[265] Lubbock, Origin of Civilisation, chap. iii., 1875.
[266] The long list of peoples practising promiscuity given by Lubbock dwindles as we become better acquainted with the different populations in question. Certain peoples, like the Fuegians (Hyades and Deniker, loc. cit.), the Bushmen, the Polynesians (Westermarck, loc. cit.), the Irulas (Thurston, Bull. Madras Mus., vol. ii., No. 1, 1897), the Teehurs of Oude (W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes N. W. Province, etc., vol. i., p. clxxxiii., Calcutta, 1896), should be mercilessly struck out of this list, since they all have individual marriage to the exclusion of other forms. Others, like the Australians, the Todas, the Nairs, have been entered in it because they practise “group marriage” or certain forms of polyandry, which is not the same thing as promiscuity. There remains of the list but two or three tribes about whom we have no exact general information at all (example, the Olo-Ot of Borneo).
[267] A. W. Howitt, “Australian Group Relations,” Smithsonian Rep., Washington, 1883; A. W. Howitt and L. Fison, “Kamilaroi and Kurnai,” Melbourne-Sydney, 1880, and Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xii., p. 30, 1882.
[268] A. W. Howitt, “Dieri, etc.,” Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xx., 1890, p. 53. Among the Nairs of the coast of Malabar things are done in exactly the same way. The main point in both cases is the prohibition of marriage in the clan itself (L. Fison, “Classificat. Relationship,” Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xxv., 1895, p. 369). Among the Todas of Nilgiri the groups are limited in this sense, that the men who cohabit with a woman must be brothers, and at the same time can only marry with the sisters of this woman.
[269] Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht, Stuttgart, 1861; J. F. McLennan, Studies in Ancient History, London, 1876.
[270] L. Fison, loc. cit., Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol. xxiv., 1895, p. 36.
[271] Thus, if there are four clans, A, B, C, and D, as among the Kamilaroi, for example, the children sprung from the parents of the clans A and B may not intermarry; they belong to the clan C, the members of which may only marry with the members of the clan D. It is their children only who will be able to contract marriages in the groups A and B. In this way incest is only possible between the grandfather and the granddaughter, that is to say, reduced practically to zero.
[272] L. Morgan, “Syst. of Consanguinity, etc.,” Smithson. Contrib. Knowl., vol. xvii., Washington, 1871; and Ancient Society, London, 1877. See also the very clear statement of the system in Lubbock, loc. cit., and its extension to the Australians and the Melanesians of the Fiji Islands in Howitt and Fison, loc. cit.
[273] Tylor, Journ. Anthr. Inst., vol xviii., 1888–89, p. 262.
[274] Westermarck, loc. cit., p. 82; L. Fison, loc. cit. (“Classific. System”), p. 369.