Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 43 CHAPTER 3 Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society An American, Lewis Henry Morgan, was to prove the most infiu. ential of those who developed the anthropological idea of primitive society. His influence on his immediate successors was so great indeed, that it forms a serious barrier to a fresh reading of his work today. His theory was appropriated early on by Engels, whose particular interpretation still has committed supporters. Later, Boas made Morgan the special target of his critique of evolutionism. In consequence, Morgan's theses became the battleground for two generations of American anthropologists. Precisely on account of this intense controversy, Morgan's ideas have very often been misrepresented and misunderstood.1 In order to recapture the intended meaning of what Morgan wrote, one must try to ignore what was to come, and to concentrate upon the immediate sources and contexts of his thinking; to recreate his intellectual milieu, which he assumed his readers would share. This is an intriguing exercise in itself, and it is an essential preliminary if one wishes to specify the kinds of transformation which characterize his work. Morgan reacted to his contemporaries, but not in the radical way which led Maine and McLennan to select particular adversaries and then to turn their ideas on their heads. lie collected enormous quantities of data and drew with considerable expertise upon a variety of theories (including McLennan's); but in the end he reworked his materials to fit the models which had become current among the British scholars in his field. kees Presbyterians and Darwinism 1 Cf. E. Service (1985), A Century of Controversy, Chapter 3. n's immediate intellectual circle is perhaps best approached va of ms c^osest friend during his early adult years in Roches-by V[eW York, the Rev. J. S. Mcllvaine, who was the Presbyterian ter'. 0f Rochester from 1848 until 1860. Mcllvaine was inti-^ tely associated with Morgan's research, and he was instrumental ecuring the eventual publication of Morgan's Systems of Con-'o« uinity (1871)- A formidable intellectual, he was a philologist, nd a recognized authority on Sanskrit. Mcllvaine was associated vith the Smithsonian Institution, and when he left Rochester it vas to take up an academic appointment at Princeton. He was also a minister of religion. He did his best - with the supp°rt of Morgan's wife - to ignite Morgan's Christian faith, but with only partial success, though he claimed that Morgan's heart lay in the end with the Christian religion; and Morgan was certainly at the Icasi a Deist, and was prepared to respect Mcllvaine's faith. An earlier go aeration sometimes represented Mcllvaine as a censor, who checked the free expression of Morgan's Darwinian beliefs for theological reasons. This interpretation derived some plausibility from Mcllvaine's own claim: that whilst his great work on 'Ancient Society' was passing through the press, I called his attention to a passage which inadvertently might have found its place there, and^which might be construed as an endorsement of these materialistic speculations in connection with evolution; and he immediaiely cancelled the whole page, although it had already been stcreo:yped.2 This view of Mcllvaine's role altered as the context of the evolutionist debate in the United States was better appreciated. Indeed Morgan's second biographer, Carl Resek, concluded that on the contrary Mcllvaine had inspired Morgan's evolutionist hypothesis.3 Morgan and Mcllvaine's branch of the Presbyterian church participated in a markedly liberal movement within New England-Calvinism in the second half of the nineteenth century.4 It repudi- 2 Mcllvaine (1923), 'The life and works of Lewis H. Morgan, LL.D.: an address at his funeral', p. 57 3 Rcsek (1980), Lewis Henry Morgan: American Scholar. 4 For discussions of contemporary American Calvinism, its attitudes to slavery and lo Darwinian theory, see: Winthrop Hudson (1965), Religion in America; James 44 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY ated slavery and affirmed a faith in democracy and Utilitar- political ideas. On scientific matters, it was equally determined accommodate the most enlightened modern theories. Nor \vas theory of evolution a special problem. Evolution might even u reconciled with Calvinist ideas of predestination - 'Evoluium' B i as one divine explained, 'is God's way of doing things'.5 Tfo chronology could also be taken on board. 'I cannot find sufiieietl data in the Scriptures for a revealed chronology', Mcllvaine com mented. 'Neither, as I read the first chapters of Genesis, d appear that man was created in a high state of development, though certainly in a state of innocence.'6 The northern Presbyterians in fact welcomed Darwin's witncs-with respect to one very sensitive political issue. This Wi question of the unity of origin of the human species. They were up in arms against their southern Presbyterian brethren, who justified slavery on the grounds that God had created several distinct specie-of man, each with a particular destiny. During the Civil War zn 'American school of anthropology' developed in the South which propagated this view. It drew the support even of AgassL, UK eccentric Lamarckian biologist of Harvard.7 According to the northern Presbyterians, this 'polygenist' thesis was a denial of the truth, to which both the Bible and the Declaration of Independence bore witness, that all men were created equal. Darwin unequivocably supported the view that all the races were simply varieties of one species, with a common origin. This aspect of Darwinian theory was particularly stressed by Asa Gray, Agassiz's rival at Harvard, and the leader of the American Darwinians. On one vital matter, however, Darwin's views were unacceptable to many, indeed most, Christians. He posited the mutability of species and - despite his inital caution - it became evident that he believed man had evolved from non-human primate forebears, This theory of the transmutation of species was clearly irreconcilable with the Book of Genesis, but there were many respect- Moore (1979), The Post-Darwinian Controversies; H. Smith et. al. (1963), American Christianity; and R. Wilson (1967), Darwin and the American Intellectuals. 5 Quoted in Hudson (1965), Religion in America, p. 267. 6 Mcllvaine (1923), 'The life and works of Lewis H. Morgan', p. 56. 7 See especially William Stanton (1960), The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attiiudll toward Race in America 1815-1859. Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 45 s who believed that it was also at odds with biological alJlescn number of mainstream biologists in the 1860s facts. ^ ^ specjes were fixed. Agassiz's version of Cuvier's believe ^ allowed for the separate creation of each individual typologJ1 jSorganj a competent amateur biologist, sided with Agassiz species. ^e wrote a naturalist's study of the American beaver 00*h won Agassiz's admiration) in which he strongly affirmed his fai* in Cuvier and in the separate creation of the human S^One i-Oiild, however, believe that the species were fixed without "c to believe that they were changeless. Agassiz and many of JJ? oiieagues might rule out 'transmutation', the change of one ' cies into another; but they still believed that a species could develop along appropriate lines. Each species might realize an inner ential, wnjch gradually unfolded. Those who thought in this commonly conceived of the development of species on the analogy of the evolution of the embryo. The tadpole might become a frog) but that did not amount to a change of species. Indeed, ontogeny, the development of an individual, might recapitulate 'phytogeny, the history of a species. The term 'evolution' itself was generally used in this embryological sense until about 1880, and neither Darwin in The Origin of Species (1859) nor Morgan in Systems (1871) or Ancient Society (1877), used the word 'evolution' stall.5 ' / Agassiz's version of evolution assumed that the world had been designed by God. Particular species had been created in order to fit into particular ecological relations. They were, moreover, programmed to develop as the whole cosmological order itself progressed. Adaptation was a sign of planning rather than of selection. Agassiz was quite explicit that evolution was comprehensible only as the gradual unfolding of a divine plan. Species were incarnations of a divine idea. 'Natural History must, in good time, 8 Morgan (1868a), The American Beaver and His Works. 