GENERAL WORDS FOR SEX AND KINSHIP 161 



rendered by sibba si iu and vade in pace by far in sibbu 

 in Tatian. We see in these phrases the primitive man 

 going away in safety amid his kin. Unsippe is seditio, 

 hostility, unfriendliness ; unsibja is iniqua. Gasibbo and 

 gasibba are glossed consanguineus and consanguinea, 

 the male and female blood-relative. In M.L.G. sibbert 

 is the blood - relati ve ; A.S. gives as its equivalent 

 sibling (Landsmaal sivjung and O.N. sifjungr), and 

 has also sibsum and ungesibsum for peaceful and hostile. 

 Gothic gasibjon is to pacify, and unsibis is one who is 

 an outlaw, i.e. not of the blood bond. The sipzal and 

 siptzal is the enumeration of the clan, the ' tale ' of 

 the relatives. Norse sift and svift are kin, and I suspect 

 English sept for clan is really the same, and not a 

 corruption of sect as Skeat supposes. English gossip, 

 of course, comes from the same source. I doubt very 

 much whether the god in the original godsib is to be 

 associated with god, 1 but rather corresponds to the god 

 in goodman, or godeman, with the sense of pater- 

 familias, the head of the sibbe. If so, gossibraede 

 becomes identical with cynraede and hiwraede in 

 sense, and our modern gossip expresses exactly the 

 primitive intimacy of the kin. So far, with the excep- 

 tion of the idea in Sif, the goddess of fertility and of the 

 family, the sexual notion has not been shown to enter 

 into sib. But while Norse sifi is a friend, sjafni is a 

 wooer, a lover, and sjofn is a bride. In Prussia 

 gesippe is used of a dissolute and lewd company. 

 This is very probably not a complete degeneration of 

 the sib notion, but a retention and an emphasis of the 



1 I shall return later to the primitive value of the godparents. 

 VOL. II M 



