GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 115 



Greek /copy, the Maid, as a name for Persephone, and the 

 Norse Frud, the Frau par excellence. Similar instances 

 can be readily collected from Teutonic and Celtic sources, 

 and they may, indeed, be paralleled by the use of the 

 expression, the Virgin, for the mediseval goddess Mary. 

 The senses woman, tribal-mother, queen, priestess, god- 

 dess, are all closely correlated in these primitive words, 

 and we see one almost growing out of the other. Venus 

 as the Latin form of ywij is strengthened by the Latin 

 venter, the womb, corresponding to a primitive Greek 

 form, yevrep, which actually occurs for ^ao-rrjp, the belly 

 or womb. The like addition of a dental brings us from 

 the root kyn to a common Teutonic (German, Norse, 

 and English) term for the female organ of sex. 



Passing now to what is brought forth, we have a long 

 series of Aryan words marking the relationship of the 

 womb, and many of the greatest interest. Thus we have 

 Greek 761/09, Latin genus, Teutonic chint, clinuat, kint, 

 kind and kin, 1 while knabe, knecht, and knight are prob- 

 ably also associated therewith. Anglo-Saxon gives us 



1 I may specially note the phrase kith and kin. It might be supposed that 

 kith was mere repetition of kin. But I think the phrase has a deeper meaning. 

 Gothic, qithus, O.H.G. quiti, quid, A.S. cvithe, O.N. qvidr, denote the female 

 sex-organ and the womb ; Scotch kyte, the belly, and possibly kittie, a strumpet, 

 may be cited. Gothic qithuhaft, means pregnant. Thus kith and kin literally 

 denotes the womb and its fruit, the konc and the kunni, the woman and her 

 offspring, i.e. the whole tribe. O.H.G. Cutti a flock as of sheep, stands to 

 kith much as kin to kunne, probably it originally only denoted the product of 

 the quiti. In the same sense are to be noted O.H.G. chizi or kida, O.E. kith, 

 English kid, and Bavarian kitze, female goat, standing in close relation to quiti 

 and kith. Possibly Gothic gaits, O.H.G. gaiz, O.K. geit, A.S. gat, Eng. goat, 

 may have relation to gat (see later) as kid to qithus. A quite parallel word is 

 A.S. team for family, offspring, preserved in our English team, formerly of pro- 

 geny, now chiefly of horses. A.S. tymen, teman, Eng. teem, is to bring forth, to 

 be stocked or charged. 0. Fries, tarn, O.H.G. zoum, German zaun, is a staked 

 row, stockade, or fence. O.H.G. zeman, is to congregate, probably with the 

 same sexual notion as in gather and gat, treated of below. 



