800 BEPOKT— 1889. 



retical notion, that the more complex and inflected idioms have grown 

 out of the simpler agglutinative or monosyllabic forms, must be given up 

 as inconsistent with the results of modern researches. 



In like manner, we find among primitive communities every form of 

 government and of social institutions — monarchy among the Mayas and 

 the Natchez, aristocracy among the Troquois and the Kwakiutl, demo- 

 cracy among the Algonkins and the Shoshonees, descending almost to pure, 

 though perhaps peaceful, anarchy among the Tinneh, the Eskimo, and 

 various other families. In some stocks we find patriarchal (or 'paternal') 

 institutions, as among the Salish and the Algonkin ; in others, matriarchal 

 (or ' maternal '), as among the Iroquoian and the Haida. In some the 

 clan system exists ; in others it is unknown. In some exogamy prevails, 

 in others endogamy. In some, women are honoured and have great in- 

 fluence and privileges ; in others, they are despised and ill-treated. In 

 some, wives are obtained by capture, in others by courtship, in others by 

 the agreement of the parents. All these various institutions and usages 

 exist among tribes in the same stage of culture, and all of them appear to 

 be equally primitive. They are simply the forms in which each com- 

 munity, by force of the character of its people, tends to crystallise. 



We frequently, however, find evidence, if not of internal development, 

 at least of derivation. Institutions, creeds, and customs are in many 

 cases adopted by one stock from another. As there are now ' loan-words ' 

 in all languages, so there are borrowed beliefs, borrowed laws, and bor- 

 rowed arts and usages. Then, also, there are many mixed communities, 

 in which, through the eff'ect of conquest or of iiitermarriages, the physical 

 traits, languages, and institutions of two or more stocks have become 

 variously combined and intermingled. In short, the study of human 

 societies in the light of the classification by linguistic stocks is like the 

 study of material substances in the light of their classification by the 

 chemical elements. In each case we find an almost infinite variety of 

 phenomena, some primitive and others secondary and composite, but all 

 referable to a limited number of primary constituents : in chemistry, the 

 material elements ; in ethnology, the linguistic stocks. Such is the result 

 of the latest investigations, as pursued on the Western Continent, where 

 for the first time a great number of distinct communities, in the earliest 

 social stages, have been exposed to scientific observation, with all their 

 organisation and workings as clearly discernible as those of bees in a 

 glass hive. 



The researches of Dr. Boas, while pursued, as will be apparent, with- 

 out any bias of preconceived theory, will throw much valuable light on 

 the subjects now referred to, as well as on others of equal importance. 

 It should be added that some of the facts which he has gathered, par- 

 ticularly in regard to the tenure of land among the tribes of British 

 Columbia, have a great practical value. This is a point which deserves 

 special mention, as the Canadian Government is now sharing with the 

 Association the expense of these inquiries. Many of the most costly wars 

 which the Colonial Governments have had to wage with the aboriginal 

 tribes in America, New Zealand, and elsewhere have arisen, as is well 

 known, from misunderstandings growing out of the acquisition of land 

 from the natives. The great benefit which accrued to New Zealand, in 

 the improved relations between the natives and the colonists, from the 

 researches of Sir George Grey into the laws, usages, and traditions of the 

 Maori tribes, is a matter of history, The state of afiairs in British 



