1. The most conspicuous character of ethnogamic union, as manifested in the type tribe, is its absolute confinement to the consanguineal group. The breach of this limitation is hardly conceivable in the minds of the group, since aliens are not classed as human, nor even dignified as animals of the kinds deified in their lowly faith, but contemned as unclean and loathsome monsters; yet the infraction has a sort of theoretical place at the head of their calendar as an utterly intolerable crime. In respect to this character, ethnogamy corresponds fairly with the endogamy of McLennan, Spencer, and others, i.e., with the tribal endogamy of Powell.

2. A hardly less conspicuous character of ethnogamic union is the formality, or legality, accompanying and reflecting the collective nature of the function. In this respect ethnogamy is the direct antithesis of that hypothetical promiscuity postulated by Morgan and adopted by Spencer, Lubbock, Tylor, and others; and the customs of the type tribe go farther, perhaps, than any other example in verifying the alternative assumption of Westermarck that the course of conjugal development is rather from monogamy toward promiscuity than in the reverse direction.

3. A noteworthy character of ethnogamic union is the absence of capture of either bride or groom. Any semblance of capture would indeed be wholly incongruous with the rigid confinement of union to members of the group; it would also be incongruous with the exceeding formality and necessary amicability of both preliminary and concomitant arrangements.

4. Another noteworthy character is the total absence of purchase on either part. Although a material condition attends the union, it is essentially a test of character, and is applied in such wise as to dignify the feminine element rather than to degrade it like barbaric wife-purchase; while any semblance of purchase would be incongruous with the economic condition of a tribe practically destitute of accumulated property or even of thrift

sense.

5. A significant character of ethnogamic union, as exemplified in the type tribe, is the ceremonial or constructive monogamy While there are obscure (and presumptively vestigial) traces of polyandry or adelphogamy, and while an informal polygyny is practiced by the chiefs and older warriors, the formal matings are between one man and one woman, and appear to be permanent.

Now, on comparing these characters with those revealed in the marital customs of other tribes and peoples, they are found

to betoken a notably provincial and primitive culture-stage. Perhaps the nearest American approach to the Seri customs is found among certain California aborigines, notably the Yurok and Patawat tribes, who recognize the institution of "half-marriage”; 1 but here the material test of Seriland is replaced by purchase, while no trace of the moral test is found (even as among the Carolina Indians, according to Lawson); moreover, while these tribes discourage alien connections, they are not absolutely eschewed and reprobated as among the Seri. Other notably primitive customs, like those so fully described by Spencer and Gillen, have been found among the Australian aborigines; 2 but even here a part only of the marriages are regulated by amicable convention, while others are effected by (1) charm, (2) capture, and (3) elopement; and these collateral devices imply intertribal relations of a kind incongruous with the ethnogamic habit and utterly repugnant to the ethnogamic instinct. In both cases, accordingly, the marital customs clearly imply (and actually accompany) a much more highly differentiated socialry and economy than that of the Seri. The same is true of that vestigial custom of the Scottish clans known as handfasting, which is, moreover, a direct antithesis of the Seri custom in that it carries a warrant for, rather than an abridgment of, conjugal prerogatives; and the same might be said also of various South American, African, and southeastern Asian customs.

Certain representative North American customs have already been seriated in connection with the Seri customs, and their relations are of sufficient significance to warrant recapitulation. The series begins with the maternally organized and practically propertyless Seri. Next stand the Zuñi, with an essentially maternal organization, the vestigial moral test of the groom noted by Cushing, and a concomitant material test verging on purchase; so, too, monogamy persists, while the function remains largely collective, and is regulated by the elders, though the bride enjoys special prerogatives; and the fierce tribal endogamy is relaxed, though clan exogamy is enforced. Measurably similar to those of the Zuñi are the marital customs of the peaceful Tarahumari tribe of northern Mexico and the once warlike Seneca tribe of northeastern United States, although among both of these more cosmopolitan peoples the regulations are less closely similar to the Seri

"Contributions to North American Ethnology," vol. iii, 1877 (“Tribes of California," by Stephen Powers), pp. 56, 98.

