Chapter I: Primitive Man (2)

That the origin of marriage and the family really constitutes a problem, long failed to be recognized. Because of the natural relations of the sexes it was supposed that man lived in a state of marriage from the very beginning. Furthermore, the monogamous marriage of the present was projected back into an indefinite past, where it found final termination in the idea of a primal pair of ancestors. But, even apart from this mythological belief, there were also positive grounds for supposing an original state of monogamy. Do not many animals live in monogamous union? In addition to nest-building birds, monogamy prevails particularly among mammals, and, of the latter, among those that have the closest physical relationship to man. We might cite the gorilla, the primate that most resembles man, and probably also the chimpanzee, although in this case we lack positive proof. Why, then, should not man have carried over monogamous marriage from his animal state into his primitive culture? This theory, therefore, was regarded as almost self-evident until after the middle of the last century. But in 1861, a Swiss jurist and antiquarian, J. Bachofen, published a remarkable work on "Mother-right." In this book Bachofen attempted to prove the falsity of the doctrine--previously almost uncontested--that monogamy was the original form of marriage, and to refute the view, regarded as equally self-evident, that within this marriage union man held the supremacy--in brief, the patriarchal theory. Bachofen started with a discussion of the Lycians as described by Herodotus. According to this writer, the kinship of the children, among the Lycians, was determined by the mother, not by the father. The sons and daughters belonged to the family of the mother, and descent was traced through her instead of through the father. Bachofen found similar indications among other peoples also. He called attention, for example, to Tacitus's reports in the _Germania_ of some of the German tribes in which a son stands closer to the brother of his mother than he does to his father. Similar statements occur in Cæsar's _Bellum Gallicum_ concerning the Britons. Bachofen collected other examples of the same nature, and also especially emphasized certain elements in myth and legend that seemed to indicate a like ascendancy of woman in early times. In his opinion, legend is esteemed too lightly if, as occurred in his day, it is regarded as entirely meaningless. Of course, legend is not history; yet it gives a picture, even though in fanciful terms, of the real conditions of earlier times. On the basis of these detached observations, Bachofen at once constructed a general theory. Preceding the patriarchal period of paternal rule, there was maternal rule, gynecocracy. In earliest times the mother was the head of the family. In romantic colours Bachofen pictures the era in which the fair sex guided the destinies of humanity. Later, man, with his rougher nature but greater intelligence, displaced her and seized the dominion for himself. Bachofen then asks, How did it come about that, in spite of this natural superiority of man, woman ruled the family earlier than he? To this he gives an extremely prosaic and realistic reply, contrasting sharply with his romantic ideas in connection with the dominance of woman. We must find a clue, he believes, in those cases of our own day in which mothers still determine the name, descent, etc., of their children. This happens when the children are born out of wedlock. Under such conditions, the child does not know its father, nor does, perhaps, even the mother. To understand the origin of maternal descent, therefore, we must suppose that children were universally born out of wedlock. Thus, prior to the ascendancy of woman, there existed a state of agamy, in which there was no marriage but only a promiscuous relation of the sexes. We thus have, as it were, a picture whose outlines are determined by contrast with the family of civilized peoples, and which reminds us of Hobbes's account of the earliest political relations, there being in both cases an entire absence of order. But it is precisely in this fact, Bachofen believes, that we have a clue to the origin of gynecocracy if only we bear in mind the actual characteristics of woman. Woman's nature is such that this universal promiscuity of the sexes must have become repulsive, first of all, to her. Turning away all other men, she accepted but a single one. In so doing, woman proved herself the champion of chastity and morals which she has since remained. To her, and not to man, is due the honour of having founded the monogamous family. At the outset she was also its natural preserver and guardian. The children were counted to her kin; her kin determined descent; and, in Bachofen's view, this condition, which arose out of causes of a universal nature, long prevailed throughout the world generally. But why was it not maintained? It was not possible, so runs the answer, because, though woman alone was psychically fitted to establish it--man could never have instituted monogamy--she was not equally fitted to render it permanent. Woman is not born to rule. In intelligence, as well as in physical strength, she is inferior to man. Altogether, therefore, there are three periods of development: agamy or promiscuity, followed by female supremacy or mother-right, and, finally, by the dominance of man, or father-right.

