MCGEE] CLASSIFICATION OF TRIBAL SOCIETY 203 



produced a nevr monogamic family; and that sometimes iu the first oase 

 (and possibly in the secoud) the new group retained a more or less 

 definite connection with the parent group — this connection coustituting 

 the germ of the clan. In passing, it may be noted merely that this 

 inferential origin of the lines of institutional development is in accord 

 with the habits of certain higher and incipieutly organized animals. 

 From this hypothetic beginning, primitive marriage may be traced 

 through the various observed stages of monogamy and polygamy and 

 concubinage and wife-subordination, through savagery and barbarism 

 and into civilization, with its curious combination of exoteric monog- 

 amy and esoteric promiscuity. Fortunately the burden of the proof 

 of this evolution does not now rest wholly on the evidence obtained 

 among the American aborigines; for Westermarck has recently re- 

 viewed the records of observation among the primitive peoples of many 

 lands, and has found traces of the same se(iueuce in all.' Thus the 

 evolution of marriage, like that of other human institutions, is from 

 the simple and definite to the complex and variable; i. e., from approx- 

 imate or complete monogamy through polygamy to a mixed status of 

 undetermined signification ; or from the mechanical to the spontaneous; 

 or from the involuntary to the voluntary; or from the proYincial to the 

 cosmopolitan. 



As implied in several foregoing paragraphs, and as clearly set forth 

 in various publications by Powell, tribal society falls into two classes 

 or stages — (1) clan organization and (2) gentile organization, these 

 stages corresponding respectively to savagerj' and barbarism, strictly 

 defined. 



At the time of discovery, most of the American Indians were in the 

 np])er stages of savagery and the lower stages of barbarism, as defined 

 by organization ; among some tribes descent was reckoned in the fenmle 

 line, though definite matriarchies have not been discovered; among 

 several tribes descent was and still is reckoned in the male line, and 

 among all of the tribes thus fixr investigated the patriarchal system is 

 found. 



In tribal society, botli clan and gentile, the entire social structure is 

 based on real or assumed kinship, and a large i)art of the demotic 

 devices are designed to establish, perpetuate, and advertise kinsliip 

 relations. As already indicated, the cons^iicuous devices in order of 

 development are the taboo with the ijrohibitions growing out of it, 

 kinship nomenclatvire and regulations, and a system of ordination by 

 which incongruous things are brought into association. 



Among the American Indians the taboo and derivative prohibitions 

 are used chiefly in connection with marriage and clan or gentile organ- 

 ization. INlarriage in the clan or gens is prohibited ; among nniuy tribes 

 a vestige of the inferential primitive condition is found iu the curious 



• The History of Human Marriage (London. ISiH), esi>ecially chapters i\-vi, xiii-xv, xx-xxii. 



