[8] The author does not give examples of words for 'sister' implying avoidance. But we elsewhere show that in Lifu (Melanesia) the word for 'sister' means 'not to be touched.'—A. L.
[9] Other speculations have now been advanced, especially by Mr. Crawley.—A. L.
[CHAPTER II]
SEXUAL RELATIONS OF ANIMALS
Brother and Sister Avoidance, a partial usage among the higher mammals.—Males' attitude to females in a group dominated by a single male head.—Band of exiled young males.—Their relations to the sire. —Examples in cattle and horses—In game-fowl.—Strict localisation of animals.—Exiled young males hover on the fringe of the parent group.—Parricide.
Another difficulty in connection with the evolution of the so-called Primal Law of Avoidance between brother and sister from that early idea which we will presently disclose, seems to lie in the fact that if, as we uphold, such law was the first factor in the ascent of man, it must have taken its rise whilst he was still some ape-like creature. It remains, however, to be shown from its peculiar form that in its primitive application, the law would not have required for its intelligence greater mental power than is possessed by actual anthropoids. The law may indeed be said to be practically an inchoate fact, an actual if partial usage, for the regulation of the intersexual relations among most of the higher mammals. It could, at any rate, have come into full intelligent application as a well-defined social institution, in the actual sense of the term, whilst the anthropomorphic progenitor of man was still so little removed from the ape that
His speech was yet as halting as his gait,
Only less brutish than his moral state.