Chapter VI: Part 6

The existence of the classificatory system is not an entirely novel discovery. Nicolaus Damascenus, one of the inquirers into early society, who lived in the first century of our era, noticed this mode of address among the Galactophagi. Lafitau found it among the Iroquois. To Morgan's perception of the importance of the facts, and to his energetic collection of reports, we owe our knowledge of the wide prevalence of the system. From an examination of the degrees of kindred which seem to be indicated by the "Malayan" and "Turanian" modes of address, he has worked out a theory of the evolution of the modern family. A brief comparison of this with other modern theories will close our account of the family. The main points of the theory are shortly stated in _Systems of Consanguinity_, &c., and in _Ancient Society_. From the latter work we quote the following description of the five different and successive forms of the family:--

"I. _The Consanguine Family._--It was founded upon the intermarriage
of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group.

"II. _The Punaluan Family._--It was founded upon the intermarriage of
several sisters, own and collateral, with each others' husbands, in a
group--the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other;
also, on the intermarriage of several brothers, own and collateral,
with each others' wives in a group--these wives not being necessarily
of kin to each other, although often the case in both instances (sic).
In each case the group of men were conjointly married to the group of
women.

"III. _The Syndyasmian or Pairing Family._--It was founded upon
marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation.
The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties.

"IV. _The Patriarchal Family._--It was founded upon the marriage of
one man with several wives, followed in general by the seclusion of
the wives.

"V. _The Monogamian Family._--It was founded upon marriage between
single pairs with an exclusive cohabitation.

"Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were
radical, because they were sufficiently general, and influential to
create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still
exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of
themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the
family and of marriage with which they severally stand connected."

Morgan makes the systems of nomenclature proofs of the existence of the Consanguine and Punaluan families. Unhappily, there is no other proof, and the same systems have been explained on a very different principle (McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_). Looking at facts, we find the Consanguine family nowhere, and cannot easily imagine how early groups abstained from infringing on each other, and created a systematic marriage of brothers and sisters. St Augustine, however (De civ. Dei, xv. 16), and Archinus in his _Thessalica_ (_Odyssey_, xi. 7, scholia B, Q) agree more or less with Morgan. Next, how did the Consanguine family change into the Punaluan? Morgan says (_Ancient Society_) brothers ceased to marry their sisters, because "the evils of it could not for ever escape human observation." Thus the Punaluan family was hit upon, and "created a distinct system of consanguinity" (_Ancient Society_), the Turanian. Again, "marriages in Punaluan groups explain the relationships in the system." But Morgan provides himself with another explanation, "the Turanian system owes its origin to marriage in the group _and_ to the gentile organization." He calls exogamy "the gentile organization," though, in point of fact, the only gentes we know, the Roman gentes, show scarcely a trace of exogamy. Again, "the change of relationships which resulted from substituting Punaluan in the place of Consanguine marriage turns the Malayan into the Turanian system." On the same page Morgan attributes the change to the "gentile organization," and, still on the same page, uses _both_ factors in his working out of the problem. Now, if the Punaluan marriage is a sufficient explanation, we do not need the "gentile organization." Both, in Morgan's opinion, were efforts of conscious moral reform. In _Systems of Consanguinity_ the gentile organization (there called tribal), that is, exogamy, is said to have been "designed to work out a reformation in the intermarriage of brothers and sisters." But the Punaluan marriage had done that, otherwise it would not have produced (as Morgan says it did) the change from the Malayan to the Turanian system, the difference in the two systems, as exemplified in Seneca and Tamil, being "in the relationships which depended on the intermarriage or non-intermarriage of brothers and sisters" (_Ancient Society_). Yet the Punaluan family, though itself a reform in morals and in "breeding," "did not furnish adequate motives to reform the Malay system," which, as we have seen, it did reform. The Punaluan family, it is suspected, "frequently involved own brothers and sisters"; had it not been so, there would have been no need of a fresh moral reformation,--"the gentile organization." Yet even in the Punaluan family (_Ancient Society_) "brothers ceased to marry their own sisters." What, then, did the "gentile organization" do for men? As they had already ceased to marry their own sisters, and as, under the gentile organization, they were still able to marry their half-sisters, the reformatory "ingenuity" of the inventors of the organizations was at once superfluous and useless. It is impossible to understand the Punaluan system. Its existence is inferred from a system of nomenclature which it does (and does not) produce; it admits (and excludes) own brothers and sisters. Morgan has intended, apparently, to represent the Punaluan marriage as a long transition to the definite custom of exogamy, but it will be seen that his language is not very clear nor his positions assured. He does not adduce sufficient proof that the Punaluan family ever existed as an institution, even in Hawaii. There is, if possible, a greater absence of historical testimony to the existence of the Consanguine family. It is difficult to believe that exogamy was a conscious moral and social reformation, because, _ex hypothesi_, the savages had no moral data, nothing to cause disgust at relations which seem revolting to us. It is as improbable that they discovered the supposed physical evils of breeding in and in. That discovery could only have been made after a long experience, and in the Consanguine family that experience was impossible. Thus, setting moral reform aside as inconceivable, we cannot understand how the Consanguine families ever broke up. Morgan's ingenious speculations as to a transitional step towards the gens (as he calls what we style the totem-kindred), supposed to be found in the "classes" and marriage laws of the Kamilaroi, are vitiated by the weakness and contradictory nature of the evidence (see Pritchard; J.D. Lang's Queensland, Appendix; _Proceedings of American Academy of Arts_, &c., vol. viii. 412; Nature, October 29, 1874). Further, though Morgan calls the Australian "gentile organization" "incipient," he admits (_Ancient Society_) that the Narrinyeri have totem groups, in which "the children are of the clan of the father." Far from being "incipient," the gens of the Narrinyeri is on the footing of the ghotra of Hindu custom. Lastly, though Morgan frequently declares that the Polynesians have not the gens (for he thinks them not sufficiently advanced), W.W. Gill (_Myths and Songs from the South Pacific_, London, 1876) has shown that unmistakable traces of the totem survive in Polynesian mythology.

