Note 46 — Chapter I · DEFINITION AND DISTINCTION FROM KINDRED PHENOMENA.

This is not slavery; for slavery is subjection of one individual to another, and a subjection that absorbs the whole personality of the subjected; and under such circumstances it is not possible that the subjected lead a tribal life. Therefore, where the subjected are described as forming a separate tribe, we may be sure that they are not slaves. Ingram justly remarks that “the lowest caste may be a degraded and despised one, but its members are not in a state of slavery; they are in collective, not individual, subjection to the members of the higher classes”46. What Ingram says here of the lowest caste, often applies to subjected tribes.