The most primitive self-governing body of which we have any knowledge is
the village-community of the ancient Teutons, of which such strict
counterparts are found in other parts of the Aryan world as to make it
apparent that in its essential features it must be an inheritance from
prehistoric Aryan antiquity. In its Teutonic form the primitive
village-community (or rather, the spot inhabited by it) is known as the
_Mark_,--that is, a place defined by a boundary-line. One characteristic
of the mark-community is that all its free members are in theory
supposed to be related to each other through descent from a common
progenitor; and in this respect the mark-community agrees with the
_gens_, [Greek: _ginos_], or _clan_. The earliest form of political
union in the world is one which rests, not upon territorial contiguity,
but upon I blood-relationship, either real or assumed through the legal
fiction of adoption. In the lowest savagery blood-relationship is the
only admissible or conceivable ground for sustained common action among
groups of men. Among peoples which wander about, supporting themselves
either by hunting, or at a somewhat more advanced stage of development
by the rearing of flocks and herds, a group of men, thus permanently
associated through ties of blood-relationship, is what we call a _clan_.
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