Each child received a name soon after birth, but at the age of sixteen or eighteen this name was discarded and another adopted. Special rights were thus conferred and specified obligations were imposed. On receipt of this name, the incumbent took upon himself all the duties and responsibilities devolving upon a member of the group and by it was entitled to all its rights and privileges. The greatest precautions were taken with respect to the adoption of names. The office of naming the different members belonged to the female relations and the chiefs. We are informed that the mother might, if she chose, transfer her child to another gens. This was accomplished by simply giving it the name of the gens in which she desired its adoption. It is claimed that among the Shawnees and Delawares the mother claimed the right to transfer her child to another gens than her own.[98] It would seem from this, that among certain tribes, the mother, if she desires, may transfer her child to the gens of its father. It is observed, however, that the transference of a child from its mother’s gens is a “wide departure from archaic usages, and exceptional in practice.” [98] Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 79. It has been shown that under early usages wealth was never transferred from the gens in which it originated; but later, when property began to be claimed by individuals, and wealth was amassed in the hands of males, it is not unlikely that mothers, considering only the future welfare of their children, in case the father was rich and powerful, would occasionally take advantage of their established privileges to remove their children to his gens, in order that they might share in his possessions. Something of the humanity practised in early groups may be observed in the custom of adoption, which, at a certain stage in their development, prevailed among them. In the earlier ages of gentile institutions, women and children taken prisoners in war, were usually adopted into some gens. Adoption not only conferred gentile rights, but also the nationality of the tribe. A person adopted into a gens was treated ever afterwards as though born within the group. “Slavery which in the Upper Status of barbarism became the fate of the captive, was unknown among tribes in the Lower Status in the aboriginal period.”[99] [99] Morgan, _Ancient Society_, p. 80. According to Mariner: It is customary in the Tonga Islands for women to be what they call mothers to children or grown-up young persons who are not their own, for the purpose of providing them, or seeing that they are provided, with all the conveniences of life.[100] [100] Quoted by Lubbock, _Origin of Civilization_, p. 96.