CHAPTER IT. 



ELDEST MALE DESCENDANTS AS QUASI-PKIESTS. 



597. THOUGH in the earliest stages sacrifices to tlie 

 ghost of the dead man are made by descendants in general, 

 yet in conformity with the law of the instability of the 

 homogeneous, an inequality soon arises : the propitiatory 

 function falls into the hands of one member of the group. 

 Of the Samoans we read that &quot; the father of the family was 

 the high-priest? The like was true of the Tahitians : 

 &quot; in the family . . . the father was the priest.&quot; Of Mada 

 gascar, Drury says &quot;Every man here ... is a Priest foi 

 himself and Family.&quot; Similarly in Asia. Among the 

 Ostyaks &quot; the father of a family was the sole priest, 

 magician, and god maker;&quot; and among the Gonds religious 

 rites are &quot; for the most part performed by some aged relative.&quot; 

 With higher races it is, or has been, the same. By existing 

 Hindoos the daily offering to ancestors is made by the head 

 of the family. While &quot; every good Chinaman regularly, every 

 day, burns incense before the tablet to his father s memory,&quot; 

 on important occasions the rites are performed by the head 

 of the brotherhood. That family-headship brought the like 

 duties in respect of manes-worship among Greeks and 

 Romans, needs no showing. Speaking of primitive Sabreans, 

 Palgrave says &quot;presidence in worship was, it seems, the 

 privilege merely of greater age or of family headship ; &quot; and 

 even amon^ the Jews, to whom propitiation of the dead had 



