n
predecessors. Thus tradition and custom become intertwined and are a
strong coercion which directs the society upon fixed lines, and
strangles liberty. Children see their parents always yield to the same
custom and obey the same persons. They see that the elders are allowed
to do all the talking, and that if an outsider enters, he is saluted by
those who are at home according to rank and in fixed order. All this
becomes rule for children, and helps to give to all primitive customs
their stereotyped formality. "The fixed ways of looking at things which
are inculcated by education and tribal discipline, are the precipitate
of an old cultural development, and in their continued operation they
are the moral anchor of the Indian, although they are also the fetters
which restrain his individual will."[16]

+13. The concept of "primitive society"; we-group and others-group.+ The
conception of "primitive society" which we ought to form is that of
small groups scattered over a territory. The size of the groups is
determined by the conditions of the struggle for existence. The internal
organization of each group corresponds to its size. A group of groups
may have some relation to each other (kin, neighborhood, alliance,
connubium and commercium) which draws them together and differentiates
them from others. Thus a differentiation arises between ourselves, the
we-group, or in-group, and everybody else, or the others-groups,
out-groups. The insiders in a we-group are in a relation of peace,
order, law, government, and industry, to each other. Their relation to
all outsiders, or others-groups, is one of war and plunder, except so
far as agreements have modified it. If a group is exogamic, the women in
it were born abroad somewhere. Other foreigners who might be found in it
are adopted persons, guest friends, and slaves.

+14. Sentiments in the in-group and towards the out-group.+ The relation
of comradeship and peace in the we-group and that of hostility and war
towards others-groups are correlative to each other. The exigencies of
war with outsiders are what make peace inside, lest internal discord
should weaken the we-group for war. These exigencies also make
government and law in the in-group, in order to prevent quarrels and
enforce discipline. Thus war and peace have reacted on each other and
developed each other, one within the group, the other in the intergroup
relation. The closer the neighbors, and the stronger they are,