These hypotheses of Bachofen created much dispute in succeeding years. Some of the facts could not be denied from the standpoint of the antiquarian. Nevertheless, the supposition of the universality of an early mother-right was quite rightly questioned, and its origin out of the completely unrestrained condition of the horde was even more vigorously contested. And so the theory of the Swiss jurist, which was based essentially on philologic-antiquarian arguments, gradually fell into the background, until, in the seventies of the nineteenth century, it suddenly seemed to find important corroboration and a new basis from an entirely different quarter. It was ethnology that supplied the new facts, and these were again derived from a study of Australia, that field of ethnological observation which was generally regarded as more particularly exemplifying primitive culture. Bachofen believed to have demonstrated that maternal descent was originally a universal custom, even in the case of those who are now cultural peoples. Ethnology revealed the fact that this system of kinship is still very prevalent in Australia. Indeed, it is so prevalent that even to-day about three-fifths of the tribes trace descent through the mother and only two-fifths through the father. In some of the cases in which the system of paternal descent is now established, moreover, it is probable that the mother once determined the kinship of the children. It was on the basis of these facts that, in his volume on the natives of south-eastern Australia, Howitt, the most thorough investigator of the social conditions of the Australians, came to a conclusion similar to that previously reached by Bachofen on the basis of his antiquarian investigations. In Howitt's view, all family relations were originally based on the system of maternal descent. This system, though generally restricted to narrower bounds than in Australia, is likewise to be found in America, Melanesia, Polynesia, and in several parts of the Old World, especially among the peoples of northern Siberia and among the Dravidian tribes in the southern part of Hindustan. These facts have more and more led present-day ethnologists to a view that is in essential agreement with Bachofen's theory. Again the question was raised how such a system of maternal descent was possible. The answer was that it could be possible only if the mother, but not the father, was known to son and daughter--again an analogical conclusion from conditions prevailing in present-day society outside the marriage tie. Accordingly, the idea was again adopted that, anteceding marriage, there was an original state of promiscuity. It was believed that there was originally neither marriage nor family, but merely a condition in which there were sexual relations of all with all--a picture of the relations between man and woman suggested by the idea of an original state of natural rights and of freedom from political restraints, and forming, as it were, the counterpart of the latter.

But ethnology then discovered other phenomena also that seemed to favour this view. _Two_ lines of argument, particularly, have here played an important rôle, and still retain a measure of influence. The first argument was again derived from the ethnology of Australia. This region possesses a remarkable institution, describable neither as monogamy nor as agamy, but appearing, at first glance, to be an intermediate form of association. This is the so-called _group marriage_; several men are united in common marriage with several women. Either a number of brothers marry a number of sisters, or a number of men belonging to one kinship group marry in common women of another. Group marriage, therefore, may seem to represent a sort of transitional stage between promiscuity and monogamy. At first, so we might picture it to ourselves, the union of all with all became restricted to more limited groups, and only later to the union of one man with one woman.

But had not a further argument been added, perhaps neither female descent alone nor group marriage would have attracted to this theory so many prominent ethnologists, including, besides Howitt, the two able investigators of Australia, Spencer and Gillen, the learned exponent of comparative ethnology, J. G. Frazer, and a number of others. This further argument was presented with particular thoroughness by the American ethnologist Lewes Morgan, in his history of primitive man, "Ancient Humanity" (1870). It is based upon what Morgan has termed the 'Malayan system of relationship.' We are not, of course, familiar with this as a system of actual relationship; it occurs only in the languages of certain peoples, as a system of names--in short, as a nomenclature--referring in part to relations of kinship, but chiefly to age-relations within one and the same kinship group. The name 'Malayan' is not entirely appropriate as applied to this system. The nomenclature is found particularly on the island of Hawaii, though it also occurs in Micronesian territory. Its essential characteristic may be very simply described. It consists, or consisted, in the fact that a native of Hawaii, for example, calls by the name of 'father,' not only his actual father but also every man of an age such that he could be his father--that is, every man in the kinship group of the next older generation. Similarly, he calls by the name 'mother,' not only his own mother but every woman who might possibly, as regards age, be his mother. He calls brother and sister the men and women of his own generation, son and daughter those of the next younger generation, and so on up to grandfather and grandmother, grandson and grand-daughter. The Hawaiian native does not concern himself about more distant generations; great-grandfather is for him the same as grandfather, and great-grandchild the same as grandchild. The terms, thus, are of the simplest sort. The brothers and sisters of a man, whom we designate in the accompanying diagram by M, are placed alongside of him in the same generation; above, as an older generation, are fathers and mothers; still

Grandparents
|
Fathers\ | /Mothers
\ | /
Brothers---- M ----Sisters
/ | \
Sons/ | \Daughters
|
Grandchildren

higher, are grandfathers and grandmothers; below, are sons and daughters and the grandsons and granddaughters. The same, of course, holds also for women. Thus, the system as a whole comprises five generations.

