The regulations for marriage are scarcely less important; indeed, they
are often seemingly the most important of the customs. The phrases
"marriage by capture" and "marriage by purchase," are quite misleading
if they give the impression that in early culture any man may have any
woman. It is an almost universal part of the clan system that the man
must marry out of his own clan or totem (exogamy), and it is frequently
specified exactly into what other clan he must marry. Among some the
regulations are minute as to which of the age classes, as well as to
which of the kin groups, a man of specific group must choose from. The
courtship may follow different rules from ours, and the relation of the
sexes in certain respects may seem so loose as to shock the student, but
the regulation is in many respects stricter than with us, and punishment
of its violation often severer. There can be no doubt of the meaning of
the control, however mistaken some of its features. Whether the
regulations for exogamy, which provide so effectually for avoiding
incest, are reinforced by an instinctive element of aversion to sex
relations with intimates, is uncertain; in any case, they are enforced
by the strongest taboos. Nor does primitive society stop with the
negative side. The actual marriage is invested with the social values
and religious sanctions which raise the relation to a higher level. Art,
in garments and ornament, in dance and epithalamium, lends ideal values.
The sacred meal at the encircled hearth secures the participation of the
kindred gods.
=(b) Certain Days or Seasons Important for the Industrial Life.=--Seed
time and harvest, the winter and summer solstices, the return of spring,
are of the highest importance to agricultural and pastoral peoples, and
are widely observed with solemn rites. Where the rain is the center of
anxiety, a whole ritual may arise in connection with it, as among the
Zuñi Indians. Ceremonies lasting days, involving the preparation of
special symbols of clouds and lightning, and the participation of
numerous secret fraternities, constrain the attention of all. Moreover,
this constraint of need, working through the conception of what the
gods require, enforces some very positive moral attitudes:
"A Zuñi must speak with one tongue (sincerely) in order to have
his prayers received by the gods, and unless his prayers are
accepted no rains will come, which means starvation. He must be
gentle, and he must speak and act with kindness to all, for the
gods care not for those whose lips speak harshly. He must observe
continence four days previous to, and four days following, the
sending of breath prayers through the spiritual essence of plume
offerings, and thus their passions are brought under control."
(MRS. M. C. STEVENSON in 23d Report, _Bureau of Ethnology_.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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