ON THE ETHNOGRAPHICAL SURVEY OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 655 
The tribe as known by the records is :— 
1, A group of kindred. 
2. The kindred is formed by blood-tie primarily, with powers of 
assuming a blood-tie by ceremonial forms. 
3. The blood-tie is reckoned by fatherhood, with power to reckon 
by motherhood by ceremonial forms. 
4, The tribal group:is divided into clan-groups by the break-up of 
kinship ties at the seventh generation. 
5. The centre of the tribal group as of the clan-group is the sacred 
hearth-fire. 
6. The sacredness of the tribal blood is the ruling force which governs 
the relationship of tribesmen to each other. 
7. Tribal economics provide for the maintenance of every tribesman as 
an inalienable right. 
8. Sonship is the essential factor of the tribal marriage system. 
The tribe as known to traditional custom and belief contains the germs 
of all this and something more, namely, the cement which bound tribesmen 
together and formed them into an inseparable group—the cement of a 
tribal religion which had its seat in the fire of the tribe and the clan. 
7. Conclusion. 
T have stated above that, after the work of classification and compari- 
son is completed for any one custom, there are further conditions before 
the first results of comparison can be properly and finally accepted. One 
of these conditions imposes the necessity for proving that the fire customs 
which have by the application of the comparative method been identified 
with the fire customs of the early tribal system of Aryan peoples shall, 
upon examination, be found to be associated with other customs which, 
upon classification and comparison, can be identified with the Aryan 
inhabitants of these islands. This work is, of course, a matter of time 
and further research ; and we can only accept the conclusion I have drawn 
in this report as preliminary to the final results whenever they be obtained. 
In the meantime, justification for this conclusion is derived from the 
evidence of the records upon the tribal system—evidence which is com- 
_ plementary to that derived from traditional custom. I have, however, 
also prepared a diagram to show how this part of the investigation may 
be most readily proved. I first of all mark on a map of Britain the 
Places where the fire customs obtain. I then join these places together 
by a straight line, and, withdrawing from this result all reference to the 
map which formed the basis of it, a geometrical figure of a certain shape 
in outline and a certain shape in internal detail is obtained. This figure is 
of great importance. We may call it, for practical use, ‘ the ethnological 
test-figure.’ Upon working out other groups of customs the process 
would be to see how far the same figure is reproduced, and how far one 
figure of a series differs from other figures, whether in simply being 
incomplete or whether in radical form. I have not been able, in the time at 
my disposal, to bring forward a test case, that is, another custom of Aryan 
origin to equate with the fire custom, but from some provisional studies I 
am satisfied that the test-figure produced by the fire customs will be pro- 
duced by other customs similarly dealt with. In the meantime there is 
the important question to ask—Are there customs which will not produce 
