60 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 



The Institute, without desiring to contract tlie field of observation, 

 begs leave to direct your attention to the following matters : — 



(1.) The basis of family or tribal organization, e.g , whether it be 

 purely personal, or partake to any extent of territorial attributes; the 

 received mode of ranking and tracing relationshii)s, paternal, mater- 

 nal, or both ; with a table of degrees, il possible, of agnates and cog- 

 nates. 



(2.) Adoption, its kinds, ceremonies and formulfe, the extent of 

 its use, and the particulars in which it modifies the family, gens, 

 tribe, etc. 



(3.) The rules and practice which govern the contracting, main- 

 taining and dissolving of marriage; the degrees of prohibition ; exo- 

 gamy and endogamy ; the effect of marriage on the status of woman, 

 her position upon divorce, etc. 



(4.) Grades of persons of both sexes apart from office, freo and 

 slave ; to what extent mature children of either sex are the subjects 

 of rights ; the age of enfranchisement, if any. 



(5.) The character of parental power, paternal and maternal ; its 

 extent over persons and ])ro})erty in matters civil and criminal ; 

 exceptions to it. 



(6.) Offices, their kinds, the [)Owers annexed to them, the teims for 

 which and on which they are held ; the mode of succession, e.g., gen- 

 eral election, election by a few, election within a group, inheritance, 

 etc. 



(7.) A.ssemblies or councils and the questions treated at them; how 

 and l»y whom they are summoned; in whom resides the right of 

 debate and franchise in the several assemblies of the family, gens, 

 band, tribe, or nation. 



(8.) Property, its admitted classes inside the family and tribe; 

 joint proprietorship how acquired, held, managed, aliened ; whether 

 common ownership is acknowledged, and in what respects it is distin- 

 guished from joint ownership ; whether private property is allowed ; 

 if so, how acquii-ed, enjoyed, transferred, or lost ; whether succession 

 to it is permitted ; if so, within what degrees ; if not, how it is dis- 

 posed of, e.g., buried with body on death of owner, burnt, or other- 

 wise destroyed. 



