5S SS Se eee Sasi iste 0 EGA a I HAfin LL bi i & AR OF PRI ~S OCT 26 1948 NN f Ay ay hula a i 1) be i) Met rts (uy i I SOCIAL ORIGINS AND SOCIAL CONTINUITIES e eo. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY WEW YORK - BOSTON - CHICAGO - DALLAS ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., LimiTED LONDON + BOMBAY - CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lp. TORONTO BY vs ALFRED MARSTON TOZZER Professor of Anthropology, Harvard University A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE LOWELL INSTITUTE, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, FEBRUARY, 1924. Nem York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1928 All rights reserved Coryricut, 1925, Bry THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 1925. Printed in the United States of America by THE FERRIS PRINTING COMPANY, NEW YORK. “Les peuples les plus civilisés sont aussi voisins de la barbarte que le fer le plus poli Vest de la rouille. Les peuples, comme les métauz, nont de brillant que les surfaces.” RIVAROL. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/socialoriginssocOOtozz_0 PREFACE AntHropo.ocy is the study of man. It is obviously the “proper study of mankind.” This book has not been written for the anthropologist, but for the layman who desires a knowledge of some of the elementary and fun- damental principles and facts concerning the develop- ment of man in his relationships with his fellow-beings, and who cares to acquaint himself with the general points of view of American Anthropology. I feel that many sins are committed in the name of this science, especially in America. The content of these lectures is not, for the most part, original research and speculation. It is intended to be a presentation of basic facts and admitted hypotheses concerning human institutions. To this end an attempt has been made to present these lectures with the utmost simplicity, without the utilization of cryptic professional terminology; and to refrain from ambitious attempts to inject into the discussion of stabilized subjects personal opinions and pet theories, preferring to offer a practical and intelligible multiplication table rather than an ab- stract and debatable theory of relativity. Some material has been added to the lectures as given, since it was found impossible to cover adequately all the subjects discussed. In 1911 another course of Lowell Lectures in the field of anthropology was published. The Mind of Primitive Man by Dr. Franz Boas remained for almost ten years the sole account of the general American point of view towards Anthropology. Since that time, and more espe- vil viii Preface cially during the last four years, several of his students have produced books which now cover the field very adequately. This book was projected several years ago, before we had available the most excellent text on early society by Lowie, Kroeber’s near-approach to a general text-book for the field of Anthropology, Goldenweiser’s able work, and also those of Wissler and others. By my delay I have profited greatly from these books. Lowie’s Primitive Society covers the whole field of social rela- tions in a way I could not hope to do in a course of six lectures, and I found myself constantly dependent upon many of his theoretical discussions of the social phases of early society. I am under obligations to Dean Greenough and Dr. P. E. Goddard, who have read the manuscript and offered several valuable suggestions. My greatest thanks, however, are due to my colleague, Professor E. A. Hooton, who has inspired several of the ideas contained here, and who has unfailingly been will- ing to sacrifice time and thought upon the problems that have come up. Trained in the European field, he has often given me a different point of view. I also wish to thank Dr. Edouard Sandoz, Dr. Spinden, and Dr. Glover Allen, to whom I have appealed for advice on special topics. I have availed myself of the material in a large number of books, to which reference has been made at the end of the text. In the Appendix will be found a collection of Fresh- man themes on superstitions, with a few comments. CHOCORUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 80 August, 1924. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I BASIC METHODS AND THEORIES INTRODUCTION CULTURAL HISTORY OF MAN . BIOLOGICAL AND CULTURAL INHERITANCE EUGENICS STATURE. SPEECH : FLIGHT OF BIRDS AND OF MAN MISCEGENATION HUMAN AND ANIMAL SOCIETIES THE SOCIAL INSECTS MoNOTYPICAL EVOLUTION . THE ‘‘GEOLOGICAL ARGUMENT” } MorGaAn’ 2 “SAVAGERY, BARBARISM, AND Civ. ZATION” BY PHYSICAL EVOLUTION . INTERPRETATION OF SIMILAR PHENOMENA . PsYCHIC UNITY; CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT EVO- LUTION DISSEMINATION . SIMILARITY OF UNIVERSAL TRAITS Aah EARLY TRADE; AMBER AND THE SPIRAL ORNAMENT FoLK-TALES; THE Tar BaBy 1x 1 1 1 14 16 NONOCODBNOOD — = 16 17 We 18 18 18 19 20 x Contents CORN CULTURE wil chine ae te THE HORSE IN AMERICA HeELIouItTuIc ScHOOL . PsycHIC UNITY . ; TALE OF THE MINK AND THE SUN . PHAETHON AND THE PHa@pus APOLLO . CRITERIA OF PROGRESS . MAN’S CONTROL OVER NATURE. SPECIALIZATION, PHYSICALLY AND CULTURALLY . HAS MAN PROGRESSED MENTALLY? PROGRESS IN THE “FINER THINGS OF LIFE”’. CoNTROL OVER HUMAN NATURE CARE OF THE POOR AND SICK . IMMIGRATION. . ; DoES CIVILIZATION eh) | MAN’sS CONTROL OVER MAN ARE SOCIAL CHANGES PROGRESSIVE? CHAPTER II 21 21 22 25 25 26 28 28 29 29 30 30 3l 3l 32 32 33 THE NATURE OF THE SAVAGE AND OF HIS SOCIETY ORIGIN OF HUMAN SOCIETY CoNTRACT THEORY ..... ORGANIC THEORY . HUMAN SOCIETY NOT AN OUTGROWTH OF ANIMAL SOCIETY . é PsyCHOLOGICAL THEORY . Hie THE HORDE VERSUS THE INDIVIDUAL CAUSES UNDERLYING DIVERGENCIES IN CULTURES RACIAL: THEORY) a. cro tee) wea a TEINVIRONMEINT o0 02) sod ecu eee teats 35 35 36 Contents SoME EFFECTS OF ENVIRONMENT UPON MAN . PHYSICAL . PsyYCHICAL . ETHICAL CODES. SACPAL (LIFE cee attr re Asie eros BCONOMIC LIFE 22 2 ees. INDUSTRIAL ‘LIED Pipi si heee al ees RELIGION . LANGUAGE . MovEMENTS OF PEOPLE . . ADAPTABILITY OF MAN TO HIS SINVIRONMENT ; EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD. : TOO MUCH STRESS LAID ON ENVIRONMENT. THE GROUP MIND. ; : SoclETY THE RESULT OF PERSONAL UNITS. THE SAVAGE AND CIVILIZED MAN. INSTINCT ; EAR Be DIFFICULTIES IN THIS STUDY. ... .- ears THE CONTROL OF INSTINCT BY THE SAVAGE. . . SoME CHARACTERISTICS OF PRIMITIVE MAN KEENNESS OF THE SENSES. . .- +--+ +--+: ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE . ae SUSCEPTIBILITY TO EMOTIONAL STIMULI . PLASTICITY OF JUDGMENTS. ....+-++-+-::-* PowER OF SUGGESTION . INTELLECT . PHYSICAL CRITERIA . 4 PHYSIOLOGICAL CRITERIA ... .- + HIsToRY OF CULTURES RACIAL PSYCHOLOGY ...--+-+-+-: > INTELLIGENCE TESTS ,.. .- - xii Contents THE ARMY TESTS... . OCS AAR SME bt nce babe at OG NEGRO AND WHITE CeTED REN CPA AIA DaM AMEND cae woe RURATAUAND URBAN CHILDREN ah ieee ene Te INDIAN-WHITE MIXTURDS, |.) lecupe eas ee ene TESTS FOR SAVAGE PEOPLES ......... @O RANGEZORSINTELUECT a5, ut che Pe ae ne an em a RACTAT. PREIJUDICES ile ci ee ee a DIFFICULTIES OF SOLUTION .......... @& MENTAL. PROCESSES (0). fe) osha ee CONSERVATISM (oo Raa ae Be ae eas CHAPTER III THE CRISES IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL No TYPICAL SAVAGE. VARIETY OF INTERESTS ... 86 CP TBS OR PABGAGH ety ch CON e apne eee eats ee anes BIRTH. .... PTA Se 8 5) ak dh SD Te aera OF WO Eee rtON ae EN ANCL ABO Bb 1.058) ore PREGNANGY ee so SU DEN MIRO Pot SL te PURIFICATION (00 nO Te TL oe a ae) Dee COUPUGE Bek ee ee ES AE OO ana SoOGIOLOGICAL BIRTH :at mass of mankind do nothing more than float along on the waves of social reform, or movements in art and industry. But we must 54 Social Origins and Social Continuitties not forget that there are those who prefer to remain on the shore, and those who, although floating in this stream, have their anchors down and, when they move, set their rudders for certain direct courses. Society is the resultant of personal units. There is little social sentiment except through the medium of individual consciousness. Personal merit and initiative are probably more immediately recognized in primitive society than in modern life. Where the life of a tribe is full of crises, stress of circumstances develops a leader. Individual fitness for leadership, politically, socially, and from the military point of view, is usually demanded among the most primitive peoples. In higher grades of Savage society and in the modern world, where govern- ment has been crystallized, personality plays a far less important part. THE SavaGe AND CrvItizED MAN Many attempts have been made to draw distinctions between savage and civilized man upon the psychological side. Robinson states that there are four historical lay- ers underlying the mind of modern man: the animal mind, the child mind, the savage mind, and the tradi- tional civilized mind. Our animal nature comes out most prominently in matters of sex, the necessity of sleep, thirst, and hunger. Our child mind is seen in the play proclivities, which ought to be a component part of every normal individual.’ Our savage mind is one of the main subjects of this book. These strata,—the ani- mal, the child, the savage, and the civilized natures,—it seems to me, are not laid horizontally, one covering the other, but they are tipped vertically, so that no one is completely covered by another. Each appears to a Social Origins and Social Continuities 55 greater or less degree in the mind of every civilized man. If these factors are all present (and I think they are) an attempt to show definite stages of advance from the ani- mal to the savage, and from the savage to civilized man, is almost futile. The continuity of cultural life from. the lowest forms to those of the modern world makes it impossible to draw distinct lines separating the categories of culture. INSTINCT A favorite topic for discussion in regard to the nature of animal and human society, and of savage and civilized society, is the factor of instinct. The usual argument is that as human societyis.an outgrowth ofthe social life of animals, so-human. society. takes. over the instinctive equipment of the animal world. There is nothing to cause its loss. The older argument was that as instincts are stable and unchangeable, so early society is stable, hence instinctive; or the other way round,—early society is instinctive, hence it is stable. Many psychologists are now willing to agree that the principal instincts or “predispositions” of man are liable to modification of their motor parts, while their central parts remain unchanged.*# There is a large mass of literature upon instincts. Various attempts have been made to classify them. No two authorities agree as to their number or their char- acter. There are two main difficulties in any classifica- tion. The first is an almost total ignorance of the way newly-born babies react to stimuli of various kinds. Watson has shown by experiments that the fear instinct in infants can be aroused only by the sense of falling and by a loud noise. 56 Social Origins and Social Continuities The second difficulty in any classification of man’s “predispositions” is found in the fact that there is no inclusiveness, but a general overlapping. The parental instinct may include fright, pugnacity, and acquisition. One runs into another,—fright into pugnacity. Every- thing man does has a double basis,—partly inherited and partly acquired.15 I have already tried to show that from the point of view of human culture we can elimi- nate almost everything but those characteristics of man which he learns from his fellow man. Graham Wallas writes, “In the case of man, this irradiation of instinctive action by intelligence shades into processes in which intelligence acts as an independent directing force.” 2 Wissler has said that ‘man inherits a single ‘pattern,’ just as the ant inherits an ‘ant pattern.’”16 Let me amplify the figure and say that man inherits some of the factors necessary to make a pattern,—the warp alone is there to hold the fabric together; but the woof, the filling- in of the pattern, is a product of man’s own invention, something he learns, and quite apart from any innate characteristics which he may have. How can there be so many different fabrics made on this warp, and so varied designs in these textiles, if this filling-in process all came from inborn tendencies? Man’s environment gives him the materials for his fabric. The design grows out of his inventive faculty. Some people in making this tex- tile allow the warp to show through; others cover it up completely with the woof; still others so manipulate the warp that a few of the threads may be eliminated altogether. Let us limit ourselves in this discussion to the primary instincts of sex and hunger,—the old-fashioned, if you Social Origins and Social Continuities 57 will,—“‘love quest and food quest.” These are funda- mental in the history of the family. Savage society has been described as largely made up of instinctive reactions. So far as these two instincts, love and hunger, are concerned, the savage has evolved methods of dealing with these that seem to show effective results; and prove, it seems to me, that primitive man is not the unbridled individual who gives way to his ‘inclinations at, all times-and-in-all places: The elaborate systems of sexual tabus, found in all early societies, prove a part of this thesis. His continence before battle, during the pregnancy of his wife and often for some time after the birth of a child, and during the preparation and celebration of some religious festival, all show this factor pointing away from self-indulgence. The strict laws of marriage, often greatly limiting the choice of a wife, and stringent punishments for adultery found among some peoples, all point in the same direction. The prohibi- tions regarding food of certain kinds are many. Some- times an abundant source of food is cut off completely from the enjoyment of an individual or a whole group in the community. It is doubtful if the average man in civilized society has learned to repress these two instincts in any degree comparable with that of his less fortunate brother. Some CHARACTERISTICS OF Primitivp Man In this discussion of the nature of the savage it is well to correct, if possible, some of the popular misconceptions regarding his natural equipment for life. I have just tried to show that the savage knows how to restrain him- self along sex lines. A common impression is abroad that primitive man 58 Social Origins and Social Continuities has a greater keenness of the senses than that possessed by civilized man. Travellers’ tales are full of examples to prove this point. There is a general agreement that there is no detectible evidence to show. that.the primitive man has any great and inherent advantage over the white man in respect to the senses. The blunting of our faculty of sight by fine print and artificial light, of hear- ing by the unextinguishable noises of our civilization, and an increase in the acuteness of our sense of feeling by clothes and artificial heat, are all unnatural factors coming from our social environment. % iy The savage’s ability in the hunt is thus due not to a greater keenness of the senses of sight and of smell, but to high powers of observation. He knows when and where and how best to capture the animal he is after, by an intimate knowledge of the habits of that animal. He reads and interprets the signs of nature and of life around him in a way known only to a few white men. Trained observation and memory are common factors in savage life. I once witnessed one of the complicated nine-day ceremonies of the Navajos. It was in the month of November, which is the favorite time for this “Night Chant.” On the sixth day the shaman who was con- ducting the rites took a sharpened end of a bone and, apparently at random, made two different groups of holes in a gourd rattle. The first set of perforations was later identified as the constellation of Auriga, and, below this, was a partial representation of Ursa Major. The second group of holes showed in succession the Pleiades, the Hyades, and the constellation of Orion. Both these groups represent sky gods of the Navajos, and they are seen respectively in the northern and southeastern sky at Social Origins and Social Continuities 59 about midnight in the month of November in the South- west. The shaman, although inside the hogan or cere- monial lodge when he made his holes, knew the heavens well enough to represent with remarkable accuracy the appearance of these stars at the time the rite was being performed. At another time I was studying the life of the Lacan- dones, a “savage” people in the midst of the Guatemalan bush, isolated from all contact with the white man. During my first visit I had taken numerous photographs. On my return for a second season, I showed them with keen interest, anxious to observe the reaction to what must have been their first contact with photography. To my amazement and disappointment the pictures created no interest whatsoever. The children were soon playing with them as pieces of paper, in itself a bit of civilization with which they were unfamiliar. There was no esoteric aversion to the pictures as far as I could make out. The only explanation I could suggest was that they could not see them. These people had prob- ably never before beheld anything in three dimensions reproduced on a flat surface except, possibly, their reflec- tions in the water. Furthermore the reduction in size of their figures required a mental adjustment new to them in order to comprehend that the inch-high forms in the photographs represented themselves. It was not that their sense of sight was poor, but that it lacked accom- modation™ to the novel conditions, igs) A factor, usually placed upon the debit side of the ledger for primitive man, is his inability to concen- trate on any one thing for any length of time. This judgment is based entirely upon the fact that the savage will not often bring his mind to bear on the things which ~ 60 Social Origins and Social Continutties do not..interest him and which he does not understand. It is, it must be confessed, somewhat difficult for us to realize what may interest and what may bore. The story is told of a band of Indians who were brought from the West to Boston many years ago, during the first days of the telephone. Their white guides predicted an amaze- ment on the part of the Indians when they should hear a voice speaking over the wire,—but on the contrary: the Indians easily explained it as the voice of a spirit, and it aroused no great interest, much to the disappointment of their white friends. They were taken to Lowell and visited the knitting mills. They who were accustomed to watch their wives working for weeks and possibly months upon a blanket, now saw one being made befure their eyes in a few minutes. This it was which excited them to a pitch of enthusiasm for the white man’s in- genuity. This fitted into their background and was properly valued. Has primitive man a greater susceptibility to stimuli of an emotional nature, and is this susceptibility of a different order from that of civilized man? There are two questions here, the first referring to quantity and the second to quality. Bcth these questions fall within the scope of experimental psychology, but practically nothing has been done along these lines. As for the measure of quantity of emotional reactions in the two fields of savage and civilized life, there are some indications that cause one to hesitate before say- ing, categorically, that the emotional states of primitive man are far more quickly brought into play and are far | greater in quantity than is the case with those living in a state of civilization. The ignorant of our own popula- tion share to a great extent the same tendency towards Social Origins and Social Continuities 61 emotions as that shown by primitive man, extreme nerv- ous susceptibility. There is reason to think that the sub- ordination of reason to feelings is to be found more fully developed among our ignorant than among. primitive people. The savage is often thought to be acting “unrea- sonably,” but careful investigation may show him to be carrying out a series of acts unnatural and unreasonable to us, but rational from his point of view. Primitive man seldom does anything.without some definite idea behind his actions. His reasoning powers are not defec- tive, but they have poor material to work on. Civilized man has greater plasticity in his judgments. Consider the vast array of facts available as an aid in establishing a rational decision upon all scientific sub- jects drawn from the various sciences. We know some- thing of the secret of the universe, the true cause and effects of certain lines of action—the source of certain diseases, for example. And yet, how many among us,— and not always the most ignorant,—fail to take these into consideration in forming judgments. Superstition is found among all classes of our population,—belief in charms and amulets still persists. False reasoning in all lines of action, in spite of atari laid oona by science, | is not uncommon. One might imagine that the power of suggestion was greater among primitive people than among the more civilized. We may well doubt this, in view of the phenomenal growth of so-called religions based entirely upon suggestion. The success of Coué and his follow- ers, the growth of New Thought and of Christian Science, are all indications that the welfare of mankind can be benefited by suggestion. The medicine man works along the very same lines. 62 Social Origins and Social Continurties There is certainly a need for something to counteract the nervous disorders of civilized man. Mental hygiene in its various forms is our answer. This need seems to show that, emotionally, civilized man is not far behind ~ the lowly savage. Psychologically man is one. The important point for consideration here is not whether these neuroses are caused by environment, or whether they are inherited; but the fact that they are present, and that the emotional side of the life of present- day man is something that has to be considered. Nervous disorders are not uncommon among primitive peoples, and suggestion is the most important method employed to cure these ills both among savage.and among civilized people. INTELLECT The very debatable subject of intellect next concerns us. There are several questions here. First, do races differ inherently from one another in their intellectual capacity? In other words, are there biological differ- ences in the nervous systems of the different races? Secondly, do all races have the same potentialities of intellect, some using them to create a civilization, others failing to avail themselves of these, although present? Thirdly, is the average mentality of the three great groups of mankind the same, with a great range of distribution of high and low intelligence in one group and a small distribution in others? The use of the word “race” is often confusing. Some discussions of intellect refer to the three primary groups of mankind, the White, the Mongolian, and the Negro. Other discussions refer to the different divisions of one of these primary groups, —the Nordic race, the Alpine, and the Mediterranean. Social Origins and Social Continuities 63 Finally, some fail to consider the fact that race and nationality are not by any means synonymous terms. There may be biological differences in the brain of the Negro, the Mongolian, and the White, but this is quite a different problem from an inherent difference in the sub- divisions of a single group: the Nordic separated in this respect from the Mediterranean, for example. It can thus be seen that this problem of intellectual endowment is not a simple one. Before discussing this question of mental equipment, let us consider the criteria for separating the three primary groups of man upon the physical side. Anthropology has been trying for generations to secure some definite means for a study of the physical side of race. Head-form was considered for a long time as the best criterion. The Negro has a long head, though some members of the Negro race have manta heads. The texture of the hair is believed by some to be a successful means of analyzing race. But there is no simple satis- factory criterion for establishing a safe test of the physical side of race, in spite of its obviousness. We know that a typical Negro is black, a typical Mongolian yellow, a typical White, white. But there are all shades of white, from the pale color of the Scandinavian to the darker shades of the Mediterranean peoples. The dark- est White peoples are often as dark as some of the Negro tribes. There is even a difficulty in distinguishing race by using all the criteria available, such as structure of hair, color of skin, hair and eyes, head form, and the character of the nose. If the obviousness of race, physically considered, does not give us definite criteria, how can we expect to find satisfactory evidence for a judgement on the mental side, 64 Social Origins and Social Continuities where racial inferiority or superiority are not so appar- ent? There is no scientific method yet acceptable to answer this question one way or the other. It is practi- cally impossible to separate the inherent endowment of man from the benefits or lack of benefits derived from the cultural, the social, and the environmental factors, the acquired traits from the inherited. This difficulty is especially aggravated when we consider man’s mentality. But to return to the main question. How can the mental basis of race be approximately determined? This subject cen be approached from several angles. A physical study of the races and their relative nearness to ancestral forms has often been attempted. If this comparison is based upon the more general physical features, the Negro is found nearest the anthro- poid with his receding forehead, broad nose, his prog- nathism or projection of the upper jaw. The White or Mongolian stand nearest the ape, with the Negro farthest away, when relative hairiness, texture of hair, develop- ment of lips, and the length and proportion of limbs are considered. The impossibility of appraising the relative value of these features shows the futility of this line of approach. Great inconsistencies are encountered when using this physical criterion. The fossil forms of the human skull are most like that of the Negro, whereas the skull of the typical Negro is always long and narrow, totally unlike that of the anthropoid ape.1® The size and weight of the brain have been employed in the attempt to determine intellect. There seems little doubt that the brain-weight of Whites is greater than that of most other races, and particularly greater than that of the brain of Negroes. There is certainly no. individual correlation between size and weight of brain Social Origins and Social Continuttres 65 _and intelligence, excepting of course in pathological cases. As a matter of fact, the Eskimo in general seem to have the largest heads among all living peoples. The Cro- Magnon race, and even some of the specimens of Nean- derthal man, far exceed in head capacity any modern peoples. As regards brain weight, there seems to be some slight correlation at the extreme ends of the curve, but this is lacking in the middle groups. The series of human brains is too meagre for any definite conclusions on this point. It is. probably not the size and.- weight~-of the brain that counts, but its structure, the nerve-cells and fibres. The morphological traits of the brain might give an answer to our problem, but unfortunately these have not been studied from a racial point of view." Physiological experiments on the different races of man are not numerous. No definite racial peculiarities regarding temperature, pulse-beat, and respiration have been found. The bio-chemical examination of races has yet to be undertaken. The ductless glands are another subject for investigation from a racial standpoint. These studies will doubtless open new vistas regarding the question of race. Kroeber has made a careful study of some of the foregoing points, together with the suscep- tibility to disease of the different races, and he finds no definite racial correlations.18 This discussion is already leading us far from the question of mental endowment, but the facts, as far as present investigations go, relating to physical and physi- ological superiority and inferiority, are so complicated and embrace so many contradictory features that nothing _ definite can be drawn from them at the present time. Let us consider next the history of our civilization and 66 Social Origins and Social Continuities that of other peoples. Babbitt notes that Renan, as late as the seventies of the last century, said, “The sentiment of nationalities is not a hundred years old in the world.” 19 We often fail to realize that the time relations, as applied to civilization, are relatively so extremely slight as compared with the whole history of mankind. The Egyptians, two thousand years before Christ, would regard their culture in quite the same way as we regard ours, and would question the possibilities of a civilization equalling their among any other people. The Greeks in their time would stand in this same posi- tion, looking down upon all other nations and question- ing the potentialities of all other peoples. The Latins in Cesar’s time would certainly have denied that the Britons and Germans were inherently equal to them- selves. ‘If these northerners possessed the ability of the Mediterraneans, they would have given vent to it, instead of continuing to live in disorganization, poverty ignorance, rudeness, and without great men or products of the spirit.” “What,” asks one writer, “had these bar- barians ever done to lead one to think that they might yet do great things?’ 2° Given a good environment, a start of a few thousand years or even less, and a people may surge ahead often at an amazing rate. Considering the cultures of the world as they now stand, that.of whites.has had a longer history than that of any other, starting with the Upper Paleolithic of Central Europe and continuing in an unbroken series up to the present time. The Mongoloid | peoples show as a whole the greatest diversity in their range of cul- ture. There are Mongolian peoples in all stages of devel- Social Origins and Social Continuities 67 opment, from the crudest savages to civilized peoples,— the nearest racial relatives of the Manchu are very crude Siberian tribes. One branch at least of this race, the Chinese, has had a long history of achievement behind it, and the Japanese have certainly attained a high degree of civilization. Giles, in his Civilization of China, writes, “If we go back to the fifteenth century, we shall find that the standard of civilization, as the term is usually understood, was still much higher in China than in Europe; while Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveller of the thirteenth century, who actu- ally lived twenty-four years in China, and served as an official under Kublai Khan, has left it on record that the magnificence of Chinese cities and the splendor of the Chinese court, outrivaled anything he had ever seen or heard of.” 2+ The diversity of the Mongoloid peoples as regards culture is seen in that branch found in America, the American Indian. The difference in accomplishment between many of the Brazilian tribes and the Mayas and Aztecs, both belonging to the same race, are cer- tainly as great as that between many of the Negro tribes in Africa and certain white peoples a few centuries ago. Considering, therefore, the White and Mongolian branches of mankind, we find the greatest range of cultures among them at different times in their histories and also different grades of culture existing simultane- ously in the same division. One can say, therefore, that there can be little direct “proportional relation” between race and culture. A race does not change its inherent mental make-up every time a culture advances or retreats. 68 Social Origins and Social Continuities Finally the Negro and his culture: The strongest argument in favor of inherent differences in the three primary groups along intellectual and cultural lines is found right here. The Negro as a race has not built up great civilizations in any way comparable to tijose cre- ated by the other two great branches of mankind. The Negro failed almost completely to avail himself of the influences of Egypt and the Mediterranean area in gen- eral. In respect to certain technological processes the Negro excels. The smelting of iron, for example, was carried out in all probability in Negro Africa before it appeared in Europe. The cultures of Benin and Mash- onaland stand out above the general level. Trial by jury was an invention of the Negro. The relation be- tween opportunity and achievement in this connection can explain away only a part of this absence from Negro Africa and Melanesia of cultures worthy of a place among the great civilizations of the world. There is a great deal written regarding race psychol- ogy. As far as I know there has never been any special attempt made to divide the races on the physical side and study each division along purely psychological lines. There is no such thing as racial psychology in the strict scientific sense. Practically the only thing that has been done is an attempt to study various racial factors in our civilization by means of the so-called intelligence tests. This is the age of intelligence- -testing. The layman does not hesitate to apply it at all times and in all places: parents try it on their children, usually with results gratifying to their pride. If applied in the experienced hands of a psychologist it does seem to be an aid in separating the superior and inferior individuals. Social Origins and Social Continuities 69 It is still a debatable question how far the result can be interpreted as indicative of innate ability, and how far the result reflects the social background of the indi- vidual tested. The cultural environment, education in the broadest sense of the term, is certainly a factor in the outcome. The published results of the mental examinations used in the United States Army at the time of the World War have proved “source material” for observations by many varieties of scientific and unscientific investigators. For the problem here, the results of these tests upon men of various races and of various nationalities are worthy of notice, although, as already pointed out, there is no means of knowing from the tests themselves what factors in the results are due to inherent endowment and what to environment. Variation in the ability to use the English language must certainly have played some part in the results. The examinations were rated with letters from A to E. The Alpha test was for literates, the Beta test for illiterates. Kroeber has made an analysis of the results of the examinations, and his figures are presented here, together with certain factors which he has “analyzed out.” ** He gives comprehensively the results in per- centages of individuals in each group,—those below the middle grade of C, those with C, and those above C. Group and number of individuals Below C C Above C Englishmen, 411 9 71 20 White draft generally, 93,973 24 64 12 Italians, 4007 63 36 1 Poles, 382 70 20 .o Negroes generally, 18,891 79 20 1 70 Social Origins and Social Continuities As Kroeber comments, “These figures at face value seem to show deep group differences in intelligence.” The Englishman ranks higher than the drafted white man as a whole, but this is to be “complacently explained by saying that the English represent in comparative purity the Anglo-Saxon or Nordic stock which is also the dominant strain among Americans, but which has been somewhat contaminated in their case by the immi- gration of Latins and Slavs, who rate much lower, as shown by the Italians and Poles tested.” Lowest of all is the Negro. “But there is one feature that raises sus- picion. The Italians and the Poles are too close to the Negroes. They stand much nearer to them,in intelligence, according to these figures, than they do to the white Americans. Can this.... have racial significance? Are these Mediterraneans, descendants of the Romans, and these Alpines .... only a grade superior to the Negro? ‘Something must be wrong’ with the figures: that is, they contain another factor besides race.” Length of residence in the country, the ability to use English, and the social background, are all factors to be taken into consideration. It should also be noted that the foreigners from Southern Europe are a selected group which is most probably inferior both innately and culturally. They are “samples” of the lower orders whereas North European immigration more fairly repre- sents the home population as a whole. The difference in grades between the northern and southern Negro is shown next. Group and number of individuals Below C CGC AboveC Negroes, 5 northern states, 4705 46 51 3 Negroes, 4 southern states, 6846 86 14 3 Social Origins and Social Continuities 71 The northern Negro, with surroundings far more like those of the whites among whom he lives, far surpasses the southern Negro. He gets ten times as high a pro- portion of individuals into the above-C grades, and only about half as many in the below-C grades. This, I think, may be partially accounted for by the improved social surroundings and educational facilities, larger op- portunities and a partial loss of the color-line. East and others explain this better showing of the northern Negro as due to the fact that those who came north were the more ambitious and those with relatively higher intelligence. It should also be noted that the northern Negroes are more largely mulattoes than the southern Negroes. Does the admixture of white blood give a greater intelligence in and of itself? There is, at pres- ent, no proof of this. Social environment must certainly explain some of the difference between the northern and southern Negroes. ~The results of the Beta test are next to be considered. This was given to men who could not write an intelli- gible letter or read a newspaper, or who had had only half, or less, of the ordinary grammar-school education, together with aliens whose knowledge of English was imperfect. ALPHA TEST: LITERATES Group and number of individuals Below C C Above C Englishmen, 374 5 74 21 White draft generally, 72,618 16 69 15 Alabama whites, 697 19 72 9 New York negroes, 1,021 21 72 7 Italians, 575 33 64 3 Negroes generally, 5,681 54 44 a Alabama negroes, 262 56 44 ( 4) 72 Social Origins and Social Continuities BETA TEST: ILLITERATES White draft generally, 26,012 58 41 1 Italians, 2,888 64 35 1 New York negroes, 440 72 28 0 Poles, 263 76 24 ( 4) Alabama whites, 384 80 20 0 Negroes generally, 11,633 91 9 ( 2) Alabama negroes, 1,043 97 3 Crd) In the Alpha tests the New York negro has nearly the Same percentage as the Alabama white. In the Beta tests he is slightly above the Alabama white. This may “mean that bringing up in a certain part of the country has as much to do with intelligence, even in the rough, as has Caucasian or colored parentage.” The literate negroes, irrespective of section, slightly surpasses the illiterate whites. It should be noted that within the same section the white recruits always sur- pass the colored. Alabama whites may make a poor showing, but they are above the general negro per- centage. Illiterate whites in general surpass illiterate negroes. Is this difference due to race? “As long as the color-line remains drawn, a differential factor of cultural advantage is included; and how strong this is there is no present means of knowing. It is possible that some of the difference between sectionally and educationally equalized groups of whites and negroes is really innate and racial. But it is also possible that most or all of it is environmental. Neither possibility can be demonstrated from the unrefined data at present available.” In a study made by Pyle on the relative intelligence of negro and white school-children, it was found that the mental ability of the negro children was two-thirds Social Origins and Social Continuities 73 that of the white boys and girls. Negro girls ap- proached the white girls in ability slightly more closely than negro boys approached white boys. There was a tendency for the difference between the two races to decrease with increasing age. One-fifth of the negroes were equal or superior to the average whites. Three- quarters of the whites were equal or superior to the negroes. When the colored children were divided into two groups, arranged on a basis of social surroundings, Negro boys of the better social class possessed about four-fifths of the intelligence of white boys,—an increase from two-thirds when all the negroes were considered. This increase is explained by some as due to the fact that the mentally more alert have provided themselves with a better social environment. This is no doubt a factor that should be taken into consideration. But it is as impossible of proof as the explanation that the social surroundings in and of themselves may explain this tendency of negroes socially selected to approach the norm of white children. The results of the different tests were interesting. In such experiments as substitution and controlled associa- tion the negroes were less than half as good as the whites. In free association and some other tests they were nearly as good. In quickness of perception and discrimination and in reaction, the negroes were equal to or superior to white children. The same investigator conducted another series of experiments upon the mental deviation of rural and urban school-children.24 He found that the country- bred children possessed about three-fourths the mental- ity of the city-bred. This is only one-twelfth of a point higher than his results in comparing the negro with 74 Social Origins and Social Continuities the white. Better teachers and better social environ- ment are to a great extent accountable for this difference between the country and the city child. It is certainly not to be explained by race. He found less difference between Chinese children and whites than between urban and rural American white children. The question of human hybrids ought to furnish a prolific field for the investigation of intellect. Some work on this subject has been carried out in Hawaii, but the results, as far as I know, have not been published. The investigation by Hunter on the relation of the amount of Indian blood in Indian-white mixtures to intelligence is available for study and is presented here.?5 Resutts or Hunter anp Rowe Tests on INDIANS AND INDIAN-WHITE MIxTuRES Below At Above Race age group age group age group Full blood 93.2 22 46 3% Indian 90.9 0.7 8.4 % Indian 81.6 10 17.4 4 Indian 74.3 0.0 25.7 Total average 85.0 97 14.02 He found a positive correlation with an increasing degree of white blood, which he thinks indicates “a racial difference, probably of intelligence, although possibly of temperament.” He suspects that the Indian full-blood has better social surroundings than those with white mixture. I feel convinced, in my own mind, that the reverse is true: namely, that the half-whites are better off physically, socially, and educationally, than the full- bloods, and that an increase in intelligence among mixed Social Origins and Social Continuities 75 bloods is to be correlated, in part at least, with a better social environment. The influence of a white parent must necessarily make itself felt. It would have a far greater and better social value in the case of an Indian-white mixture than in that of a Negro-white mixture, as in the former case of misce- genation there is far less social stigma attached than in that of a Negro and a White. Garth made some tests on Indian-white mixtures with- out differentiating the amount of blood of each race represented.