Ancient Society. Lewis H. Morgan 1877

Chapter III
The Punaluan Family

The Punaluan family has existed in Europe, Asia and America within the historical period, and in Polynesia within the present century. With a wide prevalence in the tribes of mankind in the Status of Savagery, it remained in some instances among tribes who had advanced into the Lower Status of barbarism, and in one case, that of the Britons, among tribes who had attained the Middle Status.

In the course of human progress it followed the consanguine family, upon which is supervened, and of which it was a modification. The transition from one into the other was produced by the gradual exclusion of own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation, the evils of which could not forever escape human observation. It may be impossible to recover the events which led to deliverance; but we are not without some evidence tending to show how it occurred. Although the facts from which these conclusions are drawn are of a dreary and forbidding character, they will not surrender the knowledge they contain without a patient as well as careful examination.

Given the consanguine family, which involved own brothers and sisters and also collateral brothers and sisters in the marriage relation, and it was only necessary to exclude the former from the group, and retain the latter, to change the consanguine into the punaluan family. To effect the exclusion of the one class and the retention of the other was a difficult process, because it involved a radical change in the composition of the family, not to say in the ancient plan of domestic life. It also required the surrender of a privilege which savages would be slow to make, Commencing, it may be supposed, in isolated cases, and with a slow recognition of its advantages, it remained an experiment, through immense expanses of time; introduced partially at first, then becoming general, and finally universal among the advancing tribes, still in savagery, among whom the movement originated. It affords a good illustration of the operation of the principle of natural selection.

The significance of the Australian class system presents itself anew in this connection. It is evident from the manner in which the classes were formed, and from the rule with respect to marriage and descents, that their primary object was to exclude own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation, while the collateral brothers and sisters were retained in that relation. The former abject is impressed upon the classes by an external law; but the latter, which is not apparent on the face of the organization, is made evident by tracing their descents.^[1] It is thus found that first, second, and more remote cousins, who are collateral brothers and sisters under their system of consanguinity, are brought perpetually back into the marriage relation, while own brothers and sisters are excluded. The number of persons in the Australian punaluan group is greater than in the Hawaiian, and its composition is slightly different; but the remarkable fact remains in both cases, that the brotherhood of the husbands formed the basis of the marriage relation in one group, and the sisterhood of the wives the basis in the other. This difference, however, existed with respect 4o the Hawaiians, that it does not appear as yet that there were any classes among them between whom marriages must occur. Since the Australian classes gave birth to the punaluan group, which contained the germ of the gens. It suggests the probability that this organization into classes upon sex once prevailed among all the tribes of mankind who afterwards fell under the gentile organization. It would not be surprising if the Hawaiians, at some anterior period, were organized in such classes.

Remarkable as it may seem, three of the most important and most wide-spread institutions of mankind, namely, the punaluan family, the organization into gentes, arid the Turanian system of consanguinity, root themselves in an anterior organization analogous to the punaluan group, in which the germ of each is found. Some evidence of the truth of this proposition will appear in the discussion of this family.

As punaluan marriage gave the punaluan family, the latter would give the Turanian system of consanguinity, as soon as the existing system was reformed so as to express the relationships as they actually existed in this family. But something more than the punaluan group was needed to produce this result, namely, the organization into gentes, which permanently excluded brothers and sisters from the marriage relation by an organic law, who before that, must have been frequently involved in that relation. When this exclusion was made complete it would work a change in all these relationships which depended upon these marriages; and when the system of consanguinity was made to conform to the new state of these relationships, the Turanian system would supervene upon the Malayan. The Hawaiians had the punaluan family, but neither the organization into gentes nor the Turanian system of consanguinity. Their retention of the old system of the consanguine family leads to a suspicion, confirmed by the statements of Mr. Bingham, that own brothers and sisters were frequently involved in the punaluan group thus rendering a reformation of the old system of consanguinity impossible. Whether the punaluan group of the Hawaiian type can claim an equal antiquity with the Australian classes is questionable, since the latter is more archaic than any other known constitution of society. But the existence of a punaluan group of one or the other type was essential to the birth of the gentes, as the latter were essential to the production of the Turanian system of consanguinity. The three institutions will be considered separately.