Now, it was maintained that this system could have arisen only out of a previous condition of general promiscuity. For, unless the actual father were universally unknown, how could it be possible that a person would call by the name of father every man within the same kinship group who might, as regards age, be his father? If, however, we propose this argument, we immediately strike a weak point in the hypothesis, since all women of the older generation are called mother just as its men are called father. We should certainly expect that the real mother would be known, because the child derives its nourishment from her during a period which is especially long among primitive peoples, and because it grows up close to her. And, furthermore, the hypothesis is hardly reconcilable with the fact that, for the most part, Malayo-Polynesian languages differentiate relations by marriage even more sharply than do our own. An Hawaiian man, for example, calls the brother of his wife by a different name than does a woman the brother of her husband. Thus, in place of our word 'brother-in-law' they have two expressions. In any event, the term 'brother-in-law' is applied to an individual, and therefore implies marriage. To meet this point, we would be obliged to fall back on the supposition that these terms represent later additions to the original nomenclature of relationship. But even then the fact would remain that, in their direct reference, these terms are merely names for differences in age. It therefore remains an open question whether the terms also designate relationship; to the extent of our observation, this is certainly not the case. The native of Hawaii, so far as we know anything about him, knew his father and mother: what he lacked was merely a specific name for them. Whenever he did not call his father by his given name, he evidently called him by the same name that he applied to the older men of his immediate group. Among European peoples also, the terms 'father' and 'mother' are sometimes used in connection with men and women outside this relationship. For example, the Russians, particularly, have a custom of addressing as 'little father' and 'little mother' persons who are not in the least related to them. That which makes it highly probable that in the so-called Malayan system of relationship we are dealing not with degrees of relationship but with age-periods, is, in the last event, a different phenomenon--one that has hitherto been overlooked in connection with these discussions. In the very regions whose languages employ this nomenclature, custom prescribes that the youths and men live in separation from the women and children from their earliest years on. This is the institution of the men's club with its age-groups. Its social rôle is an important one, crowding even the family association into the background. Under such circumstances, the individual is naturally interested first of all in his companions of the same age-group, for each of these usually occupies a separate apartment in the men's house. Thus, the so-called Malayan system of relationship is really not a system of relationship at all, but a nomenclature of age-groups based on social conditions. These conditions bring it about that companions of the same sex are more closely associated than are men and women. In the men's houses a companion of the same group is a brother, one of the next older group, a father. Together with these men the individual goes to war and to the hunt. Thus, these phenomena cannot be said to belong to the lowest stage of culture. Nor, obviously, does this terminology, which has reference to differences of age, exclude any particular form of marriage. In this case it is a mistake to associate the names 'father,' 'mother,' 'brother,' etc., with the concepts that we attach to these words.

The hypothesis that the family, whether of monogamous or of polygamous organization, was preceded by a state of unrestricted sexual intercourse, so-called agamy or promiscuity, is, however, as was remarked above, based not only on the fact of maternal descent and of the Malayo-Polynesian method of designating ages, but also on that of group-marriage. In this form of marriage, a number of men marry in common a number of women. This is interpreted as a transitional stage between an unrestricted sexual intercourse within the tribe and the limited marriage unions of later times. At first glance, indeed, this might appear probable. In order, however, to decide whether such a transition could take place, and how it might occur, we must first of all consider the relation which group-marriage sustains, among the peoples who practise it, to the other forms of marriage. It then appears at once that it is a particular form of polygamy. True, it is not identical with the form of polygamy most familiar to us, in which one man possesses several wives. But there is also a second form, which, though less frequent, is of greatest importance for an interpretation of group-marriage. One woman may have several husbands. The two forms of polygamy may conveniently be called _polygyny_ and _polyandry_, and these terms should always be distinguished in any attempt at a precise account of polygamous marriage. Polygyny is very prevalent even in our day, occurring particularly in the Mohammedan world, but also among the heathen peoples of Africa, and in other regions as well. It was likewise practised by the ancient Israelites, and also by the Greeks, although the Indo-Germanic tribes for the most part adhered to monogamy from early times on. Polyandry is much less common, and is, indeed, to be found only among relatively primitive peoples. It occurs in Australia and, in the southern part of Hindustan, among the Dravidians, a tribe of people crowded back to the extreme end of the continent by peoples who migrated into India; it is found also far in the north among the Esquimos of Behring Strait and among the Tchuktchis and Ghilyaks of Siberia, and, finally, here and there in the South Sea Islands.

If, now, we wish to understand the relation of these two forms of polygamy to each other, we must first of all attempt to picture to ourselves the motives that underlie them, or, wherever the custom has become fixed through age, to bring to light the motives that were originally operative. In the case of polygamy, the immediate motive is evidently the sexual impulse of man which is more completely satisfied by the possession of several wives than by that of a single one. This motive, however, does not stand alone; as a rule other contributing circumstances are present. Two such important factors, in particular, are property rights and the power of authority. Polygyny flourishes particularly wherever the general conceptions of property and of authority, and, connected with the latter, that of the supremacy of man within the family, have attained undue importance. Under the co-operation of these motives, the wife becomes the absolute property of the husband, and may, therefore, wherever polygyny prevails among barbaric peoples, be given away or exchanged. Bound up with this, moreover, is the fact that, wherever there are considerable social differences, dependent on differences in property and rank, it is principally the wealthy or the aristocratic man who possesses many wives. In the realm of Islam, the common man is, as a rule, content with a _single_ wife, so that monogamy here prevails in the lowest stratum of society.

