I have now collected together, with as much exactitude as I could, what is known of the maternal family in the American continents. There are many tribes in which descent is reckoned through the father, and it would be bold to assert that these have all passed through the maternal stage. An examination of their customs shows, in some cases, survivals, which point to such conclusion; among other tribes it seems probable that the maternal clan has not developed. As illustrations of mother-power, I claim the examples given speak for themselves. It may, of course, be urged that these complete maternal families are exceptions, and thus to dismiss them as unimportant. But this is surely an unscientific way of settling the question. One has to accept these cases, or to prove that they are untrue. Moreover, I have by no means exhausted the evidence; and to these complete maternal families might be added examples from other tribes which would furnish similar proofs, but there is such consistency of custom among them all that further accounts may be dispensed with. There is one other matter for which I would claim attention before closing this chapter on the American Indians, and that is the remarkable similarity to be noticed in many tribes between the faces of the men and the women. To me this is a point of deep interest, though I do not claim to understand it. My attention was first drawn to notice this likeness between the two sexes when I came to know some Iroquois natives who live in England. I was at once struck with the appearance of the men: though strong and powerfully built, they were strikingly like women. Since then I have examined many portraits of the North Indian tribes; I have found that the great majority of men approach much more nearly to the feminine than the male type. I might, however, hesitate to bring the matter forward, were it founded only on my own observation. But in my reading I have found an important reference to the question in a recent work, “The Indians of North America in Recent Times,” by Mr. Cyrus Thomas, Ph.D., Archæologist, in the _Bureau of American Ethnology_. He writes as follows (p. 41)-- “Another curious fact, which has not hitherto received special notice, though apparently of considerable interest, is the prevailing feminine physiognomy of the males, at least of those of the northern section. If any one will take the trouble to study carefully a hundred or more good photographs of males of pure blood he will find that two thirds, if not a greater proportion, show feminine faces. The full significance of this fact is not apparent, but it seems to bear to some extent upon the question of the evolution of the race.”