I. The Punaluan Family.

In rare instances a custom has been discovered in a concrete form usable as a key to unlock some of the mysteries of ancient society, and explain what before could only be understood imperfectly. Such a custom is the Punalua of the Hawaiians. In 1860 Judge Lorin Andrews, of Honolulu, in a letter accompanying a schedule of the Hawaiian system of consanguinity, commented upon one of the Hawaiian terms of relationship as follows: “The relationship of punalua is rather amphibious. It arose from the fact that two or more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other in common; but the modern use of the word is that of dear friend, or intimate companion” That which Judge Andrews says they were inclined to do, and which may then have been a declining practice, their system of consanguinity proves to have been once universal among them. The Rev. Artemus Bishop, lately deceased, one of the oldest missionaries in these Islands, sent to the author the same year, with a similar schedule, the following statement upon the same subject: “This confusion of relationships is the result of the ancient custom among relatives of the living together of husbands and wives in common.” In a previous chapter the remark of Nr. Bingham was quoted that the polygamy of which he was writing, implied a plurality of husbands end wives. The same fact is reiterated by Dr. Bartlett: “The natives had hardly more modesty or shame than so many animals. Husbands had many wives, and wives many husbands, and exchanged with each other at, pleasure.” The form of marriage which they found created a punaluan group, in which the husbands and wives were jointly intermarried in the group. Each of these groups, including the children of the marriages, was a punaluan family; for one consisted of several brothers and their wives, and the other of several sisters with their husbands.

If we now turn to the Hawaiian system of consanguinity, in the Table, it will be found that a man calls his wife’s sister his wife. All the sisters of his wife, own as well as collateral, are all his wives. But the husband of his wife’s sister he calls punalua, i.e., his intimate companion; and all the husbands of the several sisters of his wife the same. They were jointly intermarried in the group. These husbands were not probably brothers; if they were, the blood relationship would naturally have prevailed over the affineal; but their wives were sisters, own and collateral. In this case the sisterhood of the wives was the basis upon which the group was formed, and their husbands stood to each other in the relationship of punalua. In the other group, which rests upon the brotherhood of the husbands, a woman calls her husband’s brother her husband. All the brothers of her husband, own as well as collateral, were also her husbands. But the wife of her husband’s brother she calls punalua, and the several wives of her husband’s brothers stand to her in the relationship of punalua. These wives were not, probably, sisters of each other, for the reason stated in the other case, although exceptions doubtless existed under both branches of the custom. All these wives stood to each other in the relationship of punalua.

It is evident that the punaluan family was formed, out of the consanguine. Brothers ceased to marry their own sisters; and after the gentile organization had worked upon society its complete results, their collateral sisters as well. But in the interval they shared their remaining wives in common. In like manner, sisters ceased marrying their own brothers, and after a long period of time, their collateral brothers; but they shared their remaining husbands in common. The advancement of society out of the consanguine into the punaluan family was the inception of a great upward movement, preparing the way, for the gentile organization which gradually conducted to the syndyasmian family, and ultimately to the monogamian.

Another remarkable fact with respect to the custom of punalua is the necessity which exists for its ancient prevalence among the ancestors of the Turanian and Ganowanian families when their system of consanguinity was formed. The reason is simple and conclusive. Marriages in punaluan groups explain the relationships in the system. Presumptively they are those which actually existed when this system was formed. The existence of the system, therefore, requires the antecedent prevalence of punaluan marriage, and of the punaluan family. Advancing to the civilized nations, there seems to have been an equal necessity for the ancient existence of punaluan groups among the remote ancestors of all such as possessed the gentile organization — Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts, Hebrews — for it is reasonably certain that all the families of mankind who rose under the gentile organization to the practice of monogamy possessed, in prior times, the Turanian system of consanguinity which sprang from the punaluan group. It will be found that the great movement, which commenced in the formation of this group, was, in the main, consummated through the organization into gentes, and that, the latter was generally accompanied, prior to the rise of monogamy, by the Turanian system of consanguinity.

Traces of the punaluan custom remained, here and there, down to the Middle Period of barbarism, in exceptional cases, in European, Asiatic, and American tribes. The most remarkable illustration is given by Caesar in stating the marriage customs of the ancient Britons. He observes that, “by tens and by twelves, husbands possessed their wives in common; and especially brothers with brothers and parents with their children.”

This passage reveals a custom of intermarriage in the group which punalua explains. Barbarian mothers would not be expected to show ten and twelve sons, as a rule, or even in exceptional cases; but under the Turanian system of consanguinity, which we are justified in supposing the Britons to have possessed, large groups of brothers are always found, because male cousins, near and remote, fall into this category with Ego. Several brothers among the Britons, according to Caesar, possessed their wives in common. Here we find one branch of the punaluan custom, pure and simple. The correlative group which this presupposes, where several sisters shared their husbands in common, is not suggested directly by Caesar; but it probably existed as the complement of the first. Something beyond the first he noticed, namely, that parents, with their children, shared their wives in common. It is not unlikely that these wives were sisters. Whether or not Caesar by this expression referred to the other group, it serves to mark the extent to which plural marriages in the group existed among the Britons; and which was the striking fact that arrested the attention of this distinguished observer. Where several brothers were married to each other’s wives, these wives were married to each other’s husbands.