With polyandry the case is essentially otherwise. In it, entirely different motives are operative; it might, indeed, be said that they are the exact opposite of those that bring about polygyny. It is particularly significant that polyandry is found in regions where there is a scarcity of women. This scarcity, however, is, in turn, generally due to an evil custom of barbaric culture, namely, infanticide. In Polynesia, where polyandry was very prevalent, this custom was at one time fairly rampant. Even to-day infanticide still appears to be practised by some of the Dravidian tribes of Hindustan. Similar conditions prevail among the Australians. In Polynesia, however, and probably in other localities as well, it was chiefly the female children who were the victims of infanticide. The natural result was a decrease in women and a striking numerical disproportion between the sexes. Thus, Ellis, one of the older English investigators of conditions in these territories, estimated the relation of men to women as about six to one. Under such circumstances the custom of polyandry is intelligible without further explanation. It was not possible for every one to possess a wife of his own, and so several men united to win one wife in common.

We might ask why it was chiefly girls who fell victims to this murder. That children in general should be sacrificed, under the rough conditions of nature, is not inexplicable. It is due to the struggle for the necessities of life and to the indolence that shrinks from the labour of raising children. The desire is to preserve the lives of only a limited number; the remainder are killed immediately after birth. In Polynesia, the murder was forbidden if the child had lived but a single hour. Occasionally, magical motives are operative, as in the case of the horror which the man of nature feels towards deviations from the normal and towards the birth of twins. That male children are more often spared than female, however, can scarcely be explained otherwise than on the ground that a particular value is placed on men. The man is a companion in sport and in the chase, and is regarded as more valuable for the further reason that he aids in tribal warfare. This higher value reverts back even to the child. It is evidenced also in the fact that, in the case of women, the arrival of adolescence is not celebrated with the same solemn ceremonies as are held in the case of young men. Whereas great celebrations are held when the youth reaches the age of manhood, little notice is taken, as a rule, of the maiden's entrance into womanhood. By means of these celebrations, the youths are received into the society of men, and, together with companions of their own age, are initiated into the traditional ceremonies. In these ceremonies women are not allowed to participate.

Though the causes of polyandry are thus entirely different from those of polygyny, it does not at all follow that these forms of marriage are mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they may very well exist side by side, as, indeed, they actually do in many places. But how, then, is so-called group-marriage related to these two forms? It is obviously nothing but a combination of polyandry and polygyny. In fact, whenever a group of men marries a group of women, these two forms of polygamy are both involved. Every man has several wives, and every wife has several husbands. Only, indeed, on the basis of a purely external and superficial consideration could one look upon polygyny and polyandry as unconjoinable, because they are, in a certain sense, opposing ideas. As a matter of fact, they do not really exclude each other. If we bear in mind the causes mentioned above, it is obvious that under certain conditions of life, such as occur particularly in a more primitive environment, their combination is more probable than their mutual exclusion. If, especially among tribes who have not yet developed sharply defined distinctions based on property and power, as, for example, among the Australians, every man strives to obtain several wives (which is the state of polygyny), while, on the other hand, there actually exists a dearth of women (which means that motives to polyandry are present), the two forms naturally combine with each other. This is frequently verified, moreover, whenever we are able to gain any degree of insight into the particular conditions surrounding the origin of such group-marriages, and also whenever their forms undergo a modification of details. Among Australian tribes, for example, particularly in the southern part of the continent, there is a common form of group-marriage, in which a man possesses either one or several chief wives, together with secondary wives; the latter are the chief wives of other men, whereas his own chief wife is in turn the secondary wife of those men or of others. This custom is very similar to what is probably the most common form of polygyny, namely, the possession by a man of only _one_ chief wife in addition to several secondary wives,--a form of marriage that is obviously derived from monogamy. One agency that is particularly apt to bring about such a form of marriage, transitional between monogamy and polygyny, is war. We know from the Iliad that in barbaric times woman was the booty of the conqueror, and became his slave or secondary wife. So also, according to the Biblical legend, Abraham possessed a chief wife, Sarah, who belonged to his own tribe, but also a secondary wife, Hagar, who was an Egyptian slave. Wherever the concept of property became prominent, the purchase of women proved to be a further source of polygyny. In this case also, there was generally _one_ chief wife, wherever polyandry did not interfere. When the Mohammedan of modern times calls his chief wife 'favourite,' it is merely another indication that this form of polygyny developed from monogamy, since, according to the old custom, there was but _one_ chief wife. Here, however, the chief wife is no longer necessarily the wife belonging to a man's own tribe, as was the case among the ancient Israelites; the favour of the master determines which wife shall be given the privileged place.

