i88 KINDRED GROUP-MARRIAGE 



(13) Our investigation of the general words for 

 kinship in the Teutonic dialects has led us to the con- 

 ception of an endogamic group having a common dwell- 

 ing, common land, and common festivals. Kinship and 

 descent are reckoned through the woman, and a woman 

 appears as priestess or tribal-mother (kone, queen) at the 

 head or source of the group. A male leader of the kin- 

 group or clan, the kuninck or zupan was elected by the 

 mahal or bursprake, and became the centre from which 

 the patriarchal system ultimately developed. The sexual 

 freedom within the group, marked by a kinship based on 

 the female, led, as we have seen, to some of the chief 

 words for blood relationship being based on names for 

 the womb. Nor was this all, there was often an 

 apparent identification in name between woman and her 

 sex-organ or functions. 1 Nothing of this kind can be 

 definitely asserted in the case of the male sex-functions ; 

 they are not the origin of any system of kin -names. The 

 male organs of sex are generally termed after some fanciful 

 resemblance, and with no relation to their function. 2 

 Very rarely, indeed, do they give their name to the male, 

 as happens so frequently in the case of the other sex. In 

 Swabia schwanz is used among the peasantry, boorishly, 



1 Of course not every word for womb has been developed into a kin termin- 

 ology. Thus O.H.G. lehtar and href or ref (Tatian speaks of Saint Elizabeth : 

 " thaz kind in ira reve ") have originated no such systems. The former may be 

 related to ligan, lie, as Greek Xe%c6 to \{yw, but this is at any rate obscure. The 

 latter is also difficult. A.S. rif is glossed venter, and rift is rendered velum, vesti- 

 mentum, much as volva is used both of womb and veil. On the other hand, 

 modern rift is a fissure, and leads us to riven, to rive, burst open, and so to the 

 idea in keimen. Some Germans even ventured to connect with corpus ! 



2 The Germanic zagel, zisel, ruthe, pynte, zers, schwanz, etc., are similar to 

 cauda, queue, etc. The same non-functional description appears in A.S. eowend 

 for membrum virile, probably from eowen. An exception must possibly be made 

 in the case of O.H.G. fasel= proles, and M.H.G. vasel=penis. 



