riage, but on power. The family of a chief consisted, not of those allied to him by blood, but of those over whom he exercised control. Hence, an emancipated son ceased to be one of the family, and did not, except by will, take any share in his father's property; on the other hand, the wife introduced into the family by marriage, or the stranger converted into a son by adoption, became regularly recognised members of the family, though no blood tie existed.

Marriage, again, in Rome, was symbolised by capture or purchase, as among so many of the lower races at the present day. In fact, the idea of marriage among the lower races of men generally is essentially of a different character from ours; it is material, not spiritual; it is founded on force, not on love; the wife is, not united, but enslaved, to her husband. Of such a system, traces, and more than traces, still exist in English law: our customs, indeed, are more advanced, and wives enjoy a very different status in reality to that which they occupy in law. Among the Redskins, however, the wife is a mere servant to her husband, and there are cases on record, in which husband and wife, belonging originally to different tribes, have lived together for years without either caring to acquire the other's language, satisfied to communicate with one another entirely by signs.

It must, however, be observed that, though the Redskin family is constituted in a manner very unlike ours, still the nomenclature of relationships is founded upon it, such as it is, and has no relation to the tribal system, as will presently be shown.

Mr. Morgan divides the systems of relationship into two great classes, the descriptive and the classificatory. The first, he says (p. 12), "which is that of the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian families, rejecting the classification of kindred, except so far as it is in accordance with the numerical system, describes collateral consanguinei, for the most part, by an augmentation or combination of the primary terms of relationship. These terms, which are those for husband and wife, father and mother, brother and sister, and son and daughter, to which must be added, in such languages as possess them, grandfather and grandmother, and grandson and granddaughter, are thus restricted to the primary sense in which they are here employed. All other terms are secondary. Each relationship is thus made independent and distinct from every other. But the second, which is that of the Turanian, American Indian, and Malayan families, rejecting descriptive phrases in every instance, and reducing consanguinei to great classes by a series of apparently arbitrary generalisations, applies the same terms to all the members of the same class. It thus confounds relationships, which, under the descriptive system, are distinct, and enlarges

the signification both of the primary and secondary terms beyond their seemingly appropriate sense."

While, however, I fully admit the radical difference between, say, our English system and that of the Kingsmill Islanders, as shown in Table 1* (opposite p. 27), they seem to me to be rather the extremes of a series, than to be founded on different ideals.

Mr. Morgan admits that systems of relationships have undergone a gradual development, following that of the social condition; but he also attributes to them great value in the determination of ethnological affinities. I am not sure that I exactly understand his views as to the precise bearing of these two conclusions in relation to one another; and I have elsewhere given my reasons for dissenting from his interpretation of the facts in reference to social relations. I shall, therefore, now confine myself to the question of the bearing of systems of relationships on questions of ethnological affinity, and to a consideration of the manner in which the various systems have arisen. As might naturally have been expected, Mr. Morgan's information is most full and complete with reference to the North American Indians. Of these, he gives the terms for no less than 268 relationships in about seventy different tribes. Of these relationships, some are for our present purposes much more important than others. The most significant are the following:

1. Brother's son and daughter.

2. Sister's son and daughter.

3. Mother's brother.

4. Mother's brother's son.

5. Father's sister.

6. Father's sister's son.

7. Father's brother.

8. Father's brother's son.

9. Mother's sister.

10. Mother's sister's son.

11. Grandfather's brother.

12. Brothers' and sisters' grandchildren.

Now let me call your attention to the Wyandot system as shown in Column 8 of Table I. It will be observed that a mother's brother is called an uncle; his son a cousin; his grandson a son when a male is speaking, a nephew when a female is speaking; his great-grandson a grandson. A father's sister is termed an aunt; her son a cousin; her grandson a son; her great-grandson a grandson. A father's brother is a father; his son a brother, distinguished, however, by different terms, ac

*I have constructed this table from Mr. Morgan's schedules, selecting the relationships which are the most significant, and arranging them in a manner which seems to me more instructive than that adopted by Mr. Morgan.

cording as he is older or younger than the speaker; his grandson a son; his great-grandson a grandson. A mother's sister is a mother; her son is a brother, distinguished as before; her grandson a son when a male is speaking, a nephew when a female is speaking. A grandfather's brother is a grandfather; and a grandfather's sister is a grandmother. A brother's son is a son when a male is speaking, but a nephew when a female is speaking; while a sister's son is a nephew when a male is speaking, but a son when a female is speaking. Lastly, brothers' grandchildren, and sisters' grandchildren, are called grandchildren.

This system, at first, strikes one as illogical and inconsistent. How can a person have more than one mother? How can a brother's son be a son, or an uncle's great-grandson a grandson? Again, while classing together several relationships which we justly separate, it distinguishes between elder and younger brothers and sisters; and, in several cases, the relationship depends on the sex of the speaker. Since, however, a similar system prevails over a very wide area, it cannot be dismissed as a mere arbitrary or accidental arrangement. The system is, moreover, far from being merely theoretical, but is in every-day use. Every member of the tribe knows his exact relationship to every other, and this knowledge is kept up by the habit, general among the American tribes, and occurring also elsewhere, as, for instance, among the Esquimaux, the Tamils, Telugus, Chinese, Japanese, Feejeeans, &c., of addressing a person, not by his name, but by his relationship. Among the Telugus and Tamils an elder may address a younger by name, but a younger must always use the term for relationship in speaking to an elder. This custom is, probably, connected with the curious superstitions about names; but, however it may have arisen, the result is that an Indian addresses his neighbour as "my father," "my son," or "my brother," as the case may be: if not related, he says, " my friend."