"The Native Tribes of Central Australia," 1899, pp. 554-560 and elsewhere.

customs than are those of the Pueblo tribe named. Next in order of marital differentiation stand the Kwakiutl and Salish tribes of British Columbia, in which the social organization has practically passed into the paternal stage; here the laws of monogamy, clan exogamy, and tribal endogamy are materially relaxed, the moral test is lost among the Kwakiutl and reduced to a curious vestige among the Salish, while the material test is commuted into the making of expensive presents. Still more remote from the initial stage is the marriage of the paternally organized Omaha, among whom tribal endogamy is prevalent but not absolute, while polygyny is customary; among whom the moral test seems wholly obsolete, while the material test is completely replaced by purchase (or at least by the interchange of expensive presents); and among whom, concordantly, the feminine privileges are few and the females are practically degraded to the rank of property of male kindred or spouses. (These several customs fall into a natural order or series definitely coördinated with the esthetic, the industrial or economic, and the general institutional or social conditions of the respective tribes; and it is noteworthy that they mark successive stages in that passage from the mechanical to the spontaneous which characterizes demotic activity

In brief, ethnogamy, as exemplified by the type tribe, accompanies that strictly maternal organization which marks the lowest known stage of social development; it accompanies also a rudimentary esthetic condition in which decorative symbols are restricted to the expression of maternal relation; it accompanies, in like manner, an inchoate economic condition characterized by absence of property and thrift-sense; while its most essential concomitant is extratribal antipathy too bitter to permit toleration of alien blood, or even of alien presence save under the constraint of superior force.

1 Cf. "The Beginning of Marriage," op. cit. The conclusion from the details discussed in this paper is as follows: "Summarizing the tendencies revealed in this history, it would appear that the course of evolution [of conjugal institutions] has been from the simple to the complex, from the definite to the indefinite, from the general to the special, from the fixed to the variable, from the involuntary to the voluntary, from the mechanical to the spontaneous, from the provincial to the cosmopolitan, or, in brief, from the chiefly biotic to the wholly demotic" (p. 283).

CHAPTER X

WYANDOT GOVERNMENT: A SHORT STUDY OF TRIBAL SOCIETY 1

In the social organization of the Wyandots four groups are recognized the family, the gens, the phratry, and the tribe.

A. THE FAMILY

The family, as the term is here used, is nearly synonymous with the household. It is composed of the persons who occupy one lodge, or, in their permanent wigwams, one section of a communal dwelling. These permanent dwellings are constructed in an oblong form, of poles interwoven with bark. The fire is placed in line along the center, and is usually built for two families, one occupying the place on each side of the fire.

The head of the family is a woman.

The gens is an organized body of consanguineal kindred in the female line. "The woman carries the gens,' is the formulated statement by which a Wyandot expresses the idea that descent is in the female line. Each gens has the name of some animal, the ancient of such animal being its tutelar god. Up to the time that the tribe left Ohio, eleven gentes were recognized, as follows: Deer, Bear, Highland Turtle (striped), Highland Turtle (black), Mud Turtle, Smooth Large Turtle, Hawk, Beaver, Wolf, Sea Snake, and Porcupine.

In speaking of an individual he is said to be a wolf, a bear, or a deer, as the case may be, meaning thereby that he belongs to

[By J. W. POWELL. Reprinted from the 16th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (The Smithsonian Institution) by permission of the Director.

Major Powell was born March 24, 1834; died Sept. 23, 1902. He was Director of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-1902. He was a distinguished authority, and contributed valuable works, on ethnology, linguistics, and geology.]

that gens; but in speaking of the body of people comprising a gens, they are said to be relatives of the wolf, the bear, or the deer, as the case may be.

There is a body of names belonging to each gens, so that each person's name indicates the gens to which he belongs. These names are derived from the characteristics, habits, attitudes, or mythologic stories connected with the tutelar god.

The following schedule presents the name of a man and a woman in each gens, as illustrating this statement:

There are (four phratries in the tribe, the three gentes Bear, Deer, and Striped Turtle constituting the first; the Highland Turtle, Black Turtle, and Smooth Large Turtle the second; the Hawk, Beaver, and Wolf the third; and the Sea Snake and Porcupine the fourth.

This unit in their organization has a mythologic basis, and is chiefly used for religious purposes, in the preparation of medicines, and in festivals and games.

The eleven gentes, as four phratries, constitute the tribe.

Each gens is a body of consanguineal kindred in the female line, and each gens is allied to other gentes by consanguineal kinship through the male line, and by affinity through marriage.