In the records of German colonies submitted to parliament (during its session 1904–05) there is a report of the South-West-African region that contains the following passage: “The tribal chief in a Herero village cannot decide upon the slightest matter without the advice of his council, and not only the men but generally ~the women also~ give their advice.” In the report of the Marshall Islands it says: “Rulership over all the islands of the Marshall groups was never concentrated upon a single chief.... ~but as there is no female member of this class (The Irody) living, and the child inherits nobility and station from the mother only, The Irodies will become extinct with the death of their chiefs~.” The manner of expression and description used by the informants shows how utterly foreign the conditions they describe are to them and that they fail to understand them.[20] Dr. Henry Weislocky, who for many years lived among the Gypsies of Transylvania and finally was adopted into one of their tribes, reports,[21] that two of the four tribes in whose midst he lived, the Ashani and the Ishale, observed maternal law. If the migratory Gipsy marries, he enters the clan of his wife, and to her belong all the furnishings of the Gipsy household. Whatever wealth she has belongs to her and to her clan, the man is a stranger. In accordance with maternal law the children also remain in their mother’s clan. Even in modern Germany remnants of the matriarchate survive. The “Westdeutsche Rundschau” (published in Westphalia) reports in the issue of June 10, 1902, that in the parish of Haltern the laws of inheritance were still subject to the old maternal law of the gentes. The children inherit from their mother. Until now all attempts at reforming this antiquated custom had failed.