Thus the system is kept up by daily use; nor is it a mere mode of expression. Although, in many respects, opposed to the existing customs and ideas, it is, in some, entirely consonant with them: thus, among many of the Redskin tribes, if a man marries the eldest girl in a family, he can claim in marriage all the others as they successively come to maturity; this custom exists among the Shyennes, Omahas, Iowas, Kaws, Osages, Blackfeet, Crees, Minnitarees, Crows, and other tribes. I have already mentioned that among the Redskins, generally, the mother's brother exercises a more than paternal authority over his sister's children. I shall have occasion to refer again to this remarkable exaggeration of avuncular authority.

Mr. Morgan was much surprised to find that a system, more or less like that of the Wyandots, was very general among the Red

skins of North America; but he was still more astonished to find that the Tamil races of India have one almost identical. A comparison of Columns 8 and 9 in Table 1, will show that this is the case, and the similarity is even more striking in Mr. Morgan's tables, where a larger number of relationships is given.

How then did this system arise? How is it to be accounted for? It is by no means consonant, in all respects, to the present social conditions of the races in question; nor does it agree with tribal affinities. The American Indians generally follow the custom of exogamy, as it has been called by Mr. Maclennan, that is to say, no one is permitted to marry within the clan; and, as descent goes in the female line, a man's brother's son, though called his son, belongs to a different clan; while his sister's son does belong to the clan, though he is regarded as a nephew, and consequently as less closely connected. Hence, a man's nephew belongs to his clan, but his son belongs to a dif. ferent clan.

Mr. Morgan, from several passages, appears to regard the system as arbitrary, artificial, and intentional.* He discusses, at some length, the conclusions to be drawn from its wide extension over the American continent, and its presence also in India. "The several hypotheses," he says, "of accidental concurrent invention, of borrowing from each other, and of spontaneous growth, are entirely inadequate."+ With reference to the hypothesis of independent development in disconnected areas, he observes that it possesses "both plausibility and force." It has, therefore, he adds, (p. 501), "been made a subject of not less careful study and reflection than the system itself. Not until after a patient analysis and comparison of its several forms. upon the extended scale in which they are given in the tables, and not until after a careful consideration of the functions of the system, as a domestic institution, and of the evidence of its mode of propagation from age to age, did these doubts finally give way, and the insufficiency of this hypothesis to account for the origin of the system many times over, or even a second time, became fully apparent."

And again, "if the two families (i. c., the Redskin and the Tamil) commenced on separate continents in a state of promiscuous intercourse, having such a system of consanguinity as this state would beget, of the character of which no conception can be formed, it would be little less than a miracle if both should develope the same system of relationship." He concludes, then, that it must be due to "transmission with the blood from a common original source. * See pp. 157, 392, 394, 421, 456, etc. + Loc. cit., p. 495.

Loc. cit.,

p. 505.

If the four hypotheses named cover and exhaust the subject, and the first three are incapable of explaining the present existence of the system in the two families, then the fourth and last, if capable of accounting for its transmission, becomes transformed into an established conclusion."*

That there is any near alliance between the Redskin and Tamil races would be an ethnological conclusion of great importance. It does not, however, seem to me to be borne out by the evidence. The Feejeean system, with which the Tongan is almost identical, is very instructive in this respect, and scarcely seems to have received from Mr. Morgan the consideration which it merits. Now, Columns 9, 10, and 11, of Table I, show that the Feejeean and Tongan systems are identical with the Tamil. If, then, this similarity is, in the case of the Tamil, proof of close ethnological affinity between that race and the Redskin, it must equally be so in reference to the Feejeeans and the Tongans. It is, however, well known that these races belong to very distinct divisions of mankind, and any facts which prove similarity between these races, however interesting and important they may be as proofs of identity in human character, and history, can obviously have no bearing on special ethnological affinities. Moreover, it seems clear, as I shall attempt presently to show, that the Tongans have not used their present system ever since their ancestors first landed on the Pacific islands, but that it has subsequently developed itself from a far ruder system, which is still in existence in many of the surrounding islands.

I may also observe that the Two-Mountain Iroquois, whose close ethnological affinity with the Wyandots no one will question, actually agree, as shown by Columns 3 and 4 of Table I, more nearly with this ruder Pacific, or, as Morgan calls it, "Malayan" system, than they do with that of the neighbouring American tribes.

For these and other reasons I think it is impossible to adopt Mr. Morgan's views either on the causes which have led to the existence of the Tamil system, or as to the ethnological conclusions which follow from it.

How, then, have these systems arisen, and how can we account for such remarkable similarities between races so distinct, and so distant, as the Wyandots, Tamils, Feejeeans, and Tongans? In illustration of my views on this subject, I have constructed the following Table (Table 1), to which I will shortly direct your attention. Before doing so, however, I must make a few preliminary remarks. In all cases I have given the translation of the native words, and, following Morgan, when one word is used

Loc. cit., p. 505. See also p. 497.