278 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



appears no limit until the strongest tribe, continuing to supply itself 

 with women from the less strong, finally alone survives and has no 

 tribes to rob. 



Should it be replied that female infanticide is, on the average of 

 cases, not carried so far as to make the number of wives insufficient 

 to maintain the aggregate population should it be said that only 

 exceptional tribes rear so few women as not to have mothers enough to 

 produce the next generation then we are met by a still greater diffi- 

 culty. If in each of the exogamous tribes forming the supposed cluster 

 the men are forbidden to marry women of their own tribe, and must 

 steal women from other tribes, the implication is that each tribe 

 knowingly rears wives for neighboring tribes, but not for itself. 

 Though each tribe kills many of its female infants that it may not be 

 at the cost of rearing them for its own benefit, yet it deliberately rears 

 the remainder for the benefit of its enemies. Surely this is an inad- 

 missible supposition. In proportion as the interdict against marry- 

 ing women within the tribe is peremptory, the preservation of girls 

 will be useless worse than useless, indeed, since adjacent hostile 

 tribes, to whom they must go as wives, will be thereby strengthened. 

 And as all the tribes, living under like interdicts, will have like mo- 

 tives, they will all of them cease to rear female infants. 



Manifestly, then, exogamy in its original form can never have 

 been anything like absolute among the tribes forming a cluster, but 

 can have been the law among some of them only. 



In his concluding chapter Mr. McLennan says that, "on the whole, 

 the account which we have given of , the origin of exogamy appears 

 the only one which will bear examination " (p. 289). It seems to me, 

 however, that setting out with the postulate laid down by him, that 

 primitive groups of men are habitually hostile, we may, on asking 

 what are the concomitants of war, be led to a different theory, open to 

 none of the objections above raised. 



In all times and places, among savage and civilized, victory is fol- 

 lowed by pillage. Whatever portable things of worth the conquerors 

 find, they take. The enemies of the Fuegians plunder them of their 

 dogs and arms ; pastoral tribes in Africa have their cattle driven away 

 by conquering marauders ; and peoples more advanced are robbed of 

 their money, ornaments, and all valuable things that are not too heavy. 

 The taking of women is manifestly but a part of this process of spoil- 

 ing the vanquished. Women are prized as wives, as concubines, as 

 drudges ; and, the men having been killed, the women are carried off 

 along with the other movables. Everywhere among the uncivilized 

 we find this. Turner tells us that " in Samoa, in dividing the spoil of 

 a conquered people, the women were not killed, but taken as wives." 

 We learn from Mitchell that in Australia, u on some whites telling a 

 native that they had shot a man of another tribe, his only remark 



