REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 75 



savagery (so far as known), superior age confers authority, there is a 

 practically simple, though theoretically complex, regimentation r nnm'n g 

 through the entire clan, whereby the eldest person commands all and 

 obeys none, while the youngest person obeys all and commands none, and 

 each other person is entitled to command and bound to obey in the direct 

 proportion of relative age. This regimentation is complicated by various 

 factors, such as adoption, and (especially) what may be called promotion 

 and demotion, i. e., advancement in "age" (rank) by common consent in 

 recognition of prowess, etc., with correlative reduction in "age" as the 

 penalty for cowardice, etc., so that the actual age relations may be com- 

 pletely lost; yet the imputed relationship serves practical purposes, and 

 the organization is maintained with unimpaired efficiency by means of 

 relationship terms. The same system is extended from the clan to the 

 tribe, in which the several clans are ranked in the order of "age" 

 (of course imputed), and eventually to the tribes united in confederacies; 

 so that at last the system reaches every member of the tribal confederacy 

 and each is entitled to command or bound to obey any other according to 

 the relationship expressed in the form of salutation and constantly kept 

 alive in conversation. True, uncertainties and differences of opinion may 

 arise, especially between the remoter individuals and groups; commonly 

 these are settled by more or less prolonged deliberation and discussion, or 

 "council," though some of the bloodiest wars of Indian history grew out 

 of such misunderstandings; yet even the appeal to force and arms but 

 serves as a means of settlement of the dispute, for the conquerors thereby 

 become the elder and the conquered the younger in primitive thought. 

 So, too, when stranger tribes meet, both are constrained by universal 

 tribal law, and proceed to council or war, as the case may be, for the pur- 

 pose of fixing the relative "age," with the consequent right of command, 

 and in some cases the question may remain open for centuries (as between 

 the Apache and the Papago) and lead to interminable warfare. Now, 

 the conquered tribe may merely retire from the field of dispute, leaving 

 what both conceive to be the verdict of superhuman potencies beyond 

 reach of continuous execution; but if the contestants are actually related, 

 or if the conquest is complete, they commonly remain in association, the 

 survivors of the conquered families being absorbed or more formally 

 adopted into the conquering tribe, and perhaps distributed among the 

 families of that tribe, whereupon all the captives become subordinate to 

 each and all of the conquerers, to whom thenceforth they owe obedience. 

 Commonly it is this condition of obedience on the part of a certain class 

 or group to the commands of another class or group which impresses 

 observers and leads to the records of slavery among primitive folk, though 

 the institution involves no ownership of human chattels, no rights or 

 duties save those connected with a system of rank correlated with relative 

 age, actual or imputed. The institution might better be styled wholesale 

 adoption, or collective adoption, than slavery. Among the American 

 aborigines the captives, or adoptees, are usually assigned an "age" corre- 

 sponding with the time of their entry into the tribe, so that they are com- 

 pelled thereafter to obey all children then living, and are entitled to com- 

 mand all children subsequently born into the tribe, and there is thus a 



