i88i] ANIMAL WORSHIP AND ANIMAL TRIBES 469 



tection of the Sultan, any woman who pleases may indulge 

 her corrupt desires, and neither her father nor her nearest 

 relative can interfere &quot; (vol. ii. pp. 228, 230). Thus many 

 centuries after Mohammed the ancient polyandry was 

 still practically kept up, at least in Southern Arabia, in 

 a grosser form than that described by Strabo. Such a 

 custom necessarily produces a system of female kinship, 

 and we may therefore presume that in the modern 

 marriages between brother and sister in Mirbat, for which 

 Knobel on Lev. xviii. 6 cites the testimony of Seetzen, the 

 relationship was through the father as in the case cited 

 in last footnote. There is abundance of other evidence 

 for the system of female kinship in occasional hints in the 

 older Arabic histories and legends, and it is indifferent for 

 our purpose whether the record is in each case historically 

 accurate or not. The queen of Sheba is the oldest evidence 

 in point, for queens do not belong to the patriarchal system. 

 The famous queen Zabba is a similar case. There are 

 several instances in the old history where the succession 

 is said to have gone to a sister s son (Abulf. H.A.-I. p. 118, 

 1. 1, p. 122, 1. 6) . With this agrees the widespread practice 

 of distinguishing princes by their mother s names (Nold. 

 ut supra, p. 170). The same usage is found in tribal 

 names. The Beni Chindif are expressly said to bear the 

 name of their mother &quot; not mentioning their father 

 Ilyas &quot; (Abulf. p. 196, 1. 4). In the same way the Beni 

 Mozeyna are named from their mother (ib. 1. 6) ; a custom 

 which necessarily implies that children belong to the 

 mother ; and her people were found in Zebid as late as the 

 time of Ibn Batuta (ii. p. 167 seq.). The women readily 

 consented to marry strangers, who might depart when 

 they pleased, but the children remained with the mother, 

 whom no inducement could draw from her native place. 

 These facts appear sufficient to prove that Arabia did pass 

 through a stage in which family relations and the marriage 

 law satisfied the conditions of the totem system, and in 

 which on that system the distribution of animal sub- tribes 



