Quiz: Ancient Society

14 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. According to Caesar, as cited by Morgan, how was land held among the Germans?

   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 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
2. 2. According to Morgan, of what group is “exogamy” properly a rule?

   The gens The confederacy of tribes The tribe The monogamian family
3. 3. In which dialogue of Plato does Morgan find the same five grades of relations as in the Hawaiian system?

   The Symposium The Protagoras The Phaedrus The Timaeus
4. 4. Among the Iroquois, who arranged the marriages of young people?

   Their fathers and uncles The young people themselves Their mothers The sachems of the tribe
5. 5. Among which of these peoples does Morgan say no trace of the gens had been found?

   The Hawaiians The Magars of Nepal The Scottish Highlanders The Narrinyeri of South Australia
6. 6. Why, according to Morgan, did the Iroquois create two principal war-chiefs with equal powers?

   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 Because the Mohawks and Senecas each demanded one
7. 7. What motive does Morgan give for the change of descent from the female line to the male?

   Imitation of more advanced neighbouring tribes Fathers’ wish that their own children inherit their property A religious reform imposed by priests The need to enlarge the gentes for war
8. 8. What Homeric passage does Morgan use as evidence that armies were once organised by kin groups?

   Achilles’s refusal to fight alongside the other chiefs before the walls of Troy The catalogue of ships, listing the Greek contingents by their native cities Nestor’s advice to Agamemnon to separate the troops by tribes and phratries Hector’s farewell to Andromache before he leads the Trojans into battle
9. 9. Why, according to Morgan, could the family not be the unit of the gens?

   Only the eldest son’s family was registered in the gens The gens was a territorial body, not a kin group Families were too short-lived to hold property Husband and wife were of different gentes
10. 10. In the Hawaiian system as Morgan presents it, what does a man call his brother’s children?

    His sons and daughters His nephews and nieces His brothers and sisters His grandchildren
11. 11. What did the Latin familia originally mean, according to Morgan?

    All the descendants of a common ancestor through the male line The married pair and their children together The household’s slaves and servants The members of a gens and their wives
12. 12. What did McLennan claim the classificatory systems in Morgan’s tables really were?

    A record of marriage by capture A system of modes of addressing persons Religious titles used in ceremonies Codes of inheritance law
13. 13. What special duty does Morgan lay on Americans in his preface?

    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 excavate the ruins of the ancient Greek and Roman cities To convert the Indian tribes to the monogamian family
14. 14. What, according to Morgan, overthrew the Turanian system of consanguinity among the more advanced peoples and put the Aryan in its place?

    Contact with the neighbouring Malayan peoples The invention of writing Monogamy and property The organization into gentes