126 cook: primitive social states 



Two types of social organization may be distinguished by ref- 

 erence to the contacts between parents and children. In the 

 choripedic state the children of different families are kept apart 

 from each other, and remain associated with the parents and 

 older members of the family. In the sympedic state the children 

 of a community are associated in groups with others of similar 

 age. The choripedic state provides complete contacts with the 

 parents, the sympedic state only partial and imperfect contacts. 



In his most primitive condition man may be thought of as 

 roaming thru the forests in simple family groups, as the anthro- 

 poid apes and some very backward savages still do. After settled 

 agricultural habits are adopted and permanent food supplies 

 assured it becomes possible for the original family group to ex- 

 pand into a community. The dwelling may expand with the 

 family into a large communal house, or the community may live 

 in a cluster of houses, constituting a village. Both of these con- 

 ditions are found among the natives of Liberia. The Kroo 

 people of the coast live in large communal houses that may 

 shelter two or three score of people. The interior tribes, such as 

 the Veys, Golahs and Pessahs, live in very small, closely clus- 

 tered houses. The social condition of the children is the same in 

 the two kinds of communities, both representing the sympedic 

 state. Children of nearly the same age spend most of their 

 time playing together or chattering about in little groups, much 

 like the squads or gangs of street children with us. 



The social organization of the Kekchis and other related tribes 

 of eastern Guatemala is essentially different from that of the 

 Africans. Although these tropical Indians are even more strictly 

 agricultural than the natives of tropical Africa, they do not asso- 

 ciate in communal dwellings or villages. Each family lives by 

 itself, often quite remote from any other. The Kekchis and 

 neighboring tribes were aptly described by Otis T. Mason as 

 "poor relations of the Mayas." Though unusually primitive 

 and unorganized, they are closely related in language and other 

 respects to the tribes that were farthest advanced toward civil- 

 ization at the time of the Spanish invasion. 



