on myth with its cycle of first people peaceful and migratory,
and its cycle of second people "containing accounts of conflicts which
are ever recurrent," we are conscious that mythic and material remains
of great movements of people are in absolute accord,[351] an accord
which leads us to expect that the peoples who were pushed ever forward
into the most desolate and most sterile districts of southern America
would be the most nearly savage of all the American peoples. This is
in agreement with Darwin's estimate of the Fuegians who wander about
in groups of kinless society,[352] and it is in accord with other
evidence. Thus the Zaparos, belonging to the great division of
unchristianised Indians of the oriental province of Ecuador, have the
fame of being most expert woodsmen and hunters. To communicate with
one another in the wood, they generally imitate the whistle of the
toman or partridge. They believe that they partake of the nature of
the animals they devour. They are very disunited, and wander about in
separate hordes. The stealing of women is much carried on even amongst
themselves. A man runs away with his neighbour's wife or one of them,
and secretes himself in some out of the way spot until he gathers
information that she is replaced, when he can again make his
appearance, finding the whole difficulty smoothed over. In their
matrimonial relations they are very loose--monogamy, polygamy,
communism, and promiscuity all apparently existing amongst them. They
allow the women great liberty and frequently change their mates or
simply discard them when they are perhaps taken up by another. They
believe in a devil or evil spirit which haunts the woods, and call him
Zamaro.[353]

In all these cases, and I do not, of course, exhaust the evidence,
there is enough to suggest that the social forms presented are of the
most rudimentary kind. Conjecture has not and, I think, cannot get
further back than such evidence as this. The social grouping is
supported by outside influences rather than internal organisation;
neither blood kinship nor marital kinship is recognised; hostility to
all other groups and from other groups is the basis of inter-groupal
life. To these significant characteristics has to be added the special
birth custom and belief of the Semang pygmies. It is clear that the
soul-bird belief and the tree-naming custom are different phases of
one conception of social life, a conception definitely excluding
recogn