ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 177 



methods of adoption. In this stage of society no method is con- 

 ceived in the human mind by which a number of men can be held 

 together in one common body except the bond of kinship — the ties 

 of consanguinity and affinity. The savage thinks and says, " My 

 kindred are my friends, and he who is not my kin is my enemy," 

 and upon this theory he acts. 



The tribal state, therefore, is organized upon the basis of kinship. 

 It is literally a bond of blood entwined in a bond of conjugal love, 

 and the family organization thoroughly permeates the constitution 

 of the tribal state. In this stage of culture the family, as under- 

 stood in the civilized world, is unknown. The marriage of one 

 man to the woman of his choice, and of one woman to the man 

 of her choice, is unknown. The right of the father to his own 

 children, is unknown. The husband does not take the wife to 

 his own home ; the husband is but the guest of his wife, who re- 

 mains with her own kindred; and the children of the union belong 

 to her, and over her the husband has no authority. The tribe is 

 always divided into kinship clans. Each clan of this character is 

 a group of people related to one another through the female line, 

 and children belong to the clan of the mother, and submit them- 

 selves to the authority of the mother's brother or the mother's 

 uncle. The husband of a woman is selected, not by herself but 

 by' her clan, to be the guest of the clan and the father of additional 

 members of the clan. In this form of society, then, a clan is a 

 body of consanguineal kindred in the female line governed by some 

 male member of the clan, usually the elder man. The clans con- 

 stituting the tribe are bound together by ties of affinity. The 

 methods by which they are thus bound vary from time to time and 

 from tribe to tribe. In the simplest ^^ossible case a tribe is com- 

 posed of two clans, each furnishing the other with husbands and 

 fathers, and in such a case the men of the one clan are the guests 

 of the other, are the husbands of the women and the fathers of 

 the children of the other clan. In such a case the common gov- 

 ernment is a council of the elder men of both clans, or of chosen 

 or hereditary representatives of both clans, and the council chooses 

 the tribal chief. Such is the simplest possible form of tribal society. 



This plan of the tribal state and form of government becomes 

 very highly developed; there maybe three, four, twenty, or fifty 

 clans, with many curious ties of affinity, with many curious re- 

 lations arising from marriage laws. The clan A may furnish 



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