*® His figures show the same trend as those of Hunter. He plainly admits that social status and education are factors to be considered in the differences between his figures and the norm for white children which he uses. One might well ask at this stage: Why not go into Australia, for example, and examine the aboriginal pop- ulation there by means of intelligence tests? This has not been done because, as far as I know, no tests have yet been devised suitable for a primitive people. The familiar tests used on European and American popula- tions with a more or less definite cultural environment could not fairly be employed on a people who have an entirely different social background. These tests will undoubtedly come in time, but there will always be the difficulty of a standard equation between tests for civilized man and tests for primitive peoples. Even the Beta tests for illiterates presuppose an acquaintance with a backgroud of culture which is American, not Australian nor South American. Test 6 of the Beta group is to supply the missing parts of objects given in pictures. Two people are playing tennis with no net; two are bowling with no balls; there is an electric-light bulb 76 Social Origins and Social Continuities with no filament. It is readily admitted that this test would not be a fair one for aboriginal peoples and it may safely be presumed that some of the illiterates of the Army Draft had never seen a game of tennis nor a bowling match, and even, perhaps, never an electric- light bulb. Consider the white peoples as a whole. Here we have one primary group, commonly divided into three races. We hear much about the supremacy of those of Nordic blood, as I have already noted. Several attempts have been made to prove this. Brigham, in his Study of American Intelligence, tries to get figures for this, but the results have been very rightly and very seriously questioned. There are absolutely no data at present available to prove that the Nordics are equipped bio- logically with a greater capacity than that possessed by the other two white races. And yet what a part the Nordic hypothesis has played in current discussions as a weapon held over the actions of individuals and of states! * * Barnes after considering the influence of the World War in causing a “resurgence of racial nonsense” writes very truly, “Another source of deception has been the reappearance of a neo-Gobinesque literature. In the pre-war literature there was one notorious book of this sort, Chamberlain’s Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. To this was added in 1917 the most mischievous book since Gobineau, Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race, which advanced the thesis that all western civilization had been due mainly to the contributions of the Nordic blonds. This preposterous doctrine has been exploited with variations by William McDougall, Lothrop Stoddard, C. C. Josey, C. S. Burr, and C. W. Gould, until now it has reached such a grotesque state that attempts are being made to interpret the American Civil War on the Nordic blond hypothesis. Fortu- nately, most reputable historians have remained immune from Social Origins and Social Continuities 17 If it were possible to arrange the members of a race, those belonging to the genius class on the one hand, those with average minds in the middle group, and those with feeble intellects below, the range might well be greater among some races than among others. The White race may have a greater number of men of genius per 100,000 of the population than the Negro race pos- sesses. It certainly seems as if this were true. Fischer suggests that whites differ from negroes in this respect, while not exceeding them in average intelligence.2® But it must be remembered that genius may pass unrecog- nized, owing to lack of opportunity to make itself felt among savages. He “does not get into the record.” Primitive society must have had a fair amount of genius among its members, to account for certain well-organized efforts that show high mental traits. The Maya calendar functioned without the loss of a day for 2000 years, until it was broken up by Spanish priests. Marginal corrections were applied to take care of the variation in the year and the true solar year—a means more accurate than our method of leap year. It was not until 1582 that the Julian day was invented, which corresponds to the Maya day count,—2000 years after the same principle had been adopted by the Mayas. 29 It has been shown by the mental tests upon Indian and Negro children that a small percentage of the latter were superior to the average white. Garth states that many full-blood Indians attain and even excel the perform- the Nordic hysterics, but it has debauched the opinions of not a few publicists and lecturers and has gained immense popularity. It will require a generation of persistent effort on the part of scholars to eradicate this distressing source of error.” ” 78 Social Origins and Social Continuities ance of mixed-bloods. Where the number of the indi- viduals studied is small, excessive values,—extremes in the measurement,—are likely to be due to the unrepre- sentative character of the sample. Hayes has postu- lated a curve to show that the average intelligence of one race may be about the same as that of another, but that there would be a larger number of high intel- lects in one case and a greater number of low intellects in the other.°° This suggestion is as impossible of proof in the present state of our knowledge as that of any other relating to innate mental equipment. Before trying to sum up this question of the relative mentality of the different groups of mankind, let us consider for a moment those socially handicapped among white populations. What about achievements among the “poor whites” of the south, the miner, the peasant? Everyone will admit that the majority of mankind of whatever race and of whatever station in life do not use their minds for thinking out their own problems, much less those affecting society at large. They are creatures of habit, and accept in general what they are told, whether or not they believe it. There is little reflection and little individual thinking.31 Is this lack of achievement due to an inherent mental deficiency or to a suppression of all stimuli from social surroundings? Send the “poor white” or the peasant to school,—in an enlightened community,—and some of his deficiencies, at least, tend to disappear. Race prejudice bulks very large in any decision upon this subject. As has been suggested, take the attitude of the average Californian or Australian on the Mongolian, of the Texan on the Mexican, the Southerner on the Negro, the Westerner on the local tribes of Indians, and Social Origins and Social Continuties 79 the Englishman on the Hindu. In the case of the Mon- golian in California and the Negro in the South, we find in both cases social maladjustment of an alien people. In the case of the Indian and the Hindu, we find the alien people to be those on top, trying to impose a new and higher social system upon a native popu- lation. Not one of these cases presents a normal ground for judgment of innate intelligence. In summing up this question of the mentality of dif- ferent races, it should be borne in mind that it 1s not possible to prove the question one way or the other if scientific data are demanded on which to base a decision. A priori one can say that there seems to be some reason to think that the Negro race as a whole fails to measure up to the intellectual standard of the other two great eroups of mankind, the White and the Mongolian. If however, we free our minds as much as possible from prejudice, and take into consideration the emotional factor present in our decision, we should hesitate to deny that many of the deficiencies of the Negro are due not to an intellectual capacity, but to a social and, to a lesser extent, physical environment which are decidedly unfavorable.1® Vernon Kellogg writes, in Mind and Heredity, that the work of Woodworth (1912), done twelve years ago, “pointed out that what studies of racial differences in mental traits had been made up to that time, failed to reveal any pronounced or even any very readily definable differences of this character among the races studied.” Kellogg adds, “More recent studies seem to confirm this conclusion.” *? It should be clearly realized that the residual qualities remaining in culture after taking out the effects of envi- 80 Social Origins and Social Continutties ronment are the result of intellect. The range of indi- vidual endowment is then the next factor of importance. That this is great is proved on all sides. After environ- ment and individual ability are factored out, the remainder is racial. There is a final question relating to mentality, that of the processes of thought. Does the savage use differ- ent methods of logic in his mental processes? Most anthropologists assume a certain similarity in the modes of thought, shared alike by the savage and by civilized man, a psychical unity for all mankind. Lévy-Bruhl and others of the French School deny the validity of this.?3 They argue that as mentality is a collective product and the result of social environment, so this social mind changes as social environment changes; and therefore, naturally, the mental processes of primitive man are distinctly different from our own. Any object used in a religious ceremony, according to this theory, takes on a kind of aura, becoming “sat- urated” with magical associations that cannot be sep- arated from the object itself. The natural world thus presents itself to the mind of primitive man as something quite different from the picture we should obtain from viewing the same phenomena. The author uses the word “mystical” to designate this trait of primitive mind. The “law of participation” is, he thinks, a fundamental prin- ciple of primitive mentality. Objects participate mysti- cally in one another. A man may be in one place and at the same time in another, an animal may be here before you and at the same time appear in a dream >a man is not only similar but identical with his name or with his image. This mystical participation unites men and animals, Social Origins and Social Continuities 81 objects and actions, into “closely related groups that have nothing to do with objective form and substance, and are based solely on ceremonial, magical, and other supernatural connections.” The peculiarity of the col- lective ideas is that they are “pre-logical or a-logical, meaning by this not that they necessarily contradict logic, but that logical processes are frequently and even typically disregarded in their formation.” Two questions immediately present themselves. Are the mental processes of primitive man always illogical, and are the mental processes of civilized man always logical? We can easily answer, No, to both questions. Primitive man, granted his premises, usually has a rea- son, and, from his point of view, a logical reason, for all his acts. It is also certainly true that many of the acts of civilized man are based upon anything but careful logical premises. The continuity of human achievement presents no hiatus where man passes from the pre- logical to the logical system of reason. Both are present among all peoples in all grades of culture. This takes away the foundation stone of the Lévy-Bruhl theory which makes a sharp distinction between primitive and civilized society. There may well be a confusion of the man and his image, the man and his name. Religion overlaps all the other fields of savage thought and of action. It plays a part in the planting of corn. Religion and the fine arts, religion and natural science, religion and law, are all related. Some have laid stress upon this confusion of categories, but it is not a confusion from the point of view of primitive man. There is simply a difference in our classification of subjects from that of the savage. Somewhat the same confusion was present in our cul- 82 Social Origins and Social Continuities ture only a short time ago. Astronomy and human life gave us astrology; botany and magic gave us medicine. Dewey has summarized the emotional and intellectual characteristics of primitive man as given by Spencer. “He is explosive and chaotic in feeling, improvident, childishly mirthful, intolerant of restraint... . atten- tive to meaningless detail and incapable of selecting the facts from which conclusions may be drawn, with feeble grasp of thought, incapable of rational surprise, incurious, lacking in ingenuity and constructive imagina- tion.” The savage, as the field anthropologist knows him, after an intimate study, corresponds only in a few respects to Spencer’s description. Dewey, in a well-known passage, says, “Immediacy of interest, attention, and deed is the essential trait of the nomad hunter. He has no cultivated plants, no system of appliances for tending and regulating plants and animals; he does not even anticipate the future by drying meat. When food is abundant he gorges himself, but does not save... Now such facts as these are usually given a purely negative interpretation. They are used as proofs of the incapacities of the savage. But in fact they are parts of a very positive psychosis, which taken in itself and not merely measured against something else, requires and exhibits highly specialized skill, and affords intense satisfactions—psychical and social satis- factions, not merely sensuous indulgences. The savage’s repugnance to what we term a higher plane of life is not due to stupidity or dullness or apathy—or to any other merely negative qualities . . . His aversion is due to the fact that in the new occupations he does not have so clear or so intense a sphere for the display of intellectual and Social Origins and Social Continuities 83 practical skill, or such opportunity for a dramatic play of emotion. ... “No one has ever called a purely hunting race dull, apathetic or stupid. Much has been written regarding the aversion of savages to higher resources of civiliza- tion—their refusal to adopt iron tools or weapons, for example, and their sodden absorption in routine habits ... Their attention is mobile and fluid as is their life; they are eager to the point of greed for anything which will fit into their dramatic situations so as to intensify skill and increase emotion... It is when the native is forced into an alien use of the new resources, instead of adapting them to his own ends, that his work- manship, skill, and artistic taste uniformly degenerate. “Competent testimony is unanimous as to the quick- ness and accuracy of apprehension evinced by the natives in coming in contact even for the first time with com- plicated constructive devices of civilized man, provided only these appliances have a direct or immediate action- index.” 34 In spite of some exceptions, early society is conserva- tive. Reflection is far rarer than imitation. Tradition of the elders has been called “the instinct of society.” If everyone is imitating everyone else the result is no movement in either direction. That there is movement and hence change,—however slowly accomplished in some societies,—is proved on all sides. The fact that we find peoples speaking the same languages and with a similar early history, occupying different scales of cul- ture, doing different things in different ways, proves that originality must have been present to inaugurate these changes. The tendency to change may be small or great. The incentive depends upon many factors:—a 84 Social Origins and Social Continutties crisis of war bringing about the selections of a leader; the crisis of a deplenished food supply, leading to migration or to the development of new methods of raising food; new ideas brought in from another people by conquest or by subjection. The greatest variation in the attitude towards cultural novelties is seen in the modern world. One modern writer, assimilating conservatism to a disease, has given it a name,—“neophobia,” a form of disease that has been recognized for years. He cites a letter by Creevey against a bill introduced into the British Parliament in 1825 against the construction of the first railway, and Napier in the House of Commons against the introduc- tion of steam power into the English navy. Walter Scott called coal gas for lighting a pestilential innova- tion, Byron satirized it in verse. The introduction of bath tubs in the United States in 1840 was considered by doctors as dangerous to health; and, as late as 1845, there was a municipal ordinance in Boston that such tubs were unlawful except on medical advice.2®> And we all remember an aged relative who vowed she would never ride in “one of those automobiles.” Conservatism today is considered old-fashioned. And yet the world needs © conservatism as a balance for new ideas. In the first chapter I tried to show that culture is not mainly made up of cougenital factors. I have carried this thesis a step further and endeavored to point out that society is thus not a biological organism. Man’s intel- lectual equipment, iuade possible by a large brain, coupled with his possession of articulate speech, places human society in an entirely different category from that found among non-human animals. Individual dif- Social Origins and Social Continuities 85 ferences, race, and environment should be considered as factors in the diversities of cultures. All play a part, but not one occupies the entire rdle in the drama of peoples. Many of the more common ideas regarding the nature of the savage are not founded upon facts. He is not a creature of unbridled passions, but is held in check by numerous tabus. The acuity of his senses, his power of concentration, and his emotional qualities do not differ greatly from corresponding qualities in civilized man. As regards intellect, we cannot at present prove that he has an inferior endowment in mental equipment. Such a postulated theory may be advanced, but it cannot be derived from any scientific data at present available. It should also be pointed out that superiority does not consist of intellect alone but that other unmeasurable qualities which are relative to emotional and volitional make-up may contribute to the preéminence of a people. According to the common view, “Man is many, and civilization one.” The reverse is one of the theses of this book: “Man is one, civilizations are many.” CHAPTER III THE CRISES IN THE LIFE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IT'HERE are almost as many different types of persons in a primitive community as in a modern one; and, furthermore, there are various kinds of societies which can be classed as rude, ranging all the way from that of the lowly Australian and the Bushman to the more complicated life of the Polynesian. The mistake is often made of envisaging a typical Savage, or, as some have called him, a “natural man,” and a standard society to which he belongs: . There is neither the one nor the other. For this reason it is perhaps a mistake even to attempt a discussion of the life of such a hypothetical individual; as there is, in reality, no such creature. But out of the mass of facts concerning the daily routine of a savage, certain practices stand out as common among many peoples,—a social and religious etiquette observed in the various crises of life. Mention has already been made of the suggestibility of primitive man. This is especially noticeable in regard to the unseen forces of his environment. He is always alert in the face of the imagined dangers of evil powers who wait in a sort of ethereal ambush to work harm. Practically all the observances that will be noted are based on the attempt to placate these unseen powers with the request that good spirits come in their stead. 86 | Social Origins and Social Continuities 87 The modern conception of the savage is that of a lazy creature lying about under a tree, or, where there are no trees, in the shade of his hut; his wife, the beast of burden and the work horse for the family. It is needless to say that this picture does not accord with the facts. Primitive man in his own environment is a very much occupied person, As far as observations go, almost_every.moment.of his time is taken up with the pursuit, of his livelihood and...with..endeavors_ to provide diversion for these hostile influences. There is no rest from his vigil regarding the unseen powers. An ‘astonishing amount of time is consumed in his religious practices. A successful hunt or a plentiful harvest. must needs be followed by an offering of first game or first fruits to the gods. _ - Savage life is seldom as unvaried as commonly sup- posed. Seasonal occupations relating to game or to planting and the harvest, the preparation for the elab- orate rites and their celebration, the various festivals, sometimes in an almost unbroken series,—all serve to vary a life which otherwise might be monotonous. There are far wider and richer interests in the life of primitive man than in that of many of the modern workers in an industrial community. The “immediacy of interest” is always present. ‘The play of the emotions along the scale of want, effort, success, or failure,’ writes Dewey, in speaking of a hunting race, “is the very type, psychi- cally speaking, of the drama. The breathless interest with which we hang upon the movement of play or novel are reflexes of the mental attitudes evolved in the hunting vocation.” 4 I do not follow Dewey when he adds that in the agricultural stage of society, when the emotions of the 88 Social Origins and Social Continuities hunt are gone, the drudgery of field labor is handed over to the women and the men take up war to supply the excitements formerly furnished by the hunt. It seems to me that altogether too much attention is paid to warfare as an habitual occupation of primitive peoples. The observances occurring in the history of an individ- ual which are to be discussed here, center around the crises of life——birth, adolescence, marriage, and death. Rites are undertaken at each of these times,—“rites of passage,” as Van Gennep calls them, conducting the individual from one state or situation to another. If each society is considered a sort of house divided into chambers, in civilized life passage from room to room is easy; whereas in primitive society the compartments are isolated from each other and movement from one to another is difficult. Rites are necessary in passing from one room to the next. Even among more developed peoples the ceremonies of baptism, confirmation, mar- riage, and death, are, in many respects, “rites of passage.” Reflection and discussion regarding these inevitable crises lead to some idea of supposed cause and effect, and various “controls” are undertaken which play a part in the development of magic, that which corresponds to science, and the general idea of souls and spirits. The medicine man, the sorcerer, the physician, the priest, the judge, the teacher, and the artist, often owe a large part of their development to these crises.? . The “rites of passage” abundantly illustrate the two _ fields of magic: contagious and symbolic, both founded upon the misapplication of the laws of cause and effect; Social Origins and Social Continuities 89 the first based upon the idea of contagion, and the second upon the belief that like produces like. BirtH It seems safe to say that among a few peoples pro- creation is not understood to be the result of sexual intercourse. Attis was the Adonis of Western Asia, a god of vegetation. His mother, Nana, was a virgin, who conceived by putting a ripe almond or a pome- granate in her bosom. Such tales of virgin mothers are common. In Phrygian cosmogony, an almond fig- ured as the father of all things. In Palestine, to this day, it is believed that a woman may conceive by the spirit of her dead husband. In the Finnish epic, the Kalevala, conception is brought about by eating a cranberry. Among some of the tribes in central and northern Australia, conception is believed to be the result of the entrance into the body of the woman of an animal spirit. The child is thus the reincarnated spirit of this animal. The spirit may be induced to enter the body of the female of its species, and thus animal birth is accounted for in the same way as human nativity, Among the Kiriwina of British New Guinea the origin of conception is traced back to the soul of a dead person entering the body of a woman as a spirit child. Pregnancy is a time of great concern, far more for the welfare of the community and of the future child than for the health and comfort of the woman. A special place of residence is often demanded for the expectant mother. She is abnormal socially quite as much as physically, and various prophylactic measures must be taken to prevent her from working harm. Isolation is Seen wa 90 Social Origins and Social Continuities only one of the precautions taken. Tabus are usually necessary at this time. The old-fashioned idea of pre-natal influence is seen in some of the prohibitions. Among the northwest Amazons a pregnant woman must not eat the meat of the capibara, a rodent, else the child will have teeth like the rodent. Paca is tabu, or the child will be spotted like this animal. There is a rather widespread belief that knots and closed objects are objectionable at the time of child- bearing. Among the Saxons of Transylvania, there must be no knots on the garments of a woman in labor, be- cause they would interfere with delivery. All the locks in the house, on boxes or on doors, are unlocked for the same reason. Roman religion required that the women who took the part of the goddess of childbirth should have no knot tied on their persons. Tabus must, in some cases, be observed by the hus- band as well as by the wife. He may not be allowed to cover his eyes during his wife’s pregnancy, and Pliny tells us that to sit with clasped hands beside a woman in this condition was enough to cast a malignant spell on her. On the principle of symbolic magic, this would thwart the free course of events. Among the Yukaghir, a Siberian tribe, the fat of the cow or of the reindeer or larch gum are forbidden at this time, but horse’s fat may be eaten. The woman must raise her feet high in walking, and must push stones away from her path, symbolizing the removal of obstructions at childbirth. She must never turn back on setting out for a certain place. The woman is usually considered unclean during this period, and a quarantine may exist both before and after Social Origins and Social Continwties 91 the birth of a child. She cannot usually be reinstated in her home and social group until she has passed through some purification ceremony. This is entirely compar- able with the “churching of women” in the Christian Church. This is a liturgical form of thanksgiving after childbirth, borrowed from the Jewish Church, and orig- inating in the Mosaic regulation as to purification as given in Leviticus, x1r. “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a woman have conceived seed, and borne a man child, then she shall be unclean seven days; according to the days of the separation for her infirmity shall she be unclean... And she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days; she shall touch no hallowed thing, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying be fulfilled.” This contagion of uncleanliness, a pollution, is, of course, exactly similar to the contagious character of holiness met with in many parts of the religious ritual. Birth itself is mysterious. Much has been made of the ease with which children are brought into the world by primitive people. Owing to the large number of skeletons of newly-born babies found in archeological excavations, and the bodies of gravid mothers with the foetus, we realize that infant mortality was probably greater than is commonly supposed. In general, how- ever, it may be said that the danger at childbirth is mainly a spiritual one. The period of quarantine observed by the woman is often extended to include the newly-born infant. There is a double cause for the precautions taken; to prevent the contamination of society by the child, and to prevent harm from coming to him, The evil spirits are especially 92 Social Origins and Social Continuities prone to work at this time. Not only are charms hung about the infant, but the umbilical cord must be dis- posed of in some special way, and a ceremonial bath or baptism is often resorted to as a kind of purification. The birth of twins is considered with great disfavor. Frequently one of them is killed. Sometimes both suffer death. The curious custom of the couvade, the lying-in of the father, is found among many peoples widely sepa- rated in time, as well as in culture; as the Basques of the Pyrenees, who practiced it until one or two centuries ago, the Caribs of Guiana, and some of the Indians of Brazil. Strabo relates that the Iberian women, after the examples of the Celts, Thracians, and Scythians, quit their beds as soon as they were delivered, and gave them up to their husbands, whom they tended. This distribu- tion of this custom illustrates, perhaps better than that of any other, similar results arrived at independently by two or more peoples. The couvade consists of the father taking to his bed or his hammock on the birth of a child. He is carefully tended, and surrounded by certain rigor- ous and definite tabus. This custom was explained by Tylor in his evolutionary theory of society as appearing at a definite stage of progress when man is passing from reckoning descent through the mother to that where father-descent is achieved. It was an attempt to push the woman into the background, and to emphasize the father’s importance in the family. It has already been seen that this theory of monotypical evolution is funda- mentally wrong, and its application to the couvade can- not be accepted. Many peoples believe, as do the Ainu, that as the mother gives the child his body, so the father gives him Social Origins and Social Continuities 93 his soul. The close spiritual connection between the father and the child makes it necessary for the father to protect him. He does this in some cases by lying-in and refraining from certain actions which might, through magic, injure the child. It may also be suggested that the couvade is, in some cases, due to a desire to attract attention away from the mother, so that the evil spirits may leave her alone and try their harmful influence on the father, who is better fortified to withstand this evil. In a few instances, there seems to be the necessity of a formal introduction of the child to the world at large before he can rightly be considered a member of society. This would mark the passage of the infant from the world from which he came to his present surroundings. An Omaha Indian infant was not considered a member of human society until his advent had been ceremonially announced, so that he might assume his accepted place in the community. The rite took place on the eighth day after birth, and served as a supplication to the spirits of the heavens, the air, and the earth, for the safety of the child. In it the infant is pictured as about to travel a rugged road stretching over four hills, mark- ing the progress through the stages of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. The child wears a pair of moc- casins with a small hole cut in the sole. This is done in order that “if a messenger from the spirit world should come and say to him, ‘I have come for you,’ he could answer, ‘I cannot go on a Journey,—my moccasins are worn out.’”