceremony of, among Iro-
quois, 81, note.

Age of Stone, of Bronze, and of Iron, 8.

Algonkin tribes, 165.

Alphabet, phonetic, 12. Its invention,
31, note.

Animals, their domestication, li, 42.

Archon, office of, 261.

Arickarees, 165.

Aristocracy. Its rise, 260. Its future,

549-

Army organization in gentile society,
by gentes, by phratries, and by
tribes, 237. In Athenian political
society by property classes, 265.
In Roman by same, 334.

Arts of subsistence, 19. i. Fruits and
Roots, 20. 2. Fish, 21. 3. Fari-
naceous Food, 22. 4. Meat and
Milk, 24. Field Agriculture, 26.

Arravvaks, 182.

Aryan, Family of, 39, 468. System of
consanguinity and affinity, 484.
Table, 493.

Assembly of the people, 119, 120.
Agora of Athenians, 245. Coniitia
CtDiata of the Romans, 315, 340.
Comitia Centiuiata, 331, 333.

Ashangos, 371.

Athapasco-Apache Tribes, 175.

Australian organization on basis of sex,
50. Classes, 52. Descents, 57,
note.

Aztec Confederacy, 186. Of three Na-
huatlac tribes, 189. When estab-
lished, 192. Extent of territorial
domination, 193. Population of
Valley of Mexico, 195. Of Pue-
blo, of Mexico, 196, note. Gentes
and phratries, 197. Ownership of
lands in common, 200. Council
of Chiefs, 203. Office of Teuctli,

or principal war-chief, 206. Az-
tec monarchy a fiction, 213.

Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, 349, 350,
573, note.

Bandelier, Ad. F., 200, 201, note ; 203,
note.

Bancroft, 11. H., 176.

Barbarism, period of, 42. Inventions
and discoveries in Later Period, 32.
In Middle Period, 33. In Older
Period, 35. Great achievements
in this Period, 42.

Basileus, 246. Probably elective, 248
Office without civil functions, 252
Office of Roman Rex elective, 253
Each a general, with the addition
al functions of a priest and judge
250. Aristotle's definition, 251
Early Grecian governments mili
tary democracies, 252, 274. Ro
mans under the reges, the same
253. Office of basileus abolished
by the Athenians, 260, 274. Of
rex by the Romans, 319.

Basileia, 249. Aristotle's definition,
256.

Becker, Prof. W. A. Family of ancient
Greeks, 475, note. Of Romans,
478, note.

Blackfeet tribes, 171.

Blood revenge, 77, 23S.

Bow and arrow ; its invention created
an epoch, 10. Difficult to invent,
21, note.

Burial place of gens. Usually com-
mon among Indian tribes, 83. Of
Tuscaroras, 84.

Byington,Rev. Dr. Cyrus, 162

Cameron, Mr. A. S. P., 375.
Categories of relatives : of Havvaiians,

556

INDEX.

405. Of Chinese, 416. In Timceus
of Plato, 417.

Cayugas, gentes, 70. Phratries, 91.

Chief, office of, elective, 72, 145. Plead-
chief of tribe, 118. Described as
a lord, 202. No analogy, ib.
Chief of Grecian gens, 261.

Cherokees, 164.

Chickasas, gentes, 163. Phratries, ib.

Choctas, gentes, 161. Phratries, 99.

Civilization, Period of. Its contribu-
tions to knowledge, 30, 31.

Cleisthenes. Founder of second great
plan of government, 216, 254.
His legislation, 270. Institution
of Athenian political Society, 270.
The Deme, or Township, ib.
Local tribe or county, 271. Com-
monwealth or State, 272. Inhabit-
ants of each an organized self-
governing body politic, 270—272.

Coalescence of tribes in a nation, 135,
259-

Confederacy of tribes, 122. Iroquois
Confederacy, 126. Its organiza-
tion and functions, 128. Common
gentes, and dialects of a common
language its basis, 123. Aztec
Confederacy, 186.

Comanches, 177.

Columbia River, Valley of. Seed land
of Ganowanian family, 108, note.
Its salmon fisheries, bread roots,
and game, log, note.

Comilia CHriata, 315, 340. Centurlata,
331. 333- Tributa, 336.

Consanguine Family, 3S4, 401.

Consanguinity, Malayan system of, old-
est, 385. Turanian and Ganowa-
nian, the second great form, 3S6.
Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian, third
great form, 3S8. Systems natu-
ral growths, 393. Two ultimate^
forms ; one classificatory, the other I
descriptive, 394. ,, Nature of a sy.s-'
tem of consanguinity, 395. Its
permanence, 402, 408.^' Details of
Malayan system, 404. Relatives
in categories, 407. Its origin, 410.
Details of Ganowanian and Tura-
nian, 435. Origin of system, 422.
Aryan system, 485. Its origin, 490.

