Among the Caribs, kinship was reckoned in the female line, but the authority of the chiefs was hereditary in the male line only, the children of sisters being excluded from the succession.[518] Among the Macas Indians in Ecuador, property descends from father to son;[519] among the Guaycurûs, Abipones, and Araucanians, nobility, or chieftainship, was hereditary in the male line;[520] and the Brazilian aborigines, or at least some of them, laid particular stress upon kinship through fathers.[521] Again, with reference to the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges writes, “A child belongs equally to the clan of its father and mother as regards duty of revenge, but is always reckoned a member of the father’s clan only. Children are generally named after their grandparents, paternal or maternal indifferently. They are quite as much attached to their mother’s relatives and these to them, as to their paternal relatives; the only difference is that they are integral parts of the father’s clan, not of the mother’s.” Speaking of the same people, M. Hyades remarks, “L’héritage se transmet à l’époux survivant, ou à défaut, au fils aîné.”[522] In short, the paternal system, so far as we know, predominates among the aborigines of South America. Passing to the Pacific Islands, we find that, though rank and clan are commonly inherited there through the mother, property generally goes in the male line. In Tonga, the son succeeds his father in homage and title,[523] and here, as well as in Fiji, on the father’s death, his possessions descend to his children.[524] Ellis tells us that, in Tahiti, the child of a chief was invested, soon after its birth, with the name and office of its father,[525] and in the case of there being no children, the brother of the deceased assumed the government. In other families property always went to the eldest son.[526] Among the Hawaiians, the rank of the principal and inferior chiefs, the offices of the priests, as also other situations of honour and influence, descended from father to son,[527] although on the whole, the female line predominated.[528] In the Hervey Islands, children belonged either to the father’s or mother’s clan, according to arrangement; usually, however, the father had the preference.[529] In New Caledonia, kinship is reckoned in the male line,[530] and in Lifu, as Mr. Radfield informs me, children belong to the paternal clan. In the Caroline Group, landed property succeeds mostly from father to son, children are named after their father’s father or mother’s father, and, apparently, the rank of the father influences that of the son, at least if he be a chief.[531] Among the Rejangs[532] and Bataks[533] of Sumatra, as also in several other islands belonging to the Indian Archipelago,[534] and in New Guinea,[535] the male line prevails. In the Kingsmill Islands, “if a chief has several children by different wives, the son of the mother of