whether they were exogamous or endogamous. Their near neighbours, the Votiaks, are said to have formerly possessed a tribal organisation (Georgi, Descrip., i, 65), but nothing is mentioned with regard to marrying in or out of the tribe. Ahlqvist (Culturwörter, 220), using language as a test, believed the Finns never coalesced into tribes. But beyond the Ural mountains, whence the Mordvins originally wandered into Europe, people, at about the same stage of civilisation as theirs was a few centuries ago, like the Samoyedes (Finsch, 543) and the Yakuts (Böhtlingk, in, pt. 1, 72) maintain a tribal system, and prohibit marriage within the tribe. Hence there is a presumption that at one time the Mordvins were also similarly divided with a like restriction. Mr. Mainoff’s belief, that the only prohibited marriage among the Mordvins was that between a brother and sister by the same parents, rests on slight evidence, and should be received with reservation. It is true that Isbrants, in 1692 (Le Brun, 153, 144), states of the Ostiaks that consanguinity was no bar to marriage, and that the nearest relation was as acceptable as a stranger, while the Voguls could not marry within the fourth degree of consanguinity; but as he was a passing traveller his statement requires verification. For while Piano Carpini (Hakluyt, i, 62), who travelled in 1246, averred that the Tatars (Mongols) marry even near kinsfolk, save mother, daughter, and sister by the mother’s side; that they marry a sister on the father’s side; yet Rubruquis (Hakl., i, 109), who was in Tartary in 1253, declared that the Tatars (Mongols) kept the first and second degrees of consanguinity inviolable, though they paid no regard to degrees of affinity, since they married in succession two sisters. Marco Polo (Col. Yule’s 2nd ed., i, 245) mentions that the Tatars may marry cousins. Timnovsky (Travels through Mongolia to China, ii, 303) says first-cousins are allowed to marry; and adds that the Mongols keep their genealogical registers with such care that they never lose sight of the degrees of affinity.
