142 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



the Edda, Heimdall says : " I am nine mothers' child, 

 I am nine sisters' son " ; a passage which has much 

 troubled the commentators, 1 but which is more intel- 

 ligible from the standpoint of group-marriage. 



In later German the origin of mac is quite obscured. 

 With the growth of patriarchal notions, terms like 

 Icunkelmdc, spindelmdc, muotermdc, were used to dis- 

 tinguish relatives on the mother's side from the vatermdc, 

 germdc, swertmdc, relatives on the father's side. A.S. 

 feeder encyn, fcederingmag, for father's relatives may 

 be compared. In reality the words are the misnomers 

 of an age which also produced kueniginne. 



The sexual side of the word mdc is found in magan, 

 which occurs in mediaeval dialect, and Swabian mogen, 

 mugen, all meaning to procreate. Further in gemaht, 

 gemahti, for the male as well as female sex-organs, and 

 in modern German gemdchte for those of the male. 2 

 Grimm sees in the latter word a modern evaluation with 

 the sense of power ; but the A. S. gemaecnes, glossed 

 cohabitatio, is against this, and I am inclined to think 

 the notion of power in mdc may be largely derived from 

 kin as a source of strength, a widespread primitive ex- 

 perience. The procreated are the mdc or the gimageda. 

 It is to the last word we will now turn for further light 

 on the kin-group life. 



Gamahhida is glossed conjunctio, sodalitas, affinitas, 

 congregatio, consortium foedus, cohibentia, conviventia. 

 In other words, a union or gathering together for con- 



1 One of the latest, Prof. Rhys, finds in Heimdall a solar or light myth, and 

 in his nine mothers evidence of a nonary week ! See similar cases of many 

 mothers' children cited on pp. 203, 235. 



2 Machen is still used for any natural office in Swiss and other dialects. 



