SOCIOLOGY: LAWS. OR INSTITUTIONAL ACTIVI TIES. While the unit of Homo sapiens is an indi vidual organism. the unit of social mankind is a group. In observed primitive societies. in ancient societies described by historians. and in primal societies inferred from vestiges and anal ogies, the unit groups are maintained by (1) mechanical, and (2) conventional laws, the latter being (a) instinctive, (1)) ceremonial, and (el ra tional in varying degrees; and the course of human progress is marked by the development of these laws. Their essential function is that of regulating the relations between the individual and the group; and they relate to person and property in varying degrees in successive stages. In general they are simpler but more definite and rigorous in the earlier stages. more compre hensive and more beneficent in the later. the passage accompanying the growth of mentality as well as the enlargement of the groups; and while measurably gradual, the original passage was apparently accelerated at certain points de fining the chief stages of human progress. In The lowest social organization known observa tionally is that of the Australian natives. Here the laws are remarkably definite and are con nected with religious observances; they relate chiefly to the person. and operate through mar riage and the family. Commonly the tribe or band comprises four subgroups or clans (i.e. two couples), between which intermarriage is permitted in a series of combinations varying with the order of the groups and with sex in each, the system being so intricate that Cau casian students find difficulty in tracing it. The fullness and force of the regulations render mat ing a public function (indeed, attendant customs make it measurably collective) performed with the sanction of two or more groups and connected with imposing ceremonies both before and after the event, including remarkable puberty rites. As in higher savagery, the marital groups are organized under totems or tutelaries. and the respective duties and privileges of the clans, like those of the sexes. are measurably differentiated. The attendant property regulations are incon spicuous. though well understood by the tribes men; in general the range and resources are common to all, food is communal, and strictly personal possessions are regarded as tabu to others by reason of a putative infusion of per sonality. Probably the lowest known social organization on the Western Hemisphere is that of the Seri Indians; here, too, the chief regula tions relate to the maintenance of the group and operate through marriage, the property regula tions being subordinate. Mating in the clan is
prohibited, but inter-elan unions are limited only by general consent and compliance with require ments, which include material and moral tests of the groom. After negotiations between the elderwomen (o• clan-mothers) with the approval of the elderbrothers (or war-chiefs) of the two clans, the would-be groom enters the family of the prospective bride, and for a year provides game or other food for the family group, and meantime maintains continence (which is not imposed on the other partner with respect to his elan-fellows) ; and at the end of the probation the marriage is celebrated with a ceremonial feast. Thenceforward he becomes a perpetual guest of his wife. without authority over her house, children, or other property, and outranked by the wife's brothers—though he may be an elderbrother or chief in his own clan. Unlike the Australians. the Seri are warlike, and the regulation of leadership is definite. In each clan the eldest matron or clan-mother forms the legislative and judicative head, and exercises a control actually measured by her shrewdness and strength. but putatively determined by the power of the totem of which she is deemed the vicar; while her elderbrother becomes, by virtue of his relationship. her administrative, and hence the war-chief of the clan. The several clans are arraliged in the order of the power imputed to the respective tutelaries. and the •ian-mother and iderbrot her of the foremost clan become the law -givtr and the war-chief for the tribe. The order of the clans is liable to change, usually through bloody revolution. when the rank of the tutelaries also changes; and infractions of law are punished by contempt or ostracism for petty offenses, outlawry for misdemeanors like failure in the marital tests, and summary execu tion for crimes—the executioner tieing deter mined by rides connected with kinship. There are strikim• correspondences in the regulations of the Australian and the Seri tribes, despite the tact that the former are pacific and their regulations adapted to tribal extension. while the fatter are warriors. whose regulations inhibit expansion save along rigorously guarded lines of tribal blood. These customs show that primitive societies are far from promiscuous hordes, but are •finitely organized groups, regulated by in stinctive and religious observances having all the power of law.