9 See Bowler (1975), 'The changing meaning of "evolution"'. Morgan's first biographer, Stern, wrote: It was undoubtedly out of deference to the pressure of Mcllvaine ... that Morgan nowhere in his books uses the word 'evolution' or has a word of praise for the writers on this subject, although his works are permeated by their influence'. (1931, Lewis Henry Morgan: Social Evolutionist, p. 23) This was a complete misrepresentation of the true situation. 46 THE CONS TITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 47 become the analysis of the thoughts of the Creator of the Universe as manifested in the animal and vegetable kingdoms.'10 Agassiz's theory of development was the biological equivalent of a common New England Calvinist belief that human history, since Christ, was a record of progress and moral improvement inspired by God, in which every group had its preordained role. This idealistic view was in stark contrast to the scepticism of Darwin or the pessimism of Malthus. 'I believe in no fixed law of devel-opment'j Darwin had written in Origin, and when Christian intellectuals attacked his 'materialist' theory they meant in particular his view that history is contingent, unplanned, without a goal, the product simply of random mutation and natural selection. Mcllvaine, similarly, objected to the thesis of Malthus because it left no place for divine planning.11 This belief in progress according to a divine plan had a political counterpart in American political thought, which commonly represented political 'development' as a series of progressive approximations to the principles of government which had been set out in the Declaration of Independence. This was perhaps Morgan's most important theme. Mcllvaine rightly emphasized it in his funeral oration, praising Morgan's demonstration that progress is a fundamental law of human society, una one which has always prevailed - progress in thought and knowledge, in industry, in morality, in social organization, in institutions, and in all things tending to, or advancing, civilization and general well-being.12 But these were only the broadest considerations which informed Morgan's thinking. His more immediate concern was with questions of American ethnology, and his initial inspiration was drawn from philology and history rather than biology. These intellectual roots of the early Morgan are similar to those which sustained Maine. 10 See Mayr (1959), 'Agassiz, Darwin and evolution'. The passage from Agassiz is cited on p. 171. 11 Mcllvaine (1867), 'Malthusianism1. 12 Mcllvaine (1923), 'The life and works of Lewis H. Morgan'. «The League of the Iroquois' "e Henry Morgan, the ninth of thirteen children, was born in ^•eV/3 Aurora, New York (then 'still a wilderness surrounded by s'13) His father, a wealthy farmer, a state senator, and a •out Presbyterian, died when Morgan was a boy of eight. In d«8 he went to Union College, a school distinguished for its Whig I'tics which found fashionable expression in the idealization of P° Jejn0cratic civilization of Athens.14 In 1844 he received a licence to*" ractise law, and established himself in practice in Rochester, NewYork. Tn Rochester, Morgan set up a fraternity. There was an Iroquois eservation nearby, and the fraternity took the name Iroquois and onsidered organizing itself on the lines of the Iroquois League. Morgan began to visit the nearby reservation and to collect ethnographic information. He also intervened successfully with Washington on behalf of an Iroquois group on a land question.15 Eventually he wrote up his ethnographic findings, so discharging an undertaking which, he thought, had now come to an end. With the publication [of The League of the Iroquois] in January 1851 I laid aside the Indian subject to devote my time to my profession. My principal object in writing this work, which exhibits abundant evidence of hasty execution, was to free myself of the subject.16 Although primarily a descriptive work, The League of the Iroquois is informed by a progressive spirit. Like Maine, Morgan was impressed by a model of ancient history, and his particular inspiration was Grote's vastly influential Utilitarian study of Greece. The Greeks, according to Grote, had evolved from a family-based polity to city-states. Initially there were separate, independent families. These then joined together in groups, the gens, phratry and tribe. The gens was particularly significant, and Grote described it as a kinship and political unit, democratic in nature, and with religious 13 Stern (1931), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 3. 14 See Resek (1960), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 9. 15 See R. Bieder (1980), 'The Grand Order of the Iroquois: influences on Lewis Henry Morgan's ethnology', and E. Tooker (1983), 'The structure of the Iroquois League: Lewis H. Morgan's research and observations'. 16 Quoted in White (1957), 'How Morgan came to write Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity', p. 257. 48 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY 1 w Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 49 functions. In their political evolution the Greeks passed fr0rn democracy based on kinship groups to a stage of monarchy anjj; despotism, eventually in the case of Athens achieving a high democratic form. 2 In Ancient Society (1877) Morgan was to reject the Priority J the family over the gens and phratry. He also came to deny that all' societies had to endure a stage of monarchy and despotism. \" The League of the Iroquois (1851), however, he accepted Grote1' argument. Echoing Grote, Morgan asserted that: there is a regular progression of political institutions, from the monarchical, which are the earliest in time, on to the democratical, whic|,; are the last, noblest, and the most intellectual. This position can be established by the rise and development of the Grecian institutions, and may be further illustrated by the progressive change in the spirit and nature of other governments.17 Despotic monarchy was a form of government 'natural to a peoplE when in an uncivilized state, or when just emerging from barbarism'. The Iroquois represented a yet earlier condition, in which* 'Family Relationships' still provided the fundamental scheme of government. These relations are older than the notions of society or government, and ! are consistent alike with the hunter, the pastoral and the civilized slate. The several nations of the Iroquois, united, constituted one Family, dwelling together in one Long House; and those ties of family relationship were carried throughout their civil and social system, from individuals to tribes, from tribes to nations, and from the nations to the League itself, and bound them together in one common, indissoluble brotherhood.18 Morgan also described the unfamiliar Iroquois terminology for kin, which was 'unlike that of the civil or canon law; but was yet a clear and definite system. No distinction was made between the lineal and collateral lines, either in the ascending or descending series'.19 He linked this system with the use of consanguineal relationships to build up large political units. There is no suggestion of his later theory that the kinship terminology reflected exotic 17 Morgan (1851), League of the Iroquois, p. 122. 18 Op. cit., pp. 56-7. 19 Op. cit., p. 81. f marriage or family relationships. Indeed, Morgan clearly forms ^ Tr0quois marriage forms, remarking mainly on the descn <- ^^ectjon Detween man and wife. Marriage was in essence absence^ arranged between the mothers of the couple, who acted ?or°larg'rfamilyUnitS- The American Indian • h the publication of his book, Morgan believed that he had put !r ethnography behind him. He now concentrated on business, a osDcred. In 1855 he became a director of the Iron Mountain n° "1 Road Co., and he soon extended his interest to other railway ompan'cs- 'Frorn tne c^ose °^ unt^ tne summer °f 1857,' he corded in his Journal, 'Indian affairs were laid entirely aside'.20 As he became rich, Morgan was able to devote more time to outside interests. He took up politics, serving as Republican congressman and then senator in the state assembly between 1861 and 1869 and became chairman of the Indian affairs committee of the assembly. He also angled for federal preferment, but it never came. At the same time, he maintained his intellectual interests. With "Mcllvainc he founded the Pundit Club in Rochester, at which papers were read dealing with such matters as Lyell's geology, Sanskrit, and ethnology,' In 1856 Morgan was elected to the Association for the Advancement of Science. This encouraged him to return at last to his Iroquois notes in order to prepare a paper for the following annual meeting. The paper he wrote, entitled 'Laws of descent of the Iroquois', dealt mainly with their system of classifying kin, which he considered a unique invention of the tribe. Soon, however, a fresh discovery was to change his mind. In the summer of 1858 Morgan found that the Ojibwa, who spoke a different language from the Iroquois, nevertheless had essentially the same system of classifying kin. Every term of relationship was radically different from the corresponding term in the Iroquois; but the classification of kindred was the same. It 20 White (1957), 'How Morgan came to write Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity', p. 262. 