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 RARYQ/-. <e^UIBRARYGr. AWtUNIVERS//, .V
 
 ANCIENT SOCIETY 
 
 RESEARCHES IN THE LINES OF HUMAN PROGRESS 
 
 FROM SAVAGERY, THROUGH BARBARISM 
 
 TO CIVILIZATION 
 
 BY 
 
 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
 
 
 Copyright, 1877, 
 By HENRY HOLT.
 
 
 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 
 o T"~Earbarisj ii. 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. 
 
 5 
 
 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 e mbodied i ri systems_oj^consang_uinity^nd affinityj^ and^in 
 usag es 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 i ntegratioij, 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 gl t-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 territ orial 
 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 soc iety upo n 
 the basis of sex, then upon the basis of kin, and finally upon 
 the basis of territory ; through the successive forms of may ria.o-e 
 and of th e family, with the systems of con sangui nity thereby 
 created ; th£Ough_houseJife_j nd arr.hTFecture : ' and tliro ugh 
 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 ma y be j'emarked finally th at 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 
 
 13 
 
 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.
 
 14 
 
 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. 
 
 17 
 
 tion of society in the corresponding status must have been, in 
 the m ain, s ubstantially-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.
 
 24 
 
 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^sticati on of am mals^jra^iiaUy^JBtxodu^ed^ 
 mode of life, the pastoral, upon the_-plains of theTjinhrates 
 amTof t iidia, and u purrthe" 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. 
 
 27 
 
 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.
 
 32 
 
 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. 
 
 JO 
 
 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 ph a^ 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.
 
 34 
 
 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.
 
 40 
 
 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.
 
 42 
 
 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.
 
 44 
 
 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.
 
 52 
 
 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
 
 54 
 
 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.
 
 56 
 
 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-
 
 58 
 
 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 oursel ves is a s urvival of the gentile
 
 64 
 
 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 
 
 5
 
 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,
 
 72 
 
 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.
 
 74 
 
 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. 
 
 75 
 
 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
 
 76 
 
 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. 
 
 6
 
 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.
 
 90 
 
 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.
 
 92 
 
 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.
 
 94 
 
 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
 
 96 
 
 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. 
 
 97 
 
 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. 
 
 99 
 
 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 
 f ather to s on. 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; a nd that it did not exist among the Gre cian tr ibes 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 we re a v iggixma^ajjd 
 intelligent people, with a brain approaching in volume the 
 Aryaiwv'erage. E loquent in oratory , vindictive in warTarid 
 iiidomitablg_jn persevera nce, they have^ainM~a-p laceTn'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. 
 
 3- 
 
 Na-ko-poz'' 
 
 -na. 
 
 4- 
 
 Moh-kuh'. 
 
 7- 
 
 Noli'-ga. 
 
 
 8. 
 
 Wah'ga. 
 
 3- 
 
 La'-ta-da. 
 
 
 4- 
 
 Ka'-ih. 
 
 7- 
 
 Hun'-ga. 
 
 
 8. 
 
 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: 
 
 I. 
 
 Prairie Dog. 
 
 2. 
 
 Bad Leggins. 
 
 3- 
 
 Skunk. 
 
 4- 
 
 Treacherous Lodges. 
 
 5- 
 
 Lost Lodges. 
 
 6. 
 
 Bad Honors. 
 
 7- 
 
 Butchers. 
 
 8. 
 
 Moving Lodges. 
 
 9- 
 
 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. 
 
 4- 
 
 Ash-bot-chee-ah. 
 
 
 5. Ah-shin'-na-de'-ah. 6. Ese-kep-ka'-buk. 
 
 7- 
 
 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 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. 
 
 I. 
 
 Wolf 
 
 2. 
 
 4- 
 
 Alligator. 
 
 5- 
 
 7- 
 
 Tiger. 
 
 8. 
 
 lO. 
 
 Mole. 
 
 1 1. 
 
 13- 
 
 Fish. 
 
 14. 
 
 1 6. 
 
 Hickory Nut. 
 
 17- 
 
 19. 
 
 (Sig'n Lost). 
 
 20. 
 22. 
 
 --> 
 J- 
 
 Skunk. 
 
 6. 
 
 Bird. 
 
 9- 
 
 Toad. 
 
 12. 
 
 Raccoon. 
 
 15- 
 
 Potatoe. 
 
