POWELL] SOCIOLOGY XCIX 



multitudinous. The earlier writers on maiTiaffe customs in 

 tribal society culled from the literature of travel a vast body 

 of stories about tabus in marriage; and it was finally con- 

 cluded that certain tribes required their tribesmen to marry 

 women who were foreigners and aliens. This was called 

 exogamy. Then it was held that other tribes recjuired or 

 permitted their tribesmen to take wives within the tribe, and 

 this was called endogamj^. So an attempt was made to 

 classify the tribes of mankind, not only in America, but else- 

 where, into two groups, the exogamous and the endogamous. 



Now, we luaderstand that in all tribal society there is an 

 endogamous or incest grouj), which we call the clan in sav- 

 agery, and the gens in barbarism; while at the same time the 

 clansmen usually marry within the tribe by regulations which 

 vary g-reatly from people to peoj^le. It seems that the ties of 

 marriage are used to bind difterent peoples together in one 

 lai-ger group which we call the tribe, and that the clans of a 

 tribe may at one time have been distinct tribes; that when 

 tribes become weak, or desire to form permanent alliances with 

 other tribes for offensive and defensive purposes, such tribes 

 agree to become elans of a united body, and by treatv confirm 

 the bargain by pledging not to marry women within their own 

 groups, liut to exchange women with one another. "Give us 

 your daughters for wives and we will give you our daughters 

 for wives." Such a bargain or treaty, enforced for many gen- 

 erations as customary law, ultimately becomes sacred, and mar- 

 riage within the group is incest. Perhaps there is no people, 

 tribal or national, which has not an incest group; so all peoples 

 are endogamous, as all peoples are necessarily exogamous. 

 The distinction set forth by McLennan proves to be invalid 

 everywhere and among all peoples. 



Among the tribes of America there are many customs estao- 

 lishing the group within which a person may marry. It may 

 be that a man may marry within any clan but his own, or it 

 may be that a man must marrv within some particular clan. 

 Sometimes there is a series of clans, which we will call A, B, 

 C, T), and A". A man of A nuist marrv a woman of B ; a man 

 of B must marry a woman of C ; a man of C must marry a 