50 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY was manifest that the two systems were identical in their fundamental characteristics.21 ■ In the following year he recorded in his journal the extraord hypothesis which this discovery suggested to him. "OatjS From this time I began to be sensible to the important uses which s such nofi a primary institution as this must have in its bearing upon the questioi the genetic connection of the American Indian nation, not only, but als 4 on the still more important question of their Asiatic origin.22 It was now - at the age of forty - that his most important n began. To appreciate what Morgan had in mind, it is necessary first tn consider the state of play in American ethnology at the time. This had just been thoroughly and critically reviewed by Samuel Haven in his Archaeology of the United States, which was published bl the Smithsonian Institution in 1856, precisely at the moment whej Morgan's interest in American ethnology was quickened cmp again. The central issue raised in Haven's summary was familiar and of vital importance. This was the polygenist-monogenist controversy Haven conceded with some reluctance that 'The subject of American ethnology passes ... insensibly into the general que: . ■ the original unity or diversity of mankind.'23 He reviewed in detail the linguistic studies of American languages, emphasizing Gallatin's conclusion that the Indian languages shared a common and distinct character, probably resulting from a very long period of isolation. This unity existed despite wide variations in vocabulary: 'however differing in their words, the most striking uniform] their grammatical forms and structure appears to exist in all th{ American languages'.24 According to Gallatin, the most characteristic structural feature of the Indian languages was whal Von Humboldt had called 'agglutination', i.e. glueing together; 'a tendency to accumulate a multitude of ideas in a single word', as Haven defined it.25 21 Morgan (1871), Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Pamij, p. 3. 22 Quoted Stern (1931), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 73. 23 Haven (1856), p. 81. 24 Op. cit,, p. 65. 25 Op. cit., p. 67. This was a simplification of the then current technical lint Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 51 hen covered the physiological studies which had been tjaven^ j^jjng very fairly with the polygenist school, though carried ouis conclusions. He also surveyed the discoveries finally r^jiae(,]0gists. His final conclusion was that: tions fron1 scientific investigations, philological and '^te.. -cai tend 10 prove that American races are of great antiquity. physio cj0CtrjneS3 their superstitions ... and their arts, accord Their re ^ m()3t primitive age of mankind. With all their with t 0 unities are found in the early condition of Asiatic races.26 character vidence 1 icrefore apparently supported the monogenist argu- - ,„hi\e ''in Haven's view) not necessarily contradicting the mentj wi»»- ^ received chronology. Haven's most striking data came from philology, and this was a field which Morgan must have learnt from Mcllvaine. Mcllvaine vas a Sanskritist, but this meant that he was an Indo-European man and the models of Gallatin and other American linguists had been taken over directly from the Indo-Europeanists. The Indo-European philologists had established relationships between languages hitherto regarded as completely distinct. They agreed that most of the European languages were distantly related to Sanskrit, and that their point of origin was in India. The Semitic languages were similarly interrelated, and they too had an Asian point of origin. In the 18£>0s some scholars mooted the possibility that the Indo-European* and Semitic language stocks were also ultimately related to each other. The Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, Max Müller, propagated the view that there was a third stock, which he called 'Turanian'. It was divided into a European, northern branch (Turkish, Finnish, Mongolian, Basque, etc.) and a southern, tropical branch. This tropical language family included most if not all of the other languages in the world, including Tamil (the main Indian language which is not related to Sanskrit) and the languages of the American Indians. It seemed a very diverse group. Superficially at least, its members notion of agglutination, but Morgan was at best an amateur philologist, and his own semantics of 'classificatory systems' fit in well with Haven's definition of agglutination. For a sophisticated (essentially grammatical) definition of agglutination by a contemporary, see Max Miiller's (1861) Lectures on the Science ofLanXua?e, especially Chapter 8. 26 Haven, op. cit., pp. 158-9. 52 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 53 had few linguistic features in common. But then Müller did expect these languages to be very similar. He believed ihat people who spoke Turanian languages were typically nomads the consequence that their languages were liable to rapid ch'i and much dialectical variation. He instanced the terms for not I th| explaining that these were stable in Aryan languages but nor Turanian. Yet although words themselves changed, underbid concepts might be constant. At this level the Turanian language share much in common, and show that before their divergency a certain nucleus of language was formed, in which some parts of language, the I first to crystallize and the most difficult to be analysed, had become fiW! and stationary. Numerals, pronouns, and some of the simplest app|jC[j verbal roots belong to this class of words.27 They had something else in common, too, for Müller believed that' they all exhibited Von Humboldt's 'agglutinating' tendency. , Were these three linguistic stocks - all, probably, ultimately of Asian origin - independent? Were there any traces of an original language spoken by a once-united human race? (If this, too, \\es located in Asia, perhaps the Book of Genesis was accurate after all!) Müller could find no philological basis for such a conclusion,3 but he proposed an alternative resolution of the issue. Using Von Humboldt's typology, which classified languages according to grammatical principles that he termed 'isolation, agglutination and inflexion', Müller argued - as indeed Schleicher had argued before him - that language stocks could be ordered on a scale of progressive development. The most primitive languages were 'isolating'. Each word consisted of a single, stable root. At a more advanced level they were characterized by 'agglutination' - roots were 'glued together' to form new words. The most developed languages went in for 'amalgamation', developing inflected forms in which the original roots, once simply glued together, merged to form quite new words. There were difficulties with this scheme. Chinese, for instance, was classified as an 'isolating language' (i.e. each word consists of a single, stable root). Yet it was hard to believe that Chines; was exceptionally primitive. Müller tried to resolve this purtic difficulty by providing Chinese with its own private evolutiona: 27 Miiller in Bunsen (1854), Outlines of the Philosophy of Universal History A, to Language and Religion, vol. 1, p. 478. for the rest, the southern Turanian languages could track- " as agglutinating', while the northern (or European) be classl jancruages could be classified with the Semitic and Indo-Turariian jan'gUages as 'amalgamating'. They had, however, once European jnatjng, tiiemseives 'Amalgamation' was a direct been b caggmtjnation'. The classification therefore cross-cut ^^stTblishcd boundaries of language families and yielded a new *e % ition, in which the languages of Europe, the Middle East ^North India were associated together and opposed to most of languages spoken in the