ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT CXV 



and that personal property is inherited 1)y the grave, while 

 clan and tribal property belong- to a perpetual person. Theft 

 sometimes lint rarely occurs ; when it does, the (ibject stolen 

 maybe restored; when it can not be restored, the theft is com- 

 pounded in some multiple proportion. The only corpoi-ations 

 in savagery are ecclesiastic, and crimes against the medicine 

 societies are those which result from the dividging of secrets 

 or the teaching of rites by unauthorized persons or the exer- 

 cise of such rites b}^ persons incompetent therefor. Proceed- 

 ings for witchci'aft are conducted by the ecclesiastic bodies. 



Such, in outline, are the plan of regimentation and the fun- 

 damental principles of justice recognized in the most primi- 

 tive tribal states found among mankind. This stage of society 

 is known as savagery. Savages are primitive s^dA'an men; 

 they are denizens of forest and wold without the skill neces- 

 sary to clear away the forests and establish higlier agriculture 

 and domesticate herds of animals. When these feats are ac- 

 complished, then men are said to have reached the stage of 

 barbarism. 



Savagery graduall}' develops into barbarism and barbarism 

 itself is represented in the plan of regimentation, which involves 

 a change in constitution, legislation, execution, administration, 

 and adjudication. The change of regimentation is represented 

 by the extinction of the clan and its i-eplacement by the gens. 

 The term gens is here used to mean the unit of go\'erment 

 herein described as a group of persons who reckon consan- 

 guineal kinship in the male line. 



We have already described the double organization of every 

 savage tribe as civil and ecclesiastic, and noted the conflict 

 which arises between the groups as thus organized. A power- 

 ful ecclesiastic organization will sometimes absorb the civil 

 organization, especially when the i)riest and elderman is the 

 same person. Quite often the sacerdotal office is hereditary, 

 descending from father to son, and thus grows up a method of 

 reckoning kinship in the male line as fundamental. Now 

 there are many circumstances in primiti\e life whicli reinforce 

 this tendency. When the men of the clan have to g-o to the 

 annual fishing ground for the summer catch, thev take with 



