GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 135 



genialis, nuptial, appertaining to procreation ; and then, 

 as a result of the association of this fundamental 

 appetite with pleasure, we have later the significance 

 joyous, delightful, pleasant, and ultimately our own 

 genial, with no sexual weight at all ! Similarly 

 genialitas is primarily the sexual feast, but ultimately 

 it is joviality, geniality in its most asexual and puri- 

 fied form, as free from the notion of procreation as 

 kindliness is from the primitive sense of kindle. Then 

 we have genius, originally for sexual appetite and fond- 

 ness for good living (i.e. the group -meal), passing 

 through the stages of taste and genial inclination, wit, 

 and character, to be purified as talent. Nor does the 

 range of ideas springing from gen stop here. Generosus 

 means originally one of birth, probably of known birth, 

 who could be enrolled in the Fratria, hence one of good 

 or noble birth, and so to excellency or nobility in the 

 higher sense ; it ultimately reaches in generosity a 

 social quality free from any sexual atmosphere. Com- 

 pare O.H.G cotkunni for guotkunni, glossed generositas. 

 Nay, even nobility itself carries us back to Latin nobilis, 

 or gnobilis, the known or familiar, and gno is but another 

 form of gan; the known or familiar are the cosexual 

 kin-group, the cognati and the cogniti are ultimately 

 the same people, and gnosco stands to genus as kennen 

 and kunst to kind, knabe, and kin. 



The limitation of my evidence to word-fossils does 

 not allow me to enter into the great amount of material 

 which folklore provides concerning the old choral sex- 

 dances ; they find their prototype, however, among 

 nearly all primitive peoples. One word, however, may 

 be referred to here as an illustration. What is a comedy f 



