Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/46

 34 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

the functional integration of the tribe or tribal cluster, conspicu- ously increase. It is true that some of the functions inherent in the modern state, such as the more narrowly administrative ones, or, in recent times, economic ones, are but weakly represented in those primitive political aggregates, if indeed they are represented at all. This however, is a question of a different order; the political organization itself, being, it seems, a quasi-organic attribute of human groups (for is not man a cooz> TroXtrt/co^?) is there neverthe- less. It is, therefore, also erroneous to contrast, as does the author (following though he does authoritative precedent), "primitive" and " civilized" groups of men by stating that

among the former, the individual identifies himself by particularizing his blood relationship, whereas, in the latter, the individual defines his status in terms of relation to a given territory (p. 80).

The territorial organization of the state, with its manifold functions, does stand out as something in its entirety foreign to primitive society, but the contrast is mitigated when comparison is made not with the kinship grouping, representing a social principle on a different level, but with tribal political organization, finding ex- pression in territory, language, custom, chieftainship, etc. The kinship organization of primitive society, on the other hand, together with its organization into families, occasionally over- shadowed though the latter may be by the former, should properly be juxtaposed to the modern -family organization. For do not family and clan (or gens) both represent a kinship grouping based on blood relationship, actual in the family, often assumed in the clan (or gens)? The family, moreover, recognizes simultaneously both lines of descent (paternal and maternal), whereas but one is considered in the clan (maternal) and gens (paternal). If com- parison is made on this basis, it will, I think, be found, that the family is perhaps no less important in the modern territorial state than the clan (gens) and sometimes family are in the primitive political unit (tribe or tribal cluster) ; and in both instances,, some of the traits and functions of these kinship groups are contingent upon their inclusion in the political unit, 1 while they also possess

1 A possible objection might be raised to the preceding argument on the ground that the term " political organization" has in it been given a different connotation -from

�� �