Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 12.djvu/867

* MAN. 773 MAN. mystery chamber beneath ; in the Kiowa tribe each stage the social groups tend to approach a ambitious men may 'dream' a shield, which distinctive t_vpe characterized by modes of reck- thereafter becomes the insignia of an order; oning relationship and by current beliefs; ar- ainong the Siouan tribes tlie youth generally fast ranged by sequence and leading characters, the until a 'vision' of an animal appears to become stages and types are as follows: Stage Relation Control Motive Form Savagery Maternal Avuncular Zoticratic ^'^° I TrtVioi a.-<.i.ifw Barbarism Patriarc^hal Vicarial Theocratic Gens ( ^"°'" ""'-""'•'^ Civilization Monarchical Hereditary Aristocratic Kingdom t National Enlijfhtenment Electional Popular Democratic Republic (' society his totem, wliile in the related Iroquoian custom The lowest social organization known observa- described by Schoolcraft and Longfellow, the cul- tionally is that of the Australian natives. Here ture-hero Hiawatha fasted and invoked the pow- the laws are remarkabl}' definite and are con- ers until JMondamin, the Corn ilaiden. appeared nected with religious observances; they relate and gave corn to men. Sometimes the hallucina- chiefly to the person, and operate through mar- tions are hastened and intensified by the use of riage and the family. Commonly the tribe or stimulants or narcotics, regarded as sacred and band comprises four subgroups or clans (i.e. used ceremonially; the Kiowa and Mesealero- two couples), between which intermarriage is Apache tribes use peyote (a cactus containing permitted in a series of combinations varying toxic alkaloids which at once stimulate and pro- with the order of the gi'oups and with sex in duce color phantasms), the long Huicbol pil- each, the system being so intricate that Cau- griinages are made in search of a similar plant casian students find difficulty in tracing it. The and sustained by its stimulating eft'ect, several fullness and force of the regulations render mat- !Mexican tribes brew beverages to produce cere- ing a public function ( indeed, attendant customs monial intoxication, and the natives of Florida make it measurably collective) performed with used a toxic 'black drink' to fit themselves for im- the sanction of two or more groups and connected portant ceremonial functions ; all customs -n-hich with imposing ceremonies both before and after throw light on the uses of hasliish, poppy, and the event, including remarkable puberty rites, lotus in earlier times and other lands. The edu- As in higher .savagery, the marital groups are cative activities of primitive life hardly ex-tend organized under totems or tutelaries, and the beyond the physical and devotional training of respective duties and privileges of the clans, like youth and the ceremonial probation of candidates those of the sexes, are measurably differentiated, for admission to special classes. The striking The attendant property regulations are ineon- fcatures are the predominance of ceremonial mo- spicuovis, though well ruiderstood by the tribes- tives and the absence of previsinnal control: for men; in genei'al the ranee and resources are it is only in higher culture that the means of common to all, food is communal, and strictly education beco?he economic, the methods prac- personal possessions are regarded as tabu to tical, and the motives rational. others by reason of a putative infusion of per- In general view the industries fall into a de- sonality. Probably the lowest known social velopmental series, in which the actions pass organization on the Western Hemisphere is that from the simple to the complex, the methods from of the Seri Indians ; here, too, the chief regula- the devious to the direct, and the motives from tions relate to the maintenance of the group and the mechanical to the sacramental, and thence operate through marriage, the property regula- te the rational : the successive steps being marked tions being .subordinate, ilating in the clan is by continually increasing mentality, growing in- prohibited, but inter-clan unions are limited only dependence of natural environment, and advanc- by general consent and compliance with require- ing conquest over the animal, vegetable, and min- ments. which include material and moral tests eral realms, all interrelated and proceeding cumu- of the groom. After negotiations between the lativelv. elderwomen (or clan-mothers) with the approval Sociology: L.ws. or iN.STiTrTlojfAi, Activi- of the elderbrothers (or war-chiefs) of the two TiE.s. While the unit of Homo .inpims is an indi- clans, the would-be groom enters the family of vidual organism, the unit of social mankind is the prospective bride, and for a year provides a gi-oup. In observed primitive societies, in frame or otlier food for the family group, and ancient societies described bv historians, and in meantime maintains continence (which is not primal societies inferred from vestiges and anal- imposed on the other partner with respect to his ogies, the unit groups are maintained bv (1) clan-fellows); and at the end of the probation mechanical, and (2) conventional laws, the latter the marriage is celebrated with a ceremonial being (a) instinctive, (b) ceremonial, and (c) ra- feast. Thenceforward he becomes a perpetual tional in varvin<r degrees; and the course of S"est of his wife, without authority over her human progress is marked bv the development of house, children, or other property, and outranked tliese laws. Their essential' function is that of by the wife's brothers— though he may be an regulating the relations between the individual elderbrother or chief m his own clan. Unlike an'd the group; and they relate to person and the Australians, the Seri are warlike, and the property in varying degrees in successive stages, regulation of leadership is definite. In each In general they are simpler but more definite clan the eldest matron or clan-mother forms the and rigorous iii the earlier stages, more compre- legislative and judicative head, and exercises a hensive and more beneficent in the later, the control actually measured by her shrewdness passage accompanving the growth of mentality and strength, but putatively determined by the as well as the enlargement of the groups; and power of the totem of which she is deemed the while measurably gi'adual, the original passage vicar; while her elderbrother becomes, by virtue was apparently accelerated at certain points de- of his relationship, her administrative, and hence fining the chief stages of human progress. In the war-chief of the clan. The several clans are