Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/213

Rh the clans. This was an essential part of the totemic system as is noticed universally among the Indians. Without membership in a clan there could be no status in the tribe.

Caleb is first known as the son of Jephunneh, the Kenezite. Next he appears as a chief of the tribe of Judah; finally, in the book of Chronicles, his foreign descent is lost. He becomes Caleb, the son of Hezron, the son of Judah. This is an instance of adoption and is not contradictory. He is first described in accordance with his actual descent, but when adopted with his family and followers, who probably formed a sub-clan, he would be called by the name of the family that adopted him.

The whole population of the country which, according to Deuteronomy, was doomed to be exterminated, slowly became amalgamated with the invaders. In this way alone their rapid increase can be accounted for.

The doctrine that no quarter should be shown to the enemy and no alliance should be made with the Goim (a word meaning the "nations," with the implication of "heathen") was not established until the late prophetic influence. The use of the word Goim dates from the ninth century B.C. It is gratifying to be convinced that the stories of the wholesale extermination and cruel outrages injected into the historical narrative were afterthoughts intended to be examples for the future, and that they never actually occurred. If the stories are true, the brutality of the Israelites to the conquered was more horrible than that of the Indians, among whom captivity was tempered by adoption.

An interesting custom of the Indians connected both with the rite of sanctuary and that of adoption is that called by English writers "running the gantlet." When captives had successfully run through a line of tormentors to a post near the council-house, they were for the time free from further molestation. In the northeastern tribes this was in the nature of an ordeal to test whether or not the captive was vigorous and brave enough to be adopted into the tribe; but among other tribes it appears in a different shape. Any enemy, whether a captive or not, could secure immunity from present danger if he could reach a central post, or, if there were no post, the hut of the chief. A similar custom existed among the Arikara, who kept a special pipe in a "bird-box." If a criminal or enemy succeeded in smoking the pipe contained in the box, he could not be hurt. This corresponds with the safety found in laying hold of the horns of the Israelite altar.

Land.—In the earlier history of the Israelites there could be no individual property in land—it belonged to the clan, as it did among the Indians. After arriving at sedentary and national life the Israelites found it expedient to permit a compromise between