78 PRIMITIVE PATERNITY 



of the bride's parents, or if they are dead that of her 

 brothers, is always "necessary to the marriage. Divorce 

 is easy : the slightest pretext is sufficient for a sepa- 

 ration, and the wife's mother can always command a 

 divorce. Either party can then re-marry. 1 A similar 

 account is given of the connubial customs of the 

 Eskimo of Northern Alaska. 2 



Turning to the Pacific slope of North America let 

 us first examine the relative positions of man and 

 woman and the marital relations among the Seri of the 

 Californian Gulf. They are the wildest and fiercest of 

 all the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, and 

 among the lowest of known peoples in the entire world. 

 The island of Tiburon, the centre and citadel of the 

 tribe, has nevefr been visited by any competent ex- 

 plorer who has succeeded in coming in contact with 

 the people. It was visited in December 1896 by a 

 scientific party under the leadership of Dr. W. J. McGee, 

 but the natives had fled to their fastnesses and could 

 not be drawn forth. Our information about them is 

 derived from Dr. McGee's report, based on observation 

 of members of the tribe on the mainland, which is 

 Mexican territory, and the statements of interpreters 

 and officials of that rugged and forbidding tract of 

 country. The indigenous name of the tribe is Kunkdak 

 apparently meaning womanhood, or more probably 

 motherhood. Men count for comparatively little among 

 this strange people. Their organisation is strictly 

 maternal. "The tribe is made up of clans defined by 

 consanguinity reckoned only in the female line. Each 



1 Boas, Rep. Bur. Ethn. vi. 578. 



2 Murdoch, Id. ix. 410. A slightly different account is given of 

 the more southerly Eskimo, Nelson, Id. xviii. 291. 