Rival theories.

4. Morgan's theory was opposed by McLennan (_Studies in Ancient History_, 1876), who maintained that the names of relationships, in the "classificatory system," were merely terms of address, as among ourselves when a preacher calls any adult male "brother," when an old woman is addressed as "mother," when an elder man calls a junior "my son." He also showed that his own system accounted for the terms. The controversy is still alive; one set of writers regarding the savage terms of relationship as indicating a state of things in which human beings dwelt in a "horde," with promiscuous intercourse; another set holding that the terms do not indicate consanguineous kinship, but degrees of age, status, and reciprocal obligations in a local _tribe_, and therefore that they do not yield any presumption that there was a past of promiscuity or of what is called "group marriage." On Morgan's side (not of course accepting all his details) are L. Fison and A.W. Howitt, and Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen. Against him are Starcke, Westermarck, A. Lang, Dr Durkheim, apparently, Crawley and many others.

Evidence of original promiscuity.

5. A second presumption in favour of original promiscuity has been drawn by the eminent Australian students, Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and by A.W. Howitt, from the customs of some Australian aborigines. In each tribe, owing to customary laws which are to be examined later, only men and women of a given status are intermarriageable (_nupa_, _noa_, _unawa_) with each other. Though child-betrothals are usual, and though the woman is specialized to one man, who protects and nourishes her and all her children, and though their union is immediately preceded by an extended _jus primae noctis_ (such as Herodotus describes among the Nasamones), yet, among certain tribes, the following custom prevails. At great meetings the tribal leaders assign a woman as paramour (with what amount of permanence remains obscure) to a man (_pirrauru_); one woman may have several _pirrauru_ men, one man several _pirrauru_ women, in addition to their regularly betrothed (_tippa malku_) wives and husbands. The husband occasionally shows fight, and bitter jealousies prevail, but, at the great ceremonial meetings, complaisance is enforced under penalty of strangling. Thenceforth, if the husband permits, the male _pirrauru_ has matrimonial rights over the other man's _tippa malku_ wife when they meet. A symbolic ceremony of union precedes the junction of the _pirrauru_ people. This institution, as far as reported, is peculiar to a group of tribes near Lake Eyre, the Dieri, Urabunna, and their congeners,--or perhaps to all who have the same "phratry" names as the Dieri and Urabunna (_Kiraru_ and _Mattera_, in various dialectic forms).

Elsewhere the _pirrauru_ custom is not known: but almost everywhere there are licentious festivals, in which all marriage rules except those which forbid incest (in our sense of the word, namely between the closest relations) are thrown to the winds. Also a native travelling among alien tribes is lent women of the status into which he may legally marry.

Group marriage.

Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and A.W. Howitt, regard _pirrauru_ as "group marriage" and as a proof that, at one time, all intermarriageable people were actually husbands and wives, while the other examples of licence are also survivals, in a later stage of decay, of promiscuity, and "group marriage." To this it is replied that "_group_ marriage" is a misnomer; that if _pirrauru_ be in a sense marriage it is _status_, not _group_ marriage. Again, it is urged, _pirrauru_ is a modification of _tippa malku_, which comes first; a woman is "specialized" to a man _before_ she can be made _pirrauru_ to another, and her tippa _malku husband_ continues to support her, and to recognize her children as his own, after she has become _pirrauru_ to another man or other men. Without the foregoing _tippa malku_ union, the _pirrauru_ unions are not conceivable; they are mere legalized paramourships, modifying the _tippa malku_ marriage (like the Italian cicisbeism); procuring a protector for a woman in her husband's absence, and supplying legal loves for bachelors. The custom is peculiar to a given set of kindred tribes. The festivals are the legalized, restricted and more or less permanent modification of the casual orgies of feasts of licence, or _Saturnalia_, which have their analogies among many people, ancient and modern. _Pirrauru_ is no more a survival of and a proof of primitive promiscuity, than is the legalized incest of ancient Egypt or ancient Peru. If these views be correct the argument for primitive promiscuity derived from _pirrauru_ falls to the ground.

The historical problem.

6. The questions at issue obviously are, was mankind originally promiscuous, with no objections to marriage between persons of the nearest kin; and was the first step in advance the prohibition of marriage (or of amatory intercourse) between brothers and sisters; or did mankind originally live in very small groups, under a jealous sire, who imposed restrictions on intercourse between the young males, his sons, and all the females of the "hearth-circle," who constituted his harem? The problem has been studied, first, in the institutions of savages, notably of the most backward savages, the black natives of Australia; and next, in the light of the habits of the higher mammalia.

As regards Australian matrimonial institutions, it has been known since the date of the _Journals of two Expeditions of Discovery_, by Sir George Grey (1837-1839), that they are very complex and peculiar, in points strongly resembling the customary laws of the more backward Red Indian tribes of North America. Information came in, while McLennan was working, from G. Taplin (_The Narrinyeri_, 1874), from A.W. Howitt and L. Fison, and many other inquirers (in Brough Smyth's _Aborigines of Victoria_, 1878), from Howitt and Fison again (in _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 1880), and many essays by these authors, and finally, in _Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (1899) and _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_ (1904), by Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen; and in Howitt's _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_ (1904), with R. Roth's _North-West Central Queensland Aborigines_ (1897). All of these are works of very high merit. Knowledge is now much more wide, minute and securely based than it was when McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History_, second series, was posthumously published (1896). We know with certainty that in Australia, among archaic savages who have neither metals, agriculture, pottery nor domesticated animals, a graduated scale of matrimonial institutions exists. First there are _local_ tribes, each tribe having its own dialect; holding a recognized area of territory; and living on friendly terms with neighbouring tribes. Territorial conquest is never attempted. In many cases a knot of tribes of allied dialects and kindred rites may be, or at least is, spoken of as a "nation" by our authorities.

Primitive restrictions on marriage.

7. Customary law is administered by the Seniors, the wise, the magically skilled, who in many cases are "headmen" of local groups or of sets of kindred. As to marriage, persons may wed within the local tribe, or into a neighbouring local tribe, at will, provided that they obey the restrictions of customary law. The local tribe is neither exogamous nor endogamous, any more than is an English county. The restrictions, except where they have become obsolete, fall into six main categories:--

(1) In the most primitive, each tribe consists of two intermarrying and exogamous divisions, which are often styled _phratries_. Each such division has a name, which, when it can be translated, is the name of an animal: in the majority of cases, however, the meaning of the phratry name is lost. In one instance, that of the Euahlayi tribe of north-west New South Wales, the phratry names are said (by Mrs Langloh Parker) to mean "Light Blood" and "Dark Blood." This, as in the theory of the Rev. J. Mathews, _Eagle and Crow_, might be taken to indicate a blending of two distinct _races_.

Taking, for the sake of clearness, tribes whose phratry names mean "Crow" and "Eagle Hawk," every member of the tribe belongs either to Eagle Hawk phratry or to Crow phratry: if to Crow, the man or woman can only marry an Eagle Hawk, if to Eagle Hawk, can only marry a Crow. The children invariably belong to the phratry of the mother, in this most primitive type. Within Eagle Hawk phratry is one set of totem kins, named usually after various species of animals and plants; within Crow phratry is another set of totem kins, named always (except in one region of Central Australia) after a _different_ set of plants and animals. With the exception mentioned (that of the Arunta "nation"), in no tribe does the same totem ever occur in both phratries. Totems and totem names are inherited by the children from the mother, in this primitive type. Thus a man, Eagle Hawk by phratry, Snipe by totem, marries a woman Crow by phratry, Black Duck by totem. His children by her are of phratry Crow, of totem Black Duck. Obviously no person can marry another of his or her own totem, because, in the phratry into which he or she _must_ marry, no man or woman of his or her totem exists. The prohibition extends to members of alien and remote tribes, if of the same totem name.