Herodotus, speaking of the Massagetae, who were in the Middle Status of barbarism, remarks that every man had one wife, yet all the wives were common."^[4] It may be implied from this statement that the Syndyasmian family had begun to supervene upon the punaluan. Each husband paired with one wife, who thus became his principal wife, but within the limits of the group husbands and wives continued in common. If Herodotus intended to intimate a state of promiscuity, it probably did not exist. The Massagetae, although ignorant of iron, possessed flocks and herds, fought on horse back armed with battle axes of copper and with copper-pointed spears, and manufactured and used the wagon (amaxa). It is not supposable that a people living in promiscuity could have attained such a degree of advancement. Be also remarks of the Agathyrsi, who were in the same status probably that they had their wives in common that they might all be brothers, and as member’s of a common family, neither envy nor hate one another.^[5] Punaluan marriage in the group affords a more rational and satisfactory explanation of these, and similar usages in other tribes mentioned by Herodotus, than polygamy or general promiscuity. His accounts are too meagre to illustrate the actual state of society among them.

Traces of the punaluan custom were noticed in some of the least advanced tribes of the South American aborigines; but the particulars are not fully given. Thus, the first navigators who visited the coast tribes of Venezuela found a state of society which suggests for its explanation punaluan groups. “They observe no law or rule in matrimony, but took as many wives as they would, and they as many husbands, quitting one another at pleasure, without reckoning any wrong done on either part. There was no such thing as jealousy among them, all living as best pleased them, without taking offence to one another.... The houses they dwelt in were common to all, and so spacious that they contained one hundred and sixty persons, strongly built, though covered with palm tree leaves, and shaped like a bell.^[6] These tribes used earthen vessels and were therefore in the Lower Status of barbarism; but from this account were but slightly removed from savagery. In this case, and in those mentioned by Herodotus, the observations upon which the statements were made were superficial. It shows, at least, a low condition of the family and of the marriage relation.

When North America was discovered in its several parts the punaluan family seems to have entirely disappeared. No tradition remained among them, so far as I am aware, of the ancient prevalence of the punaluan custom.

The family generally had passed out of the punaluan into the Syndyasmian form; but it was environed with the remains of an ancient conjugal system which points backward to punaluan groups. One custom may be cited of unmistakable punaluan origin, which is still recognized in at least forty North American Indian tribes. Where a man married the eldest daughter of a family he became entitled by custom to all her sisters as wives when they attained the marriageable age. It was a right seldom enforced, from the difficulty, on the part of the individual, of maintaining several families, although polygamy was recognized universally as a privilege of the males. We find in this the remains of the custom of punalua among their remote ancestors. Undoubtedly there was a time among them when own sisters went into the marriage relation on the basis of their sisterhood; the husband of one being the husband of all, but not the only husband, for other males were joint husbands with him in the group. After the punaluan family fell out, the right remained with the husband of the eldest sister to become the husband of all her sisters if he chose to claim it. It may with reason be regarded as a genuine survival of the ancient punaluan custom.

Other traces of this family among the tribes of mankind might be cited from historical works, tending to show not only its ancient existence, but its wide prevalence as well. It is unnecessary, however, to extend these citations, because the antecedent, existence of the punaluan family among the ancestors of all the tribes who possess, or did possess, the Turanian system of consanguinity can be deduced from the system itself.

II. Origin of the Organization into Gentes.

It has before been suggested that the time, when this institution originated, was the period of savagery, firstly, because it is found in complete development in the Lower Status of barbarism; and secondly, because it is found in partial development in the Status of savagery. Moreover, the germ of the gens is found as plainly in the Australian classes as in the Hawaiian punaluan group. The gentes are also found among the Australians; based upon the classes, with the apparent, manner of their organization out of them. Such a remarkable institution as the gens would not be expected to spring into existence complete, or to grow out, of nothing, that is, without a foundation previously formed by natural growth. Its birth must be sought, in pre-existing elements of society, and its maturity would be expected M occur long after its origination.

