Ethnology : in two parts, I. Fundamental ethnical problems. II. The primary ethnical groups / by A.H. Keane.
- Augustus Henry Keane
- Date:
- 1896
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Ethnology : in two parts, I. Fundamental ethnical problems. II. The primary ethnical groups / by A.H. Keane. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![seems to be an inheritance from some ape-like progenitor (p. 64)'. In confirmation of this statement it may be pointed out that most if not all of the Simiidse, man's nearest akin, live either in family groups or in small parties amoi^^st'thf of several families, and construct arboreal shelters Anthropoid T • Apes. where the female and young pass the night. It is noteworthy that the male gorilla is said to sleep at the foot of the tree, while the chimpanzee occupies a forked branch below the family resting-place, thus illustrating various stages in the evolution of the family life. Some of the New Guinea and Sudanese aborigines also build arboreal habitations, in which all the members of the family reside, or take refuge from more powerful hostile neighbours^ The social unit is thus reached by the natural process from below, and not with Prof. T. H. Green by implication from above. If asked by what warrant we carry back the institution of the family into the life of the most primi- tive men, we answer that we carry it back no farther than the interest in permanent good. From beings incapable of such an interest, even though connected by acts of generation [genetic ascent ?] \vith ourselves, we cannot in any intelligible sense have been developed ^ Those who have studied these questions in situ never reason in this way. They know that primitive men have no thought for permanent good, though fully aware of the present advantages derived from association. It is well under- stood even by the Fuegians, who form family groups, but have not yet reached the clan state, as shown by the absence of totems, the children being named neither from the father's nor from the mother's side, but only from the place of birth. Thus all will have the same name if born in the same place, and all will have different names if born in different places^. Here there is no ' This work, which is written in sterling English, is of a fundamental character, and deserves to be better known than it appears to be in the English- speaking world. But the subject is so vast, that it may almost be said already to form a separate branch of the anthropological sciences intermediate between ethnology proper and sociology. - Nachtigal, Sdhara unci Sudan, 11. p. 628. ^ Prolegonima to Ethics, § ■231. I figli non jx>rtano il nome dei genitori ma prendono i nomi delle localiti](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21500666_0045.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