The same rules exist in the more primitive North American tribes, but as the phratry there has generally, though not always, decayed, the rule, where this has occurred, merely forbids marriage within the totem kin.

(2) We find this type of organization, where the child inherits phratry and totem from the father, not from the mother.

(3) We find tribes in which phratry and totem are inherited from the mother, but an additional rule prevails: the rule of "Matrimonial Classes." By this device, in phratry "Dilbi," there are two classes, "Muri" and "Kubi." In phratry "Kupathin" are two classes, "Ipai" and "Kumbo" (all these names are of unknown meaning). Each child inherits its mother's phratry name and totem name, and also the name of that class of the two in the mother's phratry to which the mother does _not_ belong. No person may marry into his or her own class--practically into his or her own generation: the rule makes parental and filial marriages impossible,--but these never occur even among more primitive tribes which have not the institution of classes. Suppose that the class names are really names of animals and other objects in nature--as in a few cases they actually are. Then the rules, where classes exist, would amount to this: no person may marry another who, by phratry, totem or generation, owns the same hereditary animal name as himself or herself. In practice, where phratries exist, a man who knows a woman's phratry name knows whether or not he may marry her. Where class names exist (even though the phratry name be lost), a man who knows a woman's class name knows whether or not he may marry her. Nothing can be simpler in practice.

(4) The same rules as under (3) exist, but the phratry, totem and class are inherited through the father: the class of the child of course not being the father's, but the linked class in his phratry.

(5) In the fifth category (Central North Australia), while phratry name (if not lost) and totem name are inherited from the father, by a refinement of law which is spreading southwards there are _four_ classes in each phratry (or main exogamous division unnamed), and the choice of a partner in life is thus more restricted than in more primitive tribes.

Arunta customs.

(6) Finally we reach the institutions of the group of tribes called, from the name of the most powerful tribe in the set, "the Arunta nation." They occupy the Macdonnell Ranges and other territory in the very centre of Australia. The Arunta reckon kinship in the male line: their phratry names they have forgotten, in place of phratries eight matrimonial classes regulate marriage. In these respects they resemble most of the central and northern tribes, but present this unique peculiarity, that the same totems may and do exist in _both_ of the opposed intermarrying exogamous divisions consisting of four classes each. It thus results that a man, in the Arunta tribe, may marry a woman of his own totem, if she be in the class with which he may intermarry. This licence is unknown in every other part of the totemic world, and even in the Kaitish tribe of the Arunta nation intertotemic marriages, in practice, almost never occur.

Among the Arunta the totems are only prominent in magical ceremonies, unknown in South-Eastern Australia. At these ceremonies (Intichiuma) the men of the totem do cooperative magic for the benefit of their plant or animal, as part of the tribal food-supply. The members of the totem taste it sparingly on these occasions, apparently under the belief that to do so increases their magical power: the rest of the tribe eat freely. But, as far as denoting kinship or regulating marriage is concerned, the totems, among the Arunta, have no legally important existence. Men and women of the same totem may intermarry, their children need not belong to the totem of either father or mother.

The process by which Arunta totems came thus to differ from those of all other savages is easily understood. Like the other tribes from the centre to the north (including the Urabunna nation, which reckons descent through women), the Arunta believe that the souls of the primal semi-bestial ancestors of the Alcheringa or "dream time" are perpetually reincarnated. This opinion does not affect by itself the usual exogamous character of totemism among the other tribes. The Arunta nation, however, cultivates an additional myth, namely that the primal ancestors, when they sank into the ground, left behind them certain oval stone slabs, with archaic markings, called _churinga nanja_, or "sacred things of the _nanja_." The _nanja_, again, is a tree or rock, fabled to have risen up to mark the spot where a group of primal ancestors, all of one and the same totem in each case (Cats here, Grubs there, Ducks elsewhere), "went into the ground." The souls of these ancestors haunt such spots, especially they haunt the nanja tree or rock, and the stone _churinga nanja_. Each district, therefore, has its own _oknanikilla_ (or local totem centre of the ghosts), Cat ghosts, Grub ghosts, Hakea flower ghosts and so on. These spirits enter into women and are reborn as children. When a child comes to birth, the mother names the oknanikilla in which she conceived it, and, whatever the ghost totem of that place may be, it is the child's totem. Its mother may be a Grub, its father may be a Crow, but if the child was conceived in a Duck, or Cat, or Opossum or Kangaroo locality, it is, by totem, a Cat, Opossum, Duck or Kangaroo. The _churinga nanja_ of its primal ancestor is sought for at the place of the child's conception, and is put into the sacred repository of such objects.

