ADMINISTRATIVE RKPORT XXVII 



captives, or adoptees, are usually assigned an "age" cor- 

 responding vidth the time of their entry into the tribe, 

 so that they are compelled thereafter to obey all children 

 then living, and are entitled to command all children sub- 

 sequently born into the tribe, and there is thus a fixed 

 way whereby they attain in time the rank of the con- 

 querors. Moreover, the method of promotion permits 

 any "slave" (that is, captive -junior) to attain "age" by 

 the display of prowess, industry, skill, generosity, or 

 other attributes appealing to the sentiments of primitive 

 men. Among certain other peoples, the custom of collec- 

 tive adoption appears to be so modified that the captives 

 remain juniors not only to members of the captor tribe 

 born anterior to the captivity, but to all others, and it is 

 this modified institution which matures in actual slavery 

 with the development of property -sense ; but even in this 

 case there are (at least in the early stages) devices for the 

 manumission or liberation of, or the acquisition of rank 

 by, captives (or captive -descendants) of exceptional abil- 

 ities. The several primitive customs grade into the insti- 

 tution of slavery proper in ways which are of much 

 interest, but which need not now be followed ; it suffices 

 to emphasize the important distinction between the captive 

 subordination of primitive peoples and the real slavery of 

 some civilized nations. 



In the course of his researches among the Cocopa In- 

 dians Mr McGee discovered several industrial factors of 

 dispersive tendency, that is, factors tending to weaken 

 home ties and family bonds and to scatter the families 

 and clans; and naturally these factors are reflected in 

 the social organization. The tribe is now distributed 

 over an area of several thousand square miles, extending 

 from the International Boundary on the north to the head 

 of salt water (of Gulf of California) on the south, and 

 from the eastern border of the Colorado bottom to the 

 base of Cocopa mountains ; and within this area are seven 

 subtribes, of which some, and perhaps all, are really 

 clans, each organized under a subchief and all definitely 

 united under a head chief, the present incumbent of this 