Communism in living, 446, 453.

Coulanges, M. De. His work, " The
Ancient City," 234, 240, 549.

Council of Chiefs, 119. Iroquois Coun-

cil invested chiefs with office, 136,
141. Manner of convening, 137,
note. Manner of transacting busi-
ness, 139. Unanimity required,
140. Aztec Council, 203. Grecian
Council, 243. Its universality, 244.
Roman Comitia, 298. Senate, 307,
315. Comitia Centuriata, 331.

Cox, Prof. Edward F. Analysis of
pottery of Mound Builders, 15.

Creeks, 160.

Crees, 167.

Crows, 159.

Curtius, Prof., 348.

Gushing, Mr. N. A., 530, note.

Dakota tribes, 154.

Dance. A form of worship among
Indian tribes, 116.

Delawares, loi, 171.

Deme, or township of Athenians, 217.

Democracy. Universal in Ancient
Society and inherited from the
gentes, 73, 253. Liberty, equality,
and fraternity cardinal principles
of the gens, 85. Athenian Demo-
cracy, 253, 270.

Descent in female line when gens is in
archaic form, 67. In American
Indian tribes, 153-183. In male
line, 155-157, 166-169, 171-182.
How changed from female line to
male, 344. Causes which produced
tlie change in Grecian gentes, 345,
In female line among Lycians, 347.
Etruscans. 348. Views of Curtius,
348. Of Bachofen, 349. Among
Athenians prior to Cecrops, 350.
Required to explain certain mar-
riages. 351. Legend of Danaidae,
354. In female line among Ashiras,
Aponos, and Ashangos of Africa,
371. Banyi, 372. Bangalas, 373.

Du Chaillu, 371.

Ethnical Periods, 8-13. Advantages
of these subdivisions, 16. Their
relative length, 38.

Ephoralty of the Spartans, 250.

Eries, 126, note; 149-153.

Etruscans, 279, 348.

Family, the, Five successive forms, 384

INDEX.

557

The con=;anfjuine, 384, 401. The
punaluan, 384, 424. The syndy-
asmian or pairing, 384, 453. The
patriarchal, 384, 465. The mono-
gamian, 384, 468. First, second,
and fifth radical, creating three
systems of consanguinity and af-
finity, 324. Consanguine family,
origin of relationship in, 410.
Punaluan family, origin of rela-
tionship in, 422. Syndyasmian,
453-461. Patriarchal, 465. Mono-
gamian family of ancient Germans,
471 ; of Homeric Greeks, 472, 475,
note ; of Romans, 477. Origin of
relationship in,4S5-490. Sequence
of institutions connected with the
family, 498.

Freeman, Dr., on the organization of
German tribes, 361, note.

Fison, Rev. Lorimer, 14, 51, note ; 54,
374. 375, 403-

Ganowanian family, its name, 152.

Ganowanian system of consanguinity
and affinity, 432, 435. Table, 447.

Gentile organization, 62, 185. Insti-
tutions democratical, 212.

Gens of Australian tribes, 51-56, of
Iroquois, 62. Founded upon kin,
63. Definition of a gens, 67.
Descent in female line, 68. In-
termarriage in the gens prohibited,
69. Rights, privileges, and obliga-
tions of its members, 71-84. Lib-
erty, equality, and fraternity, its
cardinal principles, 85. Grecian
gens, 215. Descent in male line,
216. Rights, privileges, and ob-
ligations of its members, 222.
Unit of the social system, 226.
Roman gens, 277. Definition of
a gentilis, 283. Descent in male
line, 284. Rights, privileges, and
obligations of its members, 285.
Number of persons in a Roman
gens, 299. Gentes in other tribes
of mankind, 357-379- Probable
origin of the gens, 377.

Gibbs, George, 175, 176.

Government. First plan gentile and
social, 6. Organic series, gens,
phratry, tribe, and confederacy,
with a final coalescence of tribes in
a nation, 49, 66. First stage, a

government of one power, the
council of chiefs ; second, of two
powers, a council and a military
commander ; third, of three pow-
ers, a council, a general, and an
assembly of the people, 119, 120,
257. Second plan territorial and
political, 6. Property classes of
Solon, 264. Attic Deme or town-
ship, 270. Registration in Deme,
ib. Local tribe or county, 271.
The state, 272. Athenian demo-
cracy, 273. No chief executive
magistrate, 275. Roman political
society, 322. Property classes of
Servius TuUius, 331. The cen-
turies, 333. Coinitia Centuriata,
333. The census, 336. City
wards, 337. Registration in ward
of residence, 336. Municipality
of Rome, 339. Transition from
gentile into political society,

3-^°■ . , . J

Grote, on Grecian gentes, phratries and

tribes, 220-22S, 230-232. His
view of the early Grecian govern-
ments erroneous, 247. His illus-
tration from the Iliad, 248.

