AMERICAN ASPECTS OF ANTHROPOLOGY. 163 



globe, has carried all before it, only showing in isolated spots and by- 

 relics of custom the former existence of matriarchal society. Such a 

 geographical view of the matriarchal region makes intelligible facts 

 which, while not thus seen together, were most puzzling. When years 

 ago Sir George Grey studied the customs of the Australians, it seemed 

 to him a singular coincidence that a man whose maternal family name 

 was Kangaroo might not marry a woman of the same name, just as if 

 he had been a Huron of the Bear or Turtle totem, prohibited accord- 

 ingly from taking a wife of the same. But when we have the facts 

 more completely before us, Australia and Canada are seen to be only 

 the far ends of a world-district pervaded by these ideas, and the prob- 

 lem becomes such a one as naturalists are quite accustomed to. Though 

 Montreal and Melbourne are far apart, it may be that in prehistoric 

 times they were both connected with Asia by lines of social institution 

 as real as those which in modern times connect them through Europe. 

 Though it is only of late that this problem of ancient society has re- 

 ceived the attention it deserves, it is but fair to mention how long ago 

 its scientific study began in the part of the world where we are assem- 

 bled. Father Lafitau, whose " Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquains " was 

 published in 1724, carefully describes among the Iroquois and Hurons 

 the system of kinship to which Morgan has since given the name of 

 " classificatory," where the mother's sisters are reckoned as mothers, 

 and so on. It is remarkable to find this acute Jesuit missionary al- 

 ready pointing out how the idea of the husband being an intruder in 

 his wife's house bears on the pretense of surreptitiousness in marriage 

 among the Spartans. He even rationally interprets in this way a cus- 

 tom which to us seems fantastic, but which is a most serious observance 

 among rude tribes widely spread over the world. A usual form of this 

 custom is that the husband and his parents-in-law, especially his moth- 

 er-in-law, consider it shameful to speak to or look at one another, hid- 

 ing themselves or getting out of the way, at least in pretense, if they 

 meet. The comic absurdity of these scenes, such as Tanner describes 

 among the Assiniboins, disappears if they are to be understood as a 

 legal ceremony, implying that the husband has nothing to do with his 

 wife's family. To this part of the world also belongs a word which 

 has been more effective than any treatise in bringing the matriarchal 

 system of society into notice. This is the term totem, introduced by 

 Schoolcraft to describe the mother-clans of the Algonquins, named 

 "Wolf," "Bear," etc. Unluckily the word is wrongly made. Pro- 

 fessor Max Muller has lately called attention to the remark of the 

 Canadian philologist. Father Cuoq ("N. O. Ancien Missionnaire "), 

 that the word is properly ote, meaning "family mark,'* possessive 

 otem, and with the personal pronoun nind otem, " my family mark," 

 kit oton, "thy family mark." It maybe seen, in Schoolcraft's own 

 sketch of Algonquin grammar, how he erroneously made from these 

 a word totem, and the question ought perhaps to be gone into in this 