? It is an indirect prayer that the infant may have a long life. Primitive man is constantly praying to the gods, and he often expects a definite answer. Prayer is the word to the gods; revelation shown by means of divination 94 Social Origins and Social Continuities is the answer from the gods. Some savages refrain from carrying out the simplest acts of their daily routine without obtaining some indication whether their course is correct and pleasing to the gods. Festivals, journeys, planting and harvesting, are often undertaken only after a favorable response has been obtained. At birth divination is often employed. It is all-im- portant to make certain that a favorable life is in store for the child. If not, means are taken to cancel the bad future by anticipating its evils or by placation of some kind. This idea runs through folklore and myth- ology. After the birth of Meleager, the Fates appeared and foretold that the life of the child should last no longer than a certain brand then burning upon the hearth, Althea, the boy’s mother, seized and quenched the brand and carefully preserved it while Meleager grew to boyhood, youth, and man’s estate. The “fating of the babe” is, of course, an act of divi- nation. Among some of the modern Greeks, the Fates are invited to be present after the birth of a child ata feast. At Kassus on the Aigean, these spirits are pre- sumed to appear seven days after birth. The nurse, after suspending and incensing the infant, utters an appeal to the Mere, asking them to arrive and bestow a happy destiny. The child is then dressed in the best garments of the father and mother. A table is set, on which are placed three rolls of bread, and in the center a basin of honey with three newly made candles on the rim. These are lighted; one is named after Christ, a second after the Virgin, and the third after John the Baptist. The creed is recited and the Saint whose candle is first consumed is hailed as the patron of the new-comer. The Mere@ are then supposed to ap- Social Origins and Social Continuties 95 pear, “to fate” the child and to accept something from the table. This rite was found throughout the Roman world, and continued into the Middle Ages. Modern fairy tales abound in allusions to this ceremony. Fairies are invited to the christening of a heroine, on whom they bestow their several gifts. The title of god-mother bestowed on the fairies of nursery tales exhibits the com- bination of pagan and Christian ceremonies. * Among a few peoples, some of the Australian tribes, for example, there is a sex totem, or “patron,” to which each child is entitled. Each of the sexes has its special animal whose name each individual of the sex bears, regarding the animal as his or her brother or sister respectively. Among the Kurnai, all the men are called ‘“emu-wrens” and all the women “superb warblers.” If the men kill an emu-wren they are attacked by the women, and if the women kill a warbler they are punished by the men. These totems are quite distinct from the clan totems and from the guardian spirit of the individual. Tue NAME The relation between an individual and his name is a very intimate one. The name is, to all intents and purposes, the individual, just as much as an arm or & leg. The sacredness of the name and its selection are important factors. The Eskimo say that a man con- sists of three parts,—his body, his soul, and his name. Just as a person may be injured by an incantation over something which has been in contact with his body, so he may be harmed by having his name used in con- nection with an oath. The oath and its efficacy in working evil have had an interesting history, which can- not be gone into here. The fear in the heart of the 96 Social Origins and Social Continuities savage that his name may be used wrongfully is so strong that there is a common custom of keeping the real name secret and having a second one by which he is known in the community. This is fictitious, so that even if used it cannot work harm. This power of the name is seen under several aspects. The Dyaks of Borneo will change their names after an illness, so that the evil spirit, if he should return, would not recognize them. There is an avoidance in speaking specifically of the dead. The name of the god of the Jews and the Semitic Arabs could not be mentioned; Allah, the Mighty One, being used by the latter. The Jewish law, “Take not the name of the Lord in vain,” became one of the Ten Commandments. Among some of the Polynesians not only was the name of the king prohibited, but any syl- lables composing it were tabu wherever found. This meant, on the accession of a new ruler, that many words had to be dropped from the vocabulary and new ones substituted. 5 There is no set time among all peoples for obtaining the name. It may be given at birth and be taken from a day of the year, as often in the Latin countries, where the name of the saint of the day of birth is taken. It may be a name taken from a sort of copyrighted list belong- ing to a division of the tribe to which a person belongs, or it may designate the order of his birth in relation to his brothers and sisters. Certain names are auspicious, others are unlucky. It may well be that those denoting unfavorable things are most desired, as there is then no danger that the gods will be attracted to people bearing names of unlikely objects. The selection of a name by chance is a custom found among many peoples. St. John Chrysostom, one of the Social Origins and Social Continuities 97 leaders of the Greek Church in the fourth century, in his commentary on the First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians comments on the practice in his day of naming several candles and of bestowing on the infant the appellation belonging to that which lasted longest. Among the northern Athabascans the father loses his name on the birth of the first son, who takes the name of his father. Among the Zuni of the Southwest, a very young child in the family is often called by some American name,—his true name being secret; so that we have not only Billy, but Billy’s father, Billy’s grandfather. There is no personality in the name Billy, so that it is perfectly safe for every member of the family to use it. As a special exhibition of friendship, two men will exchange their names. There is some- times an idea of property in names, as they can be loaned, sold, and even pawned, among a few people. Finally, in the discussion of the infant, only one other point needs to be mentioned. Many primitive tribes show head deformation,—a flattening of the frontal bone or of some other part of the cranium. This may be an accidental process, resulting from the infant being strapped into a cradle; or it may be intentional, and undertaken as a result of a desire to conform to a tribal type of beauty. Curiously enough, neither of these methods of deformation seems to have any effect upon the development of the brain. When it cannot grow in one direction, it grows in another. Here may be interpolated a very striking parallel be- tween a much-criticised custom among present-day mothers and the practice found among the Germans of the first century of the Christian Era. Tacitus, in speak- ing of the German tribes, writes, “There then they are, 98 Social Origins and Social Continutties the children, in every house, filling out amid nakedness and squalor into the girth of limb and frame which is to our people a marvel. Its own mother suckles each at her breast; they are not passed on to nurse-maids and wet-nurses.”’ EDUCATION The early training of youth in primitive communities is often far more effective than is commonly supposed. It is a sort of apprentice system, and imitation is the basis of instruction. Agriculture, hunting, pottery-mak- ing, weaving, are all taught by means of play. The Pueblo children learn the appearance of the gods by playing with dolls representing the different deities. Implicit obedience is demanded, and there seems to be an ever-present respect_for the elders. On the side of influencing behavior, there is often a dis- tinct part played by stories and fables. Parsons has called attention to the fact that the supernatural sanction plays a nursery réle as in civilization. Santa Claus writes down the names of the good and bad children in his book, the “bogey man” carries off naughty children: all these things, famous in our childhood, but abolished in the new teachings of youth, have their parallels among savages. Samoans haye a juvenile scarecrow called “Sina, the Eye-Eater.” The harassed parent would say, “Don’t make such a noise; Sina the EKye-Eater will come to pick out your eyes.” Chemosit is a Nandi devil, half man, half bird, with a red mouth that shines at night like a lamp. He catches children who are foolish enough to wander away from home lured by his night song. Among the Fors, a Central African tribe, girls meddling with the milk-pots or stealing milk be- Social Origins and Social Continuities 99 hind their mothers’ backs are punished with epilepsy by a zitian, a spirit-servant of the great mountain god. In the Carolines, the ancestral spirits put an unending curse upon the unfilial. Ainu women teach their daughters that were they to marry without being prop- erly tattooed, after death the demons will do all the tattooing with very large knives and at one sitting. There are also moral stories for the young. A tribe in Queensland has a tale about two boys who were left alone in camp with strict orders not to leave it until the elders returned. The boys, tiring of the place, went down to the sea. Then the Great Serpent of the Rain- bow came out of the ocean, caught the boys and turned them into rocks that now stand between two points. “Here you see,” the old Blackfellow used to say to the boys, “the result of not paying attention to what you are told by your elders.” ® These sayings and tales are all serviceable after their fashion, and help to show that there is an ideal line of conduct laid out for youth by parents, even among savages. A far more intensive sort of education, however, is found later in the life of the child. ADOLESCENCE The second great crisis comes at the time of puberty, and the initiation into the tribe. These may coincide, as Webster thinks, or, as Van Gennep remarks, there may be often a difference between physiological adolescence and social adolescence. He gives an illustration of this: Roman girls are legally nubile at twelve years of age, but physiologically nubile at fourteen or fifteen. In Paris the legal age of marriage is sixteen and a half years, whereas the physiological puberty comes at four- 100 Social Origins and Social Continuities teen years and four months. In the one case the legal age of marriage is two or three years before puberty, and in the other more than two years after this period. There seems little doubt that physiological puberty does not necessarily mean the same thing as social puberty, and it may perhaps be incorrect to consider initiation ceremonies making the extrance of youth into society as puberty rites. Nevertheless, it is practically impossible to separate the acts undertaken at adolescence from those taking place at the boys’ initiation into the tribe as a full-fledged member, and no attempt will be made to do so. It should be understood clearly that puberty rites and initiation may be a formal procedure, the concern of the tribe as a whole, and the entire social structure of tribal society may be built around ‘these ceremonies, ag_in Australia; or that puberty rites and initiation may be ‘more an affair of the family or clan, as among several tribes in Northern America. Wirtkewrors as Lowie notes, adolescent ceremonies for men are remarkable for their rarity among the American Indians, whereas girls’ puberty festivals are fairly common. This presence of rites for girls and its comparative absence for boys shows again the danger of making general statements regard- ing any definite practice covering the whole world and appearing at a definite stage in the development of society. Several writers have tried to show that the funda- mental organization of primitive society is based upon age groups,—the boys, the bachelors, and the married men,—and a definite segregation of these three male divisions is always attempted. This does not hold true in all cases. Social Origins and Social Continuties 101 The physiological changes at puberty are matters of concern. The provisions made to separate the sexes are often elaborate. With girls, the time of adolescence can be definitely determined, and the fear_of contamination is present in much the same way as in the case of child- birth. Much has been made of the fear of the evil effects of blood in general, and more particularly of the blood of women. Seclusion is often insisted upon, not only at puberty, but at definite intervals throughout the life of women. Among the Parsee to this day a room is pro- vided for the monthly seclusion of women. It has no comforts, and from it neither sun, moon, stars, fire, water, sacred implements, nor any human being can be seen. Among some of the California tribes, the girl at the beginning of maturity is considered dangerous to the vegetation and the food supply. When she goes abroad she has her head covered with a blanket or a basket, a visor of feathers over her eyes, or her head bowed with her hair hanging down in front. There is sometimes an analogy shown in the puberty rites of girls between the fructification of the crops and human fruitfulness. With the boys the period of adolescence is not so exactly determined, and there is no special care taken to protect men, at least, from their society. While the Arunta boys are being painted, as a part of their puberty rites, they are informed that this helps their growth, “‘and they are also told by tribal fathers and elder brothers that in future they must not play with the women or girls, nor must they camp with them as they have hitherto done, but henceforth they must go to the camp of the men... . Up to this time they have been accustomed to go out with the women as they searched for vegetable food and the smaller animals such as lizards and rats; 102 Social Origins and Social Continutties now they begin to accompany the men in their search for larger game, and begin also to look forward to the time when they will become fully initiated and admitted to all secrets of the tribe, which are as yet kept hidden from them.”*7 Modern psychology has shown us the importance of this period in the lives both of boys and of girls. At adolescence the boys pass from the control-of their mothers and the society of women into the hands of their fathers and the associations of men. The sur- render of the boys by their mothers is often shown dramatically. Infancy, as Van Gennep records, is frequently regarded as a sort of positive quality, like illness, and this is pushed aside and the boy enters a new door. The awaking of a new power in youth is considered by some tribes as a new birth, the dawning of a new nature. Up to this time he has been a part of his parents’ personalities, now he is an individual. Among many peoples we find that every serious event in the physical life is equivalent to death followed by resur- rection. There is often a rite simulating death followed by the birth of the adolescent youth. As Webster shows, it is possible in some cases that the neophytes are really hypnotized into believing that they have died and come to life as other creatures. This change of status may be evidenced by some alteration of dress, of decoration: the hair is cut or dressed in a new way, ornaments are worn for the first time, or the face is painted. Various bodily mutilations are often practiced. Cir- cumcision is perhaps the most widespread of these cus- toms. In ancient times it was found in many places, including Egypt, Palestine, and Persia. Among present peoples it occurs sporadically over the whole world. Social Origins and Social Continutties 103 Circumcised and uncircumcised tribes often live in the same neighborhood. There have been countless expla- nations given for this practice, but no single one seems to satisfy all the varied conditions surrounding this mutilation. There is reason to think that we have a similar custom arrived at from several distinct mo- tives. There does not seem to be much evidence for regarding its practice as due to any physiological pur- pose. It may take place directly after birth, as among the Jews, or be postponed until long after adolescence. In a few instances it may occur after marriage or after a certain number of children are born. It may even be one of the rites preliminary to becoming a priest or a soldier. In general it comes at puberty, and seems to be closely associated with other visible changes in the appearance of the youth who is entering manhood. It is often found in connection with other mutilations of the sexual organs. Among many peoples in Africa, in certain tribes of the Malay Archipelago, and in South America, the girls also undergo a sort of circumcision which is usually regarded as a preliminary to marriage. The ritual surrounding these rites is often very elaborate, and special kinds of instruments are sometimes required. In addition to circumcision there are other mutilations of the body. Tattooing and scarification, the boring of the ear, the nose, or the lips for the insertion oi orna- ments, are only a few. Knocking out one or more teeth is a common practice at puberty, among several of the Australian tribes as well as among some African peoples. The teeth knocked out are often preserved with the greatest care. The reason for these practices may be two-fold,— an indication to all mankind that the novice has passed 104 Social Origins and Social Continuities from boyhood to manhood, or that the girl has arrived at the age of nubility; and, secondly, these mutilations prove that the youth has been able to withstand suffering. The ordeal is an important feature of many of these” ceremonies. Fright is often a necessary part of the rite, and most ingenious means are taken to play upon the feelings of the novices; hideous masks adorn the figures of the men portraying the gods. Beatings and whippings are frequent. It is considered the very worst form to shirk these ordeals, or to evince the least trace of cowardice. “I remember,” writes Howitt, regarding an Australian tribe, “one young lad of about twelve, who showed no more sense of anything going on around him than if he had been a bronze statue, and yet, as he afterwards said, he felt quite sure several times that he was about to be killed.” 8 Sometimes, when the boys take leave of their mothers and sisters to undergo the rites, they firmly believe that they will never see their family again. These puberty ceremonies often have great peda- gogical functions. As tests of endurance they teach the male youth the necessity of suffering hardships and pri- vations without complaint. Tabus sometimes serve as lessons in temperance, sexually and gastronomically considered. Strict obedience to the older men is one of the prime requisites in these rites. The codes of morality, the laws regulating conduct in general, and more especially those relating to marriage, tabus, sacred mysteries, songs, and ritual, are all a part of the in- struction. There is little doubt that the puberty rites serve. very important educational and social ends: The mere fact of the absolute subjection of youth to super- natural as well as mundane authority is of the great- Social Origins and Social Continuities 105 est value. Webster very pertinently comments upon “the long fasts, the deprivation of sleep, the constant excitement of the new and unexpected, the nervous re- action under long-continued torments, result in a con- dition of extreme sensitiveness—hyperesthesia—which is certainly favorable to the reception of impressions that will be indelible.” Self-control was amusingly taught in the Dukduk cere- mony of New Pomerania. The boy was made to live in a secluded hut in the forest, and was allowed to eat anything he wished, but with the injunction that what- ever he ate during this period would remain tabu for him during the remainder of his life. The most elaborate initiation and puberty ceremonies are probably to be found in Australia. Howitt gives a very full account of one of these rités; ‘witnessed by him in southeastern Australia, which will be greatly abridged. 9 It begins by the men commanding silence among the women and children as they are huddled together in a group surrounded by the men. The boys ready for initiation are drawn out from the group, and skin rugs and blankets are thrown over the women, so that they cannot be seen and are unable to see anything which is going on. The Kabos are mentors, whose duty it is to take charge of the boys, never leaving them alone and acting as advisers, instructors, and monitors. After the boys have been stripped naked, and each has a blanket placed like a cone over his head, with the face appearing at the top, the procession of men, Kabos, and novices start up the hill towards the mountains. On the way the Kabos tell the boys they must never show any sign of fear or surprise, nor should they by word or deed show that they are conscious of what is 106 Social Origins and Social Continuities going on around them. Nothing, however, must escape their attention, and everything to which yah is attached carries an exactly opposite significance to its apparent meaning. The ceremony consists of major and minor rites,— the intervals being filled with magical dances, amusing interludes, and buffoonery, all taking part except the Kabos. “If one were to imagine all sorts of childish mis- chief mixed up with the cardinal sins represented in burlesque, and ironically recommended to the boys on their return to the camp and afterwards, it would give a not inapt representation of what takes place. But there is a remarkable feature: that at the end of almost every sentence, indeed of every indecent, im- moral, or lewd suggestion, the speaker adds ‘Yah/’— which negatives all that has been said and done.” At a halt in the procession, two old men sit down and begin to make “mud pies,” which they pat with childish manners and gestures. Other men come up and say to the boys, “Look at that! Look at those old men, when you get back to the camp, go and do like that, . and play with little children—Yah.” At another halt, some of the old men come out of the scrub with boughs held round their heads representing a herd of bullocks, and perform some absurd antics to make the boys laugh. But warned by their Kabos, they remain stolid. At a third halt, all the men rub themselves with pow- dered charcoal, making themselves almost unrecogniz- able. After more antics, the procession starts again. On the summit of the hill, the first magic dance takes place. Circles of men perform before the boys, and then they form part of the circle. One of the Gommeras, or medi- cine-men, darts into the center and executes the magic Social Origins and Social Continuities 107 dance, sitting almost on his heels and hopping back- wards and forwards with a staring expression on his face. After apparent internal struggles, he produces something from his mouth, as if it had been brought from within his body. The great and deadly power of the Gommeras are explained to the boys. Following a further ascent, another stop is made and the men march before the boys, stooping and supported by a staff, as if they were old and infirm. After another magic dance, the men rush to the boys in great excite- ment and shout “Ngai!” meaning “Good!” and, at the same time, move their arms and hands as if passing some- thing from themselves to the boys. They, in turn, move their hands and arms as if pulling a rope towards them- selves. The purpose of all this is to fill the boys, saturate them, with the magic coming from the initiated and the medicine-men, so that “Daramulun will like them.” After various haltings they pass to a spot which is cleared for about twenty-five feet square. Along one side, pairs of holes are dug, about a foot in depth, in which the novices are to stand. A figure of Daramulun in relief is cut on a tree. Ten men then disguise themselves completely by means of strips of bark on their bodies and their heads, with their upper and lower lips reverted by cords tied around the head, showing their teeth and gums. These hideous creatures suddenly appear to the novices. The ten men then in turn perform on a special kind of drum placed before him, and masked figures rush to the novices and begin to dance. One of the Kabos kneels behind each boy, the boy sitting on his mentor’s knee, and another Kabo draws the boy’s head to his breast, with his hand over the boys’ eyes. The 108 Social Origins and Social Continuities medicine-man appears, bearing in one hand a short wooden club and in the other a chisel-shaped piece of wood. He approaches each boy in turn, hands his im- plements to someone, and seizing the boys’ head applies one of his lower incisor teeth to the boys’ left upper incisor, pressing it upwards. Then he strikes a blow with his chisel on the tooth, and keeps on striking until the tooth falls out. The boy is told on no account to spit out the blood, but to swallow it, otherwise the wound will not heal. The first boy in the rite described by Howitt showed stoical indifference, but the second boy made a great outcry at two attempts on the tooth. The old men now said that the boy had been too much with the women, thereby causing his tooth to be so firmly fixed. It took thirteen blows to release the tooth. Admonitions regarding the power of the god Daramu- lun being given, the boys are invested with the men’s belt. Dances follow for the remainder of the night, some to amuse, some to illustrate the magical powers of the medicine-men, and others to enforce tribal morality or to perpetuate tribal legends. Finally the rite is over, and now the boys have to live by themselves in the bush, on such food as they can catch and such as is lawful for them to eat. The medicine-men will not consent to the boys taking their places in the tribal communities and marrying, until they are satisfied as to their conduct. In some cases this period of bush life is of several months’ duration, and, in one case mentioned, marriage was not allowed until after several years had elapsed. There is little comment needed regarding this rite,— the terrific ordeal and the indelible impression it must Social Origins and Social Continuities 109 make upon the novices, riveting the influence and power of the old men. The institution called the men’s-house is found among a large number of primitive tribes scattered over a great part of the world, and several writers have assumed that its development is due primarily to the desire to separate the sexes from the time of puberty onward. This is indeed true in some cases. In Melanesia, for example, the boys on arriving at manhood take up their residence in the men’s-house. This is the bachelor headquarters, and entrance is, of course, denied to women. The men’s- house, however, may be a gathering-place not only for the unmarried youth but for all the men in the com- munity, and the development of this institution cannot always be traced back to rites centering around adoles- cence. Some tribes limit membership in the men’s-house to the elders. A characteristic of some of the American tribes is the guardian spirit, or personal totem. On this phenomenon, as on all others, it is impossible to make general state- ments. There is often a confusion between the personal totem, which is s usually not inherited, and the clan totem eee by all members of the clan. The latter type of totem does not concern us here. The personal totem, or guardian spirit, is generally obtained _at the time of adolescence. There are many exceptions to this rule, however, especially when the time of initiation does not correspond with the time of puberty. This totem is sometimes obtained at birth. In Samoa, when a child is expected, the relatives begin to draw upon the ground one after another figures of animals. The one that remains at the moment the child is born becomes his special property. 110 Social Origins and Social Continuities This guardian spirit is a protector of the young man just starting out on his journey through life. Between him and the spirit there is a most intimate relationship. The guardian may be an animal, a plant, some natural object such asa cloud, or even ‘Something “inanimate. Peace may sometimes be a totem, and in that case the youth is a pacifist for life, no matter how many wars are raging around him. Bi North America this totem is usually obtained as the result of fasting and contem- plation. Among the Omaha Indians, the mind of the adolescent boys was said to have Ui cuornd white,” and a compli- cated rite took place at this time.° This was called “to stand sleeping,” signifying that the novice was ob- livious of the world around him and conscious only of what went on within himself. After certain prelimi- hary prayers, the boy set out for some quiet place to fast for four days and nights. For four days he rested, ate very little, and spoke infrequently. During this time he was supposed to have a dream or vision. This usually took the form of some animal or bird. It might, however, be some inanimate object, some quality. On his return, he sought out the individual in the tribe who had had a similar dream, and confided to him his secret. It then became necessary for the boy to set out and find the animal or the bird seen in the dream, kill it, and preserve a part or a whole of the body. This trophy became the visible sign of his dream, and was regarded as his most precious possession. He could wear it on his scalp-lock, or elsewhere on his person, during dances or when going to war. When the dream was of something unobtainable, a symbolic representation was made. Some visions were better than others,—the hawk was considered favorable, Social Origins and Social Continuities 111 as it helped to success in war. Bears were “not so good,” as they were clumsy and slow-moving. Snakes were “not good.” To dream of the moon was considered the greatest misfortune. The moon would appear to the youth carrying in one hand the bow and arrow, the symbol of the male sex, and in the other the burden- strap used by the women. It would try to force the burden strap into the boy’s hands. If the youth in his dream took the bow and arrow, all was well and he es- caped the evil effects of the dream. If, on the other hand, he was forced to take the strap, he forfeited his manhood and became like a woman. He was then obliged for the remainder of his life to speak and dress like women, and to carry on their occupations. “It is said that there have been those who, having dreamed of the moon, and having had the burden strap forced on them, have tried to conceal this ill luck for a time, but that few have succeeded.” Suicide was the only means of escape. There were certain tabus often required of the boy in relation to his totem. It has been noted that among the Omahas the boy killed his guardian spirit and wore a part of the body,—a claw, perhaps,—on his person. It_is usual to forbid a person to eat any part of his totemic animal. If a dangerous wild animal is the totem, a prayer of apology is sometimes offered before killing it. The totems vary in power, and some are far more desirable than others. There seems to be some idea of the assimilation of the character of the animal totem to that of the person who has this animal for his guardian. If the deer is his totem, and, when hard pressed, he prays to the deer, he is sess fleetness. If he dreams of the coyote, he has the cunning of this animal, An eagle, with great 112 Social Origins and Social Continuities range of sight, can bestow upon the man who has this bird as his guardian the gift of foretelling the future. Thunder gives the ability to control the elements, and _ the authority to conduct certain religious rites. Among ' the Omahas, no one can choose his personal totem, but it is the general belief of the people that the power- ful animals and agencies are apt to be drawn toward those who possess natural gifts of mind and strength of will. There is some question regarding the worship of the totem. This feeling | may be entirely | absent and re- placed by respect and regard as for a brother. ‘This is a sort of “imaginary brotherhood” set. up between an individual and some object of his environment. We often find a stratification of society along lines of the guardian spirits. It is not unnatural for those who have had the same vision to regard themselves as related. This is one cause, but only one, for the forma- tion of the secret society, which will be discussed later. There is no doubt that these puberty rites furnish a very real social bond among those who are initiated at the same time, or have the same personal totem. There is almost a “caste feeling” developed as the result of these ceremonies. When it is remembered that in some cases the entire religious life of a tribe centers in these ob- servances at puberty, one realizes the important part they play. They are often the occasion for great as- semblies of people from far and near, who come together perhaps only once during the year, and solely for the purpose of witnessing these rites. The ceremonies at adolescence in primitive society have analogies among more developed peoples. The Eleusinian mysteries of the Greeks present some strik- Social Origins and Social Continuities 113 ing parallels. The training of the Spartan youth might also be considered. In the Catholic Church, confirma- tion is preceded by a “retreat,” confession, self-sacri- fice, and fasting, and the ceremony itself is full of pomp. Synods have declared it must “be celebrated with all possible solemnity.” The sensitiveness of the children at this time is great. The veils, candles, and the splen- dor of the altar and the vestments, together with the music, make a most impressive setting for the rite it- self. Souvenirs and symbolic presents follow. Psycho- logically, at least, the puberty rites and confirmation belong in somewhat the same category. Several have pointed out the connection that seems to exist between adolescence and conversion in the Pur- itanical sense,—a change of life and a new birth. The average age of “getting religion” and of sexual maturity ‘Beem ‘to coincide. ~ “Marriage will be passed over as a crisis in life, as this will be taken up in the next chapter. DEATH The final crisis is death. The savage often has myths accounting for this very real enemy. It may be said in general that death is usually something introduced into a world of happiness by some act of man or of beast,— an opening of Pandora’s box, as it were. Among the Melanesians of the New Hebrides, it was believed that at first men never died, but when they were old they cast their skins like snakes and came out with youth revived. Once a woman, growing old, went to a stream to change her skin. She threw her old skin into the water; as it floated down, it caught against a stick. Then she went home, where she had left her child. 114 Social Origins and Social Continuities The child refused to recognize her, crying that its mother was an old woman, not like this young stranger, and to pacify the child she went after her old skin, put it on, and from that day onward mankind ceased to cast their skins and died." There are often important differences between physio- logical facts and sociological theories. A child, as we have already seen, may not be considered sociologically born until he has been introduced as a member of his tribe; he may not be sociologically adolescent until he has passed through certain rites; sociological fatherhood may differ from actual fatherhood; or a mere boy may be sociologically married to a very young girl, as in - India, whereas physiological marriage is long delayed. In i same way, death sociologically considered and physical death may not coincide. Among the Melane- sians, the term mate is used for a dead person, but also for the aged and for one seriously ill and likely to die. Rivers points out that in the olden times there is little doubt that the seriously ill and the aged were actually put to death. At the present time the aged and those very sick are dead for all social purposes. There is a confusion of categories from our point of view, but this is not so from the primitive standpoint.!? Savages without exception believe in a human soul that leaves the body. temporarily in sleep ‘and more or less permanently at death. This idea is closely associ- ated with the belief that there are souls or spirits in trees and animals, as well as in inanimate objects. Man’s attempt to establish communication with these different kinds of souls or spirits is summed up in the word wor- ship:—prayer, divination, and sacrifice. His explana- tions regarding these spirits are to be found in his myth- Social Origins and Social Continuities 115 ology. Religion illustrates better than any other phase of life the continuity of ideas existing between the savage and civilized man. “This belief in a soul does not necessarily mean a belief in immortality. The idea of life after death is universal | as I have said, but this soul may be injured and even die if care is not taken to protect it. “The first idea of Religion,’ wrote Hume, “arose not from a contemplation of the works of Nature, but from a concern with regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and fears which actuate the human mind.” Now the most important event in primitive life is death. Death, except possibly upon the field of battle, is never thought to be a natural phenomenon. A tree falls and kills a man, lightning strikes and works destruction, a canoe is upset in the surf and its occupants drown; all these events prove the existence of evil spirits. Man sees death all around him,—in plants, in animals, as well as among his fellows, and it is assumed almost without exception that it is the result of a successful battle waged on the living by the malignant spirits of destruction. It has often been noted that fear is prob- ably the basis of religion. Some of the precautions taken to protect the individual at birth have already been recorded, and these efforts are redoubled at the time of illness and death. The terror aroused by sickness and death is one of the greatest stimuli for religious action. The belief in a soul in man is easily proved to his own satisfaction by the phenomena of sleep and dreaming, swooning, hallucinations, intoxication, and others. A spirit leaves his body during these states and carries on an individual existence. Another takes possession. of his body and brings ‘him new sensations. The belief is DTT pr oe 116 Social Origins and Social Continutties reasonable. What are the human shapes appearing in his dreams and visions if they are not spirits? The dream is something very real to the savage. Some peoples fail entirely to discriminate between their expe- riences in real life and what they dream. Sir Everard im Thurn, in an account of the Indians of Guiana, writes, “One morning when it was important to me to get away from camp on the Essequibo River, at which I had been detained for some days by the illness of some of my Indian companions, I found that one of the invalids, a young Macusi, though better in health, was so enraged against me that he refused to stir, for he declared that, with great want of consideration for his weak health, I had taken him out during the night and had made him haul the canoes up a series of difficult cataracts. Nothing could persuade him that this was but a dream . . . More than once the men declared in the morning that some absent man, whom they named, had come during the night, and had beaten or otherwise maltreated them; and they insisted on much rubbing of the bruised parts of their bodies”’—all a dream.13 The concept of the soul is seen in the term “the breath of life.’ In very many different languages the same word is used to mean either breath or life. The soul may also be seen in the reflection in the water or in a mirror. The fear of breaking a mirror and the custom of turning a mirror face to the wall on a death in the family may both go back to this concept of the soul as a reflection. The spirit may also be manifested in the pulse, the echo, and the name. The shadow may be the soul. It is considered a very bad practice to bury the dead at noonday, when the shadow is shortest. A sick man may even be thought to lose a part of his shadow. Social Origins and Social Continuities 117 “May your shadow never grow less” is a modern version of the same idea. For safe-keeping a Corot of the soul may be placed outside the body. Here we have the “‘life-token” theme in folk-lore; the actual life of a person being bound up in something hidden away or in a tree or some other living thing. ‘The transmigration of souls is another common ideaof primitive man. The belief that the body is “possessed” by an extraneous spirit is seen in the words catalepsy, a seizing of the body by some demon; ecstasy, a displacement of the original soul by another; and inspiration, a breathing into the body by a spirit. Dante speaks with the greatest sarcasm of the souls of his contemporaries which he meets in Hell, although their bodies, inhabited by devils, are still on earth. A god may even taken possession of the body, as seen in the word enthusiasm. The Thracian Dionysos brought the idea to Greece that a man through physical intoxication—later, through spiritual ecstasy—could pass from the human to the divine. Sickness is.seldom considered a natural phenomenon. It_is always sent by. an_evil. spirit. Mental diseases prove conclusively that the body is ‘‘possessed.” There seems to be a disinclination even among some civilized peoples to regard sickness as natural. The witchcraft delusion in Europe and America illustrates this point. Early medicine was founded upon the fact that illness was caused by demons, and magic was called in to drive them out. This belief would come within the province of psychotherapy at the present time. Many savage practices form a “therapeutic armamentarium” against these evil spirits who scatter disease and death. A line of reasoning similar to that of the savage is 118 Social Origins and Social Continutties seen in the belief that illness is sent by God as a punish- ment. Edmund Gosse, writing of his father in his book Father and Son, says: “He retained the singular super- stition, amazing in a man of scientific knowledge and long human experience, that all pains and ailments were directly sent by the Lord in chastisement for some defi- nite fault, and not in relation to any physical cause. The result was sometimes quite startling, and in partic- ular I recollect that my step-mother and I exchanged impressions of astonishment at my Father’s action when Mrs. Goodyer, who was one of the ‘Saints’ and the wife of a young journeyman cobbler, broke her leg. My Father, puzzled for an instant as to the meaning of this accident, since Mrs. Goodyer was the gentlest and most inoffensive of our church members, decided that it must be because she had made an idol of her husband, and he reduced the poor things to tears by standing at her bed- side and imploring the Holy Spirit to bring this sin home to her conscience.” Death means a passage into the final stage of exist- ence, just as the adolescent rites mark progress from childhood to manhood. The continuity of the souls of the living and of the dead is a very close one. The “pres- ence” of the departed is a very real thing. Dreams, noises, and other strange happenings all prove it. “Lay- ing the ghost” is always necessary. No obligation is more binding than that proper respect be paid to the dead. | hike This regard for the deceased is founded perhaps more on fear than on love, although both are usually pres- ent, and it is not always possible to distinguish between the two ideas. Let us consider, first, a few of the customs centering around fear of the dead kindred. Propitiation. Social Origins and Social Continuities 119 is the keynote of all savage burial rites. However well- disposed a person may be in life, his presence is not desired after death. The souls of the dead cannot strictly be said at first to be “departed spirits,’ as they usually prefer to linger about the place of death until means are taken to dislodge them. It is not well to have them tarry near the habitation; so provision is often taken to have death occur away from the dwelling. People as far apart as the Eskimo and the Maori of New Zealand carry those whom they fear are to die away irom the house, often to a special dwelling, so that there death may take place and the souls of the deceased will not injure those in the regular habitation. When this removal of the dying is not carried out, and the person passes away in his own house, the house may be deserted or even destroyed. When a great chief dies in Africa, sometimes a whole village is deserted. There is little doubt that the custom of closing the room in which death has occurred is to be associated with the same idea. The room is often thoroughly cleaned and renovated before it is again occupied. Another set of practices attempts to hasten the depar- ture of the soul to its last resting place. The Algonkian beat the walls of the death chamber; the Chinese knock the floor with a hammer; the German peasant waves towels about the room; and, in ancient Rome, the ghost was swept out of the house by the heir.'4 In the journey to the grave, care is taken to prevent the soul from returning, and the house is barricaded against its reappearance. A knife may be hung over the door or an axe laid on the threshold. The ghost can only return by the same route which has been taken; much ingenuity is therefore seen in preventing its second 120 Social Origins and Social Continutties appearance. The eyes may be closed or covered by a mask, burial may be by night, or the body may be carried out of the house through a hole in the roof or by the chimney. Frazer gives credit for this device to the Greenlanders, Hottentots, some American. tribes, Hindus, Tibetans, Chinese, and the Fijians. The same idea may be shown in Rome where a dead Pope is carried out of St. Peter’s through the central doorway, which is used only for this purpose. The soul may be prevented from returning from the burial place by barring it by fire or by water. Perhaps the mourners leap over a fire, or holy water may be sprinkled after the burial proces- sion. Further precautions are often taken at the grave itself. The course of a river was temporarily changed so that Alaric, the King of the Goths, could be buried in the bed of the stream. A high fence is placed around the grave or stones are piled upon it. The body may be mutilated: the Australian cuts off the right thumb of a dead enemy so that his spirit cannot use a spear. From the time of the Upper Paleolithic period onward a ceremonial disposal of the dead has been a universal custom. Inhumation is the most common practice. The souls of the unburied wander in everlasting torment. This belief was especially prominent in classical times. Pausanius speaks of the conduct of Lysander as repre- hensible in not burying the bodies of Philocles and the four thousand slain by his armies, and adds that the Athenians did as much for the Medes after Marathon, and even Xerxes for the Lacedemonians after Thermo- pyle. Herodotus tells of the Egyptian law which per- mitted a man to give his father’s body in pledge, with Social Origins and Social Continutties 121 the proviso that, if he failed to repay the loan, neither he nor any of his kin could be buried at all. The position of the body in the grave is of some con- cern. It may face the setting sun. Often the body is flexed, with the knees bent and touching the breast. A common explanation offered for this is that the dead go back to their mother-earth in the same position as that of the embryo in the human mother. Myths are often useful in explaining burial customs. Among the Hopi the hands of the dead clasp a stick which projects from the grave. By means of this the soul escapes to the land of the spirits just as the people originally ascended from beneath this earth to the present world by means of a ladder. The bodies of the dead are often deposited temporarily or even exposed to the creatures of the field until all the flesh has disappeared, and then a permanent and cere- monial burial of the bones is made. In case the body is not recovered on the field of battle or is lost at sea, burial by effigy is necessary. This custom is found in Greece, Italy, India, China, Samoa, and Mexico. Sometimes this burial is premature and the supposed dead returns. Sociologically he is dead, as his effigy has been buried; physiologically he is alive and well. Hence, the victim must be born again; he must enter the house in the same way as his effigy has left it; and, in some cases, he is considered a child and must go through the puberty rites in order to regain the status of manhood. Plutarch, in his Roman Questions, No. D, describes much the same custom. A man reported drowned in a naval engagement, returned and found the door of his house shut, and he was unable to open it. He was thus forced to sleep before his house. During 122 Social Origins and Social Continuities the night he had a vision which told him that he should enter by means of the roof. He did this, and became fortunate ever after, living to be a very aged man. Hereafter the custom was always observed under similar circumstances. Plutarch adds that this practice seems to have been derived from the Greeks. The whole body may be preserved artificially by embalming, or the head alone may be kept. There is no end to the methods used in connection with the dead. Cremation came into practice in the Bronze Age in Europe and it is seldom absent in any great part of the world. It is often found along with inhumation. It may be those high in authority who are cremated and the common people buried; sometimes it is the reverse. The ceremonial deposition of the ashes in an urn or vase is common. After this very cursory review of some of the most frequent forms of burial, let us note a few of the customs based more specifically upon the love of the dead kindred. Various tabus are necessary to prevent the soul from injuring itself. The Chinese use no knives for fear the soul might be cut; doors are closed carefully, lest the soul might be pinched; bowls of water are emptied so that it may not be drowned. A fast is sometimes made for fear of eating the spirit of the dead. Prehistoric archeology would be a barren field of research were it not for the universal practice of placing objects in graves. The soul needs food and drink <3 well as clothing. It may indeed desire its former wife or Wives, its slaves, or even its horse. Grave pottery forms the bulk of the collections in any archeological museum. In Peru, the playthings of the child and the weaving utensils of the women are buried with them. Sometimes Social Origins and Social Continuities 123 there is the idea that the soul returns to occupy the body, and thus it needs all kinds of property ready at hand. The destruction of objects by burning in the funeral pyre is another way to aid the souls of the dead. Pottery vessels are sometimes “killed” by breaking or knocking a hole in the bottom, making them no longer useful for the living but still acceptable to the spirits of the dead. The degradation of sacrifice is not uncommon, a sub- stitution of an imitation for the real object. The funeral rites of the Chinese illustrate this point very clearly; paper puppets to guard the grave; paper money to scatter for the benefit of the souls who have left no sons; and many others. Mourning customs are an important feature of savage life. Durkheim has an interesting theory on mourning, which is built on a superstructure of crowd psychology: the coercion of the members of the family. “Not only do the relatives, who are affected the most directly, bring their personal sorrow to the assembly, but the society exercises a moral pressure over its members, to put their sentiments in harmony with the situation. To allow them to remain indifferent to the blow which has fallen upon it and diminished it, would be equivalent to pro- claiming that it does not hold the place in their hearts which is due it; it would be denying itself. A family which allows one of its members to die without being wept for shows by that very act that it lacks moral unity and cohesion; it abdicates; it renounces its existence. . When the Christian, during the ceremonies commemorat- ing the Passion, and the Jew, in the anniversary of the fall of Jerusalem, fast and mortify themselves, it is not in giving way to a sadness which they feel sponta- neously.” 16 124 Social Origins and Social Continuities This theory seems to satisfy the facts concerning a Catholic wake and other similar practices, but it does not take into account the idea of the fear of the soul of the deceased which seems to be fundamental in any mourning rite of the savage. Several have pointed out that mourning customs are primarily attempts to dis- guise the living from the dead. We have already seen how little acumen is allowed to ghosts, how easily they can be imposed upon and thwarted. So it is, evidently, with their return to harass the living. They can be com- - pletely foiled by a simple disguise. Mourning customs are often the reverse of those of ordinary life; a people who paint their bodies leave it off; the hair is allowed to grow long; the color and the cut of the clothing are changed. The name of the dead is made a tabu. Puri- fication rites are sometimes performed and the living thus put on a “spiritual armor” against the souls of the dead. The “other world” may have a very definite location, across a desert, beyond a range of mountains, or towards the setting sun. Again, there may be a vagueness regarding its whereabouts. The journey there is curi- — ously alike over a great part of the aboriginal world. The road is difficult and help is required. Combats are sometimes necessary. The dog, the universal possession and a friend of man since very early times, is often needed as an aid to the soul in overcoming the dangers of the journey. This world where the ghosts of the departed take up their residence has very much the same character as the world of the living. Dreams prove to the savage that a chief in this world is carrying on his vocation in the next; & warrior here is a warrior there. The “happy hunting- Social Origins and Social Continuities 125 ground” presents conditions perhaps slightly ameliorated from those of the living; there may be an abundance of game and plenty of water for the crops. The caste idea is sometimes found, where certain classes of the popula- tion are believed to be entitled to some delights not shared by others. Good hunters and good warriors may receive special blessings on their death. The character of the death may determine the place of the future abode. In Mexico the souls of those who die in child- birth, those killed by lightning or are drowned, are privileged to go to a special abiding place that is far more agreeable than that which receives the souls of those dying in other ways. ‘The ethical feature of retri- bution, a paradise for the good and punishment for the wicked, is totally lacking among savages who have not come in contact with the white man. This other world is not only peopled by the ghosts of } the dead but it is the abode of the spirits of plants and. of animals as well as the dwelling place of the gods. These may represent the powers of nature. Spencer believed that the evolution of the gods in a large sense can be traced to the worship of a human soul. This theory cannot account for the general belief of a savage people in the greater gods. Ancestor worship is a cult in and of itself, and is some- thing quite different from the universal doctrine of human souls. The worship of ancestors is found in com- paratively few places, and these are all regions of high cultures, as Greece and Rome, China and India. In some parts of Polynesia the worship of ancestors may also be considered to be a cult in itself. In all these regions there is a certain very close connection between the definite group of the dead on the one hand and the living 126 Social Origins and Social Continuities on the other. The entire welfare of the dead depends upon having on earth descendants, usually a son. These crises of life which we have been considering are all represented to some extent among civilized peoples. Baptism is the purification of the newly born babe; the “churching of women” makes them fit to reassume their place in society; confirmation is to some extent comparable with the rites of puberty. The train- ing for knighthood in feudal times, with its vigils and its ordeals, is certainly somewhat similar to the rites of the savage at adolescence. The Church again appears at death. However free from religious dogma one may have been during his lifetime—he may never have been baptised or confirmed, he may even have been married by a civil rite—at the end, at least, the future of his soul becomes a matter of concern and he is buried by the Church. CHAPTER IV MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY In the examination of the crises in the life of the savage and the passage from one state to another, nothing was said regarding marriage and the family. They belong to other categories; the family is more or less a biological unit, whereas the institution of marriage in early society is perhaps more economic than anything else. Marriage regulates what might be called the legal association of the sexes, and it also assigns to every individual born “a definite place in that society by which his or her social relations to the rest of society are determined.”’ Tue Famity Anterior To Human Society The change from a life in the trees to a life on the ground marks the first important stage in the history of the family. A small arboreal primate gave way to man’s nearest ancestors, the giant primates, whose great increase in size and weight made life in the trees precari- ous. The greater bulk meant that more food was needed than could be found above the ground. The increase of weight made hanging from trees impossible and the tail became functionless. It was also no longer needed to maintain balance. When this proto-anthropoid descended to earth, two possible lines of evolution were open to 127 128 Social Origins and Social Continuities him. He could either walk on all fours as the baboon has done, or he could assume the erect attitude as has man and the anthropoid apes. ‘his change to a ter- restrial life and the erect posture brought about the specialization of hands and feet. The root of the former tail was depressed between the legs and now served another function, the support of the viscera. This transition to a life on the ground brought with it greater dangers from other animals, and the protective function of the male was stimulated to offset this added risk. These giant apes had a brain capacity far exceed- ing their progenitors. The increase in the size of the brain probably made necessary a rapid growth in uterine life. There was also a decrease in the number of offspring at birth. This may have been due to the increase in the size of the head in utero, the pelvis in general being too restricted for multiple offspring. The long period of development after birth brought about a prolongation of helpless infancy with the consequent need for parental care and, more especially, the necessity for paternal solicitude. This prolongation of infancy, coupled with the dangers of a terrestrial life meant co-operation between father and mother, and the family had begun to function. The anthropoid apes are not gregarious, and, in accord with the theory advanced here, real society does not arrive until the human stage is reached. There is still a large gap between the anthropoid apes and man, more especially in the size and weight of the brain. The cranial capacity of the gorilla, the largest of the apes, is only about one third that of man. Somewhere within the gap articulate speech came into use. With speech Social Origins and Social Continutties 129 there came to man the possibility of discussion with his fellows. With the large brain there came the power of abstraction, of reasoning back from effect to cause, and of rectifying present conduct from past mistakes. His “learning” could be taught his offspring and thus be an advantage to the next generation. But we are concerned here only with the family, which is the real unit of society. It NOME out of the expression of one of the strongest of man’s impulses. It furnishes an instructive basis_for. altruism and social co-ordination, and brings about the first division of labor. The ques- tion of plurality of husbands or of wives merely relates to the form alone. Curiously enough the primary mean- ing of the word family referred only to the body of slaves and servants who labored for its maintenance. Mommsen uses the phrase “body of servants’ as the Latin significance of the term. The family stands apart as the one human institution where physical and physiological functions, and psycho- logical ones as well, clearly define the status of the two main members of the group, the father and the mother. Self-perpetuation and self-preservation are enlarged into family perpetuation and family preservation, and on these two “proto-positions” hang most of the elements found inherent in early society. The whole structure of the family is based upon these two lines of action. The expression and regulation of the sex impulse must there- fore receive attention. Sex In Earty Socriery A great deal has been written regarding the prominence of sex in the lower orders of mankind. Some would have us believe that the savage thinks of little else, and 130 Social Origins and Social Continuities that the greater part of his time and of his ingenuity is turned towards sexual affairs. The lowest savages can plead “not guilty” to this charge. In the higher stages of primitive society there is often gross sexuality, but the perversions of sexual life are almost entirely absent in the lower types of savagery. The separation of the sexes by the institution of the men’s-house, the prevalence of curious marriage relationships, the character of many festivals and many folk-tales, the presence of certain kinds of worship; all these and many more are usually taken as examples of the prominence of sex among primitive peoples. The natural attitude in regard to sex matters and to various bodily functions is a characteristic of uncivilized society. Sex, it is true, does not stand apart as a thing to be hidden. Offenses against our ideas of modesty and decency do often occur, but it is certainly true that our standard of much which is modest and decent would not pass in primitive society. It can there- fore truthfully be said that, taken in the large, the savage is a clean-minded individual, in spite of transgressions against our code of right and wrong. This question of morality will be considered at length in another place. We may find among peoples of the very lowest cul- tures a family life not at all unlike that of an ideal American household. Many years ago, I lived in the center of the Guatemalan bush for three periods compris- ing almost a year in length. My hut was a shelter com- posed only of a roof. It touched the house of a family group consisting of a mother and three sons. The eldest had two wives; the second, one; and the third was unmarried. There were eight children, and all lived together in this single-room house, consisting, also, of only a roof, with no sides. During the entire time I Social Origins and Social Continuities 131 was there I heard no word of censure, no wrangling of any kind. In spite of the complication of relationships— the multiple wives, the mother-in-law, and the unmar- ried son—I daily witnessed the life of one of the most ideal family groups I have ever seen. And these people belonged to a tribe which had never come into intimate contact with the Spanish-speaking people of the country. They were, fortunately for my purposes, uncivilized, and perhaps fortunate themselves in this respect. There are the greatest extremes in the social solidarity of the family as a group. There may be a separation /of the unmarried boys and girls from the family, usually inaugurated at adolescence; or there may be a segrega- tion of all the men of the community in the men’s-house; and in some cases, this separation exists even at meal times. When, however, we review the differences in the character of the family life in various countries occupied by members of our own race, we realize that family ideals operate within very wide limits. The savages are not the only people who relegate the women to domestic affairs pure and simple, nor is the savage the only person who spends most of his time at his club. Unlike the modern civilized community, however, it is the men, not the women, who take the greatest interest in religious pursuits. Most frequently the women arc denied any active part in the worship of the gods. This is not the time or place to enlarge upon the present status of the modern family where, beyond the mere act of propagation, the activities of some families cease. Day nurseries, nursery schools, kindergartens, and summer camps take away many of the functions of the family. Instruction, deportment, and religion are all usually outside the family at the present time. 132 Social Origins and Social Continuities It is not well to draw too sharp a distinction between modern man and, more especially, the continental Euro- pean and primitive man, when it comes to the question of marriage and the gratification of the sex impulse. There is no doubt that the two categories are usually distinct in savage society. Marriage is often based purely upon economic grounds. Man needs someone to work for him, to cook, and to labor in the field. But how different is this from the kind of union often found in peasant communities in Europe and country districts in America? We often fail to realize that the Anglo- Saxon family ideal is late in putting in an appearance and is nearly unique. In the consideration of marriage as an institution, the discussion will be limited to the question of legal wed- lock, leaving aside the subject of sex. As has already been observed, marriage and the gratification of the sex impulse may belong to two distinct categories, not only among savages but also among many peoples who do not come under this classification. From the point of view of sociology, the nature of sexual unions is of little consequence until they are recognized by custom or law. Westermarck’s latest definition of marriage is “A rela- tion of one or more men to one or more women which is recognized by custom or law and involves certain rights and duties both in the case of the parties entering the union and in the case of the children born of it.” It is needless to add that the rights and duties involved therein vary widely. It should be noted also that this definition does not say anything about the exclusive possession of one or more men by one woman, or of one or more women by one man. We shall see later that Social Origins and Social Continuities 132 certain forms of marriage in some parts of Australia, for example, are characterized by what has often been called group-marriage, or “sexual communism.” The historical approach brings out clearly the various theories that have been held on the origin of marriage and of the domestic group. CuassicaL IpkAsS oF THE F AMILY Among the first theorists regarding the family were Plato and Aristotle, both of whom use for illustrations of an early family group the Cyclopes of Homer, who “have neither assemblies for consultation nor themistes, but everyone exercises jurisdiction over his wives and his children.” This was the patriarchal theory made more precise by Filmer’s “Patriarcha,’”’ published in London in 1680. This idea of a patriarchate is, however, usually associated with Sir Henry Maine, formerly Regius Pro- fessor of Civil Law at Cambridge. In his Ancient Law, published in 1861, he considered the primordial cell of social development to be the patriarchal family. It is difficult to say “what society of men had not been orig- inally based upon the paternal family.” He found it among the Romans, Greeks, Hindus, Celts, and the Teutonic and Slavonic peoples. Maine really knew intimately only the Roman family, where the pater familias was the head of the household and had the power of life and death over his wife, children, and slaves. There is a considerable difficulty in determining how large a part the patriarchal family has played in the early histories of the other peoples enumerated above. Maine certainly showed a “lofty contempt” of the large mass of data upon savage peoples. The patriarchal family is by no means a simple group, and it is certainly 134 Social Origins and Social Continutties not the “primordial cell” out of which the family has grown. EVOLUTIONARY IDEAS OF THE FAMILY Bachofen’s Das Mutterrecht appeared in the same year as Maine’s book. This was a general attack upon the theory of the patriarchate as being the first form of the family. Maine’s theory was first definitely challenged by Spencer. Post, McLennan, Morgan, Lubbock, and a host of other writers whom we may call the Evolu- tionary School also disagreed with Maine. Although often differing among themselves in detail, these writers all believed in a definite series of steps in the evolution of the family, postulating promiscuity as the original stage of the sexual relations of the savage. Dismissing for the moment the arguments advanced for and against a universal beginning in promiscuity, let us investigate the other main points of the Evolu- tionary School. The matriarchate would necessarily follow a promiscuous start, as fatherhood would be unknown, and the mother would naturally be the head of the family and society would be dominated by her. But a true matriarchate or woman-rule has never been found in any society. Female descent, however, is by no means uncommon, and the distinction should always be made between mother-rule, or the matriarchate, and mother-descent, or the matrilineal family. McLennan believed that female infanticide was a common, perhaps a general custom. The natural consequence of this was few women—hence the marriage of one woman with several men, polyandry, which is the earliest type of the family, according to this theory, which rests on marriage. Multiple husbands in time give way to mul- Social Origins and Social Continuities 135 tiple wives, commonly called polygamy, but more prop- erly termed polygyny. The cowvade marks the transition between the two types, where emphasis is laid upon the father. With polygyny the patriarchal family fol- lows as a matter of course, the male head ruling over his numerous wives and children. Finally monogamy is placed at the end of the series. Mopern IpEAs OF THE FAMILY The third stage in the history of the discussion of the evolution of the family and marriage centers around the names of Starcke and Westermarck, although others might well be added to the list of those who are critical of the Evolutionary School.t With the possible excep- tion of Rivers, practically all modern investigators of this question seem to agree that promiscuity never was @ universal stage in the history of the sexual life of the savage. Rivers writes, “We have clear evidence that existing varieties of mankind practise sexual commu- nism, and man must therefore have tendencies in that direction.” But he adds, “We need more evidence before we should make up our minds concerning the existence of group-marriage as a regular feature of the history of human society. Even if its existence in the case of the clan can be proved, or if it can be shown to be, or to have been, a widespread practice, it need not follow that it has been universal among mankind and has formed a constant feature of the evolution of human society.” 