94 evolution: the ages and tomorrow 



is eating. He must never mention her name. In Ceylon, the 

 Veddah is forbidden to speak with his mother-in-law or to 

 speak with or take food with his son's wife. 



Through exogamy the primordial family group began to 

 grow toward tribal size. Increased numbers meant greater 

 complexity and stratification, and greater possibility of sur- 

 vival. Man was, perhaps, being forced out into the open at 

 about this time by the gradual drying-out of the forest areas 

 as the rain belts changed with the shifts in climate during the 

 ice age. Man is indeed a product of a long period of adverse 

 weather— a triumph of the mind and will in both his physical 

 and social origin. The tribe was able to hold larger territories 

 and defend them better than the smaller family groups. Per- 

 haps, as in other animals, the greater numbers stimulated 

 greater activity in food-getting and greater activity in re- 

 production. Cooperation was needed to kill the larger ani- 

 mals, and we have every evidence that earliest man hunted 

 in "packs." Tribal life brought a greater moral sense, the in- 

 dividual had to be fitted in through self-suppression. Man is 

 not without innate capacities for the moral needs of com- 

 munal life, and the tribal training began to bring these ca- 

 pacities to the surface. The suppression of primate willful- 

 ness through taboos had made possible the miracle of an 

 economic society without differential castes and without 

 surrender to instinctive control. 



Fear of the Old Man of the tribe must have been deeply 

 impressed upon the members of these primitive societies, 

 even before man learned to talk. H. G. Wells has so ably 

 visualized this situation: The Old Man was the master of all 

 the women, his place at the fire was not to be occupied by 

 any other, his weapons were not to be touched. Forbidden 

 things centered about the Old Man, and it is not surprising 

 that there was a disposition to propitiate him even after 

 death. After all he might only be asleep. (It is doubtful that 

 early man had any understanding of death or that, even later 

 when he came to bury his dead, he had any idea of a future 



