Page:Origin and spread of the Tamils.djvu/110



NOTES TO LECTURE II 99 of Cretan origini Syria and Palestina Kerita has any comedia.. of Cretan origin. The Cretans were most likely connected with the people of Syria and Palestine. It is a moot point whether this Kerita has any connection with the Kirātas, or the wild tribes of South India.. Greece owed her culture to Crete and Asia Minor. These have got their inspiration from Egypt, and probably from Sumeria. Tunisia was indebted to India. Waddell is of opinion that Egypt played no significant part in the diffusion of civilization. 33. See R. G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavisam and S'aivism and Minor Religions, pp. 114-115. 34. The Matrilineal System: A distinction has got to be made between mother-kin system and mother-rule and the former does not imply the latter. Mother-rule is not prevalent in many of the advanced communities which follow mother-kin. Sir J. G. Frazer explains the nature of mother-kin in the earliest society and its effect as manifested by the progress of time; he says that the tracing of descent and inheriting of property through the mother alone does not by any means imply the government of the tribes by women. Mother-kin does not mean motherrule. On the contrary, the practice of mother-kin prevails most extensively amongst the lowest savages, with whom woman was always the drudge and often his slave. As in Egypt, descent in Crete was through the female line. "The prevalence of mother-kin in regard to descent and property has not taken the actual government from the hands of men." 35. See Dikshitar, Marumakkatāyam and Sangam Literature, Z.D.M.G., Vol. IX, No. 3, p. 255. ff. 36. The cock was an emblem of the priest of Attis in Egypt and also of the corn spirit and it was sacrificed on the