Two of the fundamental rules of the gens in its archaic form are found in the Australian classes, namely, the prohibition of intermarriage between brothers and sisters, and descent in the female line. The last fact is made entirely evident when the gens appeared, for the children are then found in the gens of their mothers. The natural adaptation of the classes to give birth to the gens is sufficiently obvious to suggest the probability that it actually- so occurred. Moreover, this probability is strengthened by the fact that the gens is here found in connection with an antecedent and more archaic organization, which was still the unit of a social system, a place belonging of right to the gens.

Turning now to the Hawaiian punaluan group, the same elements me found containing the germ of the gens. It is confined, however, to the female branch of the custom, where several sisters, own and collateral, shared their husbands in common. These sisters, with their children and descendants through females, furnish the exact membership of a. gens of the archaic type. Descent would necessarily be traced through females, because the paternity of children was not ascertainable with certainty. As soon as this special form of marriage in the group became an established institution, the foundation for a gens existed. It then required an exercise of intelligence to turn this natural punaluan group into an organization, restricted so these mothers, their children, and descendants in the female line. The Hawaiians, although this group existed among them, did not rise to the conception of a gens. But to precisely such a group as this, resting upon the sisterhood of the mothers, or to the similar Australian group, resting upon the same principle of union, the origin of the gens must, be ascribed. It took this group as it found it, and organized certain of its members with certain of their posterity into a gens on the basis of kin.

To explain the exact manner in which the gens originated is, of course, impossible. The facts and circumstances belong to a remote antiquity. But the gens may he traced back to a condition of ancient society calculated to bring it into existence. This is all I have attempted to do. It belongs in its origin to a low stage of human development, and to a very ancient condition of society; though later in time than the first appearance of the punaluan family. It is quite evident that it sprang up in this family, which consisted of a group of persons coincident substantially with the membership of a gens.

The influence of the gentile organization upon ancient society was conservative and elevating. After it had become fully developed and expanded over large areas, and after time enough had elapsed to work its full influence upon society, wives became scarce in place of their former abundance, because it tended to contract the size of the punaluan group, and finally to overthrow it. The Syndyasmian family was gradually produced within the punaluan, after the gentile organization became predominant over ancient society. The intermediate stages of progress are not well ascertained; but, given the punaluan family in the Status of savagery, and the Syndyasmian family in the Lower Status of barbarism, and the fact of progress from one into the other may be deduced with reasonable certainty. It was after the latter family began to appear, and punaluan groups to disappear, that wives came to be sought by purchase and by capture. Without discussing the evidence still accessible, it is a plain inference that the gentile organization was the sufficient cause of the final overthrow of the punaluan family, and of the gradual reduction of the stupendous conjugal system of the period of savagery. While it originated in the punaluan group, as we must suppose, it nevertheless carried society beyond and above its plane.

III. The Turanian or Ganowanian System of Consanguinity.

This system and the gentile organization, when in its archaic form, are usually found together. They are not mutually dependent, but they probably appeared not far apart in the order of human progress. But systems of consanguinity and the several forms of the family stand in direct relations. The family represents an active principle. It is never stationary, but advances from a lower to a higher form as society advances from a lower to a higher condition, and finally passes out of one form into another of higher grade. Systems of consanguinity, on the contrary, are passive; recording the progress made by the family at long intervals apart, and only changing radically when the family has radically changed.

The Turanian system could not have been formed unless punaluan marriage and the punaluan family had existed at the time. In a society wherein by general usage several sisters were married in a group to each other’s husbands, and several brothers in a. group to each other’s wives, the conditions were present, for the creation of the Turanian system. Any system formed to express the actual relationships as they existed in such a family would, of necessity, to the Turanian; and would, of itself, demonstrate the existence of such a family when it was formed.

It is now proposed to take up this remarkable system as it still exists in the Turanian and Ganowanian families, and offer it in evidence to prove the existence of the punaluan family at the time it was established. It has come down to the present time on two continents after the marriage customs in which it originated had disappeared, and after the family had passed out of the punaluan into the Syndyasmian form.

