POWELL] SOCIOLOGY CXIII 



remained in the custody of their ciiptors tell us of the signifi- 

 cance of the custom. Modern scientific investigation clearly 

 reveals its nature. There seems to be a desire among savage 

 people to increase their numbers by incorporating captives 

 into the body politic. Such captives are often selected to take 

 the place of pei'sons killed or captured by the enemy. Some- 

 times the captive is required to exhibit his courage and skill 

 by causing him to " run the gantlet," and if he emerges from 

 the ordeal with honor some woman adopts him as her son. 

 When he is thus taken into the clan, his birth dates from his 

 adoption. He is therefore younger to all the members of the 

 clan who at that time are living, but he is elder to those sub- 

 sequently born. The captive may be promoted from time to 

 time as other members of the clan if he wins such promotions 

 ^y good conduct. He may thus become the elder-man of the 

 clan or even the chief of the tribe or confederacy. There are 

 cii'cumstances under which the captive is refused promotion, 

 as, for example, when captives are taken from hereditary ene- 

 mies who are believed to be sorcerers, or who are popularly 

 believed to be cannibals — that is, to eat human bodies for food 

 instead of in a ceremony of magic, which is the universal prac- 

 tice. The captive is thus doomed to perpetual youngership, if 

 the term may be permitted — that is, to perpetual servitude — 

 because all other members of the tribe may consider him as 

 last born and never to be advanced in age. In savagery there 

 seems to be l)ut little evidence of this state ; but when in bar- 

 barism agricultural and zoocultural industries are organized, 

 and other industries are carried on for exchange, then the labor 

 of captives becomes an important factor in the industrial life 

 of the people, so that captives are taken, not simply to reduce 

 the numerical power of enemies and to increase the numerical 

 power of the captors, but they are also taken as laborers; then 

 labor slavery is first developed. Before this stage family slav- 

 ery only exists. In the brief account which we are giving, 

 what seems to be a radical change must always be considered 

 not as instantaneous but as requiring centuries of history with 

 its vicissitudes. Many diflerent examples, occurring at differ- 

 ent times, furnish instances of evolution representing only a 

 20 ETH — <I3 Yin 



