PART II 



GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 



Die Menscheit bezahlt jedes neue Gut mit dem Opfer eines friihern. 



I SHALL commence with words marking the simplest 

 form of sex-relation. The two most widespread con- 

 ceptions of sex conceptions which I have found in very 

 distant and diverse quarters are associated with two 

 simple household operations. It would not probably 

 be safe to suggest either as really the antecedent notion. 

 The first is the creation of fire, the second the pounding 

 or primitive miller's work with rammer or pestle and 

 mortar. 1 Very possibly both operations are radically 

 identical. 



The creation of fire is associated in the savage mind 

 with a process which must have appeared of surpassing 

 mysteriousness. By twirling a stick in a hollow in a 

 block of wood, fire, an absolute new thing was brought 

 into existence. The generation of fire and the genera- 

 tion of life were associated in name together, the origin 

 of life resembled the origin of fire. 2 The word kindle 



1 There is an excellent representation of a woman with a primitive mill on a 

 misericord in Beverley Minster : see E. Phipson, Choir Stalls, PL 95, 1896. 



2 In Sanskrit we have math, manth, for kindling fire by friction ; the word 

 manth also means to churn, manmatha, love, the god of love, and pramdtha is 

 violence, rape. 



