CIV REPORT OP THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY 



ON REGIMENTATION 



The officers of the liureavi have now been engaged for many 

 years in investigating the institutions of savagery, and while 

 these researches are far from complete and many questions are 

 unsettled it seems desirable, for many reasons, that an outline 

 of certain conclusions should be published. 



Regimentation in sociology is the analog of organization in 

 biology. The accomplishment of justice in institutions is the 

 analog of function in the biotic realm. Often the terms organ 

 and function are transferred from biology to sociology. This 

 double use of terms is a very general device of speech, and is 

 both legitimate and useful when properly understood; but the 

 tenns organ and function are tropes in sociology, and must be 

 so understood lest they should lead astray. By regimentation 

 is meant the grouping of people by institutional bonds, while 

 the accomplishment of justice is the social function or office 

 which a confederation or grouj) of people perfoiins. 



Two radically distinct methods of regimentation are found 

 extant in the world and recorded in the history of the past; 

 these may be known as the tribal system and the national 

 system. By the tribal system men are organized on the l^asis 

 of kinship, real or ai-tificial. By the national system men are 

 organized on the basis of territory. Thus kinship groups are 

 found in tribal society, territorial groups in national society. 

 In history, transitional forms are found, the most important of 

 which are feudal. Thus, feudal society exhibits both methods, 

 and forms a connecting link in the evolution of tribal into 

 national government. 



In savagery families are organized into clans, and clans 

 sometimes into tribes, and tribes into confederacies. Some- 

 times intervening units are discovered, but the family, clan, 

 tril^e, or confederacy are always found. In barbarism fami- 

 lies, gentes, tribes, and confederacies are organized into a hier- 

 archy of units, and there ai"e sometimes intervening units. The 

 difference between the clan of savagery and the gens of bar- 