tropics. But this did not contradict the vT ,:U men - and all languages - had a common origin. The ' ires of Europe were certainly more advanced, but they had nee been 'agglutinating', and even 'isolating' themselves. ° Mülle1" also linked this scheme of linguistic development with he models of technical and social progress constructed by the riters of the Scottish Enlightenment, borrowing their famous four-stage model. ('The four stages of society are hunting, pasturing farming und commerce' to quote Adam Smith's classic formulation.) These economic stages had from the first been associated with a model of political development from anarchic communism to private property and the state.28 Müller now added a theory of linguistic progress. Some Indo-European scholars had tried to find philological clues to the early condition of the Indo-Europeans. Had they been nomads or agriculturalists? At what stage might they have shifted from nomadism to agriculture? Müller's synthetic model opposed a category of primitive, anarchic, dispersed nomads, speaking agglutinating languages in a state of continual dialectical flux, and civilized, centralized, agricultural societies, with literate elites and, consequently, more stable and advanced languages characterized by 'amalgamation'. In the long essay on these issues, which he contributed to a book by his patron, Bunsen, he summarized his ideas (see Figure 3.1). The beauty of Müller's model was that it both divided and united humanity. Müller endorsed the division of humanity into 'higher' Aryan and Semitic and 'lower' southern Turanian people. At the same time, his model assumed that all men had a single origin. 28 Sl'l' Meek (1975), Social Science and Ignoble Savage. These ideas were becoming very fashionable at the time in America. See Stevens (1975), 'Adam Smith and the colonial disturbances'. 54 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY POLITICAL STAGE NOMADIC STAGE FAMILY STAGE ANTEDILUVIAN LIVING LANGUAGES cj 3 CO u 15 j- u cfl Q ,3 j: ffl Vj o cj 3 s 5 sp ^ ^ £ So O -5 g § c — u o . 3 C n h o c g SU C o 8 u ° I cj I i! ijUg eg SO CO n u CJ c o convinced that the Ganowanian system was closely related i0 (js Turanian, of which the Tamil and Dravidian systems were lypjJ Chinese and Japanese were also 'Turanian'. The 'Malayan' systc were, however, very different from them. In both the Turanian and Ganowanian systems, only one set of cousins was identified with siblings and termed 'brother' anj, 'sister'. These were children of father's brothers or mother's sister Other cousins (children of father's sisters or mother's brother/ were distinguished from siblings. The Malayan systems, 'j^ contrast, classed all cousins together with siblings, and all parents siblings together with parents. This category included not only the1 peoples of the Pacific but a number of far-flung peoples, and even the Zulu, Morgan's only African group. 'Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human * Family' When his argument had reached this stage, Morgan believed thai he had successfully completed a type of philological study. It; demonstrated the unity and the ultimately Asian origin of thl American Indian languages, and suggested the existence of two great linguistic stocks, one European and north-west Asian, and the other southern, tropical and firmly non-European. Within th| framework Morgan wrote up his massive materials, tabulating am analysing 139 kinship schedules from all the over the world, listir| over 260 kin-types for each. In 1865 he submitted the manuscript for publication to thl Smithsonian Institution. Joseph Henry, the director of the Smithsonian, was reluctant to accept it, writing to Morgan that 'the fitsf impression of one who has been engaged in physical research is that, in proportion to the conclusions arrived at, the quantity oj your material is very large'36; but he sent it for consideration to two philologists and Sanskritists - Whitney at Yale, and Mcllvaine. 36 Quoted by Resek (1960), Lewis Henry Morgan, pp. 96-7. «»» ne was prepared to accept that the analysis was incom- had demonstrated the inner coherence of classi- but their meaning remained a mystery. He S^ked that at this stage: , LatL not perceived any material significance or explanation of oU. nse body of entirely new facts which he had discovered and (he W1 COuld not at all acount for them. In fact, he regarded this jollectc ■ siightly different forms of one system, as invented and ^systejni sq ^yfej-gnt was jt fr0m that which now prevails in ' ' lizcd society, and which evidently follows the flow of the blood. OV1 • all these years, he had not the least conception of any process of h ht in which it could have originated, or of anything which could If caused it so universally to prevail. He treated it as something which ust throw great light upon pre-historic man, but what light he had not discovered." »-.And yet, a year before the submission of the manuscript, Mcllvaine had discussed with Morgan a plausible explanation of the classificatory systems. In a letter dated March 1864, he wrote: I have jutf lighted upon certain references which throw some light upon the origin of your Tamilian or Indian system of relationships; at least on some parts of it. You remember we were talking about whether it did not point back to a state of promiscuous intercourse. You will find in Aristotle's politics Book II chapter 3 where he is refuting Plato's doctrine of a community of wives this sentence, 'Some tribes in upper Africa have their Wives in common', and in a/mote in Bonn's translation of it the following references, 'For example the Masimanes (Herodotus IV, 172) and the Ayseuses (ib. IV, 180)'... I am inclined to think that this state of society might, upon a full and minute investigation of the remains of antiquity, be found more extensively to have prevailed than is commonly supposed.38 The hypothesis was, then, that the mysterious 'classificatory' designation of kin was based on real parent-child relationships, as was the descriptive system. Both described a consanguineal reality, but the realises were differently ordered. In societies with 'classificatory' terminologies, wives were held in common. A child would therefore not know who its father was. Accordingly, all potential fathers were 'father', all their children 'brother' or 'sister', 37 Mcllvaine (1923), 'The life and works of Lewis H. Morgan', pp. 51-2. 38 Quoted in Resek (1960), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 94. 60 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 61 etc. Similarly, all the women who were actually or potentially ^"1 mates of a 'father' were termed 'mother'. Morgan did not immediately develop this suggestion. It was an\* after Joseph Henry's rejection of his manuscript that he returned-to the idea, and then only after studying, with some jealousy McLennan's new theory.39 McLennan's Primitive Marriage, which appeared just at this moment, in 1865, described an initial state m which fatherhood was uncertain, since women were held jn'1 common. An original condition of promiscuity was later replace(i' by polyandry, which at least fixed motherhood, and so allowed the tracing of kin ties in the female line. In a higher form, a group 0r brothers held one wife in common, so permitting the tracing 0f kinship through men also. Gradually 'gentes' of related men emerged. 'Most probably contiguous tribes would be composed at precisely the same stocks - would contain gentes of precisely the same names, and thus be in the strictest sense akin - kindred' McLennan wrote. These units would eventually unite in a state, 'The order of social development, in our view, is then, that the tribe stands first; the gens or house next; and last of all, the family' (As he pointed out, this inverted Maine's and Grote's postulated , line of development.) Gradually clan property appeared; finally, jn the wake of Barbarism, individual property, and consequently the family. As the family became the vital social unit, so modern forms of marriage emerged. The crucial factor in this shift was the emergence of private property: the laws of succession which had sprung up with family property - which were springing up with individual property - were training the people -to consider a few persons only as their kinsmen in any special sense ... However strongly implanted the principle of exogamy may have originally been it must have succumbed to the influences which 1 hus disintegrated the old bonds of kinship.40 In May 1867 Morgan wrote a paper in which he linked the types of kinship classification with specific modes of marriage^ and ih: following February he presented it to a meeting of the American Academy of Art and Sciences, under the title 'A conjectural solution to the origin of the classificatory system of relationship'. 