286 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



on behalf of his father or uncle, accounts to him for the 

 proceeds and receives a share of the profit. And at 

 length his father and uncle together negotiate a bride 

 for him. The mother has naturally the charge and 

 teaching of her daughter ; but the father is consulted 

 as to her marriage and cheerfully takes his share of the 

 brandy and other gifts furnished by the bridegroom. 1 

 The Fanti Customary Laws have been expounded by 

 Mr. Sarbah, a native barrister, in an elaborate treatise 

 which throws much light on the present condition of 

 the Fanti family. Without discussing details, many 

 of which are foreign to our present purpose, it may 

 be stated generally that the Fanti are matrilineal. 

 The head of the family is usually (but not always) the 

 eldest male member in the line of descent. He has 

 control over all the members ; he is their natural 

 guardian ; he alone can sue or be sued, as the repre- 

 sentative of the family, respecting claims on the 

 family possessions. Wit! in his compound the head 

 of a family reigns supreme not only over his younger 

 brothers and sisters and the children of the latter but 

 also over his own wives and children. But he cannot 

 pawn his child without the concurrence of the mother's 

 relations ; and children who have left his compound 

 to reside with their maternal uncle are no longer 

 under his power : they are wholly subject to their 

 uncle. 2 The Negro has carried these customs in 

 even a more archaic form to South America. The 

 Bush Negro husband in Surinam does not live with 

 his wife and often has wives in several different places. 

 The maternal uncle supplies his place in the family. 3 



1 Zeits.f. Ethnol. xxxviii. 43. 2 Sarbah, 31, 39, 50, 86, 5, 9. 

 3 Potter, 115, citing Zeits. vergl. Rechtsw. xi. 420. 



