Quiz: Ancient Society

All 48 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What did the Latin familia originally mean, according to Morgan?

   The household’s slaves and servants The members of a gens and their wives The married pair and their children together All the descendants of a common ancestor through the male line
2. 2. Which of these is not among the rights and obligations of the Iroquois gens in Morgan’s list?

   The right of adopting strangers into the gens A common burial place The right to declare war on other tribes The right of electing and deposing its sachem and chiefs
3. 3. Where does the patriarchal family stand in Morgan’s sequence?

   It is the oldest form of the family It is a fourth but exceptional stage of the family It is the final stage, which replaced monogamy It is a degraded form found only among savages
4. 4. Why, according to Morgan, could the family not be the unit of the gens?

   The gens was a territorial body, not a kin group Husband and wife were of different gentes Only the eldest son’s family was registered in the gens Families were too short-lived to hold property
5. 5. What did Cleisthenes make the unit of the new Athenian political system?

   The property class The deme or township, a bounded territory The phratry, given new powers The gens, enlarged by adoption of new citizens
6. 6. Which two forms of the family does Morgan call intermediate, because they created no system of consanguinity of their own?

   The syndyasmian and the patriarchal The consanguine and the punaluan The punaluan and the monogamian The patriarchal and the monogamian
7. 7. On what basis did Solon divide the Athenian people into classes, according to Morgan?

   The deme in which they lived Their gens and phratry The amount of their property Their callings or occupations
8. 8. What does Morgan name as the “moving power” that brought in monogamy?

   The development of romantic love The teachings of priests and lawgivers about the sanctity of marriage The scarcity of women after war The growth of property and the desire to pass it to one’s children
9. 9. Why did a Choctaw man tell Dr. Byington he wished to become a United States citizen?

   So that he could vote in federal elections and hold public office in the state So that his children, rather than his gentile kindred, would inherit his property So that he could marry a woman of his own gens, which Choctaw law forbade So that he could escape service in the tribe’s war parties against its enemies
10. 10. What special duty does Morgan lay on Americans in his preface?

    To excavate the ruins of the ancient Greek and Roman cities To settle the dispute between the Danish archaeologists and the philologists To record the arts, languages and institutions of the Indian tribes before they disappear To convert the Indian tribes to the monogamian family
11. 11. How did the comitia curiata vote?

    By property classes, the richest voting first By head, each citizen voting individually By curiae, each curia having one collective vote By tribes, with plebeians included
12. 12. Among the Iroquois, who arranged the marriages of young people?

    Their mothers Their fathers and uncles The young people themselves The sachems of the tribe
13. 13. Which people did Herodotus describe as naming themselves through their mother’s line?

    The Lemnians The Locrians The Spartans The Lycians
14. 14. Which of these is one of Grote’s six bonds of the Athenian gens, quoted by Morgan?

    Equal division of all land A common burial place A common war-chief elected for life A common military uniform
15. 15. In which dialogue of Plato does Morgan find the same five grades of relations as in the Hawaiian system?

    The Phaedrus The Protagoras The Symposium The Timaeus
16. 16. Why, according to Morgan, did the Iroquois create two principal war-chiefs with equal powers?

    Because the Mohawks and Senecas each demanded one To prevent any single man from dominating even military affairs Because the French and English insisted on dealing with two commanders So that one could lead war parties in summer and the other in winter
17. 17. How many sachemships were created at the founding of the Iroquois confederacy?

    Five, one for each tribe Twenty-five Fifty One hundred
18. 18. What did McLennan claim the classificatory systems in Morgan’s tables really were?

    Religious titles used in ceremonies A system of modes of addressing persons Codes of inheritance law A record of marriage by capture
19. 19. According to Morgan, of what group is “exogamy” properly a rule?

    The monogamian family The gens The tribe The confederacy of tribes
20. 20. Among which of these peoples does Morgan say no trace of the gens had been found?

    The Scottish Highlanders The Magars of Nepal The Narrinyeri of South Australia The Hawaiians
21. 21. Among the Iroquois, who received most of a man’s property when he died?

    His sisters, their children and his maternal uncles His eldest son His wife and children, in equal shares among them His brothers
22. 22. According to Morgan, why was slavery eventually abolished?

    A freeman proved a better property-making machine Christianity forbade the ownership of persons Wars ended, so no more captives could be taken The gentes refused to admit slaves as members
23. 23. How did the Iroquois general council reach its decisions?

    By a two-thirds majority of the tribes Sachems agreed by classes, then by tribes, and the tribes had to be unanimous The Onondaga sachem Tadodaho decided alone after hearing all the other sachems By a simple majority of all the sachems present
24. 24. What Homeric passage does Morgan use as evidence that armies were once organised by kin groups?

    The catalogue of ships, listing the Greek contingents by their native cities Hector’s farewell to Andromache before he leads the Trojans into battle Achilles’s refusal to fight alongside the other chiefs before the walls of Troy Nestor’s advice to Agamemnon to separate the troops by tribes and phratries
25. 25. In what ratio does Morgan say human progress has run, and what follows from it?

    A geometrical ratio, so the period of civilisation was the longest A geometrical ratio, so the period of savagery was the longest An arithmetical ratio, so all the periods were of equal length A declining ratio, so progress has slowed since the ancient civilisations
26. 26. Which two peoples’ kinship systems does Morgan set side by side as typical of the Ganowánian and Turanian systems?