39 Op. dt., p. 92. 40 Citations can be found in McLennan (1876), Studies in Ancient History, pp. 221, 222 and 225. j- audience included Agassiz and Asa Gray, and Morgan was idently tense. He left hurriedly after the lecture, convinced he 6 j failed, and wrote to a friend that 'Agassiz does not know, nor Id the other members present fully appreciate the remarkable c acrer of the system ... I was afraid to show more lest they C uld not bear it.'41 But in the event the Academy requested the gxt of l»s lecture f°r publication and elected him to its member-hjp This paper provided the basis for a new final chapter for Systems- Morgan added a lengthy review of the possibility that diffusion and borrowing might account for common elements of classification, but concluded that the facts pointed to the common origin of structurally similar systems. With the addition of this chapter Systems was at last accepted for publication by the Smithsonian, although problems of format and expense delayed its appearance until 1871. It was the most expensive book which the Smithsonian had published up to that time. The argument Morgan developed was a variant of that sketched by McLennan. McLennan had posited an original condition of promiscuity, which had evolved into polyandry. Morgan rejected McLennan's emphasis upon polyandry. He lighted rather on an institution which had been briefly described by some missionaries in Hawaii, and which he called the 'Hawaiian custom'. This was 'a compound form of polyginia and polyandria', whereby a set of brothers was married collectively to their own sisters. Within this group, husbands and wives were held in common. Such a form of marriage would logically generate a 'Malayan' system of classificatory kinship terminology. For example: All the children of my several brothers, myself a male, are my sons and daughters, Reason: I cohabit with all my brothers' wives, who are my own wives as well (using the terms husband and wife in the sense of the custom). As it would be impossible for me to distinguish my own children from tnose of my brothers, if I call any one my child, I must call them -all my children. One is as likely to be mine as another.42 Similarly, a man's sisters were his wives, and so their children were counted as his own; and so forth. The next step was the prohibition of intermarriage between . 41 Quoted in Resek (1960), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 98. 42 Morgan (1868b), 'A conjectural solution of the origin of the classificatory system taionship', p. 465. 62 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY ~| siblings - in other words, McLennan's 'exogamy'. This abolitj0n of marriage between brothers and sisters did not necessarily imply -the total abandonment of the 'Hawaiian custom'. A group of hr0. thers would now marry someone else's set of sisters. Marxian would remain a combination of polyandry and polygamy. But practice of exogamy would result in the separation of the chilrlrcn of brothers and the children of sisters into distinct categorie! \ man's brothers' children would still count as his children; and a woman's sisters' children as her children. But: All the children of my several sisters, myself a male, are my nephew; nieces. Reason: Since under the tribal organization my sisters ceased to be my wives, their children can no longer be my children, but must stand 4 to me in a different and more remote relationship. Whence the relati of nephew and niece.43 In the jargon of a later generation, cross-cousins were distinguished from parallel cousins, and parallel cousins were identified with siblings. Other classifications were similarly explained with reference to group marriage arrangements. Problematic features w . said to represent survivals of an earlier state of affairs. The other stages in the development of the family were sketched in the most casual fashion. In conclusion, Morgan presenlcil a. fifteen-stage evolution (see Table 3.1)44 rather like a magician drawing rabbits out of a hat, remarking: It may be confidently affirmed that this great sequence of customs and institutions, although for the present hypothetical, will organize and explain the body of ascertained facts, with respect to the primitive history of mankind, in a manner so singularly and surprisingly adequate as to ; invest it with a strong probability of truth.45 The one principle which apparently operated throughout human history was a tendency to moral progress. For example: the Hawaiian custom still embodies the evidence of an organic movi . of society to extricate itself from a worse condition than the one it produced. For it may be affirmed, as a general proposition, that the 43 Ibid. 44 This table occurs in Morgan's (1868b) 'A conjectural solution----', p. 463 and his (1871) Systems in Consanguinity and Affinity, p. 480. 45 Morgan (1868b), 'A conjectural solution of the origin of the classificatory system of relationship', pp. 463—4. Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 63 ,c 3.1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF FAMILY TYPES Promiscuous intercourse The intermarriage or cohabitation of brothers and sisters The communal family (first stage of the family) The Hawaiian custom, giving The Malayan form of the classificatory system of relationship The tribal organization, giving The Turanian and Ganowanian system of relationship Marriage between single pairs, giving The barbarian family (second stage of the family) Polygamy, giving The patriarchal family (third stage of the family) Polyandria The rise of property with the settlement of lineal succession to estates, giving XIV The civilized family (fourth and ultimate state of the family), producing XV The overthrow of the classificatory system of relationship, and the substitution of the descriptive principal customs and institutions of mankind have originated in great refonnaiory movements.46 Similarly, the tribal organization 'was designed to work out a reformation with respect to the intermarriage of brothers and sisters', and 'it seems extremely probable that it can only be explained as a reformatory movement'.47 More specific mechanisms, however, might explain the change from one stage to another - the need for mutual defence leading to tribal organization, genetic advantages favouring exogamy, and so forth. The only mechanism which Morgan handled in any detail was the development of private estates, which explained the emergence of the 'civilized family' and the final 'Overthrow of the classificatory system of relationship, and the substitution of the descriptive'. Morgan ascribed this very last stage of man's social development to the influence of property relationships. Indeed, the emergence of property relationships was the mark of civilization. 46 Morgan (1871), Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity, p. 481. 47 Op. dt., p. 490. 64 THE CONS TITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY With the rise of property, considered as an institution, with the settle of its rights, and above all, with the established certainty of its transmission to lineal descendants, came the first possibility among mankind of the true family in its modern acceptation ... It is impossible ' to separate property, considered in the concrete, from civilization, or f0r civilization to exist without its presence, protection, and regulated inheritance. Of property in this sense, all barbarous nations are necessarily ignorant.48 This view was commonplace in the Scottish tradition,49 and wa, essentially identical to that of McLennan and of Maine. Encountering the British anthropologists Morgan visited Europe in 1871, taking delivery of his first copies of Systems in London. He visited Maine, McLennan, Lubbock (whom he found playing cricket), and even Darwin and Huxley and found himself welcomed as a colleague into the inner circle of the new anthropology. And 1871 was the year jn which Darwin published his Descent of Man. This book was, of course, of capital importance to all anthropologists. Darwin paid attention to McLennan's theory of matriarchy, and he raised the question of intellectual development,' which was to become the central issue in anthropology in the following decades. Also in 1870-1 Tylor and Lubbock each published his most important book - Tylor his Primitive Culture, and Lubbock his Origin of Civilization. Both profoundly affected Morgan's thinking. Lubbock had been responsible for popularizing the new prehistory.50 He had translated the crucial Scandinavian texts, which introduced a three-stage model of development through stone," copper (or bronze) and iron 'ages'. Following Nilsson, he had identified these archaeological phases with the classical Scottish 'stages of progress' - through savagery (hunting and gathering), barbarism (nomadism and pastoralism, and then agriculture) and finally industrial civilization. On the basis of this proven technological advance he and Tylor rejected the hypothesis that men had degenerated from a higher state. The fossils and survivals of human industry demonstrated, on the contrary, a regular progress. 