ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 39 



important question, and thought that medical men and biologists 

 should take up and prosecute the investigation of comparative ovu- 

 lation, menstruation, and sexual physiology. 



Major Powell stated that the social life of savages had been much 

 falsified by unscientific travelers seeking to invent large stories of 

 their adventures among them ; that in none of the tribes of North 

 American Indians with which he was acquainted were children mal- 

 treated or women made slaves. On the contrary, the wife always 

 belongs to a different gens from the husband, and he dare not harm 

 her on penalty of vengeance from her own kinsfolk. He also said 

 that there existed a fair division of labor between the sexes. The 

 men provided for their families and the women performed the 

 domestic service. He had seen much affection manifested between 

 husbands and wives and by parents for children. Stories of infanti- 

 cide were usually false. The theories of McLennan and Lubbock, 

 relative to exogamy and endogamy, applied to none of our Indians, 

 and he believed it to be wholly unsound, and due to superficial" 

 investigation, and especially to the confounding of the gens with 

 the tribe. Marriage may occur within the tribe, but not within the 

 gens ; and different observers, utterly ignorant of their social sys- 

 tem, have at times reported facts of the one and at times of the 

 other of these classes, and created a totally false impression. 



Mr. Dorsey made a few remarks strongly confirmatory of Major 

 Powell's statements. 



Dr. King asked whether the tribes under consideration did not 

 occupy a comparatively high social position, and whether the theo- 

 ries combated might not hold true for much lower races. 



Major Powell replied that for all tribes known to him, or from 

 which any reliable accounts had been received, this was not the case. 



Thirty-Sixth Regular Meeting, March 15, 1881. 

 Mr. Lester F. Ward read a paper entitled Politico-Social Func- 



tions. 



^'Penn Monthly," Vol. XII, May, 1881, pp. 321-336. 



