Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
be restricted to single marriage. Of the formation of joint families,
which arise out of the union of immediate blood relations, we find at
most, as has been remarked, only the beginnings.
4. PRIMITIVE SOCIETY.
The more extensive social groups generally result from the fact that
during the rainy season families withdraw into caves among the hills.
The larger caves are frequently occupied in common by a number of
families, particularly by such as are most closely related. Yet the
groups of co-dwellers are not so much determined by considerations
of kinship as by the size of the places of refuge; a single family
occasionally occupies a small cave by itself. Nevertheless, this
community life plainly furnishes the incentive to a gradual formation
of wider social groups. This, no doubt, accounts for the fact that
during the favourable season of the year several families of the
Veddahs claim for themselves a specific plot of ground, whose supply of
game, as well as of the products of the soil, which the women gather,
belongs exclusively to them. Thus, there is a division of the people
into districts, and these are determined geographically rather than
ethnologically. Every one is entitled to obtain his food, whether game
or products of the soil, from a specified territory. Custom strictly
guards this communal property, just as it protects the single marriage.
The Veddah, for example, who encroaches upon the territory belonging to
a group other than his own, is in no less danger of falling a victim to
an arrow shot from an ambush than is the one who trespasses on marriage
ties.
These various institutions form the beginnings of social organization,
but as yet they do not represent developed clan groups or established
joint families of the patriarchal type. On the contrary, as they
arise through the free association of individuals, so also may they
be freely dissolved. Each man has exclusive possession of his wife.
Without interference on the part of his clan, moreover, he exercises
absolute control over his children, who remain with the individual
family just as in the case of a developed monogamy. There is no trace
of sex-groups, such as are later to be found in the case of the men's
houses and the age-groups. Only temporarily, on the occasion of common
undertakings, such as the hunting of large animals, which requires a
considerable measure of strength, or when new hunting-grounds are being
sought, is a leader appointed from among the older men. His leadership,
however, ceases with the completion of the undertaking. There are no
permanent chiefs, any more than there are clans or tribal organizations.
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