48 Op. cit., p. 492. 49 See Meek (1975), Social Science and the Ignoble Savage. 50 See Daniel (1950), A Hundred Years of Archaeology. Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 65 Dbock and Tylor also argued that this unmistakable tech-o-jcal progress was matched by a 'mental' progress - physically, " jj]|t man's cranial capacity actually expanded, and also in the 'ense that there was improvement in the beliefs and institutions 5'hicli man developed. Tylor was particularly interested in the rlevelopment °f rengi°us ideas, but Lubbock recognized the poten- ial interest of the conjectural histories of marriage and the family posed by McLennan and Morgan. He discussed them at length, nd in"a friendly, though not uncritical, fashion. Morgan, in turn, rook the Lubbock-Tylor model back to America, and applied it to his own ends. He now became a universal historian. Irotiically5 however, just as Morgan embraced the British school, it was preparing a rejection of his major theses. In 1876, McLennan published an attack on Morgan entitled 'The classificatory system of relationships'.51 He poured scorn on Morgan's notion that even early man might have been ignorant of his mother (and he pointed out that Darwin had expressed puzzlement on this score in the second edition of The Descent of Man). On the contrary, recognition of the tie to the mother was very primitive, and formed the basis of the original condition of matriarchy. Further, Morgan's reliance on the evidence of kinship terminologies was methodologically unsound. The classificatory system 'is a system of mutual salutations merely'.52 These lines of criticism persuaded most of the leading British scholars,j;at least for a while, but they did not reach Morgan in time to influence the writing of Ancient Society. 'Ancient Society' Ancient Society, Morgan's most famous book, appeared in 1877. It begins with a resounding affirmation of the antiquity of human history and the uniformity of man's progress through the ages that could well have come from either Tylor or Lubbock. 'It can now be asserted upon convincing evidence that savagery preceded barbarism in all the tribes of mankind as barbarism is known to have preceded civilization. The history of the human race is one in source, one in experience, and in progress.'53 51 This paper appeared in McLennan's new volume (1876), Studies in Ancient History, which included a reprint of Primitive Marriage. 52 McLennan (1876), Studies in Ancient History, p. 366. 53 Morgan (1877), Ancient Society, p. 6. 66 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY 1 ■ Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 67 Progress had been made on two levels, one technical, the oh, social. In each field it exhibited different characteristics. Broadi,, speaking, technical development resulted from invention arm diffusion and exhibited sharp discontinuities. Social developing on the other hand, was the product of steady growth. Part I of Ancient Society, entitled 'Growth of intelligeric through inventions and discoveries', was taken over directly fro^ Lubbock and Tylor. The development of subsistence techniqUc, provided the basis for the classification of cultures into seven dis. tinct 'ethnical periods' (see Table 3.2). These ethnical periods had Table 3.2 MORGAN'S 'ETHNICAL PERIODS'54 I Lower status of savagery II Middle status of savagery III Upper status of savagery IV Lower status of barbarism V Middle status of barbarism VI Upper status of barbarism VII Status of civilization From the infancy of the human race to the commencement of the next period From the acquisition of a fish subsistence and a knowledge of the use of fire, to etc. From the invention of the bow and arrow, to etc. From the invention of the art of pottery, to etc. From the domestication of animals on the eastern hemisphere, and in the western from the cultivation of maize and plants by irrigation, with the use of adobe-brick and stone, to etc. From the invention of the process of smelting iron from ore, with the use of iron tools, to etc. a direct relationship to stages of social progress, for 'the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence'.-1 54 Op. cit., p. 12. 55 Op. cit., p. 19. ical ancj SOcial progress were in turn matched by a correlative TeC ^ jn (he human brain, 'particularly of the cerebral portion'.56 ^Thc different human groups progressed at different speeds, the taking the lead. 'The Aryan family represents the central ^■ m of human progress, because it produced the highest type of kind and because it had proved its intrinsic superiority by 111 dually assuming the control of the earth.'57 But inventions are ®ra ^nnlv borrowed, and so the Aryans - and Semites - drew cornniv"1-' , , , thers in their wake as they advanced. The bulk of the book was devoted to the growth of 'ideas' of ivil institutions - the 'growth of the idea of government' (Part II), f the family (Part III) and of property (Part IV). While movement from one phase to another might be triggered by a technical dvance, the lines of social development are predetermined and nevitable. Here Morgan adopted the idiom of Agassiz - evolution iry development expressed God's thoughts. The content of these divine ideas was, however, already familiar enough. The 'growth of the idea of government' recapitulated the phases defined by Maine and by Grotei the movement from a kinship-based polity to a territorial state which ordered property relations. It may be here premised that all forms of government are reducible to two general plans, using the^word plan in its scientific sense. In these bases the two are fundamentally distinct. The first, in the order of time, is founded upon persons, arid upon relations purely personal, and may be distinguished as a society (societas). The gens is the unit of this organization; giving as the successive stages of integration, in the archaic period, the gens, the phratry, the tribe, and the confederacy of tribes, which constituted a people or nation (populus). At a later period a coalescence of tribes in the same area into a nation took the place of a confederacy of tribes occupying independent areas. Such, through prolonged ages, after the gens appeared, was the substantially universal organization of ancient society: and it remained among the Greeks and Romans after civilization supervened. The second is founded upon territory and upon property, and may be distinguished as a state {civitas}.56 56 Op.cjVp.57. 57 Op. cit., p. 553. 58 Op. cit., pp. 6-7. 68 THE CONS TJTUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY 4.» The gens formed the basis of social organization even as late as th final stages of barbarism, since successively more complex kin based units developed in its image - 'the gens, the phratry, tn _ tribe, and the confederacy of tribes'. This model is once again* traceable to Grote, and Morgan cited Grote's description of ul Greek gens at length. Another source was obviously McLennan as both Tylor and Lubbock commented in their reviews.59 Since the gentile system survived for most of human hi<,i0ry ? Morgan devoted over half his book to detailing its development The stages of its progress were illustrated by five crucial case! studies, dealing respectively with the Australians, the Iroquuis. thc , Aztec, the Greeks and the Romans. Each of these cases had a special ^ relevance for Morgan. The Australian case represented the most primitive extant system, only a step away from the initial condition in which brothers married their sisters in an incestuous form of group marriage, ■-The Australians had introduced the improvement which in Systems (Morgan, 1871) had been termed the 'Hawaiian custom' and nay appeared as 'the Punaluan custom', whereby a group of brothers had wives in common, a group of sisters husbands in common, buf| brothers could not marry sisters. This division of the sibling group by sex into marriage classes provided the potential for the development of the gens, since it allowed the unilineal reckoning of descent. Initially the maternal line was used for counting descent and sol matrilineal gentes were generated. Once the rule of exogamy was introduced into the gens, the way was prepared for the gentile system itself. This model was a slight variant of that presented in Systems, but the new version was greatly enriched by new Australian materials,' provided by the Rev. Lorimer Fison, one of the first converts to Morgan's thesis as presented in Systems. Fison was a missionary who had been inspired to conduct anthropological research as a consequence of filling in Morgan's questionnaire for Systems. His' fieldwork in Australia was conducted with Morgan's detailed guidance, and although he later mildly criticized aspects of Morgan's rendition of the Australian case, he was on the whole fiercely loyalj and was vituperative about McLennan's critique of Morgan.60 59 Stern (1931), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 141. 