156 The Glassificatory System of 



tribes so widely scattered, is conclusive in its evidence 

 beyond all question." 



I lost no time in searching out the Fijian system, my 

 schedule of which, together with that of the Tongans, or 

 Friendly Islanders, also made out by me, reached America 

 just in time to be inserted in Mr. . Morgan's great work. 

 Afterwards I ascertained the systems of thuteen Fijian 

 tribes, of Rotuma and of Samoa,* and since my return to the 

 colonies I have made dihgent inqunies among the Australian 

 Aborigines, resulting in discoveries which are considered to 

 be of the greatest importance. " I am more and more 

 impressed," writes the leader in these inquiries to me, " by 

 each communication I receive from you, with the vast 

 importance of your present field of research. In Australia 

 and Polynesia, you are several strata below barbarism into 

 savagism, and are nearer to the primitive condition of man 

 than any other investigator." 



Having thus introduced my subject, and stated my 

 connexion with it, I will now endeavour to lay before you 

 the peculiarities of the systems of kinship hitherto ascer- 

 tained. It must be observed that- in no tribe, as far as I am 

 aware, has the system which the terms of kinship reveal, 

 been found in actual operation at the present day. 

 Polygamy, which is a progressive not a retrogressive step, 

 has done away with the old license ; but the evidence of the 

 former existence of that license is fossilized, as it were, in 

 those terms ; and herein lies their great value. 



The Malay system, whereof the Hawaiian may be taken 

 as the type, is the simplest yet discovered ; nor is it possible 

 to imagine one simpler, for it is but one remove from utterly 

 unrestricted and indiscriminate intercourse. Its specific 

 terms by which the various degrees of kinship are 

 designated, give us the following characteristics : — 



1. All my grandfatl^er's brothers are my grandfathers. 

 All his sisters are my grandmothers. 



2. All my father's brothers are my fathers ; and all his 

 sisters are my mothers. They all call me their child. 



3. All my mother's sisters are my ^mothers ; and all 

 her brothers are my fathers. All these call me their 

 child. 



* The Eotuman system was furnished by the Eev. John Osborne, and 

 the Samoan by the Eev. W. Brown. Both these gentlemen are Wesleyan 

 Missionaries. 