2 There are no definite steps starting with promiscuity and leading upward to monogamy at the apex of the pyramid. Some of the peoples with most rudimentary cultures, such as the Bushmen, the Andamanese, and the Veddahs are strictly monogamous. The pairing of 136 Social Origins and Social Continuities one man and one woman has a great “survival value,” as it affords to the offspring the care of both parents. The arguments seeming to favor a universal stage of promiscuity “flow from two sources.” The first is com- posed of books of ancient authors, the tales of travellers, and the accounts of missionaries. From the time of Herodotus and Strabo down to the present, many writers have attempted to describe the customs of savages. The traveller’s pen has been declared to be a “thinking organ.” ‘There is perhaps no phase of early life where more confusion and misinterpretation have followed from this “organ” in the hands of the traveller than in regard to sexual relations and marriage. Unlimited promiscu- ity has been reported from all parts of the world, and nowhere is it really found. The reports of missionaries often fail to interpret correctly marital relations differ- ing from those of civilized man. There are important exceptions to this rule, however, and we have many excellent and accurate accounts from ministers of the Gospel regarding savage customs. The second class of arguments which seem to favor promiscuity falls into the realm of folk-lore—survivals —comparable to the rudimentary organs of the body. These no longer function, but their mere presence shows that at some time in the past they had an important part to play. Much of value may often be learned from the study of certain customs which seem to be emblem- atic of the past. Marett likens this study of survivals in folk-lore to the process of casting out of the drawing- room the unfashionable bit of furniture and placing it in the man’s room, in the children’s playroom, or even in the attic. These things were formerly admired and use- ful; now they are scorned. There is always a danger Social Origins and Social Continutties 137 in the investigation of the old-fashioned. This furniture may not have been used by the family; it may have been inherited from distant relatives; it may have been bought at auction; or it may not even be “an antique,” and thus have had no previous association with the family at all. As an interpretation of the past, diffi- culties are often encountered in the study of survivals. One can go too far, and many lines of explanation are often available to account for curious customs out of place in their present environment. The true interpre- tation is perhaps not the most obvious. Writers of the Evolutionary School have cited many customs which they believe are survivals of a time when promiscuity reigned. There seems little doubt that all of these practices can be satisfactorily explained in other ways, and that indiscriminate sexual relations are not ac- countable for their beginnings. The levirate_is one of these customs, the marriage of the dead brother’s widow. This was formerly a practice of the Hebrews, and is still found among many savage peoples. In Deuteronomy, xxv, 5-6, we read: “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be that the first-born which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.” This was a religious obligation among the Jews, based upon the desire for offspring and the fact that a marriage con- tract was between families and not between individuals. The levirate may assume several forms; sometimes the widow is given to one of the younger brothers of the 138 Social Origins and Social Continutties deceased husband, at other times the widow may be allowed to choose from a large number of her husband’s kinsmen. The man may even have access to his wife’s sisters during her lifetime. As Lowie makes clear, the juridical and psychological implications of the levirate may be quite different. The custom does not in any way indicate a previous state of promiscuity, but is, in general, as Tylor states, the result of the idea that marriage is a contract bertenn groups rather than be- tween individuals, and the support of the widow is in- cumbent upon ie family of the dead husband. The sororate is also found, where the man marries the sister or sisters of his wife. Another series of customs advocated as proof of the free sexual relations cluster about the term “phallic wor- ship.” The greatest development of this type of prac- tice is found, not among the must primitive peoples, but among those far higher in the scale of culture, as in Greece, Rome, and India. In the latter country there is proof that it was a comparatively late arrival. Tne germ of phallic worship shows itself in the Vedas, and the “gross luxuriance of licentiousness ... is of later growth.” There is nothing necessarily unusual and repelling in worshipping the powers of genera- tion, the symbol of life. The fruits of the field may be dependent upon magical rites of an earthly nature, and the presence of these rites in the spring festivals of many peoples——the May Pole dances, for example,— are interesting survivals of the same idea. But they do not carry with them any proof of sexual license as a universal stage in the development of society. The same can be said regarding sacred prostitution, the lascivious religious rites connected with the worship of Social Origins and Social Continuities 139 the Babylonian Mylitta, the Hellenic Aphrodite, the Carthaginian Moloch, and the Italian Venus. These are special developments among an advanced people of the worship of procreation. The sacred harlotry mentioned in the Old Testament falls into the same category. Another class of practices advanced in the attempt to prove the same theory is the “scandalous nuptial rites” which Bachofen and Lubbock regard as acts of “expia- tion for individual marriage.” It was argued that when a& woman, originally held as a common possession, be- came the companion of one man, there was a violation of communal rights, and some compensation was de- manded by the companions of the single owner. The law of jus prime noctis applies to chiefs, priests, and other leaders, as well as to the friends of the bridegroom. The droit du seigneur which some Suppose existed in feudal times in Europe falls into the same class, West- ermarck gives a whole chapter to customs of this kind. There seems little doubt that they can be explained in several ways. The strict regulations thrown about this class of customs in regard to time, place, and those ac- corded the privilege, seem to show it is an encroachment on monogamy rather than a delimitation of a former state of promiscuity. There remains to be considered group-marriage or sexual communism, found principally in parts of Aus- tralia, Melanesia, and Polynesia. Here, it must be con- fessed, there is far more difficulty in finding an explana- tion pointing away from promiscuity. In its simplest form, a group of men is married to a group of women. In practically every case, each man has a primary wife, but access to her is allowed to others. In the same way a woman has a main husband, but she is 140 Social Origins and Social Continuities not his sole companion. In most instances the men as a group are related to each other and also in a very definite way to the women who, in turn, are of the same kindred. It is not a haphazard arrangement be- tween a heterogeneous collection of men and a group of women. This custom is hedged about usually by the strictest rules. Here, as in the former case of jus prime noctis, it seems probable that we have an intrench- ment on monogamy, starting with a single wife and en- larging the gamut of sexual relations, rather than a legalization and a more strict proscribing of the limits of free sexual communism. Strength is given to this view by the fact that tribal incest rules are usually strictly enforced in all places where group-marriage is found. Among the Masai, for example, who allow a preliminary freedom to unmarried warriors and imma- ture girls which may be likened to prostitution, each man finally settles down in a separate establishment with one wife. The classificatory system of relationships has to be considered in connection with the question of promis- cuity. Morgan was the first to record the fact that most peoples with cultures of the lower order have a system of designating relationship which differs to a great extent from the method in use among civilized peoples. This classificatory system uses terms for classes of persons rather than for any distinct individual. Our system is classificatory in several instances as, for example, in the use of the word cousin. Limiting its use to first cousins, it may refer to mother’s brother’s or sister’s children, male or female, and father’s brother’s or sis- ter’s children of either sex. It is quite as general a term as several used in connection with the classificatory Social Origins and Social Continuities 141 system. There are very many complications and differ- ences in the orders of nomenclature used by amie at peoples which cannot be considered here. - In the Hawaiian system of classificatory terms ra ig a segregation by generations. Excluding differences based on age or sex, all a man’s relatives of the same generation are pateeena by the same term. The word father is used for the father and all the father’s brothers and for mother’s brothers as well. Mother is the term employed in addressing the true mother and all her sis- ters, and also the father’s sisters. Brother is used for own peniher and for all male cousins; sister for own sister, and for all female cousins. Several writers have shown that this system, far from being the first, as thought by Morgan, is a later development of a ee simple method, often called the Dakota system. In this the terms eed for persons of an older generation than that of the speaker are employed for father and father’s brother, mother’s brother, father’s sister, and mother and mother’s sister. Both systems are alike in having single words for father and father’s brother and mother and mother’s sister, but the second has a separate term for mother’s rsaphanet and for father’s sister. These are only two of the many varieties of family nomenclature. Do these terms used in the classificatory system con- note sexual communism? Morgan believed that the Hawaiian system, based strictly on generations, pointed to a time when there was sexual license between all members of the same generation, between brothers and sisters and between all cousins, as each sex addressed the other sex of the same generation in the same terms. It barred intercourse between parents and children, as they belonged to different generations. A man’s Oe 142 Social Origins and Social Continuities were also his fathers, because they were potential part- ners of the man’s mother and her sisters, who were in turn sisters of his father and uncles. So all a man’s nephews and nieces were his sons and daughters, be- cause he was the potential companion of all his sisters, as they were all his wives as well as the wives of his brothers. There are several difficulties in the way of accepting the premise that relationship terms were primarily based upon sexual prerogatives; that “father” as a term meant procreator or potential procreator. McLennan, Cunow, and Lowie have all noted the fact that if we accept the theory that all “fathers” are potential begetters, we must also not fail to accept the corollary that “mothers,” the real mother and her sisters, have all given birth to the child. Morgan, Rivers, and others offer explanations for this dilemma, but they are open to grave objections. The Hawaiian system represents simply a clear strati- fication of blood kindred by generation. In the levirate and sororate there is ample explanation why the father and father’s brother and the mother and mother’s brother should be classed together. Kinship terminology does not necessarily connote an actual sexual relationship. A man may never inherit his brother’s widow because his brother still survives him, or because the widow is already married to another brother, but, nevertheless, he is called father by his brother’s children. The classificatory system stands for certain social relationships between members of a group, based upon kinship, but not upon an actual sexual relationship. Social etiquette demands special recognition of certain lines of relatives. In some cases this may lead to the ‘joking relationship,” a “reciprocal familiarity, such as Social Origins and Social Continuities 143 chaffing or billingsgate between individuals standing in a specific relationship.” In other cases etiquette may demand a strict tabu between certain relatives. The theory of Rivers in connection with group-mar- riage and relationship terms should be examined in some detail. While admitting that there is “no reason to believe that Morgan’s theory of an original promis- cuity is correct,” he adds that there is more evidence for an intermediate stage of organized sexual communism as shown by group-marriage. “Many features of the classificatory system of relationship, otherwise difficult to understand, become readily explicable if they grew out of a state of society in which a group of men had a group of wives in common.” Again, “Sexual group-relations form a potentiality of human nature which we have got. to accept.” Rivers certainly makes it clear that he considers it probable that after the earliest “collect- ing stage’ where small groups wandered about as hunt- ers, is passed, there comes in with agriculture and the clan organization sexual communism, as shown by the classi- ficatory system and group-marriage. It should be em- phasized that the classificatory system and group- marriage are not conterminous. The former is found throughout the aboriginal world, whereas group-mar- riage is comparatively rare. It is absent in many large areas. Sexual license and marriage fall into two dis- tinct categories, as has already been shown. Sexual promiscuity is undoubtedly found in some early socie- ties as it is found today in modern life, but this is quite a different thing from saying that it has taken the place of the individual family. The mere presence of the strict- est rules regarding prohibited degrees of marriage and the necessity of the choice of a mate being made from 144 Social Origins and Social Continuities a selected group all point away from the thesis of free- dom of sexual life. Infractions of these rules are often punishable by death. In practically every case of group-marriage, as found among savages, the laws of | incest of the tribe are strictly observed, and there is | often a definite relationship existing between the group of husbands and the group of wives, as well as among ‘the husbands as a class. Finally, a man almost always | has a& main wife and the woman a main husband. Marital rights acéorded to others, either as kinsmen or as guests, are simply an extension of the privilege of the true husband to others, and usually by his per- mission. Concubinage based upon strict rules of rela- tionship might be used to express the status of secondary Wives or secondary husbands. In Roman times con- cubinatus meant a permanent cohabitation, without mar- riage, recognized by law. In the case of many tribes, men of distinction were the ones who usually had mul- tiple wives, as is the general rule in polygyny. In a few cases, age and not kinship is the factor connecting the members of a group of husbands. In one part of New Guinea all the men born within a given time make up a group, and between all members of this age-class there are mutual social and religious duties, as well as privileges. The men share wives in common, but even here each man has a main ne his individual possession. Chor An attempt has been made to answer some of the arguments which have been advanced in the attempt to prove either a preliminary stage of promiscuity in the history of the family or a stage appearing with the clan organization and agriculture, marked by the presence of group-marriage and relationship terms. There are —— Social Origins and Social Continurties 145 other arguments against a postulated statc of sextual promiscuity. Howard divides these into three classes: the zoological, the physiological, and the psychological. We have already considered the prolongation of infancy among the anthropoid apes and the necessary co-opera- tion of the father and mother. The matrimonial habits of man’s nearest progenitors are not promiscuous. Mari- tal fidelity is found among the animals. The economic feature of the co-operation of the father and mother in obtaining a sufficient food supply has also been pointed out. In other words, a monogamous family, found among many of the lowest savages, is a direct inheritance from the non-human animal world. The physiological, perhaps more properly called the biological, argument against promiscuity is more difficult to prove. Free sexual relations would undoubtedly lead to very close inbreeding. Scientific knowledge is not, however, available at the present time to prove the evil effects of this method of mating as regards man. Some have claimed that sexual excitement in the long run may lead to barrenness, but there is no proof that a low birth rate would necessarily follow promiscuity. The pathological condition unfavorable to fecundity in prostitutes may be entirely the result of diseases unknown to the early savage. The psychological argument, so strongly advanced by Westermarck, is based upon the presence of sexual jealousy among animals as well as among men. Too much can be made of this, as there is no doubt that in communities practicing group-marriage jealousy seems to be often strangely lacking. Its failure to play its part may be due to a “socially induced custom.” The history of the discussion of marriage and the 146 Social Origins and Social Continuities family has been traced, starting with the classical idea of the patriarchate: next, the evolutionary school with definite stages of development, beginning with promis- cuity and ending with monogamy, and, finally, the mod- ern theory which, denying the postulation of a previous universal state of sexual freedom, places monogamy as the first form of marriage. Even Rivers seems to grant that the earliest societies, “the collectors,” did not prac- tice promiscuity. Monogamy is found among many of the lowest savages known, and it is the most common form of the marriage relationship. Group-marriage, which is perhaps a feature of clan organization, but not by any means a necessary factor, may be, in my opinion, a special development from monogamy. The classifica- tory system of relationship, found the world over, in no way indicates a corresponding prevalence of sexual com- munism. Nothing has ever completely supplanted the individual monogamous family in the history of human society. VARIETIES OF THE Forms or MARRIAGE Monogamy is not, of course, the only type of mar- riage, but the presence of polyandry or polygyny must be due, as Lowie remarks, to some non-biological factor in a community, as the number of males and females born is approximately equal. Polyandry, far from being a common form of marriage and a necessary step in the evolution of the family, is a very rare and abnormal type. It is found in a few Eskimo communities, among the Bahima—a Bantu tribe of Africa—the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and in the Marquesas Islands. “Type specimens” of polyandry are found in southern India and in Tibet. Formerly it was imagined that an Social Origins and Social Continuities 147 unfavorable environment was one of the main causes for a plurality of husbands, as it took more than one man to support a family. The environmentalist has little ground for this supposition, as the Eskimo are maritime hunters, the Todas are a pastoral people, and in Tibet the agricultural portion of the population are polyandrous while the pastoral part of the inhabitants are not. It was at one time thought that female infanticide was a second factor necessary for the rise of this type of marriage. The practice of killing female children is found to some extent among. the Eskimo, where girl babies are considered to be a burden, owing to the arduous life in the polar regions. Female in- fanticide may also be the origin of polyandry among the Todas, but the custom is not based upon economic grounds as among the Eskimo. The agricultural Tibetans and the Marquesans are polyandrous, but they do not put their female infants to death. Hence there is no definite correlation between economic condi- tions, female infanticide, and this special type of marriage. There are two varieties of polyandry: the fraternal or “adelphic,” found in Tibet, where the husbands are brothers; and the non-fraternal, called,—mistakenly, ac- cording to Rivers,—the Nair type, found among the Nairs of Malabar. In Tibet when a man marries, his brothers also share in the relationship as a matter of course. They all live together in amity. As soon as a child is born, the eldest brother performs a rite called “giving the bow and arrow,” that makes him the legal father, although all his brothers are considered also as the fathers of the child. In the non-fraternal type, the husbands often live in different villages, and the wife 148 Social Origins and Social Continuities usually visits each in turn. Here the sociological father is the first man married, and his performance of the bow and arrow rite makes him the legal father not only of the child but also of subsequent progeny. After the birth of two or three children another husband may become the “father.” Here again we have an excellent example of the sociological status differing from that based on physiology. Another illustration of this is given by Rivers from Melanesia, where the man who plays the part of mid-wife becomes the father of the child and his wife is regarded as the mother. Social convention may thus determine parenthood. Legal adoption with us does much the same thing; it changes the status of the parents from a physiological to a legal and social one. Among the Todas, where the practice of female infanticide is declining, there is a tendency, es- pecially among those of the Nilgiri Hills, to combine polyandry with polygyny, a set of brothers sharing, not a single wife, but perhaps two, thus bringing about a type of group-marriage. Polyandry has been reported in classical times. Polybius states that it was found in ancient Greece, and, according to Cesar, it occurred among the Celtic inhabitants of Great Britain. Polygyny, unlike the preceding form of marriage, is found over a great part of the world. It is always coin- cident with monogamy, as the proportion of the sexes prevents its practice by the entire population. There are few complications attached to this variety of wed- lock. The forms differ according to whether the wives live together or have different households. The rigors of an Arctic life or the devastating effects of war may result in a surplus of women; polygyny may result. In general, it is usually limited to the rich and to those of Social Origins and Social Continuities 149 rank. Africa is the classical home of aboriginal polygyny: It is also, of course, widespread in Moham- medan countries. In some parts of Melanesia it is the privilege of the aged to have multiple wives. In Eddy- stone Island, for example, the practice is allowed a chief who has taken ten heads in warfare. It appears as the result of wealth, but in itself it may produce wealth, as there are more helpers in the house and in the fields and a larger number of children who are potential workers. The girls may later yield goodly sums to their parents in marriage. It is a mistaken idea that polygyny is always a sign of female inferiority, and that it is always a degenera- tion on the part of the women. The wife may welcome others as helpers in her labors. Barrenness in the first wife renders a second necessary in order to have chil- dren. In China, where a son is of paramount impor- tance, second wives are often selected as the result of the failure of the first to bear a son. In all polygynous communities there is always a tendency toward monog- amy in regarding the first wife as the true wife and the others as concubines. The fundamental type of mar- riage 1s monogamy. Polyandry is not a stage in the history of marriage, but a sporadic phenomenon. Polygyny, although far more widespread, does not carry with it the difficult problems of fatherhood encountered in the case of multiple husbands, and it is of little sociological importance in the Hilors of human society as a whole. MARRIAGE ContTRACT Of far more significance than the form of marriage is the manner by which a marriage is made. In the 150 Social Origins and Social Continuities investigation of the marriage contract, historically con- sidered, the classical idea was that marriage by capture was a universal practice. It was also formerly thought that female infanticide was very common, leading to few women; and, consequently, there was a necessity of going Heise the group and forcibly capturing a wife. From this arose the prevalent custom of exogamy, meaning “to marry out.” The study of survivals was brought to bear upon this subject, as in the attempt to prove freedom in sexual relationships. Symbolic ab- ductions in various forms are noted over great parts of the world. The sham battle, the pretended theft, the hidden bride, were all a part of the argument to show that originally there was a real battle and a cap- ture of the bride from an enemy people. Still later sur- vivals in the rice and confetti battles in many modern weddings could be added as a case in point. Some have explained these acts of ceremonial avoidance as a sys- tematic expression of coyness of the female, like the coyness of birds in the pairing season. It became “good form” for the girl not to yield without a struggle. In Sparta the seizure of the bride was founded on an ancient custom that the girl should not surrender her freedom and her virginity until compelled to by the violence of her future husband. Others have explained this dramatic capture as a symbol of appropriation, a sign of the subjection and subordination of the wife. It might even be an attempt by the male to show his “adroitness and prowess.” Rivers thinks that the mock fights at a wed- ding festival may be explained in some instances by a former existence of cross-cousin marriage. In southern India, for example, where there are ritual conflicts, and Social Origins and Social Continuities 151 a man married a person other than his cousin, he had to satisfy his cousin by a payment. Leaving aside this study of survivals, the complica- tions arising from a universal practice of wife-capture are many. Tribe A is stronger than tribe B; hence A captures its wives from B. Where do the men of B obtain their wives? They cannot get them, from A, as the latter are stronger than B.. Hence B must seek out a tribe weaker than themselves. C fulfills the conditions, but the men of C cannot depend either upon A or B for their wives; they must go elsewhere. There is no end to the process until the weakest tribe in the neighbor- hood finds its women captured, and they are left for- ever without wives. A, of course, might be stronger than B for a season and obtain all the women of B. The next year B becomes stronger than A, but, instead of capturing wives from A, they might well wish to rescue their captured sisters. There is, of course, no equilibrium of forces such as would be required from a universal custom of wife-capture. Chronic hostility is altogether too often assumed in the various theories regarding early society. No one would be rash enough to state that wives were never captured. Many were; but it was not the usual method, nor was_it universal among all early peoples. Captured women were often likely to be con- cubines and slaves rather than wives. The older school of writers thought that wife-capture gave way in time to wife-purchase. Spencer considered that purchase was the usual substitute for violence as civilization progresses. Some form of purchase has al- ways been the normal method of obtaining wives. It is usual to distinguish between exchange and the pur- 152 Social Origins and Social Continuities chase of mates. Compensation is perhaps a good term to include the two methods. The main idea underlying the marriage contract is to obtain an equivalent for the loss suffered by a family, or a larger group, of one of its women. There may be an economic factor here, or it may be purely a social one. As will be shown later, the marriage within a family group of cross-cousins is very common, and here there is seldom a payment. There is reciprocity between members of the “joint family.” Exchange or barter between members of two groups is also brought about, not by purchase, but by compensation. A man from group A takes a wife from group B, a man from B selects his bride from A: there is no loss on either side. Marriage by service, so common in Hebrew tradition, is another method of compensation. The bridegroom works for his father-in-law for a certain time in order to win his wife. This may be a form of partial pay- ment given to the father-in-law in return for his daugh- ter, or it may be, on the other hand, a sort of proba- tionary period as a test of the ability of the man to support a wife and a family. Strict purchase where a definite payment is made for the wife, continued in form among many civilized peo- ples until quite recent times. A wife-market was once a common feature in several eastern European countries. There is a very wide range in this form of the marriage contract. The price, in general, is equivalent to the eco- nomic loss sustained by the family of the bride. The amount to be paid may be a definite sum or it may depend upon the strength, the age, and the condition of the woman, and her capacity to bear children. Where there is infant bethrothal, a series of payments may begin Social Origins and Social Continutties 153 at the time of the girl’s birth. The purchase price may sometimes be looked upon as an investment of capital. Dividends are secured by the work done by the wife and the children born of the marriage. If there is no issue the investment is a poor one and the wife may be sent back to her father. Among the Kwakiutl of the Northwest Coast the bridegroom buys, in addi- tion to his bride, the use of her crest and certain privi- leges of her clan for the benefit of his future children. According to the custom of interest-bearing gifts among these people, the father of the girl has to repay the pur- chase price to the husband as soon as children are born. For one child he must pay 200 per cent interest on the price paid to him by his son-in-law. For additional chil- dren the interest rate is larger. After these payments are made, the father is said to have redeemed his daughter and the marriage is annulled. If she is inclined to stay with her husband she does so of her own free will. If the husband desires a further claim on his wife, he makes a new payment to his father-in-law.4 In the early days of Israel, the bride-price appears to have been five shekels of silver. Boaz declares that he purchased Ruth for his bride. Howard gives a whole chapter of his book to wife-purchase as found in the olden days in England and the Teutonic countries, as shown by folk-laws and the old English “codes.” The present marriage of the English Church, George Bernard Shaw points out, is “really only an honest attempt to make the best of a commercial contract of property and slavery by subjecting it to some religious restraint and elevating it by some touch of poetry.” There are often conditions where the bride-price must be returned or expensive presents are required from the 154 Social Origins and Social Continuities family of the woman. There is thus a tendency among ‘some peoples for the bride-price to pass into the dowry. There is always a danger in making general state- ments regard any custom, as each culture is a mosaic made up of many parts. The patterns are so varied that a single stone from one design, although seeming to resemble another from a second figure, may, when taken from its setting, appear an entirely different color. Methods of obtaining a wife may differ even among the same people. Lowie shows that a Crow Indian may acquire a wife in the following ways: by purchase, by inheriting his brother’s widow—the levirate,—from an alliance or exchange with no payment, and by capturing an alien woman from the Dakotas. Elopment is by no means uncommon among primitive peoples where, mutual attraction being present, there is an excessive bride-price, a monopoly of the women by the older men, or a romantic inclination of the man and woman. It has already been noted, however, that mar- riage in savage communities is usually a contract between groups, and it is in most cases far removed from anything approaching sentiment. There is no reason to suppose, however, that love does not sometimes figure. In cultures of the lowest grades there seems to be some inclination on the part of the man and woman, boy and girl, to take matters into their own hands, and self-betrothal is the result. When the family and clan become more important and property increases in extent, the kinship group is a necessary adjunct in arranging a union. Marriage rites have a relatively unimportant part ia the festive life of early society as compared with puberty ceremonies which usually hold first place in the social life. The form of the marriage rite depends upon the Social Origins and Social Continuities 155 character of the contract. Gocds are exchanged and there is a bestowal of the bride, often with a ceremonial avoidance by the girl and her famiy. Eating out of the same vessel is perhaps the most common wedding rite. Among the Aztecs the clothing of the bride and that of the groom were tied together as a symbol of union. Sometimes prophylactic measures are taken to offset the spiritual evils resulting from contact with women. An- other type of marriage ceremony is that where measures are taken to induce fecundity by magical means. Very few general statements can be made about di- vorce. All degrees are found, from separation at the will of either husband or wife, through that allowed solely to the husband or to the wife, to the stage where no divorce is allowed. This last is usually based upon sacramental grounds. Barrenness and adultery are per- haps the two most common causes for dissolving the marriage bond. But there are certain factors which tend to prevent separations. The disinclination of the father to return the bride-price and the consequent need of advancing more property to obtain a new wife tend to limit the number of divorces: The presence of off- spring is another factor making for permanent unions. Divorce is often common until children are born. The tendency towards permanent marriages is not based so much upon grounds of sentiment as upon those of eco- _homics. LIMITATION OF CHOICE oF MaTE No peoples exist where marriage is not forbidden within certain limits. Prohibited degrees are always found, and all marriages between members of certain groups are considered incestuous. Nothing in primitive society 156 Social Origins and Social Continuities is perhaps more discountenanced than sexual impurity in the form of incest. Death is often the punishment for an infraction of the rules against marriage between those within the prohibited degrees. No tribes allow the union of parents and children, and brother-sister marriage is extremely uncommon. The latter was found among the Incas of Peru and in Hawaii, as well as among many of the later Pharaohs and the Ptolemies in Egypt. In all these cases the ruling family regarded the purity of their blood as being so far above that of any other people that no marriage outside the immediate kindred would satisfy these conditions; hence a brother was forced to marry his sister, as there was no one else with blood pure enough for him to wed. There is a tale of the Chukchee of northeastern Siberia that illustrates the fear of incest. The people living in the country are exterminated by famine. Only two are left, a full-grown girl and her infant brother. She feeds him with pounded meat, and when he grows up she asks him to marry her. “Otherwise,” she says, ‘we shall remain childless. We shall have no descendants and the earth will remain without people. It cannot be peopled otherwise. Who will see us? Who will say shame? Who will know about it in the world? We are all alone in the world.”’ The brother says, “I do not know, I feel badly: it is forbidden.” Then the sister begins to think. “How can I accomplish it? Our line of descent will break off with us.” The young woman then goes to a distant place, builds a house, quite different from their own, and prepares everything belonging to it. She makes new clothing for herself. Then she returns and tells her brother that she has seen a new house on the shore. The brother goes in search of it. The sister is already there. Social Origins and Social Continuities 157 She has changed her clothes, the expression of her face, the tone of her voice, and he takes her for another woman. After some hesitation he takes her for his wife. Then there begins a life in two houses, the sister is here and there and plays with success her double part. Fi- nally when she becomes pregnant, the brother ceases to think of his sister, and they live in the new place. One child is born, and then another. The family multiplies and becomes a people. From them all the people in the camps and villages are born This tale shows an interesting parallel with the story of Lot and his two daughters, as given in Genesis. The variation in the prohibited degrees of marriage is great. Marriage may be customary between a certain type of cousins, but it may be forbidden between mem- bers of two groups bearing the same name but with little possibility of blood relationship. The essence of a mystical danger between members of the opposite sex may be felt where no blood connection can be traced. On the other hand, certain near relatives may be consid- ered the proper choice. All this shows that sexual rela- tionship goes hand in hand with social customs. ~ Exogamy, as we have seen, is the term employed to designate the rule that a man must select his wife from outside his own group. Endogamy, the opposite term, demands that a man must marry within his group. Exogamy and endogamy are not, however, mutually exclusive except within the same group. The Hindu castes are classic examples of endogamous units. Euro- pean royalty, before the War at least, was mainly endog- amous. McLennan, who is responsible for the terms exogamy and endogamy, was mistaken in thinking that 158 Social Origins and Social Continuities tribes were exogamous. He considered that the universal custom of obtaining wives by capture led to a definite rule which forbade marriage between members of the same tribe, and compelled the men to seek mates out- side the tribal unit. Exogamy between tribes is prac- tically never found. The tribe is usually endogamous, and certain groups within the tribe are strictly exoga- mous. The groups within which marriage is forbidden under the rules of exogamy may be based upon locality, upon kinship, or upon a common name with no blood rela- tionship. Prohibition of marriage between residents of the same community, regardless of kinship—local exogamy, as it is called—is comparatively rare. Kxogamy based upon a group of “selected kin’ is the most common form of prohibition. The primitive family group is a bilateral affair. The family as a unit includes both the father and the mother. The duties of the chil- dren to both parents and of both parents to the children, the relationship terms, and the social etiquette demanded between members of a family group all go to prove that the bilateral family has a definite social status. After eliminating the very lowest ranks of early society, it may be said that most peoples who have arrived at a cultural level above that of the hunt are divided into two or more groups larger than the family. Sibs, clans, septs, moieties, are some of the terms given ') these larger divisions. They are usually unilateral in char- acter, in the sense that inheritance in one line and exogamy are general features of these classes. in a society made up of two divisions or moities the men of group A must obtain their wives from group B, Social Origins and Social Continuities 159 and the children belong to A if the descent is patrilineal and to B if it is matrilineal. In the same way the men from group B select their wives from group A. This is the simplest example of the two-group system. It will be seen that the term kinship exogamy is not exact enough to apply to this typo of marriage relation. It is a selected group.of kindred, on either the mother’s or the father’s side. In this unit, larger than the family, there is a feeling of solidarity based upon some common tie. This may be a belief in a common ancestor or the pos- session of 2 common name. The actual blood relation- ship may be very remote or entirely lacking. The mys- tical potency of the name has already been considered. Among the Iroquois, for example, the members of the Wolf clan were not allowed to intermarry even if the man belonged to a different tribe from that of the woman. There was probably no trace of consanguinity between the two Wolf divisions, but a common name was a bar to intermarriage. Oliver Wendell Holmes spoke of exogamy as a providential trait, as it kept the Smiths from being Smithed to death and the Joneses from being Jonesed to death. Exogamy relating to a common name is found in China. There are only a few more than five hundred surnames in all the country, so that large num- bers of people bear the same cognomen. Marriage be- tween persons bearing the same name is forbidden. The present superstition of ill-luck following the union of persons bearing the same name may be the last trace of the same idea. The Church recognized the cognatio spiritualis as a bar against marriage. The Emperor Justinian inaugu- rated a law forbidding marriage between a man and a 160 Social Origins and Social Continurties woman who had stood as godparents to the same child. The Church has added other prohibitions on account of this spiritual relationship. Adoption, which is very common, brings with it the same prohibition regarding marriage and other social customs as consanguinity. The former often includes fictitious bonds that are as firm in the social structure as those based upon blood. Exogamy as it exists among the tribes in central, east- ern, and southern Australia is often a very complicated affair. There is the simple two-class system; a man of moiety A of a special totemic group must marry into a special totemic group of moiety B. The descent in some tribes with this rule is matrilineal; among others it is patrilineal. | The second type found in Australia is a four-class system, where each moiety is subdivided into two classes: 1 3 A B 2 4 The children, assuming paternal descent, belong to the moiety of the father, but to the class other than the one to which he belongs. Disregarding the totemic compli- cations, the following shows the rules of marriage and descent: A 1 marries B 3 and the children are A 2, A 2 “ B 4 & (f3 ifs “ A 1 B 3 ifs A 1 (f3 “cc “ “cc B Py B 4 cc A 2 1 § cc it 3 “ B 3. The third type is still more complicated. Each of the two classes in each moiety is divided into two sub- classes, making eight in all. Social Origins and Social Continurties 161 1 (odd) 5 (odd) of 2 (even) 6 (even) A B 3 (odd) 7 (odd) li iv 4 (even) 8 (even) Assuming paternal descent, the children belong to the moiety of the father, but to the class differing from his. Up to this point the system is similar to the one previ- ously described. For the purposes of clearness, if we think of the first sub-class in each class as “odd” and the second as “even,” the father belonging to an “odd” sub-class would have children in an “even” sub-class. Thus, a man of moiety A, class i, sub-class 1 (odd), ‘must marry a woman of moiety B, class iii, sub-class 5, and their children would belong to moiety A, class ii, sub-class 4 (even). The rules of descent for the men of one moiety marrying into the other run as follows: A i1 marries B iii 5 and the children are A ii 4, Agi. 2 os Brit Guay ok “« AU 3, Aiu3 se Birve wuts: ey “ A 12, Au 4 re BST yong . ner Are Tebce * There is a difficulty which has seldom been pointed out and has never been explained, when the men of moiety B marry women of the opposite division. Using only the numbers of the sub-class, theoretically, the rules would result in the following: 5 marries 1 and the children are 8, 6 cc 9 ‘cc é“ cc 6c ve 7 “ 3 (T9 if 6c cc 6. 