POWELL] SOCIOLOGY cm 



other conditions under which men become polyg-amists, but 

 they are not very common in savage society. In the same 

 manner, there are cases in which the women of the clan are few 

 as compared with the men to whom they are due ; and, hence, 

 one woman becomes the common wife of several men. This 

 is polyandry. It is not certain that polyandry has ever pre- 

 vailed in an Amerind tribe ; but certain forms of polyandry are 

 found elsewhere, especially in Australia, where the clan system 

 has an aberrant development, doubtless due to the develo[)nieut 

 of man}- tribes of the same linguistic stock, and to the spread 

 of the same totemic clan largely over the Australian continent. 



Another organization, which involves all civdc relations, must 

 now be explained. There is a body of men (and sometimes of 

 women also) who are known as medicine-men or shamans, and 

 sometimes as priests, who control all religious ceremonies and 

 who are diviners. As disease is supposed to be the work of 

 human or animal sorcery, it is their function to prevent or 

 to thwart it. They have the management of all ceremonies 

 relating to war, hunting, fishing, and the gathering of the 

 fruits of field and forest. It is tlieir office to provide ceremo- 

 nies for abundant harvests, to regulate the climate, and gen- 

 erally to divine and control good and evil. The principal 

 shamans are men; but all the peojde are united into shanian- 

 istic societies. Usually there is some determined number of 

 these societies, over each of which some particular shaman 

 presides, and he has subordinates, each one of wliom has some 

 particular office (tr function to perform in the societies. Some- 

 times a person may belong to two or more of these societies; 

 usuall}- he has the privilege to join any one, and a revered or 

 successful shaman will gatiier a great society, while a sliaman 

 of less influence will preside over a feebler society. 



Let us call these societies ecclesiastical corporations, and 

 the shamans priests. The way in which they are regimented 

 and controlled differs from tribe to tribe, and there is a great 

 variety of ceremonial observances. In all civic councils the 

 ecclesiastical authorities take part and have specified functions 

 to perform; and they introduce into civic life the ceremonies 

 which they believe will produce good fortune. Perhaps the 



