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Show HINTS AND EXPLANATIONS. 33 kinship is its integrating principle, we infer that the languages must contain complete methods of designating these relationships Among many of the tribes of North America the subject has been investigated in both lines, and the inferences from one line of investigation are the observed phenomena in the other line; thus the demonstration is perfected. In tribal society the units are bodies of consanguineal kindred, immediate or remote, real or artificial; no person can become a member of a tribe until he has become a member of one of its gentes by being adopted into some family as a son, brother, or some other relation. The language of tribal society provides a kinship term by which every one of its members may be designated. There are various methods of assimilation, and in the phenomena which they present many important sociologic facts are discovered. In a lower status of culture than that discovered among the North American Indians we find that society has for its integrating principle not the ties of kinship but the bond of marriage; and thus we have connubial society as distinguished from kinship society. Though connubial society has not been discovered in North America, it has elsewhere on the globe, and in the study of the North American Indians some of the customs of that stage are discovered as survivals. These surviving customs are represented in kinship terms to varying degrees in different languages; so that in customs and language alike we are able to trace the steps in evolution from connubial to kinship society. To set forth the steps here would require greater space than the purposes of this volume will allow, and, in fact, one of the more important reasons for its publication is to accumulate a greater number of facts for the final presentation of the subject. But an illustration will be given : There is a system of marriage in the lower status of society where a group of brothers marry a group of sisters in common. In such a system children have a group of men- the brothers- as their fathers, and a group of women- the sisters- as their mothers, and the children of the group of men and women call each other brothers and sisters. Now in some Indian communities we find that the sisters of a married 3 s i L |
