[128] I have summarised the account of the Wyandot government as given by Hartland, who quotes from Powell's "Wyandot Government," First Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1879-1880, pp. 61 ff.
[129] "The Beginning of Marriage," American Anthropologist, Vol. IX. p. 376. Rep. Bur. Ethn., XVII. p. 275.
[130] This is supposed by McGee to suggest a survival of a vestigial polyandry.
[131] Mrs. Stevenson, Rep. Bur. Ethn., XXIII. pp. 290, 293. Cushing, Zuñi Folk Tales, p. 368, cited by Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 73, 74.
[132] Rep. Bur. Ethn., XIII. p. 340. Solberg, Zeits. f. Ethnol., XXXVII. p. 269. Voth, Traditions of the Hopi, pp. 67, 96, 133. Hartland, op. cit., Vol. II. pp. 74-76.
[133] Rep. Bur. Ethn., IX. p. 19. Hartland, Ibid., pp. 76-77. It would seem in some cases, the husband, after a period of residence with his wife's family, provides a separate house.
[134] Sex and Society, pp. 65-66.
[135] Bachofen's work was foreshadowed by an earlier writer, Father Lafiteau, who published his Mœurs des sauvages américains in 1721. Das Mutterrecht was published in 1861. McLennan, ignorant of Bachofen's work, followed immediately after with his account of the Indian Hill Tribes. He was followed by Morgan, with his knowledge of Iroquois, and many other investigators.
[136] Lord Avebury, for example, says: "I believe that communities in which women have exercised supreme power were quite exceptional," Marriage, Totemism and Religion, p. 51. See also Letourneau, Evolution of Marriage, pp. 281-282.
[137] In this opinion I am glad to have the support of so high an authority as Mr. Havelock Ellis. See his admirable summary of this question, Psychology of Sex, Vol. VI. pp. 390-393; also the essay already referred to, "Changing Status of Women," Westminster Review, Oct. 1886.