Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/788

 774 THE A.MKRICAX JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

giving a child a tribal name being equivalent to adoption. 1 The cleverest bit of primitive politics of which we have record is the device emploved in ancient Peru and surviving in histor- ical times in Kgvpt and elsewhere in the East, by which the ruler married his own sister, contrarv to the exogamous practice of the common folk. The children might then be regularly reckoned as of the kin of the mother, indeed, but they were at the same time of and in the group of the father, and the king secured the succession of his own son by marrying the woman whose son would traditionally succeed.

As we should expect, the desirability of modifying the sys- tem of descent and inheritance through females is felt first in connection with situations of honor and profit. At the time of the discovery of the Hawaiian islands the government was a brutal despotism, presenting many of the features of feudalism ; the people prostrated themselves before the king and before objects which he had touched, and a man suffered death whose shadow fell upon the king, or who went uncovered within the shadow of the king's house, or even looked upon the king by day. 2 But descent was in the female line, with a tendency to transfer to the male line in case of the king, and among chiefs, priests, and nobility. 3 This assertion of the male authority was sometimes resented, however, and was a source of frequent trouble. Wilkes states that there was formerly no regularly established order of succession to the throne ; the children of the chief wife had the best claim, but the king often named his own successor, and this gave rise to violent conflicts. 4

Blood-brotherhood, blood-vengeance, secret societies, tribal marks (totemism, circumcision, tatooing, scarification), and reli- gious dedication, are devices by which, consciously or 'uncon- sciously, the men escape from the tyranny of the maternal system. We cannot assume that these practices originate solely or largely in dissatisfaction, for the men would feel the advantage of a combination of interests whenever brought into association

1 MORGAN, Ancient Society, p. 169. 3 ELLIS, Tour Through Hawaii, p. 391.

2 WAITZ-ClKKUM), Vol. VI, p. 20. WAIT7.-GKRI.AND, Vol. VI, pp. 20I~3.