CHAPTER X CLAN AND TRIBAL ORGANIZATION ANCIENT peoples generally supposed themselves to be descendants of some single great ancestor. Thus the Greeks regarded themselves as the children of Hellen. The Romans traced their descent from Romulus and Remus, and the Hebrews, when they began to write the story of their past, found a mass of folk tradition which carried their lineage back to the sons of Jacob. Of course national development is not quite so simple as that. Many elements combine to form the complex totality that thinks of itself as a single people. Every modern nation is such a complex, and so was every ancient nation. The Hebrews were no exception to this rule. It may well be that Abraham, Isaac, Esau, Jacob, and the twelve patriarchs were historical characters, whose fortunes have been correctly brought down in those epic stories that are part of our literary and religious inheritance. But there have doubtless gathered about their names some of the characteristics that later belonged to the peoples who were reputed to be their descendants. And some incidents in the lives of the patriarchs may in reality represent movements of peoples rather than of individuals. The patriarchal stories, therefore, are full of suggestions as to the origins of the Hebrews. SI. THE NOMAD CLAN The family was the unit of organization. As we have seen, the family was a more complex body than that which bears the name among ourselves. It included the patriarch and his wives of full and secondary rank, his sons and their wives and their children, his daughters until they were married, and his slaves with their wives and children. If we should take the story of the family of Jacob literally, it might present a typical family, the old man being head and judge of the entire group. But suppose that Jacob's family had remained in Canaan, what would have happened after his death? There would have been twelve families each composed of father, mothers, children, and slaves. It would not be one family, and yet the family ties would still remain, a sense of kinship would be there, and, above all, the blood-bond requiring every member of the group to avenge the death of any member would be recognized. Moreover, the family religion would be common to all, including certain ceremonies peculiar to that particular group. Such were the festivals in David's family (1 Sam 20. 29). This group of families would constitute the clan. The largest or the oldest or the strongest of the families would have a kind of preeminence, and the head of this family would be the chieftain of the clan. Such is the organization of a modern Arab clan to-day with its sheikh, or elder, the familiar word which meets us so often in the Hebrew political organization. The patriarchal authority which existed in each separate family was transferred to the group of families, and the elder was a kind of umpire to whom disputed questions could be referred, and who had authority in matters relating to the group as a whole. But the clan would scarcely ever be so homogeneous as this illustration would indicate. A stranger might easily be assimilated, as Moses entered the family of Jethro (Exod 2. 16-22). The clan settling down for a time in one place might enter into such relations with the inhabitants that a oalescence would be effected. The acceptance by one of religious ceremonies of the other would cement the soon they would be regarded as of common blood. on was contemplated between the clan of Jacob |