402 MAN : PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



others, that the clanship system prevails everywhere. So nume- 

 rous are these groups that in some divisions they 

 Claris yst e em include not more than 20, 10, or even 5 members, 

 and Mr F. W. Hodge 1 gives a table of the 80 clans in 

 the Tanoan, Keresan, and Zunian nations, showing in a collective 

 population of 8,666 an average membership of about 108 for each 

 clan. The clan names, of which translations are here given, 

 comprise such things as the calabash, various kinds of maize, the 

 dance-kilt, grass, salt, the swallow, ant, humming-bird, etc., from 

 which it may again be inferred that such totems were originally 

 merely distinctive badges which only later acquired genealogical 

 or religious significance. It seems impossible to suppose that 

 any aborigines could at any time be at once so intelligent as to 

 group themselves in a really intricate system of clanship, and so 

 stupid as to think themselves of grass, calabash, or salt lineage. 

 These ideas obviously came afterwards by the usual processes of 

 analogy and germinal growth. 



But, we are told, these Pueblo Indians are specially noted for 

 a highly elaborate symbolism, manifested in their 



Symbolism. . r . . . 



recurrent seasonal festivities, snake dances and 

 other religious ceremonies, so elaborate indeed that some of this 

 symbolism is said to throw light on the intricate carvings of the 

 Aztec and Maya monuments 2 . All this may be so, but if anybody 

 fancies that such ceremonial forms were an initial condition of 

 Pueblo society, let him study the " social systems " still prevalent 

 amongst the Mexican Seres, the Fuegians, Bushmen, Australians 

 or New Guinea Papuans ; and let him remember that even these 

 are later developments compared with the crude beginnings of all 

 human society. 



1 American Anthropologist, Oct. 1896, p. 345 sq. 



- "The revolting ceremonials of Tusayan [Hopi] fall into position in a 

 series of observances and ceremonials connected with the serpent extending 

 from the plains of the Mississippi to the ancient cities of Mexico, Central 

 America, and even unto Peru, and some of the most puzzling sculptures, paint- 

 ings and inscriptions of the ancient cities, as well as the curious regard for snakes 

 among our north-eastern Indians can be interpreted fully only in the light of 

 the Tusayan researches" (\6th Ann. Report (1894-5) finr. Ethnology, Wash- 

 ington, 1897, p. xcviii). 