60 Chapter 5 of this book takes up Fison's story. Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 69 Morgan's own Iroquois material was used to illustrate the next 1 r of evolution, in which the democratic gentes were associated - '^larger federations. 1 rr^g following level of development was represented by the cs ^organ's reanalysis of the Aztec case was extremely influ-tial Irideedj one of his biographers has suggested that 'Morgan's ecognfti011 in America by his contemporaries came primarily hrough his work on a critical reconstruction of the culture of Mexico and Central America'.61 His particular concern was to discredit the Spanish chroniclers, who had 'adopted the erroneous theory that the Aztec government was a monarchy, analogous in essential respects to existing monarchies in Europe'.62 He rejected this judgment on a priori grounds. The Aztecs were clearly only at the level of 'the middle status of barbarism'. If they were indeed monarchical, then monarchy was an early and basic form of political organization. But if monarchies were primitive human institutions, then they should perhaps continue to exist in a modified form (on the Lamarckian theory that primitive stages of evolution were overlaid rather than displaced). Such a line of argument might even justify the survival of European monarchies themselves. But such a conclusion was abhorrent to Morgan. His recent European journey had confirmed him in his detestation of monarchical and aristocratic institutions.63 Morgan's solution was to reinterpret the Aztec materials. His criterion for using or rejecting his Spanish sources is very telling: The histories of Spanish America may be trusted in whatever relates to thc acts of the Spaniards, and to the acts and personal characteristics of thc Indians; in whatever relates to their weapons, implements and utensils, fabrics, food and raiment, and things of a similar character. But in whatever relates to Indian society and government, their social relations, and plan of life, they are nearly worthless, because they learned nothing and know nothing of either. We are at full liberty to reject them 61 Stern (1931), Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 109. 62 Morgan (1877), Ancient Society, p. 186. 63 Sec his repeated diatribes in White (1937), Extracts from the European Travel Journal of Lewis Henry Morgan. Stern (1931), commented: 'Throughout Mor- ■ i writings, from the first in 1843 to the last in 1880, ran the theme of contrast of American republican institutions with those of the aristocratic institutions of r- Europe' {Lewis Henry Morgan, p. 35). 70 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 71 in these respects and commence anew; using any facts they may aintaj which harmonize with what is known of Indian society.64 ir Using this convenient formula, he was able to recast the Aztec stat as a more advanced version of the Iroquois federation. Once agaj he inspired an ethnographer, in this case Adolphe Bandelier, ^ produced data which apparently supported his argument. Turning to the Greeks, Morgan based his case on Grote's descrin tion of the gens, which he quoted at length, commenting that 'Th similarities between the Grecian and Iroquois gens will at once h-> recognized'.65 This was not surprising, since Grote's model of t^. Greek gens had from the first provided Morgan with his model of the Iroquois system. Indeed, all the characteristics of the gentile system had been denned by Grote.66 But Morgan now differed from Grote on two counts. First of all, Grote had erred in placing* ^* the family early on in Greek development - even making it anterior to the gens. Morgan had no doubt that he was mistaken, and did not hesitate to pit his theories against the conclusions of one of the leading classical scholars of the day. Secondly, Morgan disputed Grote's view that the Greek state had begun as a monarchy. Once more he resorted to a priori argument, phrased in a particularly enlightening form: The true statement, as it seems to an American, is precisely the reverse of Mr. Grote's; namely, that the primitive Grecian government was essentially democratical, reposing on gentes, phratries and tribes, organized as self-governing bodies, and on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. This is borne out by all we know of the gentile organization, which has been shown to rest on principles essentially democratical.67 Finally, Morgan discussed the Romans. He had to admit that their political development had ended in a form of undemocratic government, though he refused to accept that such a development was either desirable or inevitable. The Roman Empire 'was artificial, illogical, approaching a monstrosity; but capable of won- 64 Morgan (1877), Ancient Society, pp. 186-7, fn. 65 Op. cit., p. 222. 66 Op. cit., pp. 221-2. 67 Op. cit., p. 247. i achievements ... The patchwork in its composition was the a cif the superior craft of the wealthy classes.'68 ' 'eneral, however, the development of political institutions -nti-nted that a democratic order which builds upon the gentile n-adiiion is natural to humanity. a plan of government, the gentile organization was unequal to the ^S °rs of civilized man: but it is something to be said in its remembrance * j't developed from the germ the principal governmental institutions f mode"1 civilized states ... out of the ancient council of chiefs came the ° odern senate; out of the ancient assembly of the people came the modern re rescntative assembly ... out of the ancient general military ornmander came the modern chief magistrate, whether a feudal or onstitutional king, an emperor or a president, the latter being the natural ..and logical results.69 The constitution of the United States is therefore the logical and natural flower of the ancient order of the gens. Part III of Ancient Society described the development of the 'idea of the family', providing, in half the space given over to the gens, a summary of the argument of Systems of Consanguinity (1871). A brief chapter offered a revised sequence of family development /linked to the development of modes of subsistence and of gentile organization. Only the final twenty-nine pages of this 560-page opus were devoted to the growth qf the idea of property. Technical development increased the amount of property and its variety. The growth ' of property was a sign of progress, rather than a cause; but it stimulated the change from matrilineal to patrilineal gentile organization, and the development of the monogamous family. These institutions arose in order to deal with fixed property. They allowed a man to settle his possessions on his sons. Morgan regarded this as natural and proper, but he did not countenance the concentration of inherited wealth and privilege which characterized aristocratic societies. There was nothing natural or inevitable about institutionalized inequality.70 68 Op cit., p. 340. W Op. cit., p. 341. 70 Although several thousand years have passed away without the overthrow of privileged classes, excepting in the United States, their burdensome character upon society has been demonstrated. Democracy in government, brotherhood in society, equality in rights and privileges, and universal education foreshadow the next higher plane of society to which 72 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY But his was by no means a materialist theory of history. Politico and social progress was ultimately a sign of God's purpose. 