294 
recorded it of the aborigines in Pontus, at the south of the Black 
Sea. Marco Polo found it also in a certain part of China — pro- 
bably some of the aboriginal tribes whoretained the very earliest 
and most primitive customs of mankind. This strange prac- 
tice, however, appears beyond all mistake in South America 
and the West Indies. Among the Caribs, when a child is 
born, the mother soon goes to her work, while the father takes 
to his hammock, and is visited as though he were sick.* 
Among the Abipones, it is said, “ No sooner do you hear that 
the wife has a child, than you see the husband lies in bed, 
huddled up with mats and skins, lest a ruder breath of air 
should touch him.”f The inference I draw is tJiat in some 
remote manner, now unknown and perhaps impenetrable, 
there must have been an affinity between the ancestors of 
these American tribes and the aboriginal populations of Europe 
and Asia. 
A conclusion of the same kind may be drawn from another 
extraordinary set of customs which are found in Central Asia and 
some of the islands on the south-east of that continent. I refer to 
certain prohibitions of social intercourse existing in these places 
between parents- in-law and children-in-law — prohibitions so 
far out of the ordinary, course of life that we can only wonder at 
their origin. Among the Mongols and Kalmucks, for example, 
a young wife must never speak to her father-in-law ; nor may 
she sit in his presence. { Among the Dayaks of Borneo a 
married man must not even pronounce the name of his father- 
in-law. Similar customs are also found in the Fiji Islands, 
and some parts of Australia. Now such are also found in 
America. In the south, among the Arawaks, “ it was not 
lawful for the son-in-law to see the face of his mother-in-law. 
If they lived in the same house, a partition must be set up 
between them. If they went in the same boat, she had to get 
in first, so as to keep her back turned towards him.” § 
Among the Caribs, all the women talk with whom they will ; 
but the husband dares not converse with his wife’s relatives, 
except on extraordinary occasions. In the north, near the 
Bocky Mountains, among the Omahas, the father and mother- 
in-law never speak to their son-in-law, nor mention his name, 
nor look in his face. The same custom prevails among the 
Crees and the Sioux tribes. What can be the cause of this 
abnormal unity, unless it be the relic of some primeval prac- 
tice dating from a very early period of history, when the 
ancestors of these races were in much closer proximity than 
* Tylor’s Early Races of Mankind, p. 288. t Idem, p. 290. 
X Idem, p. 286. § Idem, p. 284. 