Thus, from whatever angle we view group-marriage, its polygyny and its polyandry seem to rest on monogamy. This is true also of forms of group-marriage other than those mentioned above. Where the theft of women still continues to be a practice more serious than are the somewhat playful survivals that occur in the marriage ceremonies of cultural peoples, the one who wishes to steal a wife not infrequently secures confederates for his undertaking. Custom then commonly gives these companions a certain right to the stolen woman. This right, of course, is for the most part temporary, but it may nevertheless come to approximate the conditions of group-marriage in case the first man assists his confederates in the same way in which they have aided him. There is still another and a related motive that may lead to the same result. When a woman enters into marriage with a man of a certain tribe, she at once enters into very close relations with the tribe itself. Where tribal association has gained a preponderant importance, custom sometimes grants to all the male members of the tribe certain transient rights with respect to the woman on the occasion of her marriage. This occurs particularly when the man and woman belong to different tribes--that is, in the case of exogamy, an institution characteristic of the totemic age and to be considered later. For, the lively consciousness of kinship differences naturally tends to strengthen the right of appropriation belonging to the entire tribe. A similar thought is reflected in the mediæval _jus primæ noctis_ of certain provinces of France and Scotland, except that in place of the right of the kinship group to the possession of the individual we here find the authority of the lord over his vassals.

Thus, all these phenomena, belonging in part to the transitional stage between monogamy and polygamy and in part to a combination of the two forms of polygamy, namely, polygyny and polyandry, point to monogamy as the basal form of marriage, and that form from which, under the influence of particular conditions, all others have developed. Whether or not we regard it as probable that the system of maternal descent was at one time universal, no argument for the existence of an original promiscuity can be based upon it. If we call to mind the close association of the youths and men of the kinship group in the men's house, it will be apparent that such conditions of social intercourse make for a particularly intimate bond between mother and children. Before his entrance into the community of men, the boy lives in the company of the women. This close association between mother and children is sufficient to account for the origin of maternal descent. But, owing to the gradual change of cultural conditions, it is to be expected that maternal descent should pass over into paternal descent as soon as more positive conceptions of authority and property are formed. Moreover, the possibility also remains that among some tribes paternal descent prevailed from the very outset; positive proof is here not available. We cannot, of course, deny the possibility that under certain cultural conditions man exercised the decisive influence from the very beginning, as early, indeed, as one may speak of clan membership and hereditary succession. The most primitive stage of culture, as we shall see in the following discussion, lacks the conditions for either maternal or paternal descent, inasmuch as it possesses neither clearly defined clans nor any personal property worth mention.

Thus, the arguments based on the existing conditions of primitive peoples, and contending that the original condition of mankind was that of a horde in which both marriage and the family were lacking, are untenable. On the contrary, the phenomena, both of group-marriage, valued as the most important link in the chain of proof, and of the simpler forms of polygamy, everywhere point to _monogamy_ as their basis. Furthermore, these arguments all rest on the assumption that the peoples among whom these various phenomena occur, particularly the combination of polygyny and polyandry in group-marriage, occupy a primitive plane of social organization. This presupposition also has proven fallacious, since it has become evident that this organization, especially among the Australian tribes, is an extremely complicated one, and points back to a long history involving many changes of custom.

Meanwhile, primitive man, in so far as we may speak of him in the relative sense already indicated, has really been discovered. But the Australian does not belong to this class, nor, even less, can many of the peoples of Oceania be counted within it. It includes only those tribes which, having probably been isolated for many centuries and cut off from the culture of the rest of the world, have remained on the same primitive level. We have become familiar with them in the preceding account of the external culture of primitive man. We find them to be forest peoples who have, for the most part, been crowded back into inaccessible territory and who have entered but slightly into intercourse with the outside world, inasmuch as their needs are limited. They generally call themselves, whether rightly or wrongly we need not inquire, the original inhabitants of these regions, and they are regarded as such by their neighbours. They include, in addition to several tribes of Hindustan (as yet insufficiently studied), particularly the Semangs and Senoi of the interior of the Malay Peninsula, the Veddahs of Ceylon, the Negritos of the Philippines and Central Africa, and, finally, to some extent, also the Bushmen. This is certainly a considerable number of peoples, some of whom live at great distances from the others. In spite of this, however, even their external culture is largely the same. Considering the primitive character of their social institutions and customs, it would seem safe to say that without doubt they approach the lowest possible level of human culture. Besides bow and arrow they have scarcely a weapon, no vessels of clay, and practically only such implements as are presented directly by nature herself. At this stage there is scarcely anything to distinguish man from the animal except the early discovered art of kindling fire, with its influence on the utilization of the food that is gathered. Briefly summarized, these are the main traits of primitive culture that are known to us.

