Montesquieu, indeed, observed long ago that marriage between cousins was prohibited by peoples among whom brothers and their children used to live in the same house. “Chez ces peuples,” he says, “le mariage entre cousins germains doit être regardé comme contraire à la nature; chez les autres, non.” According to him, this prohibition has the same origin as the aversion to sexual relations between brothers and sisters, _i.e._, “les pères et les mères ayent voulu conserver les mœurs de leurs enfans et leurs maisons pures.”[1943] Holding a similar opinion, Dr. Bertillon maintains that, properly speaking, it was not consanguinity, but the purity of home, that the ancient legislators were thinking of when they forbade close intermarriage.[1944] It is scarcely necessary to say how far I am from thinking that these prohibitions are, in the first place, due to the providence of parents or legislators. On the other hand, where the families live more separately such extensive prohibitions to close intermarrying do not generally exist. Among the Isánna Indians of Brazil, who prefer marriage with relations, cousins with cousins, uncles with nieces, and nephews with aunts, each family has a separate house.[1945] The endogamous Maoris, who frequently marry near relations, have their villages generally scattered over a large plot of ground, the personal rights of possession being held most sacred.[1946] “There is no national bond of union amongst them,” says Mr. Yate; “each one is jealous of the authority and power of his neighbour; the hand of each individual is against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”[1947] Among the Todas, who live in strict endogamy, families reside in permanent villages having each a certain tract of grazing ground around it, and containing from two to three huts. Most of these huts consist of only one room or cabin, and each room holds one entire subdivision of a family.[1948] The Bushmans, among whom no degree of consanguinity prevents a matrimonial connection, except between brothers and sisters, parents and children,[1949] live a solitary life in small family huts, not high enough to admit even of a Bushman standing upright within it.[1950] As regards the Wanyoro, whose table of prohibited degrees is unusually small, Emin Pasha states, “Brother, sister, brother-in-law, and son-in-law, are the recognized grades of relationship. I have never noticed any intimate connection between more distant relations.”[1951]