'pn 'f-f-heroic achievements of our primitive ancestors 'were part of the plan of the Supreme Intelligence to develop a barbarian out of a savage, and a civilized man out of this barbarian'.71 Marx, Engels and the legacy of Morgan In later chapters I shall be returning to Morgan's theory, since his work dominated the field of kinship studies for many years, and had direct repercussions for the ethnographic study of North America and Oceania. But another tradition also stems from Morgan's writing, for he was adopted into the Marxist canon by Marx and Engels themselves. Reinterpreted by Engels, Morgan became the most important ancestral figure for Soviet ethnology, and he is" a revered - though perhaps seldom read - authority in the broader tradition of Marxist theory. Marx himelf published little on either non-European or 'pre-feudal' societies. His best-known contribution on these subjects was his model of an 'Asiatic mode of production'. This was a type of society in which a state organization existed in a primitive form. It was concerned only with war, taxation and public works, and was superimposed upon a series of otherwise independent village communities. These village communities held land in common' and redistributed their agricultural surplus internally, except for a proportion which was appropriated by the state. This model posed serious theoretical problems for later Marxists, in part because it was not evident whether Marx thought of such systems as a geographically-specific Asian development, and in part because it was not clear in what direction societies of this type might-subsequently evolve.72 Towards the end of his life, Marx took an interest in the new anthropology. He wrote extensive notes on the work of Morgan, Maine and Lubbock, evidently with a view to using them later in experience, intelligence and knowledge are steadily tending. It will be a revival, in a higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the ancient gentes. (Morgan, 1877, Anatft Society, p. 522) 71 Op. cit., p. 554. 72 There is a large literature on the 'Asiatic mode of production'. See Bailey and Llobera (1981), The Asiatic Mode of Production for a useful review. Cf. Krader (1975), The Asiatic Mode of Production. JBIJP"" ' Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 73 book.73 After Marx's death, Engels used these notes as a starting-oirit for his own book (1884), The Origin of the Family, Private property and State, which is essentially a popularization and development of Morgan's theories. It was first published in German in 1884. For present purposes it is unnecessary to enquire to what extent Engels exaggerated Marx's faith in Morgan, or to guess at the manner in which Marx himself would have reconciled Morgan's developmental sequence with the existence of an 'Asiatic mode of production'. In the event it was the Morgan as denned by Engels who became crucial for the Marxist tradition. Phe element of Morgan's theory on which Engels seized was his 'rediscovery of the primitive matriarchal gens as the earlier stage of the patriarchal gens of civilized peoples'; a discovery which (so Engels claimed in his preface to the first edition) 'has the same importance for anthropology as Darwin's theory of evolution has for biology and Marx's theory of surplus value for political economy'. The evolutionary importance of this discovery was that it opened the way to a history of the development of the family, regarded not as a natural institution but as the product of historical processes. In its modern form, the family was just a way of organizing private property - it 'was the first form of the family to be based not on natural but on economic conditions - on the victory of private property over primitive, natural communal property'.74 Mo more was there anything natural or morally superior about monogamy. The civilized monogamous family was not (as Morgan in fact firmly believed) the ultimate realization of man's best instincts. It was a form of exploitation, comparable to the exploitation of one class by another. 'Within the family [the husband] is the bourgeois, and the wife represents the proletariat.' The family 'is based on the supremacy of the man, the express purpose being to produce children of undisputed paternity; such paternity is demanded because these children are later to come into their father's property as his natural heirs'.75 The state itself was as temporary and artificial as the family. Morgan had revealed that before the state existed, political systems had been based upon kinship. The state had emerged only as a 73 These have been transcribed and edited. See Krader (1974), The Ethnological notebooks of Karl Marx. 74 Engels (1972), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, p. 128 75 Op.dt.,pp. 137, 125. 74 THE CONSTITUTION OF PRIMITIVE SOCIETY consequence of the growth of property and the evolution of cja conflict; and it would break up when production was ordered S the basis of a free and equal association of the producers. Qn These ideas all have a recognizable point of origin in Morga > work, but Engels himself conceded that he had 'moved a^o S siderable distance' from Morgan on some matters.76 Morgan Wouij certainly have repudiated Engels' analysis of monogamy, arid h would probably have had great difficulty with other aspects of hj theory. This is not in itself a criticism of Engels, but it docs mea that the Morgan who took his place in the Marxist tradition wa already at several removes from the historical Morgan. In the American anthropological tradition Morgan figures especially in debates about kinship systems. The tradition of analysis which Engels inaugurated was concerned rather with stages "of social evolution and with the 'origin of the state'. More recently some feminist anthropologists have found inspiration in Engels' discussion of the monogamous family, so providing yet another context in which the implications of these ideas may be worked out, but one in which the contributiori of Morgan himself can hardly be discerned any longer. Lewis Henry Morgan and ancient society 75 Morgan's transformations \ It can be argued that Morgan's greatest influence was in the accumulation of data. He himself collected a great deal of ethnographic material by fieldwork and through questionnaires. He even invented a whole new category of data, kinship terminologies, and persuaded generations of anthropologists that they were the key to defining systems of kinship and marriage. And he inspired others to do fieldwork on his behalf, notably Bandelier and Fison. In the next generation the Bureau of American Ethnology was set up in the Smithsonian Institution essentially to carry out Morgan's programme of ethnological research. ' Nevertheless, it must be admitted that Morgan's reputation has depended largely on his theory; and on the face of it this is strange, since his organizing ideas were derivative. His theoretical progress is replete with transformations in Cohen's sense. Again and again he borrowed an established framework and adapted it to his needs. Miiller's philology, the 'gens' of Grote, McLennan's exogamy and 76 Op. cit., pp. 145-6. 'archy, Lubbock and Tylor's intellectual and technological onisrn; a j-1 ved the person he had last read. ],isrnairl7" *'were grjst t0 his mill. It is almost as though he pV0lUtl°nl!,n ' , _ ___A ■ ving his career one cannot fail to be impressed by the nt nature of his various syntheses. The history of his 1871 conti b ^ particular, is an extraordinary chapter of accidents. System5' ^s eiement of chance is intrinsic to this sort of trans-^ tion since 'ts aumor depends, like a magpie, on what others form _^ ^.jng ahout. To borrow one of Levi-Strauss's images, this j18^6 cjenCe of the bricoleur. And yet this account seems ultimately lS suasive; there is clearly an underlying direction behind Mor- ■s work, at some level at least. un ^His political inspiration is very evident at several points, perhaps ost particularly in his insistence on monogenesis and in his revul-ionfrom monarchies. Nevertheless it would not be easy to account for his model in terms of his politics. After all, it could be used by Engels as an argument for communism, and by Morgan himself in defence of American capitalism and democracy. T think that the fundamental consistency of Morgan's thinking has to do with religious rather than political beliefs. His ultimate aim was to demonstrate that human history made moral sense, that it was a history of progress, and that it united all branches of the species. If he could borrow ideas so promiscuously from Miiller and McLennan and Tylpr, it was because they all shared this faith.