906 



nEroRT — 18vS4. 



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gone miicli raodificafion. Thus 150 years n;,'o Fatluu' Lafitau mentions tliat the 

 husband and wife, while in t'lict niovinfj; into one unotliei's hut, or settin;; ui) iv 

 new one, still kept up the matriixrehal idea h\ the ti<;tion thai neither lu^ nor s!ie 

 quitted their own niaterniil house. IJut in tiie Sunnilra district ju.st rderrtil tn 

 tho uiutriarchal system may still l)e seen in actual existence, in a most extreme ami' 

 probably early form. If, led by such new evidence, we look at the map of the 

 world from this point of view, there discloses itself a reuuirkable faet of .social 

 f^eography. It is seen that matriarelial exo^umous society, that is, .society with 

 female descent and prohibition of marriaire witliin the elan, does not crop iip in i. 

 and there, as if it Avere an Isolated invention, but characterises a whole va.st n'^'i(i:\ 

 of the world. It' the .Malay district ho taken as a centre, tiie .sy.stem of iiitcv- 

 marryiuf^ mother-clans may be followed westw nrd into Asia, amoii;; the Gaid.s ami 

 other hill tribes of India. Kastwiird from the Indian Arehipelajro it jx'rvades tin- 

 Melantisian islands, with remains in I'olynesia; it prevails widely in Australi;i. 

 and stretches nortii and south in the Americas. Tiiis immense district rejiresents 

 an area of lower culture, where matriurchalism lias only in places yielded to the 

 patriarchal system, which tlevelopes with the idea of property, and which, in tin 

 other and more civilised half of the glolx', lias carried all befoi'e it, only showiiitf i:: 

 isolated spots and by relics of custom the former existtmce of matriarchal society. 

 Such a geofrraphical view of the matriarchal re<,'ion makes intellif,dble facts which 

 while not thus seen to<;ether were most puzzliiif^. When years ajro 8ir (teorgc 

 Grey .studied the customs of tho Australians, it seemed to him a siuffular co- 

 incidence that a man whose maternal family name was Knnji'arno miffht not 

 marry a womanof the same name, just as if he had been a ] luron of the liear or Turtle 

 +otem, prohibited accordinp^ly from takinj,' a wife of the same. But when we have 

 the facts more completely before us, Australia and Canada are seen to be only tlif 

 far ends of a world-district pervaded by these ideas, and the problem becomes sucl! 

 a one as naturalists are quite accustomed to. Though Montreal and Melbounu 

 are far apart, it may be that in prehisioric times they were both ccmnected with 

 Asia by lines of social institution as real as those wluch in modern times connect 

 them through Europe. Though it is only of late that this problem of ancient 

 society has received the attention it deserves, it is but fair to mention how lonj: | 

 ago its scientific study began in the part of the world where we are assemhltd. \ 

 Father Lafit<au, whose ' ]Mceurs des Sauvages Ameriquains ' was published in 17:i4. j 

 carefully describes among the Iroquois and Hurons the system of Irinship to whicli i 

 Morgan has since given the namt; of ' classificatory,' where the mother's sisters an- 

 reckoned as mothers, and so on. It is remarkable to find this acute Jesuit mission- 

 ary already pointing out how the idea of the husband being an intruder in hi? j 

 wife's house bears on the ])retence of surreptitioueness in marriage among tliej 

 Spartans. lie even rationally interprets in this way a cu.stom which to us seeiu-^j 

 fantastic, but which is a most serious observance among rude tribes widely spread j 

 over the world. A usual form of this custom is that the husband and his parent.'^-l 

 in-law, especially his mother-in-law, con.sider it shameful to speak to or look at oiie] 

 another, hiding themselves or getting out of the way, at least in pretence, if they 

 meet. The comic absurdity of these scenes, such as Tanner describes among tlu-j 

 Assineboins, disajjpears if they are to be understood as a legal ceremony, implyin^rj 

 that the husband has nothing to do with his wife's family. To this part of the! 

 world also belongs a word which has been more eftective than any treatise inl 

 bringing the matriarchal system of society into notice. This is the term totevii 

 introduced by Schoolcraft to describe the mother-clans of the Algonquins, namedj 

 ' Wolf,' ' Bear,' &c. Uiduckily the word is wrongly made. Professor Max MiilkrI 

 has lately called attention to the remarlc of the Canadian philologist Father Cuof[J 

 (N. O. Ancien Missiounaire), that the word is properly ate, meaniiig 'family maikl 

 possessive otem, and with the personal pronoun nind otem, 'my family mark,' ht2 

 otem, ' thy family mark.' It may be seen in Schoolcraft's own sketch of AlgoiKitmif 

 grammar how lie erroneously made from these a word totem, and the questi ml 

 ought perhaps to be gone into in this Section, whether the term had best be kept iipl 

 or amended, or a new terra substituted. It is quite worth while to discuss th-t 

 name, considering what an important question of anthropology is involved in tliel 



such as, f( 