    The Ojibwa and the Hungarians The Aztecs and the Telugu The Hawaiians and the Australians The Seneca-Iroquois and the Tamil
27. 27. How do the Senecas organise their ball game, according to Morgan?

    Phratry against phratry, with betting Each gens fields a team in a tournament of eight The Senecas play as one side against the other tribes of the confederacy Men play against women, the stakes being set by the matrons
28. 28. How does Morgan describe the “next higher plane of society”?

    The final triumph of individual property, with the state reduced to protecting its owners The rule of a new aristocracy of intelligence A return to the patriarchal family, with its paternal power over persons and property A revival, in higher form, of the liberty, equality and fraternity of the gentes
29. 29. What marriage custom does Morgan report among the Crows and some forty other tribes?

    A husband had to live with his wife’s family and serve them for a year A widow had to marry her late husband’s brother Marriages were arranged only between members of the same gens Marrying the eldest daughter gave a man a claim to her younger sisters as they matured
30. 30. Under the Servian constitution, which groups together held a majority of votes in the comitia centuriata?

    The equites together with the first class The senior centuries of every class The first and second classes The plebeians and the clients
31. 31. What does Morgan show with the example of Julia, Attia and Caius Octavius?

    That the Julian gens practised marriage within the gens That gentile names, and so descent, passed in the male line That emperors could choose any gentile name That Roman women kept their mother’s gentile name
32. 32. Whom did the daughters of Zelophehad marry?

    Men of other tribes of Israel Their father’s brothers’ sons Levites chosen by Moses Men of the tribe of Judah
33. 33. How does Morgan characterise the Greek basileia of the heroic age?

    As an oligarchy of the wealthy landowning and merchant families As an absolute monarchy, hereditary in a single royal gens As a military democracy, the basileus being a general As a theocracy ruled by priests
34. 34. What population does Morgan think the five Nahuatlac tribes of the Valley of Mexico could have had?

    No more than 20,000, like the Iroquois Fewer than 250,000, with perhaps 30,000 in the pueblo of Mexico About one million, as the Spanish chroniclers and later historians reported About two million, with half a million in the city
35. 35. In the Hawaiian system as Morgan presents it, what does a man call his brother’s children?

    His sons and daughters His grandchildren His brothers and sisters His nephews and nieces
36. 36. Under the first great rule of inheritance, who received a dead person’s effects?

    The council of chiefs of the tribe His wife The members of his or her gens His children
37. 37. On what, according to Morgan, is the second plan of government, the state (civitas), founded?

    Persons and kinship through the gens The organisation of society on the basis of sex Religion and a hereditary priesthood Territory and property
38. 38. According to Caesar, as cited by Morgan, how was land held among the Germans?

    It was divided equally among all the adult men, each holding his share of it for life It belonged to the king, who leased it out each year to his chosen warriors and their kin Each family held fixed fields bounded by stones and passed them down to its sons in turn Magistrates and chiefs assigned it each year to groups of kinsmen, who moved on the next year
39. 39. According to Morgan, what was added to the council of chiefs in the third stage of gentile government?

    A priesthood with power to veto the council A body of elected magistrates serving fixed annual terms of office An assembly of the people, alongside a general military commander A hereditary king chosen from the leading gens
40. 40. What does Morgan say the Spaniards actually found in the Valley of Mexico?

    An absolute monarchy with a feudal nobility A single tribe with no council, ruled absolutely by its strongest warrior-chief A confederacy of three Indian tribes A theocracy ruled by the high priests of the temple
41. 41. What does Morgan identify as the essential characteristic of the patriarchal family?

    Shared long-houses holding several married pairs and their kin Paternal power over bond and free The practice of polygamy by the chiefs Descent traced through the female line
42. 42. Why does Morgan call fish “the first kind of artificial food”?

    It was the first food regularly obtained by trade between distant tribes It had to be farmed in artificial ponds by the tribe It was the first food preserved with salt It needed cooking, so depended on fire
43. 43. How does Morgan answer whether the monogamian family can be permanent?

    It is the final and perfect form of the family, and admits of no further change It must change as society changes, and may improve until the sexes are equal It will be abolished together with private property, and replaced by group marriage It will soon return to the pairing form
44. 44. What motive does Morgan give for the change of descent from the female line to the male?

    The need to enlarge the gentes for war Fathers’ wish that their own children inherit their property A religious reform imposed by priests Imitation of more advanced neighbouring tribes
45. 45. Which invention does Morgan choose as the boundary between savagery and barbarism?

    The smelting of iron ore Pottery The bow and arrow The domestication of animals
46. 46. According to Judge Andrews, what did the Hawaiian word punalua mean in modern use?

    Head of the household and its lands Elder brother Wife’s sister Dear friend or intimate companion
47. 47. What, according to Morgan, overthrew the Turanian system of consanguinity among the more advanced peoples and put the Aryan in its place?

    The organization into gentes Contact with the neighbouring Malayan peoples Monogamy and property The invention of writing
48. 48. How are the Kamilaroi divided, besides their gentes?

    Into two castes of chiefs and commoners Into age-grades of boys, warriors and elders Into eight classes, four of each sex Into four territorial bands, each owning and defending its own hunting ground