the ethnological notebooks of karl marx - Marxists Internet Archive

sisters; for the king’s sons never come to be kings.” Quatremère {Mém.gêogr. sur l’Egypte et sur quelques contrées voisines, Paris, 18 11, quotedby Bachofen (p. 108) mentions that: “ Chez les Noubiens,ladit Abou Selah,lorsqu’un roi vient à mourir et qu’il laisse un fils et un neveu du côté desa soeur, celui-ci monte sur le trône de préférence à l’ héritier naturel ( !)”{Caillié's Travels, v. I, p. 153, dieser sagt: von Central Africa: “thesovereignty remains always in the same family, but the son never succeedshis father; they choose in preference a son of the king’s sister, conceivingthat by this method the sovereign power is more sure to be transmitted to one ofthe blood royal” (p. 105) Wenn nicht Caillié, sondern die Afrikaner selbstdort d. sagten, beweists, dass d. weibliche Nachfolge sich nur noch fürdie höchsten Funktionäre (chiefs) erhalten u. sie selbst d. Grund nichtmehr wussten). In Northern Africa we find the same custom among theBerbers; and Burton mentions it as existing in the East. (105) Polybius(maternal ancestry in the female line) bemerkt dies mit Bezug auf Locrier;u. on Etruscan tombs descent is stated in the female line. (p. 106)In India the Kasias, the Kocch, and the Nairs have the system of femalekinship. Nach Buchanan, among the Buntar in Tulava a man’s propertydoes not descend to his own children, but to those of his sister” . Nach Sir W.Elliot the people of Malabar, “notwithstanding the same diversity of casteas in other provinces, all agree in one remarkable usage - that of transmittingproperty through females only.” He adds on the authority of LieutenantConmer, that the same is the case in Travancore, among all the castesexcept the Ponans and the Namburi Brahmans. Latham states (DescriptiveEthnology v. II, p. 463) “ no Nair son knows2 his own father, and vice versâ,no Nair father knows his own son. What becomes of the property of thehusband? It descends to the children of his sisters.” (106)Among the Limboos (India), a tribe near Darjeeling, the boys become theproperty of the father on his paying the mother a small sum of money,when the child is named, and enters his father's tribe: girls remain with themother, and belong to her tribe” (Campbell, Trans. Ethn. Soc.) Marsden(History of Sumatra, p. 376) tells: dass among the Battas of Sumatra, “thesuccession to the chief ships does not go, in the first instance, to the son of thedeceased, but to the nephew by a sister; and that the same extraordinary (!)rule, with respect to the property in general prevails also among the Malays ofthat part of the island, and even in the neighbourhood of Padang.” (106,107)Sir John Richardson {Boat Journey, v. I, p. 406) tells dass unter den Kenaiyersof Cooks Inlet a man’s property descendes) not to his own children, but tothose of his sister. Selbes d. Fall mit d. Kutchin {Smithsonian Report, 1866,p. 326) p. 107. Carver (Travel(s) in North America) mentions dass unter3 den Hudson’s Bay | Indians the children “are always distinguished by thename of the mother; and if a woman marries several husbands, and hasissue of each of them, they all are called after her.” (107) Similar rule341