Page:The American Indian.djvu/208

162 South America the taboo has been reported for the Guaycuris and the Carib of the Antilles.

However, the apparent erratic distribution of this custom may be due to incomplete information.

There are other phenomena of this class, of which the joking-relationship is a type, so far reported for central North America only. In general, the custom is for individuals of certain specific relationships to have the privilege of almost unlimited personal ridicule, even in public, which must be cheerfully borne.

As in other parts of the world, we find in the New World a tendency for a social group to recognize conventional age-classes, particularly for the males. Thus, for the purposes of administration, the Inca government divided the males into the following classes:—

A somewhat similar classification seems to have been recognized by the Aztec, and even out in the bison hunting area many tribes were regarded as composed of boys, young men, warriors, and old men, each class having certain privileges and duties.

It so happens that in several parts of the world where such age-grades are recognized, we find a series of men's societies organized from these different age-ranks, and in the aggregate presenting the example of a series of societies, membership in which is restricted to separate life periods. In such a system, one would begin by joining a boys' society and so gradually pass at the proper age to the next higher and so on through