Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/775

 704 .AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s.. i, 1899

we call the tribe, and that the clans of a tribe may at one time have been distinct tribes ; that when tribes become weak, or desire to form permanent alliances with other tribes for offensive and defensive purposes, such tribes agree to become clans of a united body, and by treaty confirm the bargain by pledging not to marry women within their own groups, but to exchange women with one another. "Give us your daughters for wives, and we will give you our daughters for wives." Such a bargain or treaty, enforced ' for many generations as customary law, ultimately be- comes sacred, and marriage within the group is incest. Perhaps there is no people, tribal or national, which has not an incest group ; so all peoples are endogamous, as all peoples are neces- sarily exogamous. The distinction set forth by McLennan proves to be invalid everywhere and among all peoples.

Among the tribes of America there are many marriage customs establishing the group within which a person may marry. It may be that a man may marry within any clan but his own, or it may be that a man must marry within some particular clan. Sometimes there is a series of clans, which we will call A, B 9 C t D^ and N. A man of A must marry a woman of B ; a man of B must marry a woman of C; a man of Cmust marry a woman of D y and so on ; and, finally, a man of N must marry a woman of A. Tribes themselves composed of clans unite with other tribes also composed of clans; and in this consolidation into larger •tribes there is found, in actual study of the Amerinds themselves, a great variety of regulations, all having the common feature of an incest group or clan, and further provision for bonds of friendship, which are perennially sealed by intermarriages. It thus happens that universally among the tribes of America marriages are regulated by customary law ; and the pafties mar- ried have no legal right to personal choice. Yet there are often ways established by which the clan confirms the personal choice. Though marriage is always regulated by the elders of the clan, yet they often consult the wishes of the candidates. There are

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