202 THE SIOUAN INDIANS [eth. *nn. 15 



by establislicd piohib.tioiis and by clan exogamy; tlionj^li with the 

 advance in orifanizatioii amicable rehvtions with certain other groups 

 are nsually estabbslied. whereby the germ of tribal organization is 

 implanted and a system ot interclan marriage, or tribal entlogamy, is 

 developed. With lurther advance the mother-descent group is trans- 

 formed into a father-descent group, wiien the clan is replaced by the 

 gens; and polygamy is a conunon feature of the gentile organization. 

 In all of these stages the conjugal and cousanguineal regulations are 

 afl'e(!ted by the militant habits characteristic of ])rinntive giou])S; more 

 warriors than women are slain in battle, and there are more female 

 captives than male; and thus the polygamy is mainly or wholly 

 polygyny. In many cases civil conditions combine with or i)artially 

 replace the militant conditions, yet the tendency of conjugal develoj)- 

 ment is not changed. Among the Seri Indians, ])robably the most 

 primitive tribe in North America, in which the demotic unit is the 

 clan, there is a rigorous marriage custom under which the would-be 

 groom is required to enter the family of the girl and demonstrate (1) 

 his capacity as a i)rovider and (2) his strength of character as a man, 

 by a year's probation, before he is linally accepted — the conjugal the- 

 ory of the tribe being monogamy, though the practice, at least during 

 recent years, has, by reason of conditions, passed into polygyny. 

 Among several other tribes of more provident and less exclusive habit, 

 the first of the two conditions recognized by the Seri is met by rich 

 presents (representing accumulated i)roi)erty) from the groom to the 

 girl's family, the second condition being usually ignored, the clan 

 organization remaiidng in force; among still other tribes the first con- 

 dition is more or less vaguely recognized, though the voluntary present 

 is commuted into, or replaced by, a negotiated value exacted by the 

 girfs fimily, when the mother descent is conmionly vestigial; and in 

 the next stage, which is abundantly exemplified, wife-purchase pre- 

 vails, and the chui is rephiceil by the gens. In this succession the 

 development of wife-purchase and the decadence of mother-descent 

 may be traced, and it is significant that there is a tendency first toward 

 ])artial enslavement of the wife and later toward the multiplication of 

 wives to the limit of the husband's means, and toward transforming 

 all, or all but one, of the wives into menials. Thus the lines of devel- 

 opment under militant and civil conditions are essentially parallel. It 

 is possible to project these lines some distance backward into the 

 unknown of the exceedingly i)rimitive, when they are found to define 

 small discrete T)odies — ^just such as are indicated by the institutional 

 and linguistic lines — probably family groups, which must have beeu 

 essentially, and were i)erhai)s strictly, monogamous. It would ap])ear 

 that in these groups mating was either between distant members 

 (under a law of attraction toward the remote and repulsion from the 

 near, which is shared by mankind and the higher animals), or the result 

 of a(;cidental meeting between nul)ile members of different groups; 

 that in the se(;ond case and sometimes in the first the conjugation 



