Note 227 — Chapter XXIII

The tendency to the partial adoption of the rule of female succession amongst these Indians is worthy of note. When a chief had no son, the son of his sister succeeded, to the exclusion of brothers’ sons. It appears that this was the general practice amongst the Indians of the valley of the Cauca. The Indians of Anzerma (see p. 64), of Arma (see p. 73), and of Carrapa, all adopted it; and Velasco says that the same custom prevailed in the family of the Scyris or ancient kings of Quito. (Hist. de Quito, i, p. 8.) It is well known that with the Nairs of Malabar the rule of female succession is absolute, and that the son of a sister succeeds to the exclusion of the possessor’s son. The heirs apparent in these South American tribes seem to have had sufficient influence to ensure their own succession, although the sister’s son came next, even to the exclusion, as Velasco tells us, of daughters. Friar Jordanus gives us the reason for this rule amongst the people of Malabar:—“Whatever man may be the father of their sister they are certain that the offspring is from the womb of their sister, and is consequently thus truly of their blood.” Colonel Yule, in a note to his edition of Friar Jordanus (Hakluyt Society’s volume for 1863, p. 32), has given a list of all the people amongst whom this custom of female succession has prevailed. They are the Nairs of Malabar, the people of Canara, the aborigines of Hispaniola, the tribes of New Granada, the royal family of Quito, the negro tribes of the Niger, certain sections of the Malays of Sumatra, the royal family of Tipura, the Kasias of the Sylhet mountains, the people of a district in Ceylon adjoining Bintenne, in Madagascar, the Fiji Islanders, and the Hurons and Natchez Indians of North America.