Hale, Horatio, 127, note ; 153, 175.

Hart, Robert. On the hundred fami-
lies of the Chinese, 364.

Hebrew tribes, 366. Marriages \\\
early period indicate gentes, with
descent in the female line, 367.
Gentes and phratries in the time of
Moses, 368.

Hodenosaunian tribes, 153.

House life, and plan of living among
savage and barbarous tribes deserve
special study, 399, 446.

lowas, 156, 166.

Inventions and discoveries, 2g, 45.

Iron, II. Process of smelting, 43.

Ancient side hill furnaces in

Switzerland, 43, note.
Iroquois, gentes, 63-70. Phratries,

90-97. Tribes, 102. Confederacy,

122. Sachems of the general

council, 150.

558

INDEX.

Jones, C. C, 14, note.

Kaskaskias, 107.

Kaws, 106, 156.

Keepers of the faith in the Iroquois, 82.

Kennicott, Robert, 175.

Kikapoos, 170.

Kolushes, 175.

Lagunas, 180.

Lands owned in common among In-
dian tribes in Lower Status of bar-
barism, 151-174. With a posses-
sory right in individuals to occu-
pied lands, 530. In common by
Aztec gentes probably, 200. By
Roman gentes, 290, 292, note ;
541. Some by phratries and tribes,
292.

Latham, R. G., 362, 364, 371.

Language, growth of, 5. Question of
its origin, 36, note.

Lockwood, Charles G. N., 375.

Locrians, hundred families of, 350.

Lycians, descent in female line, 347,
348.

Lubbock, Sir John, 14, 183, 364.

Magars of Nepaul, 362.

Maine, Sir Henry, 227. On Celtic
groups of kinsmen on French
estates, 358. His original re-
searches, 507.

Malayan system of consanguinity and
affinity, its origin, 410.

McLennan, Mr J. F., 362, 409. Note
concerning his work on " Primi-
tive Marriage," 509-521.

Mandans, 158.

Marriage, Australian scheme, 53, 57.
Hebrew, 410. Consanguine, 401.
Punaluan, 424. Syndyasmian,
453. Monogamian, 468.

Menominees. 170.

Metals, native, 44.

Minnilarees, 158.

Miamis, 107, 168.

Mississippi tribes, 168.

Missouri tribes, 155.

ATohegan gentes, 173. Phratries, 174.

Mohawks, 125.

Mommsen, Theodor, on domestication
of animals, 23. Family names,
78. On introduction of agricul-
ture, 277, note. Roman gens,
281. On gentile and tribal lands,
291.

Montezuma, principal war-chief of
Aztec Confederacy, 206, 207. Ten-
ure and functions of the office,
2®6. His seizure of Cortes, 211,
note. His deposition by the
Aztecs, 211.

Monogamian Family, 384, 468.

Monarchy incompatible with gentil-
ism, 124, 252.

Moqui Village Indians, 86, 179.

MuUer, Max, 23.

Munsees, 173.

Names of members of a gens, 78. How
bestowed, 79. The name confer-
red gentile rights, ib.

Nation formed by coalescence of tribes,
135, 242, 259.

Neutral nation, 149, 153.

Naucraries of Athenians, 262.

Niebuhr, on Roman and Grecian gen-
tile questions, 23, 281, 287, 292,
note; 295, 29S, 305, 313, 315,
325.

Ojibwas, 106, 166.

Omahas, 106, 155.

Oneidas, 70.

Onondagas, gentes, 70. Phratries, 91.

Osages. 106.

Osborn, Rev. John, Rotuman sys-
tem of consanguinity, 403, note :
419.

Otawas, 167. Otawa Confederacy,
106.

Otoes, 106, 155.

Parkman, Francis, 153, note.
Patriarchal Family, 384, 465, 480.
Patricians, Roman, 326, 330.
Pawnees, 164.
Peorias, 107.
Peschel, Oscar, 14, 413.
Phratry, its character, 89. Of Iro-
quois, 90. Its functions, 94-97.

INDEX.

559

Phratric organization in American
Indian tribes, 90 et s.-q. Of Athe-
nians, 220. Obes of Spartans,
219. Definition of DilcKarchus,
236. Objects of phratry, 237. Uses
in army organization, 2S7. Plira-
triarcli, 240. Blood revenge, 238.
Roman curia a phratry, 303. Its
composition and functions, 304,
305.
Piankeshaws, T07.

