OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. LIII 



Again, the members of enatic clans do not always have a 

 common name. This has been found true of most of the Sho- 

 shonian tribes of North America, of the Wintuns, and of other 

 peoples in the western portion of the United States. Whether 

 a common name was never used, or whether such common 

 names have been lost in the flux of time is uncertain. A com- 

 mon name, therefore, is not an invariable characteristic of a 

 dan. 



The most enduring characteristics of a clan, therefore, are 

 these: enatic or agnatic kinship, exogamy, and feud-protection. 

 But even these may be distributed among different groups; so 

 that the ideal definition of a clan above given will apply in all 

 its parts to but few clans; yet in most of its parts it will apply 

 to nearly all clans. But there are cases when these character- 

 istics are so distributed through the various groups of a body- 

 politic that it will be well-nigh impossible to decide which 

 should be called the clan. Under such circumstances it per- 

 haps will be best to apply the term "clan" to the group based 

 upon enation or agnation, as the case may be, and perhaps it 

 will always be found that such a group is exogamous. 



In Australia there seems to be another complication. Fison 

 and Howitt describe a very peculiar condition of affairs which 

 seems to extend through many of the tribes of that great island. 

 Among them, marriage within a prescribed group still remains. 

 Enatic kinship, a tutelar god, and a common name still attach 

 to the clan, but clans are divided into many segments constitut- 

 ing the different tribes. It seems also that a limited marriage, 

 or the right to temporary sexual association, is still communal. 

 It seems further that two or more systems of tribes are in 

 somewhat the same stage of institutional culture. These dif- 

 ferent systems of tribes appear not to be cognate, or, if cog- 

 nate, they are very remotely so. But having been long asso- 

 ciated, and having common institutions in the respects above 

 named, the clans in the different non-cognate tribes have be- 

 come assimilated, so that a clan with a totemic name in one 

 group of tribes has come to be considered as the equivalent of 

 another clan having another totemic name in another group 