In order to appreciate the evidence it will be necessary to examine the details of the system. That of the Seneca- Iroquois will be used as typical on the part of the Ganowanian tribes of America, and that of the Tamil people of South India on the part of the Turanian tribes of Asia. These forms, which are substantially identical through upwards of two hundred relationships of the same person, will be found in a Table at the end of this chapter In a previous work.^[7] I have presented in full the system of consanguinity of some seventy American Indian tribes; and among Asiatic tribes and nations that of the Tamil, Telugu, and Canarese people of South India, among all of whom the system, as given in the Table, is now in practical daily use. There are diversities in the systems of the different tribes and nations, but the radical features are constant. All alike salute by kin, but with this difference, that among the Tamil people where the person addressed is younger than the speaker, the term of relationship must be used; but when older the option is gives to salute by kin or by the personal name. On the contrary, among the American aborigines, the address must always be by the term of relationship. They use the system in addresses because it is a system of consanguinity and affinity. It was also the means by which each individual in the ancient gentes was able to trace his connection with every member of his gens until monogamy broke up the Turanian system. It will be found, in many cases, that, the relationship of the same person to Ego is different as the sex of Ego is changed. For this reason it was found necessary to state the question twice, once with a male speaking, and again with a female. Notwithstanding the diversities it created, the system is logical throughout. To exhibit its character, it will be necessary to pass through the several lines as was done in the Malayan system. The Seneca-Iroquois will be used.

The relationships of grandfather (Hoc’-sote), and grandmother (Oc’-sote), and of grandson (Ha-ya’-da), and granddaughter (Ka-ya’-da), are the most remote recognized either in the ascending or descending series. Ancestors and descendants above and below these, fall into the same categories respectively. The relationships of brother and sister are conceived in the twofold form of elder and younger, and not in the abstract, and there are special terms for each, as follow:

Elder Broher, Ha’-ge. Elder Sister, Ah’-je.

Younger brother, Ha’-ga. Younger Sister, Ka’-ga.

These terms are used by the males and females, and are applied to all such brothers or sisters as are older or younger than the person speaking. In Tamil there are two sets of terms for these relationships, but they are now used indiscriminately by both sexes.

First Collateral Line.

With myself a male, and speaking as a Seneca, my brother’s son and daughter are my son and daughter (Ha-ah’ wuk, and Ka-ah’-wuk), each of them calling me father (Ha-nigh). This is the first indicative feature of the system. It places my brother’s children in the same category with my own. They are my children as well as his. My brother’s grandchildren are my grandsons and granddaughters (Ha-ya’ da, and Ka-ya- da, singular), each of them calling me grandfather (Hoc’- sote). The relationships here given are those recognized and applied; none others are known.

Certain relationships will be distinguished as indicative. They usually control those that precede and follow. When they agree in the systems of different tribes, and even of different families of mankind, as in the Turanian and Ganowanian, they establish their fundamental identity.

In the female branch of this line, myself still a male, my sister’s son and daughter are my nephew and niece (Ha-ya’wan-da, and Ka- yawan-da), each of them calling me uncle (Hoc-no’seh).. This is a second indicative feature. It restricts the relationships of nephew and niece to the children of a man’s sisters own or collateral. The children of this nephew and niece are my grandchildren as before, each of them applying to me the proper correlative.

With myself a female, a part of these relationships are reversed. My brother’s son and daughter are my nephew and niece (Ha-soh’-neh., and Ka-soh’-neh), each of them calling me aunt (Ah-ga’-huc). It will be noticed that the terms for nephew and niece used by the males are different from those used by the females. The children of these nephews and nieces are my grandchildren. In the female branch, my sister’s son and daughter are my son and daughter, each of them calling me mother (Noh-yeh’), and their children are my grandchildren, each of them calling me grandmother (Oc’-sote).

The wives of these sons and nephews are my daughters- in-law (Ka’-sa), and the husbands of these daughters and’ nieces are my sons-in-law (Oc-na’-hose, each term singular), and they apply to me the proper correlative.

Second Collateral Line.

In the male branch of this line, on the father’s side, and irrespective of the sex of Ego, my father’s brother is my father, and calls me his son or daughter as I am a male or a female.

Third indicative feature.

All the brothers of a father are placed in the relation of fathers. His son and daughter are my brother and sister, elder or younger, and I apply to them the same terms I use to designate own brothers and sisters.

Fourth indicative feature.

It places the children of brothers in the relationship of brothers and sisters. The children of these brothers, myself a male, are my sons and daughters, and their children are my grandchildren; whilst the children of these sisters are my nephews and nieces, and the children of the latter are my grandchildren. But with myself a female the children of these brothers are my nephews and nieces, the children of these sisters are my sons and daughters, and their children, alike are my grandchildren. It is thus seen that the classification in the first collateral line is carried into the second, as it is into the third and more remote as far as consanguinei can be traced.

My father’s sister is my aunt, and calls me her nephew it I am a male.

Fifth indicative feature.

