OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 427 



Whilst our knowledge of the Japanese is in a fragmentary state every new fact 

 concerning their domestic institutions possesses value. Since the completion of 

 this work an opportunity was unexpectedly offered, tlirough the visit to this country 

 of a Japanese troupe, to obtain not only tlieir system of relationship, but also to 

 extend the inquiry to some other particulars. The results in the latter respect, 

 although not especially important, may be worth inserting for the reason first above 

 stated. They will be limited to three particulars : the family, the burial of the 

 dead, and the divisions of the people into classes. The interpreter of this troupe, 

 Man-ki'-chi Kd-ivd'-be, a young man of intelligence and of education in the Japanese 

 sense, had acquired our language in Japan through Mr. Smith, who brought the 

 troupe to this country to exhibit their performances in our cities. In this respect 

 he had made sufficient progress to use it for ordinary colloquial purposes. I am 

 indebted to him for the Japanese system of relationship contained in the Table, 

 for a vocabulary of the language, and for the information given upon the subjects 

 named. After a fruitless effort to procure the former from the American Legation 

 at Yedo, and which resulted in obtaining but a fragment of the system, it seemed 

 not a little singular that this troupe of adventurers should have brought it to my 

 door at the last moment before publication.' 



The Japanese have not only reached the state of marriage between single pairs, 

 which is now common in nearly all barbarous nations, but they have also developed 

 the family in the civilized and modern sense of this term, with the distinctions of 

 the family and the personal name. This is rarely the case in barbarous nations, 

 and is, in itself, decisive evidence of the substantial progress of the Japanese in 

 the scale of civilization. Amongst the former class of nations, while in the lowest 

 condition, a single personal name for each individual is the extent of the develop- 

 ment of the modern family distinctions, the tribe supplying the place of the family. 

 The family name arises after the dawn of civilization. Our Saxon ancestors within 

 the historical period had the personal name only, and were without the family 

 name. "Whilst the latter names are numerous amongst the Japanese, they have not 

 been multiplied to such an extent as in civilized nations. The father bestows per- 

 sonal names upon his children, in addition to which they take his family name and 

 retain it so long as they remain members of a common family. 



In describing a person the surname precedes the personal, thus reversing our 

 custom. The following are examples : — 



speculation the straits of Behring was the more probable route of the Eskimo migration as hyper- 

 boreans ; whilst that by the Aleutian islands is the more probable route of the much older migration 

 of the Ganovvanian family. 



. May, 18G7. » Female personal names universally commence with the vowel O. 



