Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-01-07

|LANS still known in the social world of
I to-day. In at least they survive as
bonds of union for political or national aims.
The Clan-na-Gael of Ireland uses the name of
clan simply in the sense of association for the
furtherance of its objects 1t puts the dress at
all events, of ancient family association, that it
may awake sentiments which formed under
other ideas; for the real idea of clan meant blood
relationships was not the bond of political
partisanship, but the bond of knshp which made
the real clan. When a brotherhood of cousins near
distant in kinship, became powerful enough and
sufficiently numerous to have influence in the
social and political life of it's day then men belonging
to other families and bearing other names some
times joined clan by taking the name and so
insured for themselves that protection which
numerous clan could in troubled times extend to
its members There a kind of freemasonry
among them that made it incumbent on each person
belonging to one race and descended from we'll
known ancestor to give hand in the protection
for the welfare of his namesake
This feature of ancient society. You see
1t more plainly the more people divided off
from each other by mountains seas. When thus
cooPed up together in narrower or wider places,
the might be, it natural for them to marry
among each other, rather than to seek for brides
farther afeld. The more mountainous the country
the longer does this tribal feature live. In Monte
negro and among the COrscan hills, in Scotland
the tribe a natural outcome of neighborhood
and geographical condition The seafaring folk
who made the world their home did not live in
tribes to the same extent as did others. Travel
and movement destroys the separate feeling
that looks upon all strangers with dislike or
distrust.
There are instances to the contrary, notably in
Japan, where peculiar tribal affinities remained
although the people were good sailors. But Japan is
a country which kept itself to itself for many ages
and is divided, district by district, by physical
pecuarites tending to make the people of one part
stay there and deem those farther off less akin than
their neighbors. But it is probable that in all
early civilizations the tribe the ground plan
of all government and social machinery. 1t was
a patriarchal and hereditary system, as compared
with the equality and Im-as-good-as-you-and
better sentiment of social existence that succeeded
to it. Japan has still perhaps the most perfect
survival of the spirit of ancestral government in
the sovereignty of the Mikado. He governs by
council of Elder Statesmen who take much the same
place did a smaller SCALE the councils of the
Scottish Highland Irish Chieftan under the
heads of clans. Just the generals of the Japanese
Emperor piOusly observe after some astonishing
victory that all their is due the superna
virtues of the Mikado, the chieftans were ready
to ascribe all their prowess to the greatness of the
head of their great family
The respect due to such a man was a kind of
worship. 1t did not hurt their pride to give i'm
plicit obedience. On the contrary it was homage
to their dignity that they should follow all
commands given by the leading representative
of their own blood. 1t to father and not to
a commander that they owed their allegiance. 1t
honorable service, to do honor to one who
had the distinction to be the eldest of those who