286* THE SERI INDIANS [eth. ann. 17 



might be said also of various South Auierican, African, and southeast- 

 ern Asian customs. 



Certain representative North American customs have already been 

 seriated in connection with the Seri customs, and their relations are of 

 sufficient signirtcance to warrant recapitulation. The series begins 

 with the maternally organized and practically propertyless Seri. Next 

 stand the Zuni, with an essentially maternal organization, the vestigial 

 moral test of the groom noted by Gushing, and a concomitant material 

 test \'erging on ])urchase; so, too, monogamy persists, while the func- 

 tion remains largely collective, and is regulated by the elders, though 

 the bride enjoys special prerogatives; and the lien^e tribal endogamy 

 is relaxed, though clan exogamy is enforced. Measurably simihir to 

 those of the Zuiii are the marital customs of the peaceful Tarahumari 

 tribe of northern Mexico and the once warlike Seneca tribe of north- 

 eastern United States, although among both of these more cosmojjolitau 

 peoi^les the regulations are less closely similar to the Seri customs than 

 are those of the Pueblo tribe named. Next in order of marital dif- 

 ferentiation stand the Kwakiutl and Salish tribes of British Colum- 

 bia, in which the social organization lias jiractically passed into the 

 paternal stage; here the laws of monogamy, clan exogamy, and tribal 

 endogamy are materially relaxed, the moral test is lost among the 

 Kwakiutl and reduced to a curious vestige among the Salish, while the 

 material test is commuted into the making of expensive presents. Still 

 more remote from the initial stage is the marriage of the paternally 

 organized Omaha, among whom tribal endogamy is prevalent but not 

 absolute, while polygyny is customary; among whom the moral test 

 seems wholly obsolete, while the material test is completely replaced by 

 purchase (or at least by the interchange of expensive presents) ; and 

 among whom, concordantly, the feminine i>rivileges are few and the 

 females are i)ractically degrade<l to the rank of property of male kindred 

 or spouses. These several customs fall into a natural order or series 

 definitely coordinated with the esthetic, the industrial or economic, and 

 the general institutional or social conditions of the respective tribes; 

 and it is noteworthy tliat they mark successive stages in that jjassage 

 from the mechanical to the spontaneous which characterizes demotic 

 activity. ' 



In brief, ethnogamy, as exemplified by the type tribe, accompanies 

 that strictly maternal organization which marks the lowest known stage 

 of social development; it accompanies also a rudimentary esthetic con- 

 dition ill which decorative symbols are restricted to tlie expression of 

 maternal relation; ic accompanies, in like manner, an inchoate economic 



'Of. The Beginning of Marriag"^, op. cit. The conclusion from the details iliseuased in this paper is 

 as follows : " Summarizing the tendencies revealed in this history, it would appear that the course of 

 evolution [of conjugal institutions] has been from the simple to the complex, from the detinite to the 

 indefinite, from the general to the special, from the lixed to the variable, from the involuntary to 

 the voluntary, from the mechanical to the spontaneous, from llie provincial to the cosmopolitan, or, in 

 brief, from the chiefiy biotic to the wholly demotic " (p. 283). 