The relationship of aunt is restricted to the sisters of my father, and to the sisters of such other persons as stand to me in the relation of a father, to the exclusion of the sisters of my mother. My father’s sister’s children are my cousins (Ah-gare’-seh, singular), each of them calling me cousin. With myself a male, the children of my male cousins are my sons and daughters, and of my female cousins are my nephews and nieces; but with myself a female, these last relationships are reversed. All the children of the latter are my grandchildren.

On the mother’s side, myself a male, my mother’s brother is my uncle, and calls me his nephew.

Sixth indicative feature.

The relationship of uncle is restricted to the brothers of my mother, own and collateral, to the exclusion of my father’s brothers. His children are my cousins, the children of my male cousins are my sons and daughters, of my female cousins are my nephews and nieces; but with myself a female these last relationships are reversed, the children of all alike are my grandchildren. In the female branch of the same line my mother’s sister is my mother.

Seventh indicative feature.

All of several sisters, own and collateral, are placed in the relation of another to the children of each other. My mother’s sister’s children are my brothers and sisters, elder or younger.

Eighth indicative feature.

It establishes the relationship of brother and sister among the children of sisters. The children of these brothers are my sons and daughters, of these sisters are my nephews and nieces; and the children of the latter are my grandchildren. With myself a female the same relationships are reversed as in previous cases.

Each of the wives of these several brothers, and of these several male cousins is my sister-in-law (Ah-ge-ah’ ne-ah),each of them calling me brother-in-law (Ha-ya’-o). The precise meaning of the former term is not known. Bach of the husbands of these several sisters and female cousins is my brother-in-law, and they all apply to me the proper correlative. Traces of the punaluan custom remain here and there in the marriage relationship of the American aborigines, namely, between Ego and the wives of several brothers and the husbands of several sisters. In Mandan my brother’s wife is my wife, and in Pawnee and Arickaree the same. In Crow my husband’s brother’s wife is “my comrade” (Bot-ze’-no-pa-che’); in Creek my “present occupant” (Chu-hu’-cho-wa), and in Munsee “my friend” (Nain-jose’”). In Winnebago and Achaotinne she is “my sister.” My wife’s sister’s husband, in some tribes is “my brother,” in others my “brother-in-law,” and in Creek “my little separator” (Un-ka’-pu’-che), whatever that may mean.

Third Collateral Line.

As the relationships in the several branches of this line are the same as in the corresponding branches of the second, with the exception of one additional ancestor, it will be sufficient to present one branch out of the four. My father’s father’s brother is my grandfather, and calls me his grandson. This is a ninth indicative-feature, and the last of the number. It places these brothers in the relation of grandfathers, and thus prevents collateral ascendants from passing beyond this relationship. The principle which merges the collateral lines in the lineal line works upward as well as downward. The son of this grand-father is my father; his children are my brothers and sisters; the children of these brothers are my sons and daughters, of these sisters are my nephews and nieces; and their children are my grandchildren. With myself a female the same relationships are reversed as in previous cases. More-over, the correlative term is applied in every instance.

Fourth Collateral Line.

It will be sufficient, for the same reason, to give but a single branch of this line. My grand-father’s father’s brother is my grandfather; his son is also my grandfather; the son of the latter is my father; his son and daughter are my brother and sister, elder or younger; and their children and grandchildren follow in the same relationships to Ego as in other cases. In the fifth collateral line the classification is the same in its several branches as in the corresponding branches of the second, with the exception of additional ancestors.

It follows, from the nature of the system, that a knowledge of the numerical degrees of consanguinity is essential to a proper classification of kindred. But to a native Indian, accustomed to its daily use the apparent maze of relationships presents no difficulty.

Among the remaining marriage relationship, there are terms in Seneca-Iroquois for father-m-law (Oc-na’-hose) for a wife’s father, and (Ha-ga’-sa) for a husband’s father.

The former term is also used to designate a son-in-law, thus showing it to be reciprocal. There are also terms for step- father and step-mother (Hoc’-no-ese) and (Oc’-no-ese), and for step-son and step-daughter (Ha’-na and Ka’-no). In a number of tribes two fathers-in-law and two-mothers- in-law are related, and there are terms to express the connection. The opulence of the nomenclature, although made necessary by the elaborate discriminations of the system, is nevertheless remarkable. For full details of the Seneca- Iroquois and Tamil system reference is made to the Table. Their identity is apparent on bare inspection. It shows not only the prevalence of punaluan marriage amongst their remote ancestors when the system was formed, but also the powerful impression which this form of marriage made upon ancient society. It is, at the same time, one of the most extraordinary applications of the natural logic of the human mind to the facts of the social system preserved in the experience of mankind.

