484 



SYSTEMS OF C O X S A N G U I N I T Y AND AFFINITY 



and reveals a state of society in the primitive ages, not confined to the islands of 

 the Pacific, Avith the evidence of its actual existence still preserved in this system 

 of relationship, which we shall be slow and reluctant to recognize as real ; and yet 

 towards which evidence from other and independent sources has long been pointing. 

 It finds mankind, during the periods anterior to the Hawaiian custom, in a bar- 

 barism so profound that its lowest depths can scarcely be imagined ; but which is 

 partially shadowed forth by the fact that neither the propensity to pair, nor mar- 

 riage in its proper sense, nor the fiimily except the communal, were known ; and, 

 above all, that the sacredness of the tic which binds brother and sister together, and 

 raises them above the temptations of animal passion, had not dawned upon the 

 barbarian mind. 



In the next place the origin of the Turanian system is to be explained from the 

 nature of descents. No evidence has been presented of the prevalence of the 

 Hawaiian custom in any part of Asia or America, or of the intermarriage of 

 brothers and sisters as a general custom. Neither is it necessary for the purpose 

 in hand that such evidence should exist. The solution to be off'ered proceeds upon 

 the assumed existence of these customs, together with the tribal organization ; and 

 if these are sufficient to explain the origin of the Turanian system, the system 

 itself, to some extent, becomes evidence of their antecedent existence. 



The Turanian was undoubtedly engrafted upon an original form agreeing in all 

 essential respects Avith the Malayan ; the latter being the first permanent, and the 

 former the second permanent stage of the classificatory system. About half of the 

 Malayan relationships must be changed, leaving the other half as they are, to pro- 

 duce the Turanian system. It is clear that the Malayan could not be derived from 

 the Turanian, since it is the simpler, and, therefore, the older form. Neither could 

 the Turanian be developed out of the Malayan, since the former contains addi- 

 tional and distinctive elements ; but a great change of social condition might have 

 occurred which would supply the new elements, and such, in all probability, is the 

 history of the transition from the one into the other. It will be seen, at a glance, 

 that it is only necessary to break up the cohabitation of brothers and sisters to 

 turn the Malayan into the Turanian form, provided the changes in parentage, thus 

 produced, are followed to their logical results. 



Following step by step the supposed sequence of customs and institutions which 

 developed the classificatory system by organic growth, it will next be assumed that 

 the Malayan form, as its first stage, prevailed upon the continent of Asia among 

 the ancestors of the present Turanian family at the epoch of the Malayan migra- 

 tion to the islands of the Pacific. In other words it may be conjectured that the 

 Malayan family took with them the form which then prevailed, and preserved it to 

 the present time, wliilst they left the same form behind them amongst the people 

 from whom they separated. With the INIalayan system thus prevalent in Asia, it 

 may be supposed that another great organic movement of society occvirred which 

 resulted, in the course of time, in the tribal organization. This institution is so 

 ancient and so wide spread that its origin must ascend far back towards the primi- 

 tive ages of mankind. It is explainable, and only explainable in its origin, as a 

 reformatory movement to break up the intermarriage of blood relatives, and par- 

 ticularly of brothers and sisters, by compelling them to marry out of the tribe who 



