144 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



inopportune, hostile, unfitting, evil, the glosses are 

 onerosus, injuriosus, improbus, mains. In a word, we 

 have another instance of the kin origin of terms marking 

 comfort, fitness, and goodness, such as we have already 

 noted in kind and behaglich. 



A shorter form of the adjective is A.S. gamah, 

 gemaca ; it expresses the same idea and is glossed in the 

 same way idoneus, habilis, sodalis, communis. Kamah 

 sin denotes to be bound together, foederentur. From 

 this comes a noun gimah, gimacha originally standing 

 like gamahhida for the entire group or gens, but very 

 early appropriated to its dwelling-place. It ultimately 

 denotes a house, or even a collection of houses. Thus 

 we frequently find it in the Tyrol for village names 

 (Obergemach), and for villagers' names (Gemactil). It 

 is exactly the same transition as in haia, which is first 

 the hive group and then the hive home. 



To connect gemach, the home of the gamahhida, with 

 the haia or haga of the hiwun we have the term 

 gemachzaun, a word used in Bavaria for one of the three 

 customary modes of fencing or hedging, to which certain 

 privileges attached. A somewhat similar term is the 

 gemachmuhl of the Salzburg district, a mill built by 

 a small group of peasants, probably originally forming a 

 markgenossenschaft, to supply their own needs. 



How little does the modern German, gemcichlich in 

 his gemach, realise the anthropological value of these 

 terms ! Their picture of the old kinship with their 

 group-marriage, happy in their common dwelling, is 

 not even a dream to him. The idea of pleasure, of what 

 is fitting and good, attached to the word gimahlih 



