Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/642

Rh H20 ETHNOGRAPHY gens prohibited marriage between gentiles, or members of the same gens. For most communities were deeply averse to consanguineous marriages, which they branded with the infamous name of incest, though some others held them to be highly commendable. The original rule was that all descendants by the same mother were to be regarded as brothers and sisters, and they were soon forbidden to con tract matrimonial unions. As there was no relationship by the father s side, the patriarch Abraham could in all propriety take his sister, or rather his half-sister, as a wife. And such a tribe, consisting of two gentes only, intermarrying constantly, might be composed of first cousins only, and be strictly endogamous nevertheless. Further rights and duties of the gentiles were the reci procal obligations of help, defence, and redress of injuries against any one from without. They had the same religious rites, and a common burial place. The archaic gens inherited the property of its members, as they wero taken away by death, arid redistributed it every year, or at stated periods. All children of earth return by death to her bosom, and all the gentiles were brought to rest in a common burial place. The gens was primarily a great motherhood, and the gentiles, all of them, were supposed to be brothers and sisters, and to live in their mother s home. As in the course of time the gentes increased, they segre gated to a certain extent, but maintained their association for certain common objects ; the enlarged association was called a phratria or brotherhood. Each of the four tribes of the Athenians was organized in three phratrias, each composed of thirty gentes. The Roman curia was the analogue of the Grecian and the Iroquois phratrias. In the normal course of events the tribes increased and segregated as the gentes had formerly done. And &quot;as the gentes had recoalesced in phratrias, so did the tribes reunite in confederacies. Where one Indian tribe had divided into several, and the subdivisions occupied inde pendent but adjacent territories, the confederacy reinte grated them in a higher organization, on the basis of the common gentes which they possessed, and of the affiliated dialects which they spoke. The confederacy had the gentes for its basis, and the mother language as the measure of its extent. Its formation required the highest skill. The Iroquois ascribed the origin of theirs to divine inspiration ; they considered it to be the masterpiece of wisdom.&quot; To bring many tribes together, lo conciliate the conflicting interests in a superior organization, and make it work, re quires an intelligence much superior to that which is required for gaining victories in the battlefield. Therefore confederacies have been always rare achievements. The common course of events has been rather that tribes have become nations, not by peaceful and voluntary aggregation, but by the bloody work of war and conquest, by constant encroachments on the territory of neighbours, by killing part of them, and enslaving the rest. Authority. When not actually engaged in a war or in a hunting expedition, wild tribes are often without recog nized chiefs. In case of need, in dangerous emergencies, natural superiority soon asserts itself, and the boldest, strongest, most intelligent, or most experienced steps forward as leader. With the children of nature authority is of a more transient and less definite character than with us. Their aggregations are, as a rule, very small. In order to understand the most ancient condition of human society, says Sir Henry Maine, all distances must be reduced, and we must look at mankind, so to speak, through the wrong end of the historical telescope. Many anthropologists are of opinion that civilization has increased the differences in the anatomy of man and woman, in the stature of giants and dwarfs. There is stronger evidence that it has in creased intellectual differences. The oscillations on either side of the average line of learning and intellect are widest in our populous and complicated communities, where the talented are more talented, and the stupid more stupid than elsewhere. In small bodies politic, there is not the same necessity for strict discipline as in the large ones. And the larger they grow, toils paribus, the more despotic they become. History has shown it to be the case with all great monarchies, which in times ancient and modern have been synonymous with despotisms. When conquering Rome overstepped the limits of the Italian territory, she ceased to be a republic, and despite the desperate efforts of her best citizens she became an empire. The larger the territory, the greater are the inequalities between the inhabitants, and the greater the danger of despotism. To our eyes kingdoms like those of Dahomey, of Ashantee, or of Uganda, may not appear very large, but to negroes, whose minds are unable to grasp any thing very complex, they seem immense. In fact, some savage rulers believe themselves to be real gods, believe without a shadow of doubt that their ancestor created heaven and earth ; they are persuaded that the limits of the habitable world are not far beyond the boundaries of their petty dominions. We are expressly told by travellers that their subjects hold them in greater reverence than divinities. The innumerable variety of governments is perplexing to ethnologists, who find often the most hetero geneous forms side by side, and see intelligent and courage ous nations submit to a tyranny which would often appear intolerable to their neighbours. Forces are constantly in operation, of which some tend to increase the liberty of the citizen, and some to increase the authority of government. If we are believers in the general principle that self-govern ment is the best, then we shall be astonished to find how often it has been obtained by nations which we deem much inferior to ourselves. So-called savages possess a degree of freedom and enjoy an absence of restraint which well may kindle the enthusiasm of the youthful readers of Fenimore Cooper, and provoke melancholy reflections in many people who feel over-governed, and ruled down, who complain that the price which we pay for the blessings of civilization is too high. For the men who exercise power, it is dangerous not to have an eye open, if not to the general benefit, at least to the interest of some powerful class. This fact is often disregarded ; historians easily overlook the circumstance that a ruler, however violent, rash, and headstrong, is in most cases but the tool, conscious or unconscious, of a party. Because orders are given in his name alone, it is not remembered that in reality he acts not in his personal capacity, but as the general manager of a joint-stock company with numerous shareholders. If we revert to the historic origin of authority, it is highly probable that the gens, to which is attributed the interior organization of the tribe, has been also the most efficacious constituent of political power. The most powerful gens taking the lead of the other gentes, the head of that gens became easily the regular chief of the tribe. Such a government might as easily become republican as monarchical or oligarchic. To the Commoners of the English Parliament corresponds the assembly of the people, that is, of all the gentiles ; to the senate, or Lords, corresponds the council of the elders and chiefs of gentes. Either the council, or the assembly, or both together, entrusted the* executive power to one pre-eminent official, who may have exercised at once the functions of priest, general, and chief justice, for in early times the cumulation of offices was the rule, and the division of labour was the exception. In his interesting book, La Cite Antique, which depicts society under the posterior gentile organization, M. Fustel de Coulanges represents the paterfamilias as being at once a tiller of the soil, a warrior, a judge in his own household