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NA TURE 



\_Sept. 4, 1884 



their nnn maternal house. But in the Sumatra district just 

 referred to, the matriarchal system may still be seen in actual 

 existence, in a most extreme and probably early form. If, led 

 by such new evidence, we look at the map of the world from this 

 point of view, there discloses itself a remarkable fact of social 

 geography, ft is seen that matriarchal exogamous society, that 

 is, society with female descent and prohibition of marriage within 

 the clan, does not crop up here and there, as if it were an 

 isolated invention, but characterises a whole vast region of the 

 world. If the Malay district be taken as a centre, the system of 

 intermarrying mother-clans maybe followed westward into Asia, 

 among the Garos and other hill-tribes of India. Eastward from 

 the Indian Archipelago it pervades the Melanesian islands, with 

 remains in Polynesia ; it prevails widely in Australia, and stretches 

 north and south in the Americas. This immense district repre- 

 sents an area of lower culture, where matriarchalism has only in 

 places yielded to the patriarchal system, which develops with 

 the idea of property, and which, in the other and more civilised 

 half of the globe, has carried all before it, only showing in 

 isolated spots and by relics of custom the former existence of 

 matriarchal society. Such a geographical view of the matriarc hal 

 region makes intelligible facts which while not thussei n 

 were most puzzling. When years ago Sir George Grey studied 

 the customs of the Australians, it seemed to him a singular co- 

 incidence that a man whose maternal familyname was Kangaroo 

 might not marry a woman of the same name, just as if he had 

 been a Huron of the Bear or Turtle totem, prohibited accord- 

 ingly from taking a wife of the same. But when we have the 

 facts more completely before us. Australia and Canada are seen 

 to be only the far ends of a world-district pervaded by thi 

 and the problem becomes such a one as naturalists are quite 

 accustomed to. Though Montreal and Melbourne are far apart, 

 it may lie that in prehistoric times they were both connected with 

 Asia by lines of social institution as real as those which in 

 modern times connect them through Europe. Though it is 

 only'of late that this problem of ancient society has received 

 the attention it deserves, it is but fair to mention how long ago 

 its scientific study began in the part of the world when wi are 

 assembled. Father I afitau, whose " Mceurs des Sauvages 

 Ameriquains " was published in 1724, carefully describes among 

 the Iroquois and Hurons the system of kinship to which Mor- 

 gan has since given the name of "classificatory," where the 

 mother's sisters are reckoned as mothers, and so on. It is re- 

 markable to find this acute Jesuit missionary already pointing 

 out how the idea of the husband being an intruder in his wife's 

 house bears on the pretence of surreptitiousness in marriage 

 among the Spartans. lie even rationally interprets in this way 

 a custom which to us seems fantastic, but which is a mosl serious 

 observance among rude tribes widely spread over the world. A 

 usual form of this custom is that the husband and his parents- 

 in-law, especially his mother-in-law, consider it shameful to 

 speak to or look at one another, hiding themselves or getting 

 out of the way, at least in pretence, if they meet. The comic 

 absurdity of these scenes, such as Tanner describes among the 



Assiniboins, disappears if they are to be underst 1 as a legal 



ceremony, implying that the husband has nothing to do with 

 his wife's family. To this part of the world also belongs a word 

 which has been more effective than any treatise in bringing the 

 matriarchal system ol society into notice. This is the rm 

 totem, introduced by Schoolcraft to describe the mother-clans of 

 the Algonquins, named "Wolf," "Bear." &c. Unluckily the 

 word is wrongly made. Prof. Max Muller has lately 1 died 

 attention to the remark of the Canadian philologist Father 

 Cuoq (X. O. Ancien Missionnaire), that theword is properly ate, 

 meaning "family mark," possessive otem, and with the pel nal 

 pronoun nind otem, "my family mark," kit otem, "thy familj 

 mark." It may be seen in Schoolcraft's own sketch of Algon- 

 quin grammar how he erroneously made from these a word 

 totem, and the question ought perhaps to be gone into in this 

 Section, whether the term had best be kept up or amended, or 

 a new term substituted, It is quite worth while to discuss the 

 name, considering what an important question of anthropology 

 is involved in the institution it expresses. In this region there 

 were found Iroquois, Algonquins, Dakotas, separate in language, 

 and yet whose social life was regulated by the matriarchal 

 totem structure. May it not be inferred from such a state of 

 things that social institute ns form a deeper-lying element in 

 man than language or even physical race-type? This is a 

 problem which presents itself for serious discussion when the 

 evidence can be brought more completely together. 