What, now, is the status of marriage and the family at this period? The answer to this question will come as a surprise to those who are imbued with the widespread hypotheses that presuppose the primitive state to be that of the horde. And yet, if these hypotheses be regarded in the proper light, our answer might almost be expected. Among the primitive tribes that we have mentioned, monogamy is everywhere found to be not only the exclusive mode of marriage, but that which is always, so to speak, taken for granted; and this monogamy, indeed, takes the form of single marriage. It is but rarely that related families live together more or less permanently, forming the beginning of the joint family. The Bushmen alone offer something of an exception to this rule. Among them, polygyny, together with other practices, has been introduced. This is probably due to the influence of neighbouring African peoples, such as the Hottentots and the Bantus. Elsewhere conditions are different. This is true especially of the Semangs and Senoi, whose isolation has remained more complete, and of the Veddahs of nature, as the Sarasin cousins call them in distinction from the surrounding Veddahs of culture. Among these peoples, monogamy--indeed, lifelong monogamy--has remained the prevailing form of marriage. Connected with it is found the original division of labour, which is based on sex. Man provides the animal food by hunting; woman gathers the vegetable food--fruits, tubers, and seeds--and, by the employment of fire, if necessary, renders both it and the game edible. This basis of division of labour, which appears natural and in harmony with the endowment of the sexes, contrasts with the conditions of later culture in that it indicates an approximate equality of the sexes. Furthermore, Rudolf Martin and the two Sarasins, investigators of the primitive Asiatic tribes of Malacca and Ceylon, commend the marriage of these peoples as being a union of husband and wife strictly guarded by custom. In forming a moral estimate of these conditions, it should not be overlooked that the exclusive possession of the wife is probably due to jealousy as much as it is to mutual faithfulness. Among the Veddahs, the intruder who threatens this possession is struck to earth by a well-aimed arrow shot from behind ambush, and custom approves this act of vengeance as a justifiable measure on the part of the injured man. Therefore, even though a French traveller and investigator may, to a certain extent, have confused cause and effect when he stated that the monogamy of these tribes had its origin in jealousy, the exercise of the right of revenge may, nevertheless, have helped to strengthen the custom. But, of course, in view of the primitive state of culture that here prevails, this custom of revenge is itself merely an indication of the undisputed supremacy of monogamy. Even as the individual, and not the clan, exercises this vengeance, so also does marriage continue to be restricted to single marriage. Of the formation of joint families, which arise out of the union of immediate blood relations, we find at most, as has been remarked, only the beginnings.

4. PRIMITIVE SOCIETY.

The more extensive social groups generally result from the fact that during the rainy season families withdraw into caves among the hills. The larger caves are frequently occupied in common by a number of families, particularly by such as are most closely related. Yet the groups of co-dwellers are not so much determined by considerations of kinship as by the size of the places of refuge; a single family occasionally occupies a small cave by itself. Nevertheless, this community life plainly furnishes the incentive to a gradual formation of wider social groups. This, no doubt, accounts for the fact that during the favourable season of the year several families of the Veddahs claim for themselves a specific plot of ground, whose supply of game, as well as of the products of the soil, which the women gather, belongs exclusively to them. Thus, there is a division of the people into districts, and these are determined geographically rather than ethnologically. Every one is entitled to obtain his food, whether game or products of the soil, from a specified territory. Custom strictly guards this communal property, just as it protects the single marriage. The Veddah, for example, who encroaches upon the territory belonging to a group other than his own, is in no less danger of falling a victim to an arrow shot from an ambush than is the one who trespasses on marriage ties.

These various institutions form the beginnings of social organization, but as yet they do not represent developed clan groups or established joint families of the patriarchal type. On the contrary, as they arise through the free association of individuals, so also may they be freely dissolved. Each man has exclusive possession of his wife. Without interference on the part of his clan, moreover, he exercises absolute control over his children, who remain with the individual family just as in the case of a developed monogamy. There is no trace of sex-groups, such as are later to be found in the case of the men's houses and the age-groups. Only temporarily, on the occasion of common undertakings, such as the hunting of large animals, which requires a considerable measure of strength, or when new hunting-grounds are being sought, is a leader appointed from among the older men. His leadership, however, ceases with the completion of the undertaking. There are no permanent chiefs, any more than there are clans or tribal organizations.

Thus, in summary, we might say: Whenever the social organization of primitive man has remained uninfluenced by peoples of a higher culture, it consists in a firmly established monogamy of the form of _single marriage_--a mode of existence that was probably carried over from a prehuman stage resembling that of the present-day anthropoids. There are also scanty beginnings of social groups. If we consider these tribes as a whole, they still continue to lead the life of a _horde_, meaning by this an unorganized, in contrast to an organized, tribe of people. Indeed, it was through a curious change of meaning that this word acquired its present significance. It is supposed to have originated in a Mongolian idiom, whence it found its way first into the Russian and later into other European languages. The Tartars called a division of warriors a _horda_. First used in this sense, the word apparently did not receive its present meaning in Germany until the beginning of the eighteenth century. Having in mind the "Golden Horde" of the Tartars, a horde was understood to mean a particularly dreaded division of warriors. The furious force of these Asiatic hordes, and the terror which they spread, later caused the concept to be extended to all unorganized, wild, and unrestrained masses of men. Taking the word in this wider significance, we may now say that the horde, as a fairly large social group in which only very meagre suggestions of an organized tribal system occur, is characteristic of primitive times, no less than are the isolated single family and the beginnings of the joint family. Thus defined, however, the horde does not differ essentially from the animal _herd_, in the meaning which the latter concept would possess when applied to human-kind. And it is not impossible that in the extension of the meaning of the term 'horde,' this association of the foreign word with the original Germanic word 'herd' played a part. A horde, we might say, is a human herd, but it is precisely a _human_ herd. Between the members of a horde, therefore, there exists a relation that is lacking in the animal herd, in flocks of migratory birds, for example, or in herds of sheep and cattle. This relation is established and preserved through a community of language. Herder, therefore, truthfully remarks that man was from the beginnings a 'herding animal,' in so far as he possessed social instincts. Even in the formation of language these social instincts were operative. Without a community life, and, we may add, without the mental interaction of individuals, language would be impossible. Language, however, in turn, strengthened this community life, and elevated it above the status of the animal herd or of an association concerned merely with momentary needs.

