From Savagery to Civilization 57 



Travelers have found among surviving tribes 

 of savages many bizarre customs. Many explana- 

 tions have been offered as to the origin, mean- 

 ing and usefulness of these customs to the tribes 

 practicing them, but we are not here concerned 

 with the origin of any particular custom. We 

 may simply assume that each custom arose from 

 some particular circumstance without troubling 

 ourselves to inquire what those circumstances 

 were. If a custom adopted for any reason what- 

 ever proved advantageous to the tribe in its strug- 

 gle with other tribes we may assume that the 

 tribe adopting the custom would be likely to sur- 

 vive. If a custom adopted proved disadvan- 

 tageous, the tribe adopting it would become more 

 than ordinarily liable to extinction. Hence, we 

 may assume that those customs which we now 

 find widely prevalent among surviving tribes are, 

 in some way, advantageous to the welfare of 

 the tribes adopting them. 



One of the widely prevalent customs among 

 savages is that of "exogamy," a term proposed 

 by McLennan for the custom of compelling mar- 

 riage out of the tribe. It is the converse of 

 "endogamy/' which is the practice of compelling 



