The Evolution of Human Government

70:4.1The first peace group was the fam­ily, then the clan, the tribe, and later on the na­tion, which even­tu­ally be­came the mod­ern ter­ri­to­rial state. The fact that the pres­ent-day peace groups have long since ex­panded be­yond blood ties to em­brace na­tions is most en­cour­ag­ing, de­spite the fact that Uran­tia na­tions are still spend­ing vast sums on war prepa­ra­tions.

70:4.2The clans were blood-tie groups within the tribe, and they owed their ex­is­tence to cer­tain com­mon in­ter­ests, such as:

70:4.31. Trac­ing ori­gin back to a com­mon an­ces­tor.

70:4.42. Al­le­giance to a com­mon re­li­gious totem.

70:4.53. Speak­ing the same di­alect.

70:4.64. Shar­ing a com­mon dwell­ing place.

70:4.75. Fear­ing the same en­e­mies.

70:4.86. Hav­ing had a com­mon mil­i­tary ex­pe­ri­ence.

70:4.9The clan head­men were al­ways sub­or­di­nate to the tribal chief, the early tribal gov­ern­ments be­ing a loose con­fed­er­a­tion of clans. The na­tive Aus­tralians never de­vel­oped a tribal form of gov­ern­ment.

70:4.10The clan peace chiefs usu­ally ruled through the mother line; the tribal war chiefs es­tab­lished the fa­ther line. The courts of the tribal chiefs and early kings con­sisted of the head­men of the clans, whom it was cus­tom­ary to in­vite into the king’s pres­ence sev­eral times a year. This en­abled him to watch them and the bet­ter se­cure their co-op­er­a­tion. The clans served a valu­able pur­pose in lo­cal self-gov­ern­ment, but they greatly de­layed the growth of large and strong na­tions.