Thus, these reflections concerning the social relations of primitive man lead us to a further field of phenomena which likewise affords a glimpse into the mental characteristics of primitive peoples. For that which differentiates the horde from the herd is the _language_ of primitive man, together with the activity most closely bound up with language, namely, _thinking_.

5. THE BEGINNINGS OF LANGUAGE.

Our knowledge of those peoples whom we, avoiding the errors of the past, may now regard as primitive, led to the conviction that the Asiatic and African tribes described above were actually primitive, in the above-mentioned relative sense of the word. Naturally the question concerning the language of these peoples then began to arouse considerable attention, on the part, not only of ethnologists, but also of those interested in philology. The question is of equal importance, to say the least, for the psychologist. For language is bound up with thought. From the phenomena of language, therefore, we may draw inferences concerning the most general characteristics of thought. Such fundamental differences of language as exist, for example, between the Chinese and the Indo-Germanic tongues do not, of course, allow the direct conclusion that there are quantitative differences in mental culture. They do imply, however, that there are divergent directions and forms of thought. In their ceaseless change, the latter react upon language, and this, in turn, again influences mental characteristics. We cannot suppose that, in the period of Old High German, much less in that of the original German, our ancestors employed the same forms of thought with which we of to-day are familiar. To a lesser degree, similar changes have undoubtedly transpired within much shorter spaces of time.

These considerations make the question concerning the language of primitive man of the utmost psychological importance. Linguistic investigations, however, so far as they, in their early attempts, had been able to survey the field, had brought to light a fact which discouraged all efforts to discover an original language. Indeed, it was inevitable that at first glance this discovered fact should have appeared exceedingly strange, particularly when viewed in connection with the life of primitive man. It appeared that, for the most part, the original languages of primitive tribes no longer exist. It is true that in the vocabularies of the Semangs and Senoi of Malacca, of the Veddahs of Ceylon, of the Negritos of the Philippines, and in other vocabularies that have been collected, single words may be found which do not occur in the languages of the neighbouring tribes; and it is noteworthy that the bow and arrow are the objects most frequently designated by such words, a proof of the fact that these are really relatively primitive inventions. On the whole, however, the Veddahs speak the language of the Singhalese and Tamils; the Semangs and Senoi, as well as the Negritos of the Philippines, that of their neighbours, the Malays; similarly, among the African tribes, the Pygmies of Central Africa have apparently appropriated the language of the Monbuttus and other negro races, and the Bushmen that of the Hottentots.

