ason) the
same custom of counting kin through mothers to the Locrians. {273c} The
British and Irish custom of deriving descents through women is well
known, {273d} and a story is told to account for the practice. The
pedigrees of the British kings show that most did not succeed to their
fathers, and the various records of early Celtic morals go to prove that
no other system of kinship than the maternal would have possessed any
value, so uncertain was fatherhood. These are but hints of the
prevalence of institutions which survived among Teutonic races in the
importance attached to the relationship of a man's sister's son. Though
no longer his legal heir, the sister's son was almost closer than any
other kinsman.

We have now summarised and indicated the nature of the evidence which, on
the whole, inclines us to the belief of Mr. M'Lennan rather than of Sir
Henry Maine. The point to which all the testimony adduced converges, the
explanation which most readily solves all the difficulties, is the
explanation of Mr. M'Lennan. The Aryan races have very generally passed
through the stage of scarcity of women, polyandry, absence of recognised
male kinship, and recognition of kinship through women. What Sir Henry
Maine admits as the exception, we are inclined to regard as having, in a
very remote past, been the rule. No one kind of evidence--neither traces
of marriage by capture, of exogamy, of totemism, of tradition, of noted
fact among Lycians and Picts and Irish--would alone suffice to guide our
opinion in this direction. But the cumulative force of the testimony
strikes us as not inconsiderable, and it must be remembered that the
testimony has not yet been assiduously collected.

Let us end by showing how this discussion illustrates the method of
Folklore. We have found anomalies among Aryans. We have seen the gens
an odd, decaying institution. We have seen Greek families claim descent
from various animals, said to be Zeus in disguise. We have found them
tracing kinship and deriving names from the mother. We have found stocks
with animal and vegetable names. We have found half-brothers and sisters
marrying. We have noted prohibition to marry anyone of the same family
name. All these institutions are odd, anomalous, decaying things among
Aryans, and the more civilised the Aryans the more they decay. All of
them are living, active things among savages, and, far from being
anomalous, are in precise harmony wi