[177] Robertson Smith, _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 65. [178] Hoffman, “The Menomini Indians,” _Fourteenth Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology_, p. 288. [179] Papers of the _Archæological Institute of America_, Vol. II, p. 138. I must now bring this brief chapter to a close. But first I would give one further example. It is an account of the Pelew matrons’ work in the taro fields. Here the richest and most influential women count it their privilege to labour, and it will be remembered that these women are called “mothers of the land.” They are politically and socially superior to the men; and their position is dependent largely on their close connection with the staple industry of the island. “The richest woman in the village looks with pride on her taro patch, and although she has female followers enough to allow her merely to superintend the work without taking part in it, she nevertheless prefers to lay aside her fine apron, and to betake herself to the field, merely clad in a small apron that barely hides her nakedness, with a little mat on her back to protect her from the burning heat of the sun, and with a shade of banana leaves for her eyes. There, dripping with sweat in the burning sun, and coated with mud to the hips and over the elbows, she toils to set the younger women a good example. Moreover, as in every other occupation, the _Kalitho_, the gods must be invoked, and who could be better fitted for the discharge of so important a duty than ‘the Mother of the House.’” Here is a picture of labour that may well make women pause to think. CHAPTER X TRACES OF MOTHER-RIGHT CUSTOMS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN CIVILISATIONS I propose in this chapter to examine, as fully as I can, the traces that mother-right customs have left among some of the great races of antiquity, as also in the early records of western civilisations. It is the more necessary to do this because there is so marked a tendency to minimise the importance of the mother-age, and to regard the patriarchal family as primeval and universal. So much interesting material is available, and so wide a field of inquiry must be covered, that I shall be able to give a mere outline sketch, for the purpose of suggesting, rather than proving, the widespread prevalence of the communal clan and the maternal family.