“Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families.... And these were the sons of Levi by their names; Gershon, and Kohath, and Merari. And these were the names of the sons of Gershon by their families; Libni, and Shimei. And the sons of Kohath by their families; Amram, and Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. And the sons of Merari by their families; Mahli, and Mushi. These are the families of the Levites by the house of their fathers.”[430]
The description of these groups sometimes commences with the upper member of the series, and sometimes with the lower or the unit. Thus: “Of the children of Simeon, by their generations, after their families, by the house of their fathers.”[431] Here the children of Simeon, with their generations, constitute the tribe; the families are the phratries; and the house of the father is the gens. Again: “And the chief of the house of the father of the families of the Kohathites shall be Elizaphan the son of Uzziel.”[432] Here we find the gens first, and then the phratry, and last the tribe. The person named was the chief of the phratry. Each house of the father also had its ensign or banner to distinguish it from others. “Every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their father’s house.”[433] These terms describe actual organizations; and they show that their military organization was by gentes, by phratries and by tribes.
With respect to the first and smallest of these groups, “the house of the father,” it must have numbered several hundred persons from the figures given of the number in each phratry. The Hebrew term beth’ ab, signifies paternal house, house of the father, and family house. If the Hebrews possessed the gens, it was this group of persons. The use of two terms to describe it would leave a doubt, unless individual families under monogamy had then become so numerous and so prominent that this circumlocution was necessary to cover the kindred. We have literally, the house of Amram, of Izhar, of Hebron, and of Uzziel; but as the Hebrews at that time could have had no conception of a house as now applied to a titled family, it probably signified, as used, kindred or lineage.[434] Since each division and subdivision is headed by a male, and since Hebrew descents are traced through males exclusively, descent among them, at this time, was undoubtedly in the male line. Next in the ascending scale is the family, which seems to be a phratry. The Hebrew term for this organization, mishpacah, signifies union, clanship. It was composed of two or more houses of the father, derived by segmentation from an original group, and distinguished by a phratric name. It answers very closely to the phratry. The family or phratry had an annual sacrificial feast.[435] Lastly, the tribe, called in Hebrew matteh, which signifies a branch, stem or shoot, is the analogue of the Grecian tribe.
Very few particulars are given respecting the rights, privileges and obligations of the members of these bodies of consanguinei. The idea of kin which united each organization from the house of the father to the tribe, is carried out in a form much more marked and precise than in the corresponding organizations of Grecian, Latin or American Indian tribes. While the Athenian traditions claimed that the four tribes were derived from the four sons of Ion, they did not pretend to explain the origin of the gentes and phratries. On the contrary, the Hebrew account not only derives the twelve tribes genealogically from the twelve sons of Jacob, but also the gentes and phratries from the children and descendants of each. Human experience furnishes no parallel of the growth of gentes and phratries precisely in this way. The account must be explained as a classification of existing consanguine groups, according to the knowledge preserved by tradition, in doing which minor obstacles were overcome by legislative constraint.
The Hebrews styled themselves the “People of Israel,” and also a “Congregation.”[436] It is a direct recognition of the fact that their organization was social, and not political.
In Africa we encounter a chaos of savagery and barbarism. Original arts and inventions have largely disappeared, through fabrics and utensils introduced from external sources; but savagery in its lowest forms, cannibalism included, and barbarism in its lowest forms prevail over the greater part of the continent. Among the interior tribes, there is a nearer approach to an indigenous culture and to a normal condition; but Africa, in the main, is a barren ethnological field.
Although the home of the Negro race, it is well known that their numbers are limited and their areas small. Latham significantly remarks that “the negro is an exceptional African.”[437] The Ashiras, Aponos, Ishogos and Ashangos, between the Congo and the Niger, visited by Du Chaillu, are of the true negro type. “Each village,” he remarks, “had its chief, and further in the interior the villages seemed to be governed by elders, each elder with his people having a separate portion of the village to themselves. There was in each clan the ifoumou, fumou, or acknowledged head of the clan (ifoumou meaning the source, the father). I have never been able to obtain from the natives a knowledge concerning the splitting of their tribes into clans; they seemed not to know how it happened, but the formation of new clans does not take place now among them.... The house of a chief or elder is not better than those of his neighbors. The despotic form of government is unknown.... A council of the elders is necessary before one is put to death.... Tribes and clans intermarry with each other, and this brings about a friendly feeling among the people. People of the same clan cannot intermarry with each other. The least consanguinity is considered an abomination; nevertheless the nephew has not the slightest objection to take his uncle’s wives, and, as among the Balakai, the son takes his father’s wives, except his own mother.... Polygamy and slavery exist everywhere among the tribes I have visited.... The law of inheritance among the Western tribes is, that the next brother inherits the wealth of the eldest (women, slaves, etc.), but that if the youngest dies the eldest inherits his property, and if there are no brothers that the nephew inherits it. The headship of the clan or family is hereditary, following the same law as that of the inheritance of property. In the case of all the brothers having died, the eldest son of the eldest sister inherits, and it goes on thus until the branch is extinguished, for all clans are considered as descended from the female side.”[438]
All the elements of a true gens are embodied in the foregoing particulars, namely, descent is limited to one line, in this case the female, which gives the gens in its archaic form. Moreover, descent is in the female line with respect to office and to property, as well as the gentile name. The office of chief passes from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, that nephew being the son of a sister, as among the American aborigines; whilst the sons are excluded because not members of the gens of the deceased chief. Marriage in the gens is also forbidden. The only material omission in these precise statements is the names of some of the gentes. The hereditary feature requires further explanation.
Among the Banyai of the Zambezi river, who are a people of higher grade than the negroes, Dr. Livingstone observed the following usages: “The government of the Banyai is rather peculiar, being a sort of feudal republicanism. The chief is elected, and they choose the son of a deceased chief’s sister in preference to his own offspring. When dissatisfied with one candidate, they even go to a distant tribe for a successor, who is usually of the family of the late chief, a brother, or a sister’s son, but never his own son or daughter.... All the wives, goods, and children of his predecessor belong to him.”[439] Dr. Livingstone does not give the particulars of their social organization; but the descent of the office of chief from brother to brother, or from uncle to nephew, implies the existence of the gens with descent in the female line.