That the Turanian and Ganowanian system was engrafted upon a previous Malayan, or one like it in all essential respects, is now demonstrated. In about one-half of all the relationships named, the two are identical. If those are examined, in which the Seneca and Tamil differ from the Hawaiian, it, will be found that the difference is upon those relationships which depended on the intermarriage or non- intermarriage of brothers and sisters. In the former two, for example, my sister’s son is my nephew, but in the latter, he is my son. The two relationships express the difference between the consanguine and punaluan families. The change of relationships which resulted from substituting punaluan in the place of consanguine marriages turns the Malayan into the Turanian system. But it may be asked why the Hawaiians, who had the punaluan family, did not reform their system of consanguinity in accordance therewith? The answer has elsewhere been given, but it may be repeated. The form of the family keeps in advance of the system. In Polynesia it was punaluan while the system remained Malayan, in America it was Syndyasmian while the system remained Turanian; and in Europe and Western Asia it became monogamian while the system seems to have remained Turanian for a time, but it then fell into decadence, and was succeeded by the Aryan. Furthermore, although the family has passed through five forms, but three þ distinct systems of consanguinity were created, so far as is now known. It required an organic change in society attaining unusual dimensions to change essentially an established system of consanguinity. I think it will be found that the organization into gentes was sufficiently influential and sufficiently universal to change the Malayan system into the Turanian; and that monogamy, when fully established in the more advanced branches of the human family, was sufficient, with the influence of property, to overthrow the Turanian system and substitute the Aryan.

It remains to explain the origin of such Turanian relationships as differ from the Malayan. Punaluan marriages and the gentile organizations form the basis of the explanation.

I. All the children of my several brothers, own and collateral, myself a male, are my sons and daughters.

Reasons: Speaking as a Seneca, all the wives of my several brothers are mine as well as theirs. We are now speaking of the time when the system was formed. It is the same in the Malayan, where the reasons are assigned.

II. All the children of my several sisters, own and collateral, myself a male, are my nephews and nieces.

Reasons: Under the gentile organization these females, by a law of the gens, cannot be my wives. Their children, therefore, can no longer be my children, but stand to me in a more remote relationship; whence the new relationships of nephew and niece. This differs from the Malayan.

III. With myself a female, the children of my several brothers, own and collateral, are my nephews and nieces.

Reasons, as in II. This also differs from the Malayan.

IV. With myself a female, the children of my several sisters, own and collateral, and of my several female eosins, are my sons and daughters.

Reasons: All their husbands are my husbands as well. In strictness these children are my step-children, and are so described in Ojibwa and several other Algonkin tribes; but in the Seneca-Iroquois, and in Tamil, fallowing the ancient classification, they are placed in the category of my sons and daughters, for rcasons given in the Malayan.

V. All the children of these sons and daughters are my grandchildren.

Reason: They are the children of my sons and daughters.

VI: All the children of these nephews and nieces are my grandchildren.

Reason: These were the relationships of the same persons under the Malayan system, which presumptively preceded the Turanian. No new one having been invented, the old would remain.

VII. All the brothers of my father, own and collateral, are my fathers.

Reason: They are the husbands of my mother. It is the same in Malayan.

VIII. All the sisters of my father, own and collateral, are my aunts.

Reason: Under the gentile organization neither can be the wife of my father; wherefore the previous relationship of mother is inadmissible. A new relationship, therefore, was required: whence that of aunt.

IX. All the brothers of my mother, own and collateral, are my uncles.

Reasons: They are no longer the husbands of my mother, and must stand to me in a more remote relationship than that of father: whence the new relationship of uncle.

X. All the sisters of my mother, own and collateral, are my mothers.

Reason, as in IV.

XI. All the children of my father’s brothers, and all the children of my mother’s sisters, own and collateral, are my brothers and sisters.

Reasons: It is the same in Malayan, and for reasons there given.

XII. All the children of my several uncles and all the children of my several aunts, own and collateral, are my male and female cousins.

Reasons: Under the gentile organization all these uncles and aunts are excluded from the marriage relation with my father and mother; wherefore their children cannot stand to me in the relation of brothers and sisters, as in the Malayan, but must be placed in one more remote: whence the new relationship of cousin.

XIII. In Tamil all the children of my male cousins, myself a male, are my nephews and nieces, and all the children of my female cousins are my sons and daughters. This is the exact reverse of the rule among the Seneca- Iroquois. It tends to show that among the Tamil people, when the Turanian system came in, all my female cousins were my wives, whilst the wives of my male cousins were not. It is a singular fact that the deviation on these relationships is the only one of any importance between the two systems in the relationships to Ego of some two hundred persons.

