Another passage of Tacitus is decisive. There he says: "The mother's brother regards his nephew aa his son; some even hold that the bond of blood between the maternal uncle and the nephew is more sacred and close than that between father and son, so that when persons are demanded as securities, the sister's son is considered a better security than the natural son of the man whom they desire to place under bonds." Here we have a living proof of the matriarchal, and hence natural, gens, and it is described as a characteristic mark of the Germans.[1] If a member of such a gens gave his own son as a security for the fulfillment of a vow and this son became the victim of his father's breach of faith, that was the concern of the father alone. But when the son of a sister was sacrificed, then the most sacred gentile law was violated. The next relative who was bound above all others to protect the boy or young man, was held responsible for his death; either he should not have given the boy in bail or he should have kept the contract. If we had no other trace of gentile law among the Germans, this one passage would be sufficient proof of its existence. But there is another passage in the Old Norse song of the "Dawn of the Gods" and the "End of the
- ↑ Author's note. ((dhr)) The Greeks know this special sacredness of the bond between the mother's brother and his nephew, a relic of maternal law found among many nations, only in the mythology of heroic times. According to Diodorus IV., 34, Meleagros kills the sons of Thestius, the brother of his mother Althaia. The latter regards this deed as such a heinous crime that she curses the murderer, her own son, and prays for his death. "It is said that the gods fulfilled her wish and ended the life of Meleagros." According to the same Diordorus, IV., 44, the Argonauts under Herakles land in Thracia and there find that Phineus, at the instigation of his second wife, shamefully maltreats his two sons, the offspring of his first deserted wife, the Boread Kleopatra. But among the Argonauts there are also some Boreads, the brothers of Kleopatra, the uncles of the maltreated boys. They at once champion their nephews, set them free and kill their guards.
