Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 5, 1894.djvu/64

 56 able to sift the evidence it supplies without our aid, and I much doubt if they would have noted the significance of the part played by broken men at all if it had not been pointed out by folk-lorists.

Let me turn next to the relationship between the tribe and the village community.

Before the village community came under scientific observation, the chief factor in human organisation, as it appeared to the student, was the tribe; now that attention has centred upon the village community, the tribe has been lost sight of, and the family has taken its place.

Sir Henry Maine has stated the case for both sides of the question with his usual vigour, his bias being in favour of the theory of the growth of tribes from families, and he claims both Plato and Aristotle among ancient writers, and Darwin among later writers, as advocates of this theory. Personally I do not agree with Sir Henry Maine's interpretation of the evidence afforded by these great authorities. I only state the fact now to remind the meeting of Sir Henry Maine's view. He writes in opposition to McLennan and Morgan, who held the reverse view, namely, that the tribal organisation preceded the family, and also the village community. Recently, my own researches have compelled me to argue on the side of McLennan and Morgan.

The interest of this subject to the folk-lorist is of twofold importance: (1) As an element in the early history of institutions; (2) As an element in the early history of belief and ritual.

In this latter part of the subject some facts have recently appeared which are worth attention. In such a carefully written book as Col. Ellis's Ewe-Speaking People (p. xiv), we have the following passage: "It will hardly be disputed that as the village community is necessarily antecedent to the tribe, the village god must be an earlier conception than the tribe god." The premiss in this argument is one that, as I have briefly shown, is by no means generally