708 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [n. s. f I, 1899
woman becomes the common wife of several men. This is poly- andry. It is not certain that polyandry has ever prevailed in an Amerind tribe ; but certain forms of polyandry are found elsewhere, especially in Australia, where the clan system has an aberrant development, doubtless due to the development of many tribes of the same linguistic stock, and to the spread of the same totemic clan largely over the Australian continent.
Another organization, which involves all civic relations, must now be explained. There is a body of men (and sometimes of women also) who are known as medicine-men or shamans, and sometimes as priests, who control all religious ceremonies arfd who are diviners. As disease is supposed to be the work of human or animal sorcery, it is their function to prevent or thwart sorcery. They have the management of all ceremonies relating to war, hunting, fishing, and the gathering of the fruits of field and forest. It is their office to provide with ceremony for abundant harvests, to regulate the climate, and generally to divine and control good and evil. The principal shamans are men ; but all the people are united into shamanistic societies. Usually there is some determined number of these societies, over each of which some particular shaman presides ; and he has sub- ordinates, each one of whom has some particular office or function to perform in-the societies. Sometimes a person may belong to two or more of these societies ; usually he has the privilege to join any one : and a revered or successful shaman will gather a great society, while a shaman of less influence will preside over a society more feeble.
Let us call these societies ecclesiastical corporations, and the shamans priests. The way in which they are regimented and controlled differs from tribe to tribe ; and there is a great variety of ceremonial observances. In all civic councils the ecclesiastical authorities take part and have specified functions to perform ; and they introduce into civic life the ceremonies which they be- lieve will produce good fortune. Perhaps the ecclesiastical
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