| OCR Text |
Show / / i98 BASIS OP AMERICAN HISTORY [ 1500 X^ Whatever the reason, the majority of the Indian tribes traced descent through the mother, and children were assigned to the mother's clan. In some groups, where the system was less rigid, the child might, for sufficient reasons, be entered in the father's clan, even when he would normally inherit that of his mother. This would occur in cases where the paternal group was in need of strengthening. If the rules of exogamy were all, the clan organization would pot be so uqpgytant a factor. As a matter of fact; it ehters every phase of the Indian's life: his first obligation is to his clan, and where its welfare comes into collision with that of the immediate family the latter gives way. „ The wide- spread custom of " blood revenge^ was ra clan matter. The entire kinship group of the murdered man demanded satisfaction, and the entire clan of the murderer was held responsible. The logical extension of this conception of common blood is seen in certain South American tribes, where if an individual by accident injures himself he fe obliged to pay blood- money to his clan because he has been guilty of shedding the blood of his clan. 1 A real difficulty occurred where an individual murdered a fellow- clansman, which act is in general among savages the most heinous crime of which one can be guilty, being both a sacrilegious as well as a social offence. To put the offender to death would be to commit a second crime of the same 1 Sievers, Reise in der Sierra Nevada de Santa Maria, 256. |
