Note 266 — Chapter VII

The long list of peoples practising promiscuity given by Lubbock dwindles as we become better acquainted with the different populations in question. Certain peoples, like the Fuegians (Hyades and Deniker, loc. cit.), the Bushmen, the Polynesians (Westermarck, loc. cit.), the Irulas (Thurston, Bull. Madras Mus., vol. ii., No. 1, 1897), the Teehurs of Oude (W. Crooke, Tribes and Castes N. W. Province, etc., vol. i., p. clxxxiii., Calcutta, 1896), should be mercilessly struck out of this list, since they all have individual marriage to the exclusion of other forms. Others, like the Australians, the Todas, the Nairs, have been entered in it because they practise “group marriage” or certain forms of polyandry, which is not the same thing as promiscuity. There remains of the list but two or three tribes about whom we have no exact general information at all (example, the Olo-Ot of Borneo).