8 6c 4 “ 6c if 3 “c 5. According to all accounts, however, the children of the four preceding unions are not respectively members of the sub-classes 8, 7, 6, and 5, but of the sub-classes 7, 8, 5, and 6. This incon- sistency has never been accounted for. 162 Social Origins and Social Continuities There are still further complications, into which it is not necessary to go, when a man cannot marry any women of the proper class, but only one who is related to him in a special way. With the exception of the simple two-class system, the classes and sub-classes only function as the regulators of marriage. Many explanations have been offered for the vari- ous rules limiting marriage in early society. Exogamy was certainly not due to a common custom of female infanticide, followed by wide-capture, or even to the ex- change of women of one tribe with those of another. Lubbock, who always held promiscuity to be a stage in the development of marriage, believed that, as all the Wives of one group were the common possession of all the men, a wife obtained outside the community belonged exclusively to the male who obtained her; hence the custom of exogamy came into practice. One theory traces the custom back to the animals. The head of the herd held all the females as his own property, and the young males necessarily had to find their mates outside the herd. The psychological-biological explanation for exogamy has many ramifications. Hobhouse and West- ermarck believe that instinct prevents the marriage of near kin,—“Familiarity breeds contempt.” The aver- sion towards marrying close relatives may extend to neighbors. Among some of the Eskimo a boy and girl brought up in the same household, even if they are no relation to each other, are not allowed to wed. There is not the least doubt that there is far less sexual curiosity between those brought up under the same roof. But if there is an innate aversion to the marriage of near kin, a rule would not be required to prevent it. In fact, in the frequent bisection of a group into exogamous Social Origins and Social Continuities 163 classes there is nothing, theoretically, to prevent a man from marrying his daughter provided the descent is reckoned in the female line, as the father will belong in a different class from that of his daughter. With male descent, a woman may marry her son, as far as the rules of exogamy are concerned. We have seen, however, that marriage between parents and children is never found. Let us grant, therefore, a predisposition on the part of mankind against the marriage of father and daughter, and of mother and son. The extension of this instinc- tive aversion to the marriage of the children of two brothers might be allowed if we did not find that there seems in many parts of the world to be no desire to prohibit, but rather to approve, the marriage between -cross-cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister. There can be little doubt, therefore, that the rules regu- lating marriage are not based purely upon an innate horror of incest. Repugnance towards marriages be- tween certain classes of relatives is great, but unions are often considered desirable between other relatives, often no more distantly related than those between whom mar- riage is regarded as incestuous. In other words, the ex- | tension of this aversion against marriage, after it leaves the realm of the closest relatives——parents and children, and brothers and -sisters,—is not based upon instinct but upon social rules. The supposedly evil effects of incestuous marriages, several authors believe, were recognized by early man, and hence exogamy was established to prevent inbreed- ing. It is hardly to be supposed that the savage would recognize the disastrous results of too close marriages when the present scientific world is not yet able to de- termine with any exactness what these evils are, if any, 164 Social Origins and Social Continuities which follow inbreeding in the human species. Granted that primitive man thought that he had detected bad eugenics in such marriages, the rules dividing the com- munity into two exogamous classes would not have pre- vented very close inbreeding on one side of the family, and marriage between cross-cousins is a very common form in many parts of the world. Another class of explanations regarding the origin of exogamy may be called political. The intermarriages between the royal families in Europe fall into this cate- gory. Mohammed wrote, “Matrimonial alliances in- crease friendship more than aught else. Then will we give our daughters unto you and we will take your daugh- ters to us, and we will dwell with you and we will become one people.” ‘This might well apply were exogamy al- ways between distinct groups of peoples or tribes. Swan- ton, however, found among the Tlingit of the Northwest Coast, an informant who volunteered the information that his people, who were “Ravens,” married into the Wolf phratry “to show respect,” and he added that this was why they always obtained their assistance in con- ducting a funeral and invited them to a feast. Swanton writes, “Such a custom of exchanging courtesies having once arisen, it might in time have been thought the cor- rect thing to do, and marriage within the band have been first regarded as a mark of low breeding, and after- wards prohibited.” 7 There is a magico-religious explanation for exogamy. The members of a group are regarded as having a mys- tical unity, based not alone upon actual consanguinity but upon fictitious ideas of kinship. Those belonging to clans of the same name, from different tribes, share this unity. Marriage is not allowed between members of a Social Origins and Social Continutties 165 group united in this way. Durkheim considers that the occult or magical virtues attributed by primitive peoples to blood, especially the menstrual blood of women, would prevent men from having intercourse with those of the same blood, hence exogamy. Finally, Freud has a characteristic theory for tabu and exogamy. He be- lieves that society guards against the various com- plexes, especially those between father and daughter, and mother and son, by making rules of exogamy. If the regulations against incest were the same in all Savage communities, and incest was always interpreted in the same way, there would be little difficulty in arriv- ing at some solution of the problem of the origin of exogamy. But aside from the universal absence of mar- riage between parents and children, few generalizations regarding the prohibited degrees of marriage are pos- sible. There is even a confusion as to what constitutes — incest among civilized peoples. Marriage with the de- ceased wife’s sister, permissible only by dispensation in the Catholic Church, was made legal in Great Britain as late as 1907, and then only after the strongest opposi- tion. The marriage with a deceased brother’s widow is still prohibited in England. Marriages between uncles and nieces and between aunts and nephews are not pro- hibited in all Christian countries. The Eastern Church prohibits two brothers from marrying two sisters. There is often great inconsistency in the prohibited degrees of marriage in point of view of time and also in point of view of place. Even our state laws are not alike in this respect. Some marriages, such as those between first cousins, are regarded as incestuous in one state and may be entirely legal in another. In savage society the groups within which marriage 166 Social Origins and Social Continuities is not allowed vary greatly. Although seldom the tribe, it may be the phratry or moiety, the clan, the village, housemates or some other social unit. It is impossible, therefore, to find any one reason why the conventions regarding incest are interpreted in so many different ways. Furthermore, laws against marriages between members of a group do not in every case prohibit sexual intercourse within the group at times of license. PREFERENTIAL MATING Among the same people one way of selecting a wife usually takes precedence over all others. This has been aptly called “preferential mating.” The levirate and sororate have already been described. The former, the marriage of the brother’s widow, is a custom very widely distributed. Cousin-marriage is by no means uncom- mon. It is usually a union between the children of a brother and a sister, called cross-cousins. In other words, a man marries the daughter either of his mother’s brother or of his father’s sister. Parallel cousins are the chil- dren of two brothers or of two sisters, and marriage be- tween cousins of this type is seldom found. In all these varieties of mating the unit is the enlarged family, the Grossfamilie, and as the marriage is between members of this group it may be said to be endogamous. There are many variations in cross-cousin marriage; it may be obligatory that first cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister, marry. It may, again, only be the pre- ferred method. More often the union is between cousins more distantly related than the first degree. Tylor has offered an explanation for the prevalence of cross-cousin marriage and the absence of union between Social Origins and Social Continutties 167 parallel cousins. If the community is divided into two exogamous divisions, the children of a brother and a sis- ter would belong to different groups. With matrilineal descent the children of A and of his wife B would belong to group B. The progeny of B and of his wife A would belong to A. If the B’s were brother and sister, their children could marry, as they belonged to different groups. Whereas if A marries a wife B, their children will belong to B; and if A’s brother marries a wife also belonging to B group, their children are also B’s. Hence children of brothers cannot marry, as they belong to the Same group. This explanation has been questioned as it does not account for preference, so often found for first cousins over those more distantly related. Another dif- ficulty is the fact that cross-cousin marriage is found among people not organized in a dual exogamous system. Rivers offers a theory to cover his Melanesian data. It is based upon the assumption that originally the old men retained for themselves all the women available for marriage, but that later they surrendered their own daughters for the wives of their nephews. The en- dogamous character of cross-cousin marriage makes an explanation possible similar to that for the levirate, that marriage within the enlarged family is preferred in order to keep the property from going outside the group of kindred. This would not, however, serve to explain why a certain type of cousin relationship is preferred over another. Here, as in so many other instances, there is a phenomenon differing in details in such a way as to pre- clude a single origin. Convergent development from di- verse beginnings may have led to more or less similar results. 168 Social Origins and Social Continuities MoTHER-RIGHT AND FATHER-RIGHT In the discussion of marriage, little was said concerning rules of descent and the residence of the married pair. The one-sided character of the family has been touched upon in the consideration of exogamy. The terms “mother-right” and “father-right” are often used to designate several different social processes. Descent, in- heritance of property, the law of succession of power, the holding of leadership, and residence are all features which ought to be carefully distinguished. Rivers, very aptly, limits the term descent to membership in the group. With a matrilineal system children belong to the same group as that of the mother. Inheritance, as here understood, has to do with property alone. In some cases, the descent may be in the female line and the in- heritance of certain kinds of property, especially land, may follow in the same line, but other possessions may be handed down through the father. We can thus have partial patrilineal inheritance with matrilineal descent. Succession to leadership and leadership itself should next be differentiated. The succession is often through the female line, but leadership is never held by a woman. In other words, a man may succeed to chieftainship through his mother’s side. Nowhere, as far as is known, do we find a true matriarchate, where the woman occupies the office of ruler. There are a few examples, often used, of communities in which the women have a great part to play in the life of the people and enjoy unusual property rights. The Pueblo peoples will be cited later in this connection. Among the Iroquois the women arrange marriages, hold property, nominate candidates for office, and have the power of “recalling” an unworthy Social Origins and Social Continuities 169 chief; but no woman ever held the office of chief among these people or ever sat in the tribal council. Among the Khasi of India, the descent, inheritance, and succes- sion are matrilineal. The chief is succeeded by his brother or by the son of his eldest sister. This latter type of authority is commonly called the avunculate, the head of the group being the mother’s brothers. When a Khasi husband and wife have lived together for thirty or forty years, a second marriage rite is performed, after which no divorce is possible and no remarriage is allowed either the man or the woman after the death of one of them. After this ceremony, the husband becomes a member of his wife’s clan, taking her clan name, and his bones are buried with hers in her family vault. The question of descent and succession should be con- sidered in more detail. It was formerly held that, with a postulated promiscuity, the earliest families necessarily reckoned descent through the mother, as fatherhood could not be determined. This supposition also carries with it the theory that all peoples reckoning descent through the father have passed through a previous stage of mother- right. Rivers goes a step further and believes that in Melanesia, at least, and possibly throughout the world, the change from mother-right to father-right “came about through a process in which an earlier matrilineal society suffered great modification at the hands of immi- grant people imbued with patrilineal sentiments. These immigrants, being adopted as chiefs, were able to hand on their rank to their children, and thus to institute patrilineal succession.” *® In the same way, he thinks that matrilineal immigrants or conquerors may have imposed in some cases their social practices upon a 170 Social Origins and Social Continuities patrilineal people. Characteristically, Rivers must always explain a new idea or a modification of an old one as coming from the outside. There is no definite order in the systems of reckoning descent. In general among the more highly developed tribes of North America the descent is counted through the mother, whereas patrilineal descent is found among the lowest of the tribes. Mother-right is not, therefore, necessarily a characteristic of the most primitive people, and, conversely, father-right is not always found among people whom we can place outside the class of savages. The Greeks reckoned descent through the father, but the Ionian Greeks had the Lycians as neighbors and they traced descent through the mother. ‘Olympian society was the same. The consort of Zeus held a very differ- ent position from that of the wife in a patriarchal house- hold; and on the Asiatic shore, at least, the gods them- selves were traced back to a Mother, not to a Father, of them all.”’® Even in the list of Roman kings, in contrast to that of the Alban rulers, not one of them was immediately succeeded by his son on the throne, although several left sons. One of them was descended from a former king by his mother and three of them were succeeded by their sons-in-law, who were all foreign- ers or of foreign descent.1° We note the prevalence of the fairy tale with the same story. Though the king has a son, it is the husband of the daughter who succeeds to the throne. A prince wanders into a strange land. After many vicissitudes he is successful in winning the hand of the king’s daughter, and succeeds her father on the throne. The former king’s son is journeying to another court and marrying a foreign princess. As Social Origins and Social Continuities Va Frazer remarks, early kingship is merely an appendage of marriage with a woman of royal blood. Not only do we find the foreign husband of the king’s daughter the ruler; but there is another type of succes- sion, where, again, the king’s sons do not succeed their father, but it is the son of the king’s sister who gains the throne. In both cases the succession is accomplished through the female side of the family of the king. In the Beowulf epic, Beowulf is the son of the sister of the king to whose court he was sent as aboy. It is clear that Beowulf is expected to succeed his mother’s brother, his maternal uncle, on the throne, although the king has a son of his own. Ballads about Arthur repeat the same idea. Roland was the nephew of Charlemagne. Marry- ing the queen on the death of the king was equivalent to a union with the king’s daughter. Both customs show that the royal essence was thought to flow through the female line. In the many tales of intrigue where the king is murdered and the murderer marries the queen, one is often cited—Hamlet. The murdered king is suc- ceeded, not by his son, though his son is of age to reign, but by the new husband of the queen. The people ac- cept the new king, never looking upon him as a usurper, and the marriage arouses no indignation. The only fear of the new king is that of the discovery of the murder by which he has gained possession of the queen and the acquisition of the throne. Julius Cesar adopted as his line of descent his sister’s daughter’s son, his grand- nephew.!? The maternal system of succession and descent carries with it, however, an inherent weakness when property comes into being. The person who holds rank and pos- sessions is usually the man, and it follows that where 172 Social Origins and Social Continutties there is a matrilineal system the man cannot hand down his property to his sons. There is in this case a tendency to change the descent to the male line. Several cases can be shown, however, where even with the accession of property the descent still remains on the female side of the family. In a patrilineal society inheritance is easily explained. The law of primogeniture, the property falling to the eldest son, is a common phenomenon, especially in many of the nations of the Old World. The opposite of this, junior right, is a custom found rarely among civilized peoples, but it is not by any means unknown among primitive societies. This makes the youngest son the main heir. It is a common form of inheritance among many tribes in India. Rivers tells us that it is found among the Baganda, and is “due to the fact that as the sons of a family grow up and marry, they leave the home of the parents and build houses elsewhere. It is the duty of the youngest son to dwell with his parents and support them as long as they live, and when they die he continues to live in the parental home, of which he becomes the owner.” Junior right is thus commonly associated with the departure of the elder sons. This custom is also called Borough English, as it was found until recently in many parts of England. The name is taken from a local word used in a trial in the time of Edward III. In Nottingham there were, during that reign, two tenures of land, one called Borough English and the other Borough French. In the Borough English all the houses descended to the youngest son, but in the Borough I'rench they descended to the eldest son as in the common law. This custom was most prevalent in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, in a ring of manors en- Social Origins and Social Continutties 173 circling ancient London. Blackstone wrote on this sub- ject, and regards the custom as a relic of Saxon liberty retained by such persons as had neither forfeited it to the king nor been obliged to exchange it for the more honorable but burdensome tenure of knight-service.1® There finally remains to be considered the question of residence of the married pair. This plays a surprisingly important part in early societies. The wife may take up her residence, temporarily or permanently, with her hus- band’s family; he may reside with his wife’s parents; or they may both remove to a new dwelling. The place of residence may depend upon several factors, the most im- portant of which is the line of descent. A tribe reckon- ing descent in the female line is generally found to be matrilocal, the husband living with his wife’s family ; although some may be patrilocal, the wife living with her husband’s family. Tribes counting descent on the male side are always patrilocal. No patrilineal peoples are matrilocal, but matrilineal peoples may be patrilocal. One of the most striking examples of matrilocal resi- dence is to be found among the Hopi and Zuni of the Southwest. The descent is on the mother’s side, and the house is the property of the women of the family, the grandmother, mother, and married daughters. The hus- band is considered a sort of privileged boarder in the house of his wife and her relatives. The head of the family is not the husband but the wife’s brothers. The husband occupies the first place, not in his wife’s home, but in the house of his sisters, and it is here that he keeps his personal possessions. It should be noted that even in this type with the descent and residence both in the female line, the heads of the family are not women, but the brothers of the wife. The children live under the 174 Social Origins and Social Continuities guidance of their uncles rather than that of their father. The rules of residence and descent often carry with them a custom found sporadically over a great part of the world,—the parent-in-law tabu. The husband is usually “cut” by his mother-in-law. There may be a complete breach and all intercourse between the husband and his mother-in-law may be denied, or it may be sur- rounded by other restrictions. Many have been the ex- planations offered for this custom. Tylor, Frazer, and Freud all suggest reasons for the practice. It is prob- able that there is more than one cause to account for its presence. In general it seems to be due to the fact that the husband is regarded as a stranger from another di- vision of the tribe, an intruder, and is socially not recog- nized as a member of his wife’s family when he comes into the house of his parents-in-law. It is far more un- common to find the wife ostracized by the husband’s relatives. It is not a question of hostility, but only a failure to recognize socially. The inertia of customs and their failure to take root is by no means infrequent. This is illustrated in the South- west. Here are found the Pueblo peoples with matrilocal residence where one might well expect to find parent-in- law tabu, and it is entirely absent, although among the Navajo, who live in the midst of the Pueblos, it is present. I once had a Navajo man and his wife cooking for me incamp. An altercation occurred between them, and the girl returned to her mother’s hut. Deprived of her serv- ices, I endeavored to bring about a reconcilation. I was forced, first, to induce the girl’s mother to retire, before I could bring the man into his wife’s presence. Peace was made; the man left his mother-in-law’s house, and I then informed the concealed woman that the coast Social Origins and Social Continuities 175 was clear and she could safely return to her hut, as her son-in-law had gone. The tabu, usually limited to sight and conversation, may be extended to include not only the names of the ostracized persons but the words composing the name used in any othcr connection. Lowie cites the anecdote of a Kirgiz woman of Asia. She could not look into the face of her husband’s father or elder kinsmen, and was forbidden to employ the usual words for lamb, wolf, water, and rushes, as they formed part of the names of her relatives by marriage. Accordingly, in telling her husband of a wolf carrying off a lamb through the rushes on the other side of the water, she was obliged to use cir- cumlocution and say, “Look yonder, the howling one is carrying the bleating one’s young through the rustling ones on the other side of the glistening one!” The following passage from Genesis, xxix, describing the marriage of Jacob, illustrates several points which have been discussed here: “And it came to pass, when Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother . . . that Jacob went near... And Jacob kissed Rachel ... And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s brother (sic) . . . And it came to pass when Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, that he ran to meet him, and embraced him . . . And Laban said to him, Surely thou art my bone and my flesh . . . And Laban had two daughters: the name of the elder was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah was tender eyed; but Rachel was beautiful and well favoured. And Jacob loved Rachel and said, I will serve thee seven years for Rachel thy younger daughter . . . And Jacob served seven years for Rachel . . . And Jacob said unto Laban, Give me my 176 Social Origins and Social Continuities wife, for my days are fulfilled, that I may go in unto her ... And it came to pass in the evening, that he took Leah his daughter, and brought her to him; and he went in unto her . . . And it came to pass, that in the morning, behold it was Leah: and he said to Laban, What is this thou hast done unto me? Did not I serve with thee for Rachel? wherefore then has thou beguiled me? And Laban said, It must not be so done in our country, to give the younger before the first-born. lul- fill her week, and we will give thee this also for the serv- ice which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years. . And Jacob did so, and fulfilled her week: and he gave him Rachel his daughter to wife also.” In Chapter xxx, after Rachel found that Leah was bearing children and none came to her, sho said to Jacob, “Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her. And she gave him Bilhah her handmaid to wife: and Jacob went in unto her. And Bilhah conceived, and bare Jacob a son. And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son.” In these passages are found the customs of polygyny, cross-cousin marriage (Jacob being the son of Laban’s sister), and the sororate, the marriage of two sisters by the same man. The rule of seniority, not uncommon among primitive peoples, is also shown here, where the younger sister cannot marry before her elder sister is dis- posed of. The contract was by service, although a definite sum paid for the wifc was the usual practice among the Hebrews. Matrilocal residence during the long term of service is also described. Barrenness is an excuse for another partner, and yet, sociologically, Rachel was the mother of the progeny from this connection. Social Origins and Social Continuitties 177 Finally, even after Jacob had served twenty years, four- teen for the two daughters and six for the cattle, he was not free to depart with his wives and children, and give up his matrilocal residence, according to the account in Chapter xxxi. In spite of the many curious ramifications of the mar- riage laws among primitive groups, it is clear that mar- riage was always 3 present in early 3 society. It is perhaps the only social institution that can be traced back di- rectly to man’s pre-human ancestors. There is, then, no single succession with stages leading from promiscuity through polyandry and polygyny to monogamy at the end of the series. Some of the lowest savages known are monogamous, and there is reason to believe that this form of marriage was the original type. The precise regulations of legal wedlock with the rules limiting the choice of mate and defining the form of con- tract between husband and wife all point to the fun- damental place marriage occupies in primitive life. It seems quite clear that marriage and its regulations among savage people are far more civil in character, that is, pertaining to society as a whole, than is the case with the rites at birth, adolescence, and death. The economic status of marriage comes out clearly, as a com- pact between groups quite as often as between indi- viduals. There are radical changes in the life of the man or woman, according as the one or the other takes up his or her residence in a strange family and is con- sidered often as an intruder. No correlation exists between stage of culture and rules of descent. Father- right and mother-right are both found among some of the highest and also among some of the lowest savages. 178 Social Origins and Social Continuities If we should study our own ideas and feelings about marriage and the family in order to see how they differ from those accompanying the “irrational practices” of the savage, we would suddenly realize that the primitive family, with its paternal care, maternal devotion, and filial affection are heirlooms of a Primate-past worn with equal pride by the domesticated European and the wild Fijian. All the possible varieties of kinship associa- tion and conjugal relationships have been tested, tried, and developed by savages. CHAPTER V ORGANIZATION, ASSOCIATION, AND CLASSES Every society is divided into groups according to vari- ous principles and these groups are practically never mutually exclusive. The requisites for participation in the various forms of association differ. The term organi- zation is used to designate the fabric of those groups which commonly form the fundamental structure of early society, starting with the family and ending in the tribe or larger unit. Secondly, there may be a strati- fication along the lines of age, sex, or other fac- tors which form a group usually less fundamental than the preceding, and these have been called associations. Finally, a third division may be made, based primarily on rank, property, and occupation. These have been called classes. The interrelation of these three groups is often great, and the distinction is principally made for clearness in presentation. There is no hard and fast line to be drawn between any two of these three divisions. Rivers separates the various types of association into those the entrance to which is voluntary or involuntary. The family and its enlarged group is primarily, of course, an involuntary association, although adoption into a family may be voluntary. The political and religious units are also, for the most part, involuntary. The secret society and various clubs are in the voluntary class. But, as a matter of fact, the secret society is often 179 180 Social Origins and Social Continutties based upon an age classification, and social compulsion rather than individual volition usually determines the composition of these societies. SocIAL ORGANIZATION The domestic unit, consisting of the father, mother, and the children, and the way it is made up, have al- ready been treated. The first type of social organization larger than that of the family may be based upon locality alone. The enlargement of the domestic group, based upon ideas of kinship, real or fictitious, gives us a second type, the clan and other similar organizations. The po- litical grouping is a2 combination of either the first or the second type; local units formed more or less definitely into a tribe, or those based upon ideas of kindred, related clans or phratries forming a tribe. Organizations based upon the family as a unit are not explainable by biology, as Spencer would have us believe, but are sociologically constituted. An adopted member of a family is not a biological member of the group, but for all sociological purposes he may be as important a personage as one born within its folds. It should be understood that, given the family with or without plurality of husbands or of wives, the larger combinations do not follow auto- matically, one always preceding another in a definite order. Plato in his Laws writes, “For when a colony is of one race, and has the same language and the same laws, it possesses a kind of friendship as being a partaker in the same holy rites, and everything else of a similar kind. . .. But, on the other hand, a colony composed of all kinds of peoples flowing together to the same point, will per- haps be more willingly obedient to certain new laws; but Social Origins and Social Continuities 181 to conspire together, and like a pair of horses, to froth together, as the saying is, individually to the same point, is the work. of a long time and very difficult.” Giddings calls attention to the fact that this observa- tion of Plato clearly makes the distinction between the conditions found in primitive society and those in mod- ern communities." Those associations of one race, one language, one religion, and one set of customs, are con- trasted with groups composed of all “kinds of peoples flowing together to the same point.” In the first, one finds racial homogeneity, with a psychological and phys- ical unity and usually a strong sense of solidarity and tribal consciousness. The other group is not homogeneous and the sense of unity may be very imperfectly de- veloped. Herodotus gives us the same idea of unity among a people in his famous passage where the Athenians reject the plan of Alexander and refuse to desert the Greek cause. They reply, “Greece is of one blood; and of one speech; and has dwelling-places of gods in common, and sacrifices to them; and habits of similar customs.” 