POLITICAL HEADS CHIEFS, KINGS, ETC. 731 



failing this, the nobles appoint, and, " unless positive disqualification 

 exists, the eldest son is usually chosen." Africa furnishes evidence of 

 varied kinds. Though the Congo people, the coast negroes, and the 

 inland negroes, have formed societies of some size and complexity, 

 notwithstanding that kinship through females obtains in the succession 

 to the throne, yet we read of the first that allegiance is " vague and 

 uncertain " ; of the second, that, save where free in form, the govern- 

 ment is "an insecure and shortlived monarchic despotism"; and of 

 the third, that, where the government is not of mixed type, it is " a 

 rigid but insecure despotism." Meanwhile, in the two most advanced 

 and powerful states, stability of political headship goes along with de- 

 parture, partial or complete, from succession through females. In 

 Ashantee the order of succession is " the brother, the sister's son, the 

 son " ; and in Dahomey there is male primogeniture. Further in- 

 stances of this transition are yielded by extinct American civilizations. 

 Though the Aztec conquerors of Mexico brought with them the system 

 of kinship through females, and consequent law of succession, yet this 

 law of succession was partially, or completely, changed to succession 

 through males. In Tezcuco and Tlacopan (divisions of Mexico) the 

 eldest son inherited the kingship ; and in Mexico the choice of a king 

 was limited to the sons and brothers of the preceding king. Then, of 

 ancient Peru, Gomara says, "Nephews inherit, and not sons, except in 

 the case of the Incas " : this exception in the case of the Incas having the 

 strange peculiarity that " the first-born of this brother and sister [i. e., 

 the Inca and his principal wife] was the legitimate heir to the king- 

 dom " an arrangement which made the line of descent unusually 

 narrow and definite. And here we are brought back to Africa by the 

 parallelism between the case of Peru and that of Egypt. " In Egypt 

 it was maternal descent that gave the right to property and to the 

 throne. The same prevailed in Ethiopia. If the monarch married 

 out of the royal family, the children did not enjoy a legitimate right to 

 the crown." When we add the statement that the monarch was " sup- 

 posed to be descended from the gods, in the male and female line," 

 and when w^e join with this the further statement that there were 

 royal marriages between brother and sister, we see that like causes 

 worked like effects in Egypt and in Peru. For in Peru the Inca was 

 of supposed divine descent ; inherited his divinity on both sides ; and 

 married his sister to keep the divine blood unmixed. And in Peru as 

 in Egypt there resulted royal succession in the male line, where, other- 

 wise, succession through females prevailed. 



With this process of transition from the one law of descent to the 

 other, implied by these last facts, may be joined some processes which 

 preceding facts imply. In New Caledonia a " chief nominates his suc- 

 cessor, if possible, in a son or brother " : the one choice implying de- 

 scent in the male line and the other beins: consistent with descent in 

 either male or female line. And in Madagascar, where the system of 



