gentes are not visible to a stranger, we must suppose that the tribe originally represented the male head of the primitive family group to which the female common ancestors belonged. On this supposition the primitive group consisted of a male and two females, the former being the recognised representative of the group, although the descent of its members is traced through the latter. This view is quite consistent with the explanation I have elsewhere given of the classificatory system of relationship, which undoubtedly requires the full recognition for certain purposes of blood relationship through both the father and the mother. The conclusion thus arrived at is confirmed by what we know of the opinions entertained by peoples among whom the gentile organisation is fully developed. Carver, as quoted by Sir John Lubbock, states that among the Hudson’s Bay Indians, children always take the name of their mother. The reason they give for this is, “that as their offspring are indebted to the father for their souls, the invisible part of their essence, and to the mother for their corporal and apparent part, it is more rational that they should be distinguished by the name of the latter, from whom they indubitably derive their being, than by that of the father, to which a doubt might arise whether they are justly entitled.”[294] The reason given by the Hudson’s Bay Indians why children are called after their mothers shows that the system of female kinship is quite consistent with the recognition of kinship through the male. No doubt the mother is regarded by savages as having a closer physical relationship to her child than their father, but it is incredible to suppose that the latter could ever be looked upon as having no closer relationship to it than a stranger in blood. If the mother had several husbands the actual paternity may not be certain, but, as the father must be one of several well-ascertained individuals, the paternity is only rendered less certain, and the child may be regarded as having several fathers, and claim kinship through them all. If they are sons of the same father, that kinship will be with the same persons as though its mother had but one husband. Under the conditions I have supposed, however, where a woman takes, as her husband, a man who lives with her among her own relations, there would not be any uncertainty as to paternity, and therefore the stronger relationship supposed between mother and child must have originated in the close physical connection observed to subsist between them. This does not, however, explain the origin of clan relationship based on kinship through females only, which is connected with the fact of the members of a woman’s clan possessing certain rights over her and her children. These rights would not be affected, even if the primitive custom of the woman continuing to live among her relations after marriage were departed from. Before this took place, the system of female kinship