2 These factors of “common descent, common religion, and common culture” are practically always present in savage society both in those groups based primarily upon territory as in modern states, and, as is far more com- mon, in those with a social organization founded upon kinship, “pseudo-biological” units. LocaL Groups It is usually assumed that in the lowest grades of early society small groups of related families wandered about as hunters or fishermen. There was no central authority and no great cohesion within the group. The social or- 182 Social Origins and Social Continuities ganization lacked vigor, and there was little which could in any way be called political in these associations. A large amount of country was required for the needs of the different groups. There were no great crises and no great problems of adjustment to be settled. The Central Eskimo are a good example of this type of grouping. As Goldenweiser has said, locality is perhaps the first factor utilized for social organization. Not only is it the only feature present in the earliest types of social group- ing, but it is also found as the sole criterion in all modern communities. The home is not only a physical fact but a psychological one as well. However varied are the wanderings of the Eskimo or the Bushmen, they all have a dwelling place somewhere to which they periodically return. “Perpetual vagrancy is not a primitive phenom- enon.” ® Neighborhood grouping is a term which might be used for this type. Co-operation and mutual help- fulness are always found among members of the local group. The early village communities found in England, France, and northern Germany show some features similar to those of primitive organizations with geo- graphical unity. There were common fields, common pastures, common meadows, and common waste lands. Originally an equal number of acres was allotted: to each family; all stood on the same level. The distinction here, of course, is the presence of an overlord Kinsuip Groups Going back once more to the family as a nucleus, the second type of grouping is based upon ideas of kinship. This does not necessarily mean blood relationship, as adoption in common. Marriage brings about kinship, Social Origins and Social Continuities 183 and there is often a fictitious kind of relationship with certain animal ancestors. The family found in thig type of organization is unilateral. Most modern families take their names from the father, and in this sense they are also unilateral. In Spanish countries, however, both the father’s and the mother’s names are used, and the family here can be called bilateral. In the kinship grouping not only the name but prerogatives, property, and other things are commonly inherited in one line only, according to the side of the family on which the descent is reckoned. If a society is patrilineal, as we have seen, the children follow the father’s line, and the mother is not always considered strictly a member of the social group. On the other hand, a father may be thought of as an outsider in a matrilineal unit. THe CLAN The group larger than the immediate family, reckon- ing descent either through the father or through the mother, is variously termed. The English, in general, and the French use the word clan. Lang and Frazer, however, prefer the word kin, and Rivers suggests sept. Lowie employs the term sib to designate this group. This is a convenient word, as it does not designate in which line the descent is rated. Most American an- thropologists limit the term clan to groups counting descent through the mother, and apply the term gens to those with inheritance in the male line. The word clan will be used here to designate this group, irre- spective of descent. In its lowest terms, the clan is a group of individuals related to one another either through the mother or 124 Social Origins and Social Continuities through the father. Far distant cousins may be con- sidered in the relationship, and are regarded as members of the group. Again, the relationship may be purely fictitious, but from the social point of view this is as real a bond as that made by common blood. Few question the antecedence of the family over the clan. Although found among the Australians, the clan organi- zation is lacking among many of the lowest savages, as the northern Californian tribes, those in the interior of British Columbia, many in northeastern Asia, the Fuegians, the Andamanese, the Hottentots, and the Bushmen. But there is another question,—the priority of the clan and of the tribe. With the family as a nucleus, was there first a combination of related families into clans and thence an amalgamation of these into a tribe, or do we find first a heterogeneous community composed of several families, forming a more or Jess definite tribal unit that later split up into divisions such as clans? The latter is probably true. A tribe is seldom completely homogeneous. There is a potential force tending towards separation into groups, and there is no proof of the independent origin of these divisions. Many civilized peoples seem to have passed through a period of clanship as did the Greeks and Romans. It still persists as a social group among the Gaels of Ireland, northern Scotland, and the Isle of Man, the modern representatives of the ancient Celtic-speaking peoples. There is always a danger in precise terminology, as has often been shown, and this is clearly seen where any attempt is made to describe the typical clan. There are great variations in its functions; in the number of clans in a tribe, and the part they play in the tribal unit. Social Origins and Social Continuities 185 Even within a single continent there are the greatest differences in the clan pattern. Four and possibly five disconnected areas are found in North America, in each of which there are important differences in the functions of this sub-division of the tribe. Membership in the clan is hereditary, either in the male or female line. Blood relationship is the bond connecting all members of the group, and its origin may or may not be traced back to an animal ancestor. The clan possesses a name, often, but by no means always, taken from an animal or a plant. Exogamy is a con- sistent feature of the clan. Adoption of an outsider is by no means uncommon. The social solidarity is often shown by rules of blood revenge. It sometimes owns copyrights to special names, rites, dances, and songs. The clan has practically nothing to do with occupations, but it may sometimes hold property, primarily in land. It often has a political function, as will be shown later. Typical markings on the body, the dress, or the posses- sions of clan-mates are frequently found. This brings us to the connection between the clan and the various phenomena of totemism. Totemism is a convenient term which has been used to include a more or less definite set of practices of a social group centering around a supernatural relationship believed to exist between all members of the group on the one hand and a class of animals, plants, or material objects on the other. Goldenweiser thinks that the skele- ton of totemism is always a social system and, in a major- ity of cases, it is the clan organization® It should be added that sex totems and the individual totems or guard- ian spirits are varieties of totemism which are commonly distinct from the clan. Even totemism found primarily in 186 Socral Origins and Social Continutties the clan organization is not a definite phenomenon, and no precise terminology is possible in defining it. It is composed of various “symptoms” which together make up a “totemic complex.” The most consistent feature is exogamy between the totemic groups; in most cases, made up of clans. Other symptoms which may or may not be present are names taken from animals or plants, descent from the animal or an intimate connection with it, the tabus against killing or eating the animal, the representation of the totem in design, and the religious rites connected with these ideas centering around totem- ism. An intensive study of the distribution of these different phenomena shows that stress is laid sometimes upon one group of symptoms and sometimes upon an- other. In Central Australia one of the main features of totemism is the attempt to increase the food supply through magical practices; in Africa great importance is placed upon the tabu; in North America clan totemism seems to be closely connected with, if not a development of, the individual totem or guardian spirit. The rep- resentation of the totemic animal is also present here. In the Northwest Coast the extraordinary development of conventionalized art is closely bound up with totemic ideas. It is often difficult to know where to draw the line between totemic and non-totemic features. Among the Iroquois clan exogamy and animal and bird names are the only features present. Many modern families have surnames of animals, birds, and fish, Representa- tions of these are often found on crests and other heraldic devices. Do these sometimes go back to a totemic be- ginning? It is impossible to say. Totemic tendencies are often found where it would be hazardous to state definitely that totemism is present. Marett writes that Social Origins and Social Continuities 187 there is “glorious confusion of the subject of the social organization prevailing in what is conveniently but loosely lumped together as totemic society.” ® THe Puratry or Morery The next larger division than the clan is the phratry. Moiety is a better term when the tribe is divided into two subdivisions. These groups are far less common than the clans. Marriage is usually forbidden between members of the same moiety. There is a feeling of brotherhood between the members of clans associated together into a phratry or moiety. The functions of this division are even more difficult to define than in the case of the clan. In America, at least, reciprocal service at funerals and rivalry between the two moieties are the most common features. In Melanesia there is often actual hostility between the two units. There is seldom any political function in this division. The Omaha camping circle represents the spatial grouping of the social units, a living picture of the or- ganization of the tribe. During a buffalo hunt the six clans (more properly called gentes, since descent was in the male line) were arranged in a semicircle to the south of an imaginary line running east and west, these six gentes forming a moiety. To the north of the line an- other group of six gentes, forming the second moiety, completed the circle.7 Rivers thinks that the dual organization, two moieties, represents the earliest type of social organization, and he bases one of his theories upon this assumption. The dual system is not by any means world-wide in distribu- tion. It is almost entirely absent from Africa and is not found among many American and Asiatic tribes. Rivers 188 Social Origins and Social Continuities suggests that the moiety organization was the sole source of the classificatory system of relationship terms. As this method of nomenclature is found over a great part of the world, it must be inferred, if we accept this theory, that the two-class system was once far more widely dis- tributed than at the present time. There is no good reason to think that this is true. His theory seems to fit the data from Australia and Melanesia, but it does not appear to hold for the rest of the world. Tue TRIBE AND CONFEDERACY The tribal unit comes next. Here, again, the attempt at definition is difficult, as there are the greatest differ- ences in the character of tribes. We find that a common dialect, common customs, a more or less definite ter- ritory, and some form of government, are usually pres- ent. Tribes may be made up of village communities with no divisions into clans or moieties; they may have clans and no moieties, or moieties and no clans; or they may have both moieties and clans. There can be neither a definite rule nor a single line of evolution regarding these features. Tribal consciousness may be strong or weal. Hunting communities require little organization, but in agricultural centers some form of tribal solidarity is im- portant and is usually present. There is often the sharpest demarcation between the “We” group and the “Others” group, with a tribal unity carrying with it the corollary of hatred towards all out- siders. Ethnocentrism is a common spirit in tribal com- munities. The bond of kinship connecting all members of a clan or of a moiety is lacking in the tribe, but the psychical bond connecting all the members may be very strong. This is a special feature of early society, and is Social Origins and Social Continurties 189 in contrast with the absence of this bond in modern states. Patriotism is almost the only common psychical feature felt in modern society, and everyone knows how difficult this was to arouse in this country, even in the crisis of the late War. Communal singing, mass meet- ings, “drives,” were artificial means taken to bring it into action. ‘Block parties’ have been devised by the social worker to stimulate a communal feeling of responsibility and increase the social solidarity of a group. College loyalty, and local loyalty,—which is so strongly devel- oped in the Western States,—are both smaller manifesta- tions of the same idea. Often our loyalties are far too provincial and aberrant. -The ethnocentrism of the savage may sometimes make itself felt within a group larger than the tribe, the con- federacy. This is uncommon, however. A loose and informal alliance to meet some specific danger may bring about a union of tribes. It is very seldom that a definite compact is found among primitive peoples. The famous Iroquois Confederacy is one of the exceptions. This was one of the most amazing examples of a representa- tive form of government ever evolved by uncivilized man. It has actually been in operation for over three centuries, beginning toward the last quarter of the six- teenth century and still existing to some slight extent. This will be referred to again. ASSOCIATIONS Up to this point social groups based either upon the idea of kindred or on that of locality have been described. There are associations among primitive peoples, where the cleavage is along other lines. The different groups may be made upon the basis of sex, of age, or of some other 190 Social Origins and Social Continutties criteria. The segregation of the uninitiated from those who have passed through the elaborate ceremonials of initiation has already been discussed. This grouping may include the women as well as the boys who have not yet been taken formally into the tribal secrets. The men’s-house is another institution which is more or less clearly associated with the ideas centering around initia- tion. But there is a very real danger in trying to separate into distinct compartments these various forms of association: age groups based upon initiation, the segregation of the sexes, the men’s-house, and the secret society. They may be genetically related to each other among some people, or they may be different in function among others. In North America, for example, there is far less male segregation than is found in Australia and in Melanesia. The term “secret society” has been used to designate an important type of organization, the functions of which vary greatly. All the members of a tribe may be eligi- ble, or it may be limited to a small group of males. The tribe may be split up into a number of societies, rivals of each other. It may have important govern- mental functions, as in Melanesia, or it may be simply a social club. It may even degenerate into a band which spreads terror among the uninitiated and is not at all dis- similar to a secret organization present in our midst. There is, therefore, no necessary correlation between the various features usually found in associations grouped together for convenience and called secret societies. The element of secrecy itself may be lacking. Initiation into the society is a fairly constant feature, but initiation may also be a necessary prerequisite into certain occupations such as that of the priest or shaman. There is the samc Social Origins and Social Continuities 191 danger in thinking of the secret society as composed of a definite series of phenomena as in the case with totemism. The symptoms of the secret society which will be treated here are those generally found in many of these organiza- tions in all the different grades of culture, from those of the savage to those of civilized man. In a secret there is something inherently interesting, and the fact of the social exclusion of those not pos- sessing it. The psychology of secrecy has never been thoroughly worked out. Some of the ordeals which the novice has to undergo on his initiation into the tribe have already been mentioned. As entrance require- ments into the secret society these rites of initiation, often consisting of fright and buffoonery, are a necessary part. There is, again, the wealth of symbolism, the sacred paraphernalia, and the elaborate regalia, seen for the first time by the noviciate. Parallels between the primitive and the modern secret society are found also in the various degrees in ascending order and in the sep- aration of the sexes. Even in our own civilization the secret society is essentially a man’s affair. The Grange, it is true, admits women, but the Odd Fellows have their Rebeccas and the Masons their Eastern Star. Both of these female organizations, however, are more or less dis- tinct from those of the men. In all our co-educational institutions the fraternities hold first place in the social life of the college with the sororities following far behind. The principle of fraternity and social solidarity, and the use of relationship terms, based upon purely ficti- tious ideas of kindred, still further strengthen the anal- ogy between the primitive and the modern world of secrecy. ‘Totemic features, tabus, and charms are addi- tional features frequently present in both cases, with the 192 Social Origins and Social Continuties organization often taking its name from an animal or a bird, as the Elks, the Moose, the Buffaloes, the Eagles, and the Orioles. An important part of the ritual may center around this animal or bird, and the tooth or some other part or symbol of the animal may be a coveted possession. There is little doubt that the rise of the relatively modern secret society, more especially in America, is due to a “throwback” to earlier and more simple cultures. The drabness of some of our present conditions covets color, form, and symbolism. Honorific titles flatter, and elaborate raiment gratifies man’s craving for something he cannot have in everyday life. One writer has noted that the secret society is a glorified “method of ego enhancement.”® It was the man in primitive society, not the woman, who usually wore the gaudy headdresses and the elaborate costumes. The love of ritual and of mystery is world-wide in distribution, as regards both time and place. A secret is always something to conjure with. Someone has remarked that we find in modern fraternal organizations all the things we have ejected from our religion, and that our lodges are crowded while our churches are empty. The lan- guage and symbolism which is common to all mankind, to all creeds, and to all races, have been taken out of our religion and installed in the fraternal orders.2 The phenomena of the modern secret society are worthy of more attention and should be studied from the point of view of psychology. RANK AND SocraL CLASSES The third type of social stratification is based upon property and occupation, and less frequently upon birth. Rank is entirely absent in the lowest grades of early Social Origins and Social Continuities 193 society. We shall see later, in considering government, that the monarchial systems found in Polynesia and in some parts of Africa are exceptional when taking the primitive world at large. Rank and the inher- itance of power are rarely found together. Polynesia is the most striking exception to this rule. In the lower stages of culture there is, in general, no such thing as a division into social classes. The difference inherent in persons is one of prestige only, and this depends prima-~ rily on personal ability and character. The savage is judged by his companions in the same way as we judge our fellow men. There is a social estimate made of the hunter, the fighter, the member of the council, the craftsman, and even the shaman or medicine man. The criteria for a high grade of estimation paid to an in- dividual differ according to the character of the com- munity and the nature of the need felt for superior ability. A good hunter may be a poor fighter, a brave warrior may be a bad councillor. Every man in his own milieu is classed as good or bad.?° There are several factors which may lead to differen- tiation of the social status: war, the development of property, occupations, and religion. From war and the capture of prisoners who are not put to death may come the development of slavery. But this is by no means inevitable, as we find in aboriginal America adoption into the tribe is often employed in the case of prisoners of war. Frequent hostilities may give rise to a warrior class. The acquisition of wealth may result in a social distinction between the rich and the poor. But property in land, in houses, and in food is very often held in com- mon by a clan or some other unit, and there is thus a check placed on the development of a class composed of 194 Social Origins and Social Continutties the rich. Individual possessions may be limited to a man’s clothes and implements. From the division of labor in occupations may arise class distinctions. India is, of course, the best example of the caste system. In northern India this came to be based upon occupations, with no contact allowed among the different castes. In southern India, where there were many aboriginal peoples, the racial question was the main basis of the division into castes. In Polynesia spe- cial honor was paid to the canoe-builder; in Africa the smiths and metal-workers formed an endogamous unit. On the Northwest Coast, whales could be captured only by the chiefs, and there was often some classification in fishing for codfish and salmon. Religion may furnish a sort of centrifugal force that causes the development of a class of shamans or priests. But here again inheritance is only one of the factors in the choice of a medicine man. Personal ability, sug- gestibility, a neurotic nature, are more important criteria for the selection of a shaman. In North America there are only two regions where there has been any development of definite rank and social classes——among the Natchez of Mississippi and in the tribes of the Northwest Coast of British Colum- bia and southern Alaska. The peoples of this latter region are hunters and fishermen, with practically no development of agriculture, and yet we find a form of social organization, ideas of property, and social classes which are most commonly associated with peoples of a mode of life characterized by occupations higher than those of hunting and fishing. The Haida and Tlingit tribes of this coast conform in general to a single pattern,—a division into clans and Social Origins and Social Continurties 195 these divided into two exogamic phratries.1!_ Each clan and each phratry are commonly named after an animal, a bird, or some supernatural creature. The tribes are also divided into nobility, common people, and slaves. A certain number of families are recognized as superior. Each of these has a tradition, quite distinct from the general clan legend and, by reason of it, each group has special privileges and the right to the use of certain crests. This tradition descends according to the cus- tom of the tribe, usually in the maternal line, and only one man in each family can impersonate his ancestor, who is responsible for the legend. These individuals form the nobility. The number is fixed and the fami- lies are not all equal in rank. They are graded in the same manner as their forefathers were supposed to have been ranked, and at all the festivals a precedence is strictly maintained. The legend states that the order of seating was given by a god at the festival of the tribes, when all the animals could speak. Members of the clan, with no special supernatural ancestors, formed the common people, and the slaves were usually captives in war or were purchased from neighboring tribes. They were not considered members of any clan. The whole basis underlying society in the North- west Coast is rank, the right to use certain crests, usu- ally an animal, bird, or some supernatural creature. These insignia are earved upon totem poles and on boxes, painted on the houses and on canoes, and some- times tattooed upon the face. The most interesting feature of the social system of these peoples is the potlatch. This word has the mean- ing “giving” or “a gift.” The feasts at which goods are exchanged come in winter. It is a system of interest- 196 Social Origins and Social Continuities bearing investment and property, a regulated giving of presents, with the knowledge that gifts equivalent in value will be returned with interest at the end of a cer- tain length of time. The potlatch may occur when a child is given a name, at initiation, when the son takes his father’s seat in the council, at marriage, on the erec- tion of a house, or before a war expedition. The gifts are usually blankets, now a cheap white woolen affair. All values are measured in terms of this commodity. At a feast a certain number of blankets are distributed to those present. Everyone to whom they are offered is obliged to accept. The recipients are bound to repay these gifts at the end of a definite time, with interest. A boy receives a name when he is born, another when he is a year old, and a third when he has arrived at the age of ten or twelve. At this time he borrows blankets from other members of his family or clan. He must repay these within a year with 100 per cent interest. He distributes these blankets which he has had loaned to him, giving them to every member of the tribe, with a few more to the chief. Everyone to whom he has given the blankets makes a point of paying him within a month, and he receives 300 per cent interest on his gift; so that if he borrows one hundred at 100 per cent interest he has gained one hundred blankets in the transaction. At the end of the year he repays his debts at a festival in which he takes part for the first time. His father gives up his seat or place in the council which he has received in trust from his wife, to his son, to whom it rightfully belongs. It is thus a method of acquiring rank and prestige. The person who distributes the greatest number of blankets Social Origins and Social Continuities 197 and gives the most sumptuous feast is held in the high- est favor. If the recipient cannot return the compli- ment by giving a greater feast and repay the blankets with interest, he loses prestige in the eyes of the com- munity, One can get the better of a rival by presenting him with more blankets than he can possibly return with interest, and the rival is vanquished. The system re- minds one strongly of the attempts in modern society to gain prestige by the splendor of the entertainment. Rivalry between chiefs and clans may show itself in the destruction of property. A chief will burn many blankets or a canoe in honor of a rival. If the latter cannot destroy an equivalent amount of property, his name is “broken” and his influence is diminished. If a man starts out to battle he will give away all his prop- erty, knowing well that, even if he does not return, his family will receive full value with interest from these gifts. It is a method of thrift and insurance, as well as a means of increasing one’s standing in the tribe. This unique feature of acquiring rank has been described at length in order to show the presence of a kind of sophistication regarding property and social position, even among non-agricultural people. Savage society seldom becomes stereotyped. The “glorious confusion” on the social side of primitive man simply shows his ability at adaptation to the varied conditions as he meets them. He has more rites, more customs, more secret societies, more religions, greater intensity of emotional states, greater feelings of blood and social solidarity, and perhaps more confidence in the future than has civilized man. On the other hand, the savage has fewer inventions and less property, fewer 198 Social Origins and Social Continuities wars and fewer diseases, fewer satisfactions and fewer wants. The savage is poorer in thoughts, but, at the same time, he is poorer in worries. We shall see in the next chapter that he is poorer in the complicated ma- chinery of government and in government officials. CHAPTER VI GOVERNMENT, LAW, AND ETHICS In treating the social organization of early society a distinction was made in the character of social groups, between those with a loose and those with a firm type of structure. At the same time a contrast was indicated between societies composed of ‘all kinds of peoples flow- ing together” and those made up of one people, with the same language, the same customs, and the same religion. Where these common ties are augmented by the bonds of kinship there is the firmest possible type of associa- tion,—physically, socially, and mentally homogeneous. Government, also, is bound to vary within wide extremes. Maine was the first to make clear the difference in gov- ernmental functions in societies based upon kinship and in those based upon territory. Even in a community where blood relationship has a prominent place, a form of control independent of any kinship bonds may be found. The most common type of early government is a democracy, with the power held by the elders or by a council selected by the people. One-man rule is almost entirely absent in the most primitive communities. Mor- gan goes so far as to state that monarchy is incompati- ble with the clan grouping and that it is only to be associated with those people having phonetic writing and literary records. This is much too sweeping a state- 199 200 Social Origins and Social Continurties ment, as monarchy is found among some uncivilized peoples. There is thus no definite and constant corre- lation between scale of culture and form of government. There is the greatest contrast in this respect between aboriginal North America and Africa. In the former, with one or two prominent exceptions, the form of gov- ernment is essentially democratic, whereas in Africa the trend is toward a monarchy. In Polynesia the govern- ment is distinctly despotic in form, with almost a feudal state built up around ‘the rulers. Those in authority belong to a class so sacred and so well protected by tabu from all contact with the common people that it was impractical for them to lead war parties. We thus find in parts of New Guinea and in Polynesia a dual chief- tainship, the highest chiefs, completely isolated from the common life of the people, and the war chiefs, whose duties consisted of leadership in war and carrying out the orders of those belonging to the other class of rulers. All this illustrates a point which has been made before, that patterns of culture often differ among peoples in the same general stage of development, and these pat- terns may or may not be conterminous with great con- tinental areas. ; The three departments of government—the legislative, the executive, and the judicial—are usually so bound to- gether that it is often impossible to separate them. A tribal council may make and execute laws, as well as punish the violators of these laws. As Lowie remarks, “The legislative function in most primitive communities seems strangely curtailed when compared with that exer- cised in the more complex civilizations. All the exigencies of normal social intercourse are covered by customary law, and the business of such governmental machinery as Social Origins and Social Continuities 201 exists is rather to exact obedience to traditional usage than to create new precedents.” This statement would not hold as true for Africa or Oceania as for other parts of the world. Tue Iroquois CONFEDERACY The development of government along strictly demo- cratic lines is best seen in the famous Confederation of the Iroquois.1 This was really a League of Nations, all members, however, speaking different dialects of the same language. The organization of the League was perhaps the best example of a representative form of democratic government ever evolved by primitive man. The Iroquois first became known to the white man in 1534. About 1675 their dominion reached over the greater parts of the present states of New York, Penn- sylvania, Ohio, and portions of Canada, north of Lake Ontario. They formed an island in the midst of ter- ritory occupied by their enemies, the Algonkin peoples. The Iroquois tribes were formerly independent bod- ies, but much of this unity was lost in the formation of the League. The tribal council was composed of a certain number of chiefs elected by the various clans. Each tribe was divided into two moieties which were at one time exogamous. These were in general ceremonial units, having to do with funerals. Each moiety was subdivided into four or more clans, with maternal descent, the property always remaining in the clan, and there were reciprocal obligations involving blood re- venge. Each clan was named after an animal or bird, but there was no tabu attached to killing or eating these animals, and little or no reverence paid to them. Each clan had a set of names to be used by its mem- 202 Social Origins and Social Continuities bers, and each had the right to adopt strangers. There was clan exogamy, and this was extended to include clans of a similar name in other tribes. Members of the Seneca-Wolf clan could not marry those from the Onondaga-Wolf clan. Each clan had a common burial place. Each of these groups was subdivided into a number of maternal families, the smallest unit of the tribe. Every family was presided over by a matron, and included all her male and female relatives. The family had certain ceremonial functions and hereditary pre- rogatives, and the family of a chief had the right to nom- inate his successor. Both men and women had a voice in all proceedings. We can thus think of an Iroquois tribe as a series of concentric circles,—the tribe, the two moieties, the four or more clans, and the two or more maternal families composing the clan. A larger circle, containing all the five and, later, six tribes composed the Confederacy. A common heritage, common customs, common religion, and contiguous territory prepared the ground for federation. The League was not in existence when Cartier met the Iroquois in 1534, but it was in full operation on the arrival of Champlain in 1603. It was probably founded not earlier than 1570. Tradition states that a council of wise men and chiefs of the five tribes met on the north shore of Onondaga Lake near the present site of Syracuse. The main force behind the alliance was the common danger from the encircling Algonkin tribes. The origin of the idea is ascribed to a traditionary person, the Hia- watha of Longfellow, who was present, and disappeared in a white canoe after the plan was formulated. He was assisted by a wise man of the Onondagas. There seems little doubt that the credit for this marvellous Social Origins and Social Continutties 203 piece of legislation belongs to one man, whoever he may have been, a genius for political organization. The original five tribes—the Mohawks, the Oneidas, the Onondagas, the Cayugas, and the Senecas,—occupied contiguous territory, spoke mutually intelligible dialects of the same language, and had certain clans common in all the tribes. Here at once was a stratification cross-cutting the tribal units. The Bear clan of one tribe affiliated, psychologically at least, with the Bear clan of another tribe. Early in the eighteenth cen- tury the Tuscaroras, who originally had lived far to the south, were adopted as the sixth member of the Fed- eration, which became known as the “Six Nations.” The general features of the League can only be out- lined. Each tribe was to remain independent in all matters of local concern. Fifty chieftainships were cre- ated and named in perpetuity in certain clans of the five tribes. It should be pointed out that the word chief in this case connoted no individual power as the head of any one group. Representative is a far better term for these chiefs or sachems who formed the Council of the Federation. An unanimous vote in the Council was necessary, and each tribe voted as a unit, yes or no. It was necessary, therefore, first for the chiefs of the tribe to agree before their single vote could be cast, and then all the Council had to agree before a motion could be passed. In any organization where measures have to be passed unanimously, the majority usually coerce the minority, and it is really majority rule: an important step in the development of government and only occurring in a stabilized society. The official functions of the fifty chiefs were not nu- merous. Among these was the right to decide on peace 204 Social Origins and Social Continuities or war and power over all inter-tribal agreements and alliances with other tribes. When a chief died the matron of the family to which he belonged determined upon his successor. This was usually a maternal nephew or younger brother, almost never a son. She called a meeting of the family for ratification of her choice. To this the other members of the same clan were admitted. Then she chose a delegate to communicate her choice to the chiefs of brother clans (the moiety), who could veto or approve. This delegate in turn called upon the chiefs of the cousin clans (the other moiety). After approval by them, the name of the candidate was pre- sented to the Council of the Chiefs, and they could ap- prove or reject. If agreement was reached, the candidate was raised to chieftainship in a great inter-tribal festival. The position of chief was practically hereditary in the family, and he. held office for life or during good behavior. He could be “recalled” for conduct unbe- coming a chieftain,—neglect of duty, evil temper, in- temperance, or a friendly attitude towards the enemy Sioux or Algonkin. This “recall” might be initiated by the matron. Two warnings were required and, finally, if the chief’s conduct still remained unsatisfactory, she was accompanied on the third visit by another chief, who handed her the “deer horns,” the symbol of power of the deposed chieftain. This action had finally to be ratified by the Council. The power of the matron is seen throughout these proceedings. The Council had also the power to depose without any move being made by the matron or by the clan. Any individual had the right to present matters for the consideration of the Council. It can be seen that this Council of Chiefs rested Social Origins and Social Continuities 205 ostensibly on the tribes, but in reality on a single family in a single clan. All members of the same clan, whether Mohawks, Oneidas, etc., were theoretically brothers and sisters, and they recognized each other as such. Three of the clans, the Wolf, Bear, and Turtle, were common to all five members of the Confederation. In some of the tribes one of the chiefs was recognized as its head during the time when the tribal Council was not in session, but the duties and powers of the office were not great. Under the Confederacy a distinct need for an executive officer was felt, especially in time of war, and this office was created in dual form, the oecu- pants of which were called the two “great war soldiers.” They were chosen in the same way as the chiefs, and assigned to two distinct clans of the Seneca, as they held the position of greatest danger. The late appear- ance of a central authority is worthy of note in the development of the governmental organization of the Iroquois. In this rapid survey of a successful confederation we can note several features of interest: The desire for peace overcame tribal jealousies; The Council was a servant of the people; It was virtually elected by universal suffrage; Mer.