roves the
constant existence of recognised male descents among the peoples where
it exists.[229]

The opposite theory of the _gens_ is that to which Mr. M'Lennan
inclined. 'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes
and commonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis
that they resulted from the joint operation, in early times, of
exogamy, and the system of kinship through females only.'[230] 'The
_gens_,' he adds, 'was composed of all the persons in the tribe
bearing the same name and accounted of the same stock. Were the
_gentes_ really of different stocks, as their names would imply and as
the people believed? If so, how came clans of different stocks to be
united in the same tribe?... How came a variety of such groups, of
different stocks, to coalesce in a local tribe?' These questions, Mr.
M'Lennan thought, could not be answered on the patriarchal hypothesis.
His own theory, or rather his theory as understood by the present
writer, may be stated thus. In the earliest times there were
homogeneous groups, which became totem kin. Let us say that, in a
certain district, there were groups called woodpeckers, wolves, bears,
suns, swine, each with its own little territory. These groups were
exogamous, and derived the name through the mother. Thus, in course of
time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were wolves,
there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each
stock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in
Australia and America. Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring
in Australia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in
custom. This change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that
a system of male may alter, under stress of circumstances, to a system
of female descents. In course of time, and as knowledge and
common-sense advance, the old superstition of descent from a
woodpecker, a bear, a wolf, the sun, or what not, becomes untenable. A
human name is assumed by the group which had called itself the
woodpeckers or the wolves, or perhaps by a local tribe in which
several of these stocks are included. Then a fictitious human ancestor
is adopted, and perhaps even adored. Thus the wolves might call
themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and, giving up belief in
descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied ancestor named
Claudius. The result of these changes will be that an exogamous totem
kin,