How may this remarkable fact be explained? That these tribes formerly possessed languages of their own can scarcely be doubted. For, as respects physical characteristics, they are absolutely distinct races. Considering their characteristics as a whole, moreover, it is utterly impossible that they could have lacked language before coming into contact with the peoples who entered the country at a later period. How, then, did these people come apparently to lose their original language? To this we may briefly reply that there here transpired what always occurs when the well-known principle of the struggle for existence is applied to the field of mental phenomena. The stronger race crowded out the most important mental creation of the weaker, its language. The language of the weaker race, which was probably very meagre, succumbed to a language that was more highly developed. At first glance, this explanation would appear to contradict what we know concerning the life of these primitive tribes. With what anxiety they isolate themselves from their neighbours! A striking proof of this is offered by the practice of secret barter, in which primitive man sets out from the forest, if possible by night, and deposits his captured game at a place which custom has set apart for this purpose, returning the next night to take whatever the more civilized neighbouring tribes have left in exchange--iron implements and weapons, material for clothing, and especially articles of adornment. The participants in this barter do not see each other, much less speak with each other. But where such seclusion exists, how is it possible for a strange language to penetrate? This problem appears almost insoluble. Nevertheless, a solution that appears at least probable was suggested by the investigations of Kern, an able Dutch scholar. His studies were based mainly on the development of the various Malayan idioms. A remarkable exception to the rule that primitive tribes have adopted the language of their more civilized neighbours came to light in the case of the Negritos of the Philippines. Their neighbours, as well as those of the tribes of the interior of Malacca, belong to that much-migrating race, the Malayans. If we compare the Negrito word-formations that have been collected during the past forty years with the vocabulary of the neighbouring Malayans, it is evident that all the words are entirely different, or at least seem to be so with few exceptions. When, however, Kern traced the probable development of these words, and compared them, not with the present-day usage of the Malays but with older stages of their language, he found that the latter invariably contained the counterparts of the Negrito words. Thus, while these Negritos have remained untouched by the present-day Malays, who probably entered the country at least several centuries ago, they have evidently derived their language from a Malayan influx that occurred much earlier still. To this may be added the demonstrable fact, gleaned from another source, that from very early times the Malayan tribes undertook migrations at widely separated intervals. Traversing the seas in their unsteady boats, they at various times peopled such islands, in particular, as were not too remote from the mainland. Now the testimony of language, to which we have referred, demonstrates that there were at least two such migrations to the Philippines, and that they occurred at widely different times. The original Malayan dialect, which has now become extinct or unknown to the modern Malays, was assimilated by the Negrito peoples, who probably occupied this territory before the arrival of any of the Malays. But this leads to a further inference. If the language was appropriated in prehistoric times and if the conditions of the present are such as would make this scarcely possible, we must conclude that the interrelations of the immigrants and the original inhabitants were formerly not the same as those that now prevail. And, as a matter of fact, this seems altogether probable, if we call to mind the descriptions which modern travellers give of their experiences among these primitive peoples. The traits of character that particularly distinguish them are fear and hatred of their more civilized neighbours; corresponding to this, is the contempt felt by the latter, because of their higher culture, for the more primitive peoples. The only thing that restrains the immigrant people from waging a war of extermination against the original inhabitants is the fear of the poisoned arrow which the Negrito directs against his enemy from behind an ambush. In view of these facts it is not difficult to understand the almost universal isolation of primitive man at the present time. On the other hand, travellers who have been admitted into the lives of the primitive tribes of Malacca and Ceylon and have sought to gain their friendship, unanimously assure us that, whenever a person has once succeeded in coming close to these people and in overcoming their distrust, he finds their outstanding characteristics to be good nature and readiness to render assistance. We may, therefore, be justified in assuming that the seclusion of primitive man was not an original condition, but that it grew up, here and elsewhere, as a result of the war of extermination to which he was exposed on the part of the races attempting to crowd him out of a large part of his territory. Before this state of affairs arose, barter also could scarcely have possessed that character of secrecy which only fear and hatred could give it. In all probability the intercourse which necessarily took place in early times between the older inhabitants and the newer peoples, led to a competition of languages in which the poorer and less developed language of primitive man inevitably succumbed. Nevertheless, the primitive language may also have quietly exercised a reciprocal influence upon the more advanced language. An observation that we cannot escape, even on far higher stages of linguistic development, is the fact that, in such a struggle between a superior minority and a less civilized majority, the former determines the main stock of words, and even, under favourable conditions, the grammatical form, whereas the latter exercises a decisive influence on pronunciation. That a similar process occurred in connection with the displacement of primitive languages, the language of the Bushmen offers proof. This is essentially a Hottentot dialect, even though it is characterized by certain traits of primitive thought. The Hottentots, however, have derived their well-known clacking sounds from the Bushmen, who also gave these sounds to the languages of the Bantu peoples.

But are we deprived of all knowledge concerning the most primitive grammatical forms and concerning the related question of the origin of language, by virtue of the fact that the languages of primitive peoples have, with the exception of meagre remnants, apparently been lost? There is a consideration touching the question of primitive forms of thought and language that enables us, in spite of the difficulty suggested, to answer this question in the _negative_. The development of language does not at all keep pace with that of the other forms of culture. Primitive forms of thought especially, and the corresponding expression which they receive in language, may long persist after external culture is relatively advanced. And thus, among tribes that are in general far beyond the primitive stage, linguistic forms may still be found which are exact counterparts of phenomena that, from a psychological point of view, must be regarded as primitive. As regards this point, it is especially the African languages of the Soudan that offer a typical field for linguistic study. If we analyse the syntax of such a language and the forms of thought which the sentence structure allows us to infer, we gain the impression that it is hardly possible to imagine a form of human thought whose essential characteristics could be more primitive. This is clearly apparent from a consideration of the Ewe language of the peoples of Togo, a German colonial possession. This is a Soudan language, on whose grammar D. Westermann, a German missionary, has given us a valuable treatise. While the Ewe language does not contain all the essential features apparently characteristic of relatively primitive thought, it does exemplify some of them. We are led to this conclusion particularly when we compare it, together with other Soudan languages, with a form of language which, though it arises under highly advanced cultural conditions, may nevertheless be regarded as primitive, since it is actually formed anew before our very eyes. I refer to _gesture-language_. In this case, it is not sounds, but expressive movements, imitative and pantomimic, that form the means by which man communicates his thoughts to man. Though we may regard gesture-language as an original form of language, in so far as we can observe it at the moment of its creation, we must not, of course, forget that the genesis of the forms of gesture communication familiar to us belongs to a higher culture whose conditions differ widely from those of primitive thought.