Page:Mythology Among the Hebrews.djvu/109

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TRACES OF NOMADISM IN IRAN.
69

unity, we will refer to the lonians as an example, whose divisions into φρατρίαι, γένη, and γεννῆται, have been accurately traced.[1] Now among the Indians we find no trace of tribal divisions worth mentioning, but very soon come across the Caste—an hereditary division according to modes of occupation, which cannot be formed at any earlier stage than that of fixed dwellings, since this gave the first impulse to the practice of arts and trades, which is not conceivable at the nomadic stage. Among the Iranians, on the other hand, the tribal division maintained itself for a long time parallel with that according to occupation, which was better suited to the time of transition to a fixed life.[2] Even on the Caste system of the Parsees the tribal division still exerts a definite influence. The sacerdotal caste is a distinct tribe, a family, just like the Levites among the Hebrews;[3] and in ancient times many sacerdotal functions, 'the smaller and less important religious duties, were assigned to the heads of the various subdivisions of the tribe.' The name of the priests, môbed (which Spiegel explains as umâna-païti = 'chief head of the tribe or family,' perhaps equivalent to the Hebrew rôsh bêth âbh), in itself indicates the original universality of the bestowal of the sacerdotal functions on the head of the tribe.[4]

  1. The literature is clearly and concisely enumerated in G. Rawlinson's essay On the Early History of the Athenians, §8–11 (Hist. of Herod., Bk. II. Essay II.). But it must be added that the idea of the learned author—'The Attic castes, if they existed, belong to the very infancy of the nation, and had certainly passed into tribes long before the reign of Codrus'—does not agree with the historical sequence demanded by the connexion of the tribes with nomadic life and that of the caste with fixed tenure. In the very nature of the case the division into tribes is proper to nomadism, which knows of no systematic occupation with arts and trades, whereas the division into castes presupposes such an occupation with trades and arts as only a sedentary life renders possible. Therefore, between tribes and castes the priority will always have to be assigned to the former.
  2. Spiegel, Ueber die eranische Stammesverfassung (Abhandlungen der kön. bair. Akad. d. W., 1855, Bd. VII.); Kasten und Stände in der arischen Vorzeit (Ausland, 1874, No. 36).
  3. Die heiligen Schriften der Parsen, in German, III. vi.
  4. Ibid. II. xiv.–xv.