50 
HORN EXPEDITION—ANTHROPOLOGY. 
the possible evils of racial deterioration resulting from such marriages have been 
recognised as a reason—in fact an all-sufficient reason—for their avoidance and for 
the building up of a set of ordinances, by which they might be prevented, is 
difficult to accept. For that view implies that constitutional results should have 
been clearly recognised and stringently guarded against by primitive man, while, 
with the greater knowledge and experience of the present day and at a time when 
questions of heredity have been made the subject of special inquiry by the most 
acute minds, there is by no means unanimity of opinion as to what the effects of 
consanguineous marriages actually are. And even if we may suppose that bad 
results should have sometimes made themselves manifest, it is scarcely to be 
believed that the sexual desires and passions of primitive man should have been 
deliberately subordinated to a reasonable, thoughtful solicitude for his posterity, 
when similar prudential motives fail to be operative amongst races of greater 
education and experience. 
A remarkable feature, which has also been alluded to by Mr. Howitt and 
others, is the pains which are taken by a man to ascertain whether a strange 
female belongs to a phratry or subphratry, with the members of which he may 
have relations, and the readiness and facility generally with which this status is 
recognised. This may not be surprising if both parties belong to the same tribe, 
but it is noteworthy that these statements should also be true in the case of a 
male and female of different tribes who may not speak the same languages. 
Nevertheless I have reason to know that the recognition is not always as 
spontaneous as is sometimes believed, that is to say, it sometimes happens that 
the curiosity, which is always evinced on the meeting of strangers, to learn the 
phratry status of each other as a preliminary to entering into relations can 
only be satished by direct inquiry through other parties. In some instances it is 
possible, and even probable, that the recognition may be due to the use of the 
gesture language. At any rate there is no doubt that such recognition does take 
place with great facility, and that temporary marital rights over females of 
equivalent and corresponding phratries of other tribes are, as the result, afforded 
to aboriginal travellers in strange territories—it may be, as in the well-known 
case quoted by Mr. Howitt, over a thousand miles of territory, and this may 
be said without reference to the question as to whether such temporaiy accommo¬ 
dation affords an example of communal marriage. 
The preceding paragraph raises another debatable question, viz.: as to the 
value of the evidence brought forward in support of the theory of a former 