Plebeians, persons unconnected with
any gens, 266. Unattached class,
at Athens, 267. Made citizens by
Solon, 268. Roman plebeians,
324. 325-
Potawattamies, 166, 167.
Property, growth of, 6. Its inheri-
tance. First Rule : In American
Indian tribes, 75, 153, 185, 528,
530 ; in Status of savagery, 526 ;
in Lower Status of barbarism, 528.
Second Rule, 531 : Property in
Middle Status, 540 ; in Upper Sta-
tus, ib. Third Rule, 544 : He-
brew inheritance, 545, 547 ; daugh-
ters of Zelophehad, 546 ; Athenian
inheritance, 548 ; Roman, 550 ;
property career of civilized na-
tions, 522.
Polyandry, 409.
Polygyny, 404.

Political society, 218. Institution of
Athenian, 256. Experiments of
Theseus, 25S, 259. Draco, 263.
Legislation of Solon, 264. Prop-
erty classes, ib. Organization of
army, 265. Legislation of Cleis-
thenes, 270. Attic deme or town-
ship, ib. Inhabitants of each a
body politic, with powers of local
self-government, 271. Local tribe
or county, ib. The Athenian
Commonwealth or State, 272.
Government founded upon terri-
tory and upon property, ib. Pow-
ers of gentes, phratries, and tribes
transferred to the demes, coun-
ties, or state, 272, 274. No
chief executive magistrate, 275.
Institution of Roman political so-
ciety, 323-342.
Pottery, 13, 15, 16.

Punaluan Family, 384, 424. Of Ha-
waiians, 427. Of Britons, 429.
Other tribes, 430,431.

Punkas, 106, 155.

Powell, Maj. J. W., 536, 537.

Quappas, 106.

Ratio of human progress, 29. Geomet-
rical, 3S.

Raw, Prof. Charles, 14, note.

Religious ideas, growth of, 5. Re-
ligious rites, 81, 222, 289. Faith
and worsliip of American Indian
tribes, 115.

Roman tribe, 374. State, 319, 331.

Rome, founding of, 278, 309, 310, 312.

Sachem, 71. Elective tenure of the
office, 72. Iroquois mode of elect-
ing and investing sachems, 141,
144. Aztec sachems, 202.

Salish, Sahaptin, and Kootenay tribes,
177-

Savagery, its contributions to knowl-
C'^lge, 36. Formative period of
mankind, 41. American aborigi-
nes commenced their career in
America in savagery, 40.

Sawks and Foxes, 170.

Schoolcraft, Henry R., on the word
" totem," 165.

Scottish Clan, 357.

Semitic family, 39.

Senecas, gentes, 70. Phratries, 90.
Medicine Lodges, 97.

Sequence of institutions connected
with the family, 498.

Shawnees, 168.

Shoshones, 177. ^7

Society, gentile and political. See
" Government," and " Political So-
ciety."

South American Indian tribes, 182.

Subsistence, Arts of, 19. Fish and
game, 26. Farinaceous food, 22,
26. Meat and milk, 24. Made
unlimited by field agriculture, 26.

-Syndyasmian family, 3S4, 453.

Taplin, Rev. George, 374.
Thlinkeets, gentes, loi, 176. Phra-
tries, lOI.

560

IaXDEX.

Thums, or gentes of Magars of Nepaul,

362.
Totem. The symbol of a gens ; thus,

the figure of a wolf is the totem of

the wolf gens, 165.
Tribe, Indian. Definition of, 103.

Natural growth through segmen-
tation, 104, 125. Attributes of an

American Indian tribe, 112, 116.

Athenian tribe, 241. Roman tribe,

302, 311.
Turanian system of consanguinity and

affinity, 435. Its origin, 422, 445.

Remains of system in Grecian and

Roman tribes, 482.
Tuscaroras, gentes, 70. Phratries, 93.

Burial-place, 84.
Tyler, Mr. Edward B., 13, 14, 182.

On the clans of tribes in India,

364-

Upper Missouri tribes, 158.

Valley of Columbia, seed land of Gano-

wanian family, log, and note.
Village Indians, 15 1, 178.

Wampum, belts of, their use, 139, 142.

War-chief, germ of the office of a chief
executive Magistrate, King, Em-
peror, and President, 129, 146.
Principal war-chiefs of Iroquois,
146. Office elective, ib. Of Az-
tecs, 207. Office of Teuctli elec-
tive, 210. Basileus of Grecian
tribes, 246. Probably elective, ib.
Rex of Roman tribes, 300. Nomi-
nated by the Senate, and elected
by the Comitia Curiata, ib.

Weaws, 107.

Winnebagoes, 157.

Wright, Rev. Ashur, 83, 455

Wyandotes, 153.

Zuni Village Indians, 178.

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