Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/199

Rh or reputation of the father as a craftsman is often the most important legacy he has to leave. The value of transmitted skill in the simple crafts was very great ; and what was once universal in communities, still survives in outlying portions of communities which have not been brought within the general market of exchange. But so long as this process remains natural, there can be no question of caste, which implies that the adoption of a new profession is not merely unusual, but wrong and punishable. Then, the word caste has been applied to sacred corporations. A family or a tribe is consecrated to the service of a particular altar, or all the altars of a particular god. Or a semi-sacred class, such as the Brehons or the Bards, is formed, and these, and perhaps some speci ally dignified professions, become hereditary, the others remaining free. Thus in Peru, the priests of the Sun at Cuzco transmitted their office to their sons ; so did the Quipu-camayoc, or public registrars, and the amantas and haravecs, the learned men and singers. Benjamin Con stant has ventured on the ambitious generalization that in the South, as in Judaea and Mexico, such corporations were hereditary, but that in the North and West they were in general elective. In many countries political considera tions, or distinctions of race, have prevented intermarriage between classes. Take, for example, the patricians and the plebeians at Rome, or the STrapnaTat, Aa/cwve?, or ireptoucoi, and the Et Awres at Sparta. In Guatemala it was the law that if any noble married a plebeian woman he should be degraded to the caste of mazcqnal, or plebeian, and be subject to the duties and services imposed on that class, and that the bulk of his estate should be sequestered to the king. In Malagasy marriage is strictly forbidden between the four classes of Nobles, Hovas, Zarahovas, and Andevos, the lowest of whom, however, are apparently mere slaves. All nations have at one time opposed themselves to marriage with foreigners, known chiefly as enemies ; and all nations have oppressed, industrially and politically, the races whom they have conquered. In one sense slavery might be called the lowest of castes, because in most of its actual forms it does permit some small customary rights to the slave. In another sense, the marriage of the queen s daughter with a commoner might be described as an infraction of caste rule. Besides the forms of caste we have mentioned, these are many isolated communities which resemble one another in the fact that their members constantly intermarry, and which generally devote themselves to some one particular trade or industry. This &quot;endogamy&quot; seems to be characteristic of early social arrangements, and therefore the existing specimens of endogamous societies in Europe and Asia do not exhibit any high form of civilization. Among others may be mentioned the descendants of the &quot;Bounty&quot; mutineers, who still occupy Pitcairn Island; a community of Javans, near Surabaya, on the Tengger Hills, numbering about 1200 persons, distributed in about forty villages, and still following the ancient Hindu religion ; the inhabitants of various fishing villages in Great Britain, such as Itchinferry near Southampton, Portland Island, Bentham in Yorkshire, Mousehole and Newlyn in Mountsbay, Cornwall, Boulmer near Alnwick (where almost all the inhabitants are called Stephenson, Stanton, or Stewart), Burnmouth, Boss, and (to some extent) Eyemouth in Berwickshire, Boyndie in Banffshire, Rathen in Aberdeenshire, Buckhaven in Fifeshire, Port- mahomack and Balnabruach in Easter Ross. In France may be mentioned the commune of Batz, near Le Broisic in Loire-Inferieure ; many of the central cantons of Bre&quot;tagne ; the singular society called For&itines supposed to be of Irish descent, and living between St Armand and Bourges ; the sailor population of Pauillac (Gironde), Granville, Arromanches, Portel (near Boulogne), and other fishing villages ; the Republic of Andorre in the Pyrenees ; the papermakers of Angoumois, Limousin, and Auvergne, whose trade seems to have doomed them to an hereditary weakness of constitution ; the Marans of Auvergne, a race of Spanish converted Jews, accused of introducing syphilis into France ; the Hautponnais and Lyzelards of St Omer, who have also a separate Flemish dialect ; the Burins and Sermoyers, chiefly cattle-breeders, scattered over the department of Ain and the arrondissement of Bourg en Bresse. The Vaque&quot;ros, shepherds in the Asturias Moun tains ; the Jewish Chuetas of Majorca ; the Petits-Cre oles or Petits-Blancs, descendants of the original French settlers in Reunion, are also good examples of what biologists call &quot; in-and-in breeding,&quot; as opposed to &quot; crossing.&quot; On a larger scale the Icelanders, the ancient Samaritans (now almost extinguished, see Times, 4th April 1874), and the great and prosperous Jewish nafion, may be called castes, so far as intermarriage is concerned. It must not be imagined, however, that this is a general characteristic of a certain stage of social development. &quot; Exogamy,&quot; or the rule requiring either absolutely or in certain circum stances marriage with a stranger, is recognized very widely even by modern tribes, especially in Asia ; and both these conditions of things seem to have been preceded by a primitive state, in which the relations of the sexes were promiscuous. This is illustrated in the case of the Thlinkeets, or Kolosches, who inhabit the coasts and islands from Mt. St Elias to the River Nass. This singular tribe, which has an elective chief and systematic slavery (chiefly supplied from the Flatheads of Oregon), is divided into two castes, the Wolf and the Raven, the symbols of which appear on their houses, boats, robes, and shields. The Wolf caste is subdivided into the bear, eagle, dolphin, shark, and alca ; the Raven, into frog, goose, sea lion, owl, and salmon. &quot; The young Wolf warrior must seek his mate among the Ravens; and while celebrating his nuptials one day, he may on the next be called to fight his father- in-law over some hereditary feud.&quot; Similarly, the Kutchin tribe of the Tinneh family, inhabiting the Yukon, Tanaiiah, and Peel river-valleys, have a singular system of totems. There are three castes ; and persons of the same caste are not allowed to marry each other. The mother gives caste to the children, so that as the fathers die off the caste constantly changes. It also happens that when a child is named, the father adopts that name and drops his own. The system prevents civil war. Caste in India is a question of more than historical interest. It is the great difficulty in the way of Govern ment in framing laws and in governing the army, of native 