{ determined its membership to a great extent; The power of the recall was present; The initiative and referendum also had a part. Pore fo In other words, we find a representative form of demo- cratic government, a commonwealth of nations. Before leaving this account of the League of the Iro- quois, mention should be made of the part it played in the early history of the country. “It was an evil hour for Canada,” writes Parkman, “when, on the twenty- 206 Social Origins and Social Continuities eighth of May, 1609, Samuel de Champlain . . . departed from the hamlet of Quebec to follow a war-party of Algonquins against their hated enemy, the Iroquois.” The French and Algonkins were at first victorious and their enemy fled in confusion. ‘The Iroquois recovered from their terrors, but never forgave the injury.” Thence- forth, as surely as the Algonkins sided with the French, the greater part of the Iroquois fought for the English throughout the border warfare, and the failure of the French to hold Canada is due—in part, at least—to the aid rendered the British by the Iroquois League. At the beginning of the American Revolution, the Con- federation declared neutrality, and the separate tribes were left free to take sides. The Oneidas and some of the Tuscaroras embraced the American cause. The Mohawks established themselves in Canada, and the Cayugas followed, taking with them valuable wampum. The latter tribe further alienated the regard of the Iroquois in the United States by taking the British side in the War of 1812. The League had been more or less formally disbanded about 1800, but the skeleton of the organization still persists. The Cayugas, long ostracized by the Iroquois living in the United States, and not granted representation in the Council of Chiefs, were allowed, after many persistent efforts and the payment of wampum, to take their former seats in the council. This happened as late as 1923. The pres- ent head of the Cayugas has a document dated 1784, a treaty of alliance with George III, made with the Six Nations of the Iroquois in Canada, and granting them independence and the protection of the British Govern- ment. During the late World War the Cayugas declared themselves allies of the British. The independence of Social Origins and Social Continutties 207 the Canadian Iroquois has been sadly interfered with of late, and the Cayuga chief, by virtue of the treaty of 1784, attempted to present their grievances to Geneva in August, 1923, but the petition was not accepted. Thus we find a League of Nations of the sixteenth century aprealing to another League of Nations of the twentieth century. SoctlaAL ORGANIZATION OF THE INCAS As a contrast to this type of democratic government of the Iroquois, let us consider quite another form, that of the Incas of Peru.2 Throughout the Andean high- lands there were innumerable tribes consisting of one or more patrilineal families. In most cases the jurisdiction of a tribe was conterminous with the valley in which it was situated. The amount of arable land was greatly limited by nature, and each year the tribal leaders as- signed to heads of families parcels of land. The great work of the Incas was that of leaguing together scores of these tribes, formerly independent of one another, and forcing them to submit to one supreme authority, the Inca. To appreciate just how much credit should be given to these ancient Peruvians for this consolidation, one should bear in mind the fact that, when their career began, the Incas themselves were a tribe in no wise dif- ferent from scores of others. Gradually they formed a confederation of tribes, and finally established one em- pire. As their power grew, they changed gradually from an humble tribe to a ruling one; and finally into a dynasty. In the last years of the empire, the ruler, called the Inca, was a supreme lord, and his government 208 Social Origins and Social Continuities investigated and controlled every activity of every in- dividual in all the dominion. All were classified on the basis of the amount of work he or she could do for the common welfare. Each individual began life as a mosoc caparic—“‘babe in arms.” Later he or she became a saya huwamrac—“able to stand”; then a fledgling, “under six.” From six to eight he was a “bread receiver’; from eight to sixteen, “one who needs light work’; from sixteen to twenty, a “cocoa-picker”; from twenty to twenty-five, “almost a man’; from twenty-five to fifty, a puric—“able bod- ied,”—and thus the head of a family and a payer of tribute; from fifty to sixty, he was a “half old man”; and, finally, from sixty on, “an old man asleep.” This paternal supervision of everything brought about the so-called camayoc system. There was an official in charge of ten families, and others in charge respectively of fifty, one hundred, and one thousand, and an overseer of them all. The general jurisdiction of these officers in- cluded the duty of seeing that no one suffered want; that everyone, except the exempted classes, worked; and that tribute, often in the form of labor, was paid. The functions of this involved officialdom were mani- fold. Their activities and duties had to do with every detail of private and social life. There were officials for pathways, bridges, taverns, irrigation canals, the herds of llamas and alpacas, and the quipus, as well as priests for the complicated ritual of the worship of the sun. As time went on, the social sophistication of the Incas increased, and we find an hereditary aristocracy. The custom of incestuous marriage was the product of an ever-increasing class-consciousness on the part of the Incas themselves. As in Egypt, the blood of the ruling Social Origins and Social Continuities 209 class was too precious to be mixed with that of a lower grade, and brother-sister marriage was the result. We see here a sort of monarchical socialism. The state pro- vided the food, drink, and shelter, the amusements, and the religion. There are several features here which re- mind one of those found in a famous contemporary ex- periment in government. AFRICA AND THE KABYLE DEMOCRACY - Many other examples of highly centralized authority might be cited, from Africa and Oceania. The African despots often ruled over large areas, but the course of political history here was “fluctuating and capricious.” A mighty ruler today might lose his position by some great personality coming to the front and gaining the seat of power. Sometimes the African chief was simply the rain-maker, and had no governmental functions whatsoever. The Zulu headman had great secular power and was a mighty ruler in every respect. But there are democratic institutions found even in Africa. The Kabyles, a Berber people of the mountains of the Mediterranean littoral, have a simple and democratic form of government.2 Wherever the Berbers have escaped foreign domination, they have organized into small republics, grouped into federations with the village as the unit. Each community makes its own laws and executes them by means of an assembly of citizens. The decisions of this council are sovereign, and are restrained only by tradition. Every citizen has a voice in the assembly. This body appoints a police, arrests, main- tains order, and also has the mosque under its jurisdic- tion. All except the secretary of the council serve with- out remuneration and sometimes even at great expense. “210 Social Origins and Social Continuities There is an interesting institution that plays a major but unofficial part in the community. In fact, the whole fabric of Kabyle society is built around the cofs. ‘There are always two, based upon locality or upon interests, and they are in every case deadly rivals. The leaders of the cofs are the most powerful individuals in the community. Like the modern political boss, he holds no Office and his position has no legal background. Dis- loyalty to the cof is considered the basest of all crimes, although bribes are often offered by one cof to members of the other. There is constant friction between the two. They are not at all unlike our two major political parties, although definite principles are not promulgated by either side. Government in many parts of Polynesia has another pattern. Here pedigrees and genealogies play a very great part, and we find a strong development of nobles, commoners, and slaves. But even here the greatest patricians are not always at the head of the government. One writer likens the Maori and Samoan system “to a state of barons granting precedence to the ruler of their choice but without allegiance and reserving to them- selves the ultimate voice in matters of government.” In Hawaii and many of the other islands there was “monarchial despotism.” Enough has been given to show the wide range in the forms of government. Risking a general statement, it may be said that the council of elders was the commonest form of authority in primitive society. Deliberation and discussion were the most important features of this council. In the New World, with a few exceptions, the council was the government. The same was true in Australia, where the old men ruled—a gerontocracy. Social Origins and Social Continuities 211 The absence of a central authority is noteworthy in both these regions. . The different forms of government thus range all the way from absolute authority vested in one man, through those where leadership is held by one or two persons with powers limited by a council, to communities ruled by a council alone with no central authority, and, finally, to the most informal kind of body made up of the elders or of persons of wealth and position. Even where an hereditary class is found, there is often lacking all functions usually associated with chieftainship. This class may be leaders in war alone, or in religion, or they may have purely social functions such as the giving of feasts. The layman usually thinks of the savage as ruled by chiefs. Fallacious ideas of royalty, based upon European standards, crept into the writings of the first whites to describe primitive peoples. Emperors, kings and queens, princes and princesses, must rule. Demo- cratic government and an elected council were incompre- hensible to the European mind of that time. This incorrect interpretation of the legal forms among the American Indians led to great confusion. The early colonists assumed that every village and tribe had a chief with a prerogative enabling him to sign away various rights, and to negotiate the sale of land. These powers were not held by individuals, and land held in common by a tribe or a clan could not legally be sold. As Rivers notes, European contact in Melanesia and in Africa actually developed a form of government with definite authority unknown before. Since economic homogeneity, found in many primitive communities, implies social homogeneity and, to some 212 Social Origins and Social Continuities extent, a relative lack of development of individual initiative, and since social homogeneity implies equality of ability, the implication of equality of ability carries with it the principle of democracy. This may explain the presence of democratic institutions among the lower grades of savage life. DEVELOPMENT OF LEADERSHIP It has already been stated that man’s development as a social being is consequent to and correlated with the superior brain and superior intelligence of proto-man. The insignificance of his physical equipment for offen- sive and defensive combat in relation to the other ani- mals has also been pointed out. There is thus an impossibility of his dominance over animals by physical force. This applies quite as well to dominance over his fellow men. The leaders in early society are such by nature of resourcefulness, initiative, and superior intelligence. We have found this superior intelligence, and hence authority, attributed to the elders by virtue of age and experience. Among a council of the old men there is always dominating authority conceded to the most able and resourceful, the most intelligent, who is often the most acquisitive and hence the most wealthy. The theory of the ““man-horde,” and the argument that it is led by the solitary male who has the greatest brute force cannot hold. The physical insignificance of the individual prevents this. There is also an easy negation of individual physical prowess by co-operative action. This brings into contrast once more the differ- ence between animal and human societies. Among animals the most capable physically are usually the ones which exert their will upon others of their kind; Social Origins and Social Continuities 213 among men, the most capable mentally are the leaders. The tendency to lead is present in both, but the criteria of selection differ. The rudiments of authority are to be found in the family. In a patrilineal group the domination of the father is a simple matter, but in a matrilineal family authority is far more complicated. It may be shared equally between the father and the mother’s brothers, or be limited to the maternal side of the family to the complete exclusion of the father. The cohesion of the family group, however it is made up, is far greater than that seen in modern society. In some countries, notably in. France, the importance of the family council still persists. In groups larger than the family, leadership is at first based only upon an informal respect paid to the elders or to especially gifted individuals. If a crisis appears, someone steps forward with a suggestion. If this idea, on being carried out, results in success, prestige comes to the instigator. A precedent is established of listening to this man. The importance of the crisis in the development of a leader is thus shown to be great in this respect. The late War produced several striking _ examples of this. The power of personality ought not to be overlooked in early society. We speak today of natural-born leaders. In Polynesia personality was another name for mana, a force emanating from certain individuals. This power was sometimes nothing more than a compelling personality. In many cases, of course, this influence was inherent in the office of priest or ruler, There are different criteria used in the selection of a leader. When the life of a community centers around some occupation, prestige depends upon aptitude, and we may have guilds. In a hunting society, the best 214 Social Origins and Social Continuitties hunter may be at the head. In a tribe often at war, the best warrior has great prestige in the decisions of the council. If this leader is again successful, his prestige is heightened and he may be started on the road to a properly elected chief. The council is usually present as a check upon those actions of the leader which do not meet with the approval of the elders. The submission of the common lot to the will of the superior is always inherent in society. Obedience may become a habit. The religious factor often comes in to play a part. The leader may have a strong supernatural sanction behind his actions, which further strengthens his hold upon the populace. All peoples are prone to adore their heroes. This adoration may pass into hero-worship after death. Among the northern Maidu, one of the lowest peoples in North America, the head of the simple village was chosen by the aid of a shaman and he could be deposed by the same means. His functions were mainly advisory, but a man with ability and wealth could make the office one of great power.* The influence of a chief was often heightened by wealth and monopoly in some trade. We thus see a primary dominance of the superior individual through intelligence often aided by both ma- terial and immaterial factors. He may have invented new forms of implements or more useful ways of utiliz- ing the products of nature, and the accumulation of a surplus food supply. This brings him wealth, an extra store of food gives him leisure which facilitates specula- tion and experimentation with natural phenomena. A superior comprehension of the working of nature elevates the intelligent individual from an amateur practitioner to a scientist, from a trafficker in the supernatural, to a Social Origins and Social Continuities 215 priest, a god-king. So the immaterial and material suc- cess feed upon one another to their mutual aggrandize- ment. The development of individual dominance through warlike prowess is usually found only among more highly developed peoples. The despot is unknown in the most crude societies. The implications of organized warfare are an advanced technology and a develop- ment of effective weapons. The motives behind organ- ized warfare are advanced notions of property both real and personal. A relatively high social organization and a group spirit making possible military co-operation are usually present, together with an advanced economic status. This is correlated with a relative freedom of the warrior class from the necessity of seeking food and with the subjugation of a servile laboring class whose main duty is the cultivation of the fields. This should not cause us to overlook the efficacy of the magico- religious measures employed against enemies which may be far superior to ineffectual physical means. In this attempt to trace some aspects of the evolution of the leader and chief, Rivers’ theory should be noted. He thinks that the strong basis of group sentiment in the government of early societies changes to that of in- dividual authority by the advent of a race of rulers, “enterprising strangers,” imposing their ideas upon a community and becoming chiefs. He bases this opinion upon the fact that chiefs usually have customs peculiar to themselves, frequently with a similarity between the functions of chiefs in different societies widely separated. He points out that in Oceania there is often a difference in the physical appearance between chiefs and common- ers, “the former approaching more nearly the Caucasian 216 Social Origins and Social Continuities type.” There is no doubt that one cause of this differen- tiation was the inbreeding which went on in the higher ruling class, causing an accentuation of certain physical characteristics. He does not explain how this chief-race came itself to develop ideas of leadership. These highly endowed immigrants, not only distributed ideas of ruling but many of the other features which we have been dis- cussing. This author and others of his school deny the possibility of a people in situ, as it were, initiating new customs.° Changes must always be introduced by an intruding people. Law Primitive jurisprudence, just as modern law, is not force, nor is it morality. It is simply custom codified by public opinion. Law has been defined as “any social rule to the infringement of which punishment is by usage attached.” ® Unwritten codes are often as standardized and always as binding as rules enacted by some law-giv- ing body. One part of our present jurisprudence is noth- ing more than custom and tradition, often sanctioned by religion, made definite and perfected by record. Our statutory law, however,—in so far as it is the expres- sion of the will of a ruler or of some other governing body—is another thing. This type is far less well devel- oped in the legal system of the savage. Several writers have made clear the fact that in primitive jurisprudence there is a far fuller development of criminal law than of civil law. “The regulation of personal relations by the status of the individuals, the administration and in- heritance of property within the family according to customary law, and the absence of contracts between individuals adequately accounts for the diminutive part Social Origins and Social Continuities 217 played by civil jurisprudence as compared with penal law.” 7 There is often a complete absence of a central author- ity constantly on watch to detect criminals and other wrong-doers. The frequent absence of any definite body whose duty it is to administer justice and to mete out punishment should be noted. A “spontaneous character” is found in the administration of justice. The power that enforces law is often an impersonal one. The sav- age is taught from boyhood that a departure from cus- tom is always accompanied by some evil befalling the culprit. Transgressions against the gods are summarily dealt with by the gods themselves. Many phases of primitive law are based upon a desire to restore a peace with the gods. Public opinion, the desire to stand well in the community, and the fear of ridicule, are all factors tending to a rigid enforcement of law. Social ostracism is also a strong deterrent of crime. The beginnings of law are to be found in the idea of revenge. A member of a clan is murdered, and not only his fellow kinsmen but the ancestral spirits as well de- mand a life in return. The solidarity of any group in any society at any time or in any place may be so great that blood revenge is demanded. The city gang, the Southern “cracker,” the Italian Camorra, the Corsican Vendetta, the Chinese Tongs, often institute this type of punishment. Blood revenge carries with it the principle of joint-liability or collective responsibil- ity. The actual murderer is not necessarily sought out, but an injury done to any member of the group to which he belongs will satisfy the need for revenge. As it is the group quite as much as the individual who has suf- fered the loss, so it is the group and not the individual 218 Social Origins and Social Continuities who must avenge the wrong. In the same way, it is the group to which the culprit belongs which must be pun- ished, and not necessarily the individual wrong-doer. This brings about blood-feuds and reprisals lasting for generations. Law takes its course without the interven- tion of a trial. This idea of joint liability is carried to an absurd extreme among some people, where a person injuring himself has to be punished, as he has thus in- jured his group. The principle of collective responsibility is sometimes almost entirely lacking in our present-day life. It took nearly three years for America to realize its duties to the world at large during the late War, and even now it makes the mistake, according to many minds, of refusing the op- portunity to share in the responsibility of making a better world as visualized in the League of Nations. “Civic virtue” is another and narrower field where the principle of joint liability plays a part. The teachings of the Boy Scouts and other similar organizations lay emphasis upon this point. The duel among many uncivilized peoples is a higher phase of the collective method of redress. The murdered man’s brother may challenge a member of the group to which the criminal belongs. Later, the culprit himself may be forced to accept the challenge. There is the sharpest distinction made between crimes committed within the tribe or a smaller group and those perpetrated on persons outside these units. The recogni- tion of what constitutes a crime may depend entirely upon this factor of discrimination. Theft may be most severely dealt with within the group, but considered worthy of acclaim if directed toward a member of an- other band. Incest and adultery are solely, of course, Social Origins and Social Continuities 219 “in-group” crimes, and are usually most heavily punished. Settlement or composition are factors that often come to play a part in early law on account of the barrenness of revenge with no direct compensation. The develop- ment of property also may lead to payment of goods as fines instead of blood revenge. This is seen in the wergild in Anglo-Saxon and in ancient Teutonic law. The wer was a man, or the price of a man’s life. There was a definite schedule of payments depending on the crime and on the importance of the individual killed or injured. This scheme of payment is common in primitive societies. Trials are, in many cases, magico-religious in charac- ter. Evidence of guilt or innocence is demanded of the supernatural powers. The decision is placed in the laps of the gods, and divination and ordeals are inaugurated to learn their will. The question asked is always a categorical one, demanding a negative or a positive answer. A person in Africa suspected of poisoning his wife is called upon to prove his innocence by undergoing the ordeal of poison. He has to eat the powdered bark of the casca tree. If he vomits, he is innocent; if the casca acts as a purgative, he is guilty and is put to death. Walking through burning coals is a common ordeal: the gods protecting the feet of the innocent from harm and allowing the guilty to suffer. This means of obtaining evidence was common in the Middle Ages in ecclesiastical as well as in civil trials. The Christian God was substituted for the heathen deities as the purveyor of justice. The corsned was a piece of bread consecrated by exorcism and swallowed 220 Social Origins and Social Continuities by a person suspected of crime. If the accused was guilty, the bread was supposed to produce convulsions in accordance with the prayer of the exorcism; if he was innocent no harm resulted. Witches were tried by ordeal. The wager of battle was another means of administering justice. The “judgment of God” regarding guilt avoided the possibility of perjury, and made a definite decision inevitable. If two persons were suspected of guilt; each was made to hold out his arms in the form of a cross. God gave strength to the innocent, and thus he could hold out his arms longer than the guilty one, and his inno- cence was established. Torture, which long held its place as an engine of jus- tice in the Christian Church was very seldom employed by the savage to determine guilt. The oath is really an ordeal, and was originally ap- plied to ascertain the guilt or innocence of the suspected culprit. It is now used to confirm the truthfulness of the witness, with the implied idea that the Deity would avenge him who swears falsely. It may be suggested that the increasing prevalence of perjury is due to a cor- responding decrease in the idea of the sanctity of the oath, and the feeling that God, after all, is not going to punish one who swears falsely. Goitein, in his Primitive Ordeal and Modern Law, thinks that the passage from ordeal to trial is bridged by the oath, accompanied by a psychological develop- ment from emotion to reason, and that the human judge is gradually substituted for the supernatural power that determines the result of the ordeal.® This “worldly method” of trial by a judge, more commonly by a jury, is not unknown in the primitive world. Social Origins and Social Continuities 221 TaBu Tabu is first of all a form of Jaw, but. it is often a : system 1 in itself, even an institution. _The interdiction put yeni shalt’s, ” Most of the Ten Commandments can be placed in the category of tabus. This word, which has been taken over into our language, is a Polen term with an uncertain etymology. In the land of its birth it is applied alike to anything holy and sacred or polluted and accursed. Signs reading ‘“Kapu,” which is another form of “tabu,” are still used in the modern city of Honolulu for “No Trespassing,” “No Passing Through,” “Keep Off.” The important feature from the psychological point of view in the study of tabu is not the things which are forbidden but the mere fact of prohibition. ATI objects covered by a tabu are dangerous, but few things danger- ous in themselves are tabu. Wittingly rubbing your hand on the edge of a sharp knife is not tabu, but look- ing at the moon may be dangerous to life under certain conditions. I once knew a Navajo woman, over sixty years old, who was quite evidently suffering from the infirmities of old age. The cause of her weaknesses, in her estimation, had necessarily to be traced back to some violation of a tabu. She had never wittingly broken one of these un- written laws, but her present condition indicated that in some way the gods were offended with her. She called in a shaman to determine the tabu which had been vio- lated. He went into a trance, but could find no way in 222 Social Origins and Social Continuities which she had erred. He did discover, however, that shortly before this woman’s birth, sixty years or more before, her mother had broken the tabu against pregnant women seeing an eclipse of the moon. The mother had not been punished, but the sins of the parent had visited, not the child, but the woman in her old age. Elaborate ceremonials were then undertaken to appease these long- suffering gods. _ Things which experience would never teach you are _ dangerous in themselves are often prohibited. But the savage, knowing the tabus of his people, and even un- wittingly breaking one, may become ill, and die, so strong is the force of suggestion and his belief in the unerring power of evil which comes to all violators of these un- written laws. Tabu has a mystery about it. “To break a tabu is to set in motion against oneself mystic wonder-working power in one form or another. It may be of the wholly bad variety. .... On the other hand, many tabooed things, woman’s blood or the king’s touch, have power to cure no less than to kill.”’1° Frazer considers tabu a negative sort of magic. There is no doubt that the prohibitions of tabu are often as irrational as the posi- tive precepts coming under magic and sorcery. Many tabus begin in the same way as magical practices; an attempt to find a cause for an effect, and the same illogical modes of thought frequently underlie both magic and tabu. Both, to a great extent, work along the same lines by the supposed laws of contact and similarity. Contagious magic prevents the touching of a new-born babe until acts of purification have been carried out. Symbolic magic interdicts an Eskimo boy of Baffin’s Social Origins and Social Continutties 223 Land from playing cat’s cradle, lest, later on in life, his fingers might get entangled in the line of a harpoon. Marett thinks that tabu is closely bound up with the idea of mana. This is a Melanesian word, meaning power, and shows itself in any object, non-human or human, that produces extraordinary effects. In the Pacific Islands all great achievements..of-men—areat- tributed.to it. When it is found in an inanimate object it may produce some physical effect, “Tabu simply im- plies that you must be heedful in regard to the super- natural... ..° The warning is against casual, incautious, profane dealings. ‘Not to be lightly approached’ is Cod- rington’s translation for the corresponding term in the New Hebrides.” There is thus something besides sym- pathetic magic in the idea of tabu. A chief is tabu: he. has mana and is therefore feared. He is not held in awe by men “lest they become kingly, but lest they be blasted by the superman’s supermanliness,” 11 The transmissibility of mana and of tabu is one of the most persistent features. Examples of pollution by contact have already been noted in some of the birth and death customs. In Greece the offerings used in purify- ing a murderer became in the process themselves pol- luted, and had to be burned. The contagion or infection of sacredness works in exactly the same way. A holy man or a holy thing makes all surrounding objects sacred, and the unconsecrated are proscribed in their actions in the presence of holiness. The body, the clothes, the utensils, the footprints, even the shadow of a king, are, sometimes fatal to those who come in contact with shen Fish in the sacred river in Attica were themselves, like the stream, sacred to Demeter, and might be caught by her priests alone. | 224 Social Origins and Social Continuities Tabu may sometimes be called an institution in early society. This is especially true in Polynesia, where it ‘was almost a method of government. It was a penal code as well as a religious one. It permeated every _ act of life, from birth to death. There were certain — permanent ‘prohibitions connected with royal personages and chiefs, places, and things, and there were temporary prohibitions placed on objects and places by decree of the rulers. A whole island might be under a tabu, and no one could leave or approach it. There were tabu periods, often several in a month, when no work of any kind could be done, and no food could be cooked. Dogs were tied up so that they could not bark, and fowls were placed in the dark. The Christian missionaries found it easy to introduce the rigid observance of a Puritanical Sabbath in Hawaii, as a tabu on work and play was established by the chiefs at the request of the mission- aries every seventh day. The break-down of the tabu among a primitive people on the arrival of the whites is rapid. When the native Hawaiians found the white man doing with impunity that which their laws forbade, and no evil resulting, they soon realized that tabus were entirely artificial affairs, and that the gods were not constantly on the watch and always eager to punish the breaker of these laws. It was the tabus in the Middle Ages which were often mistaken for that which constituted Christianity. The best Christians, it was sometimes thought, were those who construed the tabus on wealth, pleasure, luxury, and sex most strictly. Such persons were the most holy, and some could even work miracles.?” Tabu is so closely intertwined with our social and religious life that it is often completely overlooked in Social Origins and Social Continuities 225 any estimate of our social and religious institutions. The tabu of food, for example, found among primitive peo- ples, often in connection with totemism, and in other features of their life, is brought down to us by the fast of the Christian Church and by prohibitions regarding certain foods by the Jews. Many tabus are essentially irrational. It is difficult to draw the line separating tabus founded on superstitions and prohibitions resembling tabus in that they are irrational. To use a homely example, the older books on etiquette state that green peas should be eaten with a spoon and never with a fork. The modern rule is exactly the opposite. In the present age many of our tabus are fast disappear- ing and with them some of the refinements and decen- cies of life. Some, on the other hand, we can well dis- pense with. There is little direct evidence to show exactly how primitive man decided what things were to be prohibited, but we can reason by analogy regarding this point, by noting the ease with which certain customs come to be considered unlucky in our own civilized life. Super- stitions often arise owing to a false reasoning in the search backward for a cause of some bad effect. Some- one has said that we are all ex-savages with customs bearing visible traces of our ancient ancestors. CoLLEGE SUPERSTITIONS* As an illustration of the continuity of ideas between the savage and civilized man, a discussion of present- day superstitions, magic, tabu, and charms is not out *In the Appendix will be found a selection of themes written by Freshmen upon superstitions, together with a few comments by the author. 226 Social Origins and Social Continuities of place. We all think of the ignorant as being es- pecially prone to superstitious practices. During the crisis of the late War, superstition raised its head high above the horizon; the number of amulets and charms worn by the soldiers and sailors was almost equal to the number of the personnel. But it is not the superstitions of the ignorant, strictly speaking, nor those of the en- listed man, upon which the present investigation is di- rected; but the superstitious practices of the college student, both male and female. This quest was started as the result of a talk given to a class of young women. The topic for discussion was the character of a fetish, a material object, usually of some homely sort, that was believed to possess some power for good or for evil—perhaps the abode of a spirit. One of the members of the class raised her hand and announced that she thought she had a fetish—her fountain pen. She had used it most successfully in writing her examinations, but, upon losing it, she re- ceived poor marks in all the tests written with a bor- rowed pen. Her trust in her “fetish” increased after she had found her own pen and regained her good marks. ~ The pen must have mana. This incident, which happened many years ago, be- came the incentive to an investigation of the use of fetishes and the belief in superstitions among college undergraduates. My sporadic interest continued for a long time, and finally resulted in a personal investiga- tion of classes of young men and young women in dif- ferent parts of the country. It was found that from 70 to 75 per cent of the undergraduates studied carried out certain acts or refrained from carrying them out in the hope that something good would follow or something Social Origins and Social Continuities 227 evil would be prevented. About 25 per cent of the per- sons examined carried about their persons or had in their rooms “lucky” objects: pocket-pieces, coins, amulets. A part of these, at least, were strictly analogous with the fetish of the savage. Contrary to common belief, col- lege boys seem in general to be more given to super- stitious practices than their academic sisters. "Leaving aside the more common superstitions known, even if not observed, by everyone,—thirteen at the table, breaking mirrors, Friday the thirteenth, walking under a ladder, and others of this sort,—let us consider those which are met with only in an educational institution. A long list of practices was found that were carried out before examinations. Certain boys did not shave on the day of a test (perhaps the Samson complex) ; other stu- dents, including girls, wore certain clothes that were thought to be lucky. A special neck-tie was often reserved for this time of tribulation. The same relative seat in the examination rooms, lecture notes under the pillow on the night before a test, a visit to morning chapel, are only a few practices which are in the census. An examination must never be said to have been easy. Several men have reserved a suit of clothes for examinations, and have worn them at every major test taken during their four years at college. Girls have good-luck dresses, always having a successful time when wearing a certain dress; other dresses fall into the opposite category. There is a longer list of protective measures grouped around athletic events and games of chance. Profes- sional athletes are proverbially most superstitious, and the college athlete is no exception. Suits worn at prac- tice must by no means be changed for new ones during a contest. To wear clothing, a belt for example, belong- 228 Social Origins and Social Continuities ing to a good tennis player, gives you additional skill; a perfect example of contagious magic. Tapping the home plate with a bat a certain number of times, whirling the bat before coming to the plate in a certain way, are very common. One man considered himself a “hoodoo”; his presence as a spectator was always disastrous to his college team; so he remained away from games, owing to his college loyalty. A four-leaf clover or some other device is often varnished on the oars of the boats belonging to a crew. The numberless devices and tabus centering around games of chance can be passed over. Many of these practices can be traced directly to the social background of a youth’s family,—perhaps to a superstitious nurse, or to parents who believe in omens. It is quite evident, on the other hand, that some are entirely personal and spontaneous. We hear much of thirteen at a table, breaking a mirror, and that kind of superstition, but how many have heard of the idea, not at all uncommon, that a definite point must be reached before a certain event occurs?