It is obvious that in this speculation, as in other problems 

 now presenting themselves in anthropology, the question of the 

 antiquity of man lies at the hasis. Of late no great progress has 

 been made toward fixing a scale of calculation of the human 

 period, but the arguments as to time required for alterations in 

 valley-levels, changes of fauna, evolution of races, languages, 

 and culture, seem to converge more conclusively than ever 

 toward a human period short indeed as a fraction of geological 

 time, but long as compared with historical or chronological time. 

 While, however, it is felt that length of time need not debar the 

 anthropologist from hypotheses of development and migration, 

 there is more caution as to assumptions of millions of years 

 where no arithmetical basis exists, and less tendency to treat 

 everything prehistoric as necessarily of extreme antiquity, such 

 as, for instance, the Swiss lake-dwellings and the Central 

 American temples. There are certain problems of American 

 anthropology which are not the less interesting for involving no 

 considerations of high antiquity ; indeed they have the advan- 

 tage of being within the cheek of history, though not themselves 

 belonging to it. 



Humboldt's argument as to traces of Asiatic influence in 

 Mexico is one of these. The four ages in the Aztec picture- 

 writings, ending with catastrophes of the four elements, earth, fire, 

 air, water, compared by him with the same scheme among the 

 Banyans of Surat, is a strong piece of evidence which would be- 

 come yet stronger if the Hindoo book could be found from which 

 the account is declared to have been taken. Not less cogent is 

 his comparison of the zodiacs or calendar-cycles of Mexico and 

 Central America with those of Eastern Asia, such as that by 

 which the Japanese reckon the Sixty-year cycle by combining 

 the elements seriatim with the twelve animals, Mouse, Bull, 

 Tiger, Hare, &c. ; the [.resent year is, I suppose, the second 

 water-ape year, and the time of day is the goat-hour. Hum- 

 boldt's case may be reinforced by the consideration of the 

 magical employment of these zodiacs in the Old and New 

 World. The description of a Mexican astrologer, sent for to 

 maLe the arrangements for a marriage by comparing the zodiac 

 animals of the birthdays of bride and bridegroom, might have 

 been written almost exactly of the modern Kalmuks ; and in 

 fact it seems connected in origin with similar rules in our own 

 books of astrology. Magic is of great value in tints tracing 

 communication, direct or indirect, between distant nations. The 

 power of lasting and travelling which it possesses may be in- 

 stanced by the rock-pictures from the sacred Roches Percees of 

 Manitoba, sketched by Dr. Dawson, and published in his father's 

 volume on "Fossil Man," with the proper caution that the 

 pictures, or some of them, may be modem. Besides the rude 

 pictures of deer and Indians and their huts, one sees with surprise 

 a pentagram more neatly drawn than that defective one which 

 let Mephistopheles pass Faust's threshold, though it kept the 

 demon in when he had got there. Whether the Indians of 

 Manitoba learnt the magic figure from the white man, or whether 

 the white man did it himself in jest, it proves a line of inter- 

 course stretching back 2500 years to the time when it was first 

 drawn as a geometrical diagram of the school of Pythagoras. 

 To return to Humboldt's argument, if there was communication 

 from Asia to Mexico before the Spanish Conquest, it ought to 

 have brought other things, and no things travel more easily than 

 games. I noticed some years ago that the Aztei ire 

 by the old Spanish writers as playing a game called pfitolli, 

 where they moved stones on the squares of across-shaped mat, ac- 

 cording tothe throws of beans marked on one side. Thedi 

 minutely corresponds with the Hindoo game of fachisi, played in 

 like manner with cowries instead of beans ; thi- game, w Erich i-. an 

 early variety of backgammon, is well known in Asia, whence it 

 seems to have found its way into America. From Mexico it passed 

 into Sonora and Zacatecas, much broken down, but retaining its 

 name, and it may be traced still further into the game of plum- 

 stones among the Iroquois and other tribes. Now, if the proba- 

 bility be granted that these various American notions cam- from 

 Asia, their importation would not have to do with any remotely 

 ancient connection between the two continents. The Hindoo 

 element-catastrophes, the East Asiatic zodiac-calendars, the 

 game of backgammon, seem none of them extremely old, and 

 it may not be a thousand years since they reached America. 

 These are cases in which we may reasonably sup] ose communi- 

 cation by seafarers, perhaps even in some of those junks which 

 are brought acrcss so often by the ocean-current and wrecked 

 on the Californian coast. In connection with ideas borrowed 

 from Asia there arises the question, How did the Mexicans and 