XIV. All the brothers and sisters of my grandfather and of my grandmother are my grandfathers and grandmothers.

Reason: It is the same in Malayan, and for the reasons there given. It is now made additionally plain that both the Turanian and Ganowanian systems, which are identical, supervened upon an original Malayan system; and that the latter must have prevailed generally in Asia before the Malayan migration to the Islands of the Pacific. Moreover, there are good grounds for believing that the system was transmitted in the Malayan form to the ancestors of the three families, with the streams of the blood, from a common Asiatic source, and afterward, modified into its present form by the remote ancestors of the Turanian and Ganowanian families.

The principal relationships of the Turanian have now been explained in their origin, and are found to be those which would actually exist in the punaluan family as near as the parentage of children could be known. The system explains itself as. an organic growth, and since it could not have originated without an adequate cause, the inference becomes legitimate as well as necessary that it was created by punaluan families. It will be noticed, however, that several of the marriage relationships have been changed.

The system treats all brothers as the husbands of each other’s wives, and all sisters as the wives of each other’s husbands, and as intermarried in a group. At the time the system was formed, wherever a man found a brother, own or collateral, and those in that relation were numerous, in the wife of that brother he found an additional wife. In like manner, wherever a woman found a sister, own or collateral, and those in that relation were equally numerous, in the husband of that sister she found an additional husband. The brotherhood of the husbands and the sister- hood of the wives formed the basis of the relation. It is fully expressed by the Hawaiian custom of punalua. Theoretically, the family of the period was co-extensive with the group united in the marriage relation; but, practically; it must have subdivided into a. number of smaller families for convenience of habitation and subsistence. The brothers, by tens and twelves, of the Britons, married to each other’s wives, would indicate the size of an ordinary subdivision of a punaluan group. Communism in living seems to have originated in the necessities of the consanguine family, to have been continued in the punaluan, and to have been transmitted to the Syndyasmian among the American aborigines, with whom it remained a practice down to the epoch of their discovery. Punaluan marriage is now unknown among them, but the system of consanguinity it created has survived the customs in which it originated. The plan of family life and of habitation among savage tribes has been imperfectly studied. A knowledge of their usages in these respects end of their mode of subsistence would throw a strong light upon the questions under consideration. Two forms of the family have now been explained in their origin by two parallel systems of consanguinity. The proofs seem to be conducive. It gives the starting point of human society after mankind had emerged from a still lower condition and entered the organism of the consanguine family. From this first form to the second the transition was natural; a development from a lower into a higher social condition through observation and experience. It was a result of the improvable mental and moral qualities which belong to the human species. The con- sanguine and punaluan families represent the substance of human progress through the greater part of the period of savagery. Although the second was a great improvement upon the first, it was still very distant from the monogamian. An impression may be formed by a comparison of the several forms of the family, of the slow rate of progress in savagery, where the means of advancement wereslight, and the obstacles were formidable. Ages upon ages of substantially stationary life, with advance and decline, undoubtedly marked the course of events; but the general movement of society was from a lower to a higher condition, otherwise mankind would have remained in savagery. It is something to find an assured initial point from which mankind started on their great and marvellous career of progress, even though so near the bottom of the scale, and though limited to a form of the family so peculiar as the consanguine.

Footnotes

1. The Ippais and Kapotas are married in a group Ippai begets Murri, and Murri in turn begets Ippai; in like manner Kapota begets Mata, and Mata in turn begets Kapota; so that the grandchildren of Ippai and Kapota are themselves Ippais and Kapotas, as well as collateral brothers and sisters; and as such are born husbands and wives.

2. “Historical Sketch of the Missions, etc., in the Sandwich Islands,” etc., p.

3. “De Bell. Gall.,” v. 14

4. Lib., i, c. 216.

5. Lib., iv, c. 104.

6. Herrera’s “History of America.” 1. c,, i. 216. Speaking of the coast. tribes of Brazil, Herrera further remarks that “they live in bohios, or large thatched cottages; of which there are about eight in every village, full of people, with their nests or hammocks to lie in...... They live in a beastly manner, without any regard to justice or decency.” — lb., iv, 94. Garcilasso de 1a Vega gives an equally unfavourable account of the marriage relation among some of the lowest tribes of Peru.- “Royal Com. of Peru,” 1. c., pp. 10 and 106.

7. “Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family,” Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, vol. xvii.

Comparative Table of the System of Relationship of Seneca- Iroquois Indian of New York, and of the people of South India, speaking the Tamil dialect of Dravidian Language.

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