Thus the child does not inherit its totem from father, or from mother, as everywhere else, but _does_ inherit the right to do ceremonies for the paternal totem: a proof that, of old, totems were inherited, as elsewhere, and that in the male line. If totems among the Arunta, as everywhere else, were once arranged on the plan that the same totem never occurs in both exogamous moieties, that arrangement has been destroyed, as was inevitable, by the existing method of allotting totems to children,--not by inheritance,--but at haphazard. By this means (a consequence of the unique Arunta belief about _churinga nanja_) the same totems have got into _both_ exogamous moieties, so that persons of the same totem, but of appropriate matrimonial classes, may marry. This licence is absolutely confined to the limited region in which stone _churinga nanja_ occur.

The whole system is impossible except where descent is reckoned in the male line, for there alone is _local_ totemism possible, and the Arunta system is based on local totemism, _plus_ the _churinga nanja_ and reincarnation beliefs. With reckoning of descent in the female line, no locality can possibly have its _local_ totem: all the totems indiscriminately distributed everywhere: and thus no woman can say in what totemic locality her child was conceived, for there is not and cannot be, with female descent, any totemic _locality_. Now it is admitted that reckoning by female descent is the earlier method, and it is granted that in rites and ceremonies the Arunta are of a relatively advanced and highly organized pattern. Their social organization is local, and they have a kind of local magistracies, hereditary in the male line.

In spite of these facts, Spencer and Gillen conceive that the peculiar totemism of the Arunta is the most primitive type extant (cp. Spencer, _J.A.I._ (N.S.), vol. i. 275-281; and Frazer, _ibid._ 281-288). It is not easy to understand this position, as, without male kinship and consequent local totemism (which are not primitive), and without the _churinga nanja_ (which exist only in a strictly limited area), the Arunta system of non-exogamous totems cannot possibly exist. Again, the other tribes cannot have passed through the Arunta stage, for, if they had, their totems would have existed, as among the Arunta, in _both_ exogamous moieties, and would there remain when they came to be inherited; so that the totems of all these tribes would still be non-exogamous, like those of the Arunta. But this is not the case. Once more, it is clear that the Arunta system has but recently reached their neighbours, the Kaitish, for though they have the _churinga nanja_ belief, and the haphazard method of acquiring totems by local accident, these things have not yet overcome the old traditional reluctance to marry within the totem name. It is not unlawful among the Kaitish; but it is hardly ever done.

Despite these objections, however, Spencer and Gillen hold, as we have said, that, originally, there were no restrictions (or no known restrictions) on marriage. Totems were merely the result of the formation of co-operative magical societies, in the interest of the tribal food supply. Then, in some unknown way, regulations as to marriage were introduced for some unknown purpose, or were involved in some manner not understood. "The traditions of the Arunta," says Spencer, "point to a very definite introduction of an exogamous system long after the totemic groups were fully developed, and, further, they point very clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to the deliberate action of certain ancestors. Our knowledge of the natives leads us to the opinion that it is quite possible that this really took place, that the exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital relations."

Thus the wisdom of men living promiscuously as regards marriage, but organized in magical societies for the benefit of the common food supply of the local _tribe_ (a complex institution postulated as already in being at this early stage), induced them to institute exogamy. Why they did this, what harm they saw in their promiscuity, we are not informed. Spencer goes on, "by this we do not mean that the regulations had anything whatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing from the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly related.... There was felt the need of some kind of organization, and this gradually resulted in the development of exogamous groups." But as "it is quite possible that the exogamous groups were deliberately introduced to regulate marital relations," and as they could only do so by introducing exogamy, we do not see how that system can be the result of the _gradual_ development of an organization _quelconque_,--of unknown nature. A magical organization already existed (_Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, New Series, i. pp. 284-285).

The traditions of the Arunta seem here to be first accepted: "quite possibly" they are correct in stating that an exogamic system was purposefully introduced, long after totemic groups had arisen, by "the deliberate action of certain ancestors," and then that myth is rejected, in favour of the _gradual_ development of exogamy, "out of some form of organization," unknown.

