ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXV 



or imputed) , and secoudai'ily on age ; and the relations 

 gi-owing out of these factors are kept constantly in the 

 mind of every member of each elan and tribe by habitual 

 forms of address. So the constituent individuals of a 

 given clan are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, 

 brothers and sisters, and these relationships are constantly 

 indicated in salutations, and even in ordinary conversa- 

 tion (the precise relationship to the speaker being com- 

 monly expressed also by a pronominal element) . At the 

 same time it is constantly borne in mind that father and 

 son, mother and daughter, are not coordinate, the for- 

 mer being the superior by reason of greater age ; similarly 

 brethren are classed as elder brothers and younger broth- 

 ers, while the female kindred of the same generation are 

 classed as elder sisters and younger sisters, and the elder 

 aye always deemed superior, the younger inferior, in rank. 

 By simple and practical extension of the system, the rela- 

 tive ages of all persons in the clan are kept in mind ; and 

 since, according to the universal usage of savagery (so far 

 as known), superior age confers authority, there is a prac- 

 tically simple, though theoretically complex, regimenta- 

 tion running through the entire elan, whereby the eldest 

 person commands all and obeys none, while the youngest 

 person obeys all and commands none, and each other per- 

 son is entitled to command and bound to obey in the direct 

 proportion of relative age. This regimentation is com- 

 plicated by various factors, such as adoption, and (espe- 

 cially) what may be called promotion and demotion, that 

 is, advancement in "age" (rank) by common consent in 

 recognition of prowess, etc., with correlative reduction in 

 " age '■ as the penalty for cowardice, etc., so that the actual 

 age relations may be completely lost; yet the imputed 

 relationship serves practical purposes, and the organiza- 

 tion is maintained with unimpaired efficiency by means of 

 relationship terms. The same system is extended from 

 the elan to the tribe, in which the several clans are 

 ranked in the order of "age" (of course imputed), and 

 eventually to the tribes united in confederacies ; so at last 