 18. 
 
 Wild Cat. 
 
 21. 
 
 (Sig'n Lost). 
 
 Corn. 
 
 Salt. 
 
 (Sig'n Lost).^ 
 
 (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 
 
 2. 
 
 No-kuse'. 
 
 
 3- 
 
 Ku'-mu. 
 
 4- 
 
 Kal-put'-lii. 
 
 5. E'-cho. 
 
 6. 
 
 Tus'-wa. 
 
 
 7- 
 
 Kat'-chu. 
 
 8. 
 
 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. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 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. 
 
 2. 
 
 Ma-kvva'. 3. 
 
 Ah-mik'. 
 
 4- 
 
 Me-she'-ka. 
 
 5- 
 
 Mik-o-noh'. 
 
 6. 
 
 Me-skwa-da'-re. 7. 
 
 Ah-dik'. 
 
 8. 
 
 Chu-e-skwe'- 
 
 9- 
 
 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'. 
 
 2. 
 
 M'-ko'. 
 
 s- 
 
 Maak. 
 
 6. 
 
 K'-nou'. 
 
 9- 
 
 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 thre e 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 
 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 surrend ered to the 
 \ new po litical 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. 
 
 15
 
 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 wa s in the female hne, as amo ng 
 the Iroquois, an own brother was usually selected to succeed 
 the deceased chief, and where descent was in the male line, as 
 \ among t he 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. I t cannot be claime d^n s atisfactory proof, t hat 
 theol dest son o f_the basileus_took the office, upo n the deni ise 
 of lii s father, by absolute heredj taryjig^^^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 f avor ei ther of a^ free 
 election, or of a confirmatio n of the offi ce by th e peopl e thro ugh 
 / their recognized_o rganizations, as in the case of the R oman^ 
 '^ 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. 
 
 I
 
 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. 
 
 20
 
 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. 
 
 24
 
 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 o f the follow ing relationshi ps ; namely^ parent, child, 
 gran dparent, grandchild, brother^ and sist er^ 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. 
 
 Relationship s^ are of tw o kinds: First, by c onsanguinity 
 or blo od ; second, by affinity or m arriage . _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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 cn■*■*■^'*■»^'*'^■«^■^■^tOl/l^nlOmlOl0^nlO mvO ^o\ovovO^^OvO^O^O t^rNC^t^t^t«*t>.t^
 
 THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 
 
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 1 -"^ lo^o r^oo o> o
 
 422 
 
 A NCI EN T SOCIE T Y. 
 
 
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 JvOvO^vovO^OVO
 
 THE CONSANGUINE FAMILY. 
 
 423 
 
 .22 
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 C5 ' " " " " ' 
 
 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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 448 
 
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 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. 
 
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 t^ «> t^ t- f.00 » 00
 
 THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL Y. 495 
 
 
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 OOGOOOOOOOOOOOO^QNO^O^O^OsOHO^Ok ONOOOOO O O 00
 
 496 
 
 ANCIENT SOCIETY. 
 
 ^SfeiS^S^^^S66SEB 
 
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 C4 N C4 C4 rO CO fO
 
 THE MONOGAMIAN FAMIL Y 
 
 497 
 
 
 
 
 
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 m^Tmmmwwmmmm^hhmmm 
 
 32
 
 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^' ll r " uF- pi'u p ei Ly w u ntd 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 _intr oduce a new species of property, n amely, cu l- 
 tiva ted lan ds 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 ona bove given may be r ecognized , a s elsewhere state d, 
 t he ge rm of the second great rule of inheritance, which 
 ga ve th e 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_g jso pro duced 
 .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 aft er its cu ltivati^ 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. 
 
 35
 
 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 re garded 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. 
 
 B 
 
 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. 
 
 D 
 
 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. 
 
 H 
 
 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. 
 
 J 
 
 Jones, C. C, 14, note. 
 
 K 
 
 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. 
 
 M 
 
 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. 
 
 N 
 
 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. 
 
 o 
 
 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. 
 
 Q 
 
 R 
 
 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- 
 
 u 
 
 Upper Missouri tribes, 158. 
 
 Valley of Columbia, seed land of Gano- 
 
 wanian family, log, and note. 
 Village Indians, 15 1, 178. 
 
 w 
 
 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. 
 
 z 
 
 Zuni Village Indians, 178. 
 
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