People who, like the Arunta, have lost memory of the very names of the phratries, cannot conceivably remember the nature of the origin of exogamy. Accustomed as they now are to tribal councils which introduce new rules, they fancy that, in the beginning, new rules were thus introduced.

Conclusion as to Spencer's hypothesis.

Meanwhile the working of magic for the behoof of the totem animals and plants, or rather for the name-giving animals of magical societies, is not known to Howitt among the tribes of primitive social organization, while it is well known among agricultural natives of the Torres Strait Islands and among the advanced Sioux and Omaha of North America. The practice seems to belong rather to the decadence than to the dawn of totemism. On the whole, then, there seem to be insuperable difficulties in the way of Spencer's hypothesis that mankind were promiscuous, as regards marriage, but were organized into cooperative magical groups, athwart which came, in some unexplained way, the rule of exogamy; while, when it did come, all savages except the Arunta arranged matters so that totem kins were exogamous. The reverse was probably the case, totem kins were originally exogamous, and ceased to be so, and even to be kins among the Arunta, in consequence of the _churinga nanja_ creed, becoming co-operative magical societies (Hartland, Marett, Durkheim and others).

Origin of exogamy.

8. Spencer and Gillen leave the origin of exogamy an open question. Howitt supposes that, in the shape of the phratriac division of the tribe into two exogamous moieties, the scheme may have been introduced to the tribal headmen by a medicine man "announcing to his fellow headman a command received from some supernatural being ..." (_Natives of South-East Australia_, pp. 89, 90). The Council, so to speak, of "headmen" accept the divine decree, and the assembled tribe pass the Act. But this explanation explains nothing. Why did the prophet wish to introduce exogamy? Why were names of animals given, in so many cases, to the two exogamous divisions? As Howitt asks (op. cit. p. 153), "How was it that men assumed the names of objects, which in fact must have been the commencement of totemism?"

It is apparent that any theory which begins by postulating the existence of early mankind in promiscuous groups or hordes, into which exogamous moieties are introduced by tribal decree, takes for granted that the _tribe_, with its headman, councils and great meetings (not to mention its inspired prophet, with the tribal "All Father" who inspires him), existed before any rules regulating "marital relations" were evolved. Even if all this were probable, we are not told why a promiscuous tribe thought good to establish exogamous divisions. Some native myths attribute the institution to certain wise ancestors; some to the supernatural "All Father," say Baiame; some to a treaty between Eagle Hawk and Crow, beings of cosmogonic legend, who give names to the phratries. Such myths are mere hypotheses. It is impossible to imagine how early savages, _ex hypothesi_ promiscuous, saw anything to reform in their state of promiscuity. They now think certain unions wrong, because they are forbidden: they were not forbidden, originally, because they were thought wrong.

Westermarck

Westermarck has endeavoured to escape the difficulty thus: "Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations here, as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves, and those of our ancestors who avoided in and in breeding would survive," while the others would die out. This appears to be orthodox evolutionary language, but it carries us no further. Human societies are not animals or plants, in whose structure various favourable "accidents" occur, producing better types, which survive. We ask _why_ in human society did "variations present themselves"; _why_ did certain sets of human beings "avoid in and in breeding"? We are merely told that some of our ancestors became exogamous and survived, while others remained promiscuous and perished. No light is thrown on the problem,--wherefore did some of our ancestors avoid in and in breeding, and become exogamous? Nothing is gained by saying "thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions." There is no "instinct," there is a tribal law of exogamy. If there had been an "instinct," it might account for the avoidance of "in and in breeding"--that is, it might account for exogamy, _ab initio_. But that is left unaccounted for by the theory which, after maintaining that the avoidance produced the instinct, seems to argue that the instinct produced the avoidance. Westermarck goes on to say that "exogamy, as a natural extension of the instinct, would arise when single families united in small hordes." But, if the single families already had the "instinct," they would not marry within the family: they would be exogamous,--marrying only into other families,--_before_ they "united in small hordes." The difficulty of accounting for exogamy does not seem to have been overcome, and no attempt is made to explain the animal names of totem kins and phratries. Westermarck, however, says that "there is no reason why we should assume, as so many anthropologists have done, that primitive men lived in small endogamous groups, practising incest in every degree," although, as he also says, "there was no doubt a time when blood relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse." If there was no bar, people would "practise incest in every degree,"--what was there to prevent them? (_History of Human Marriage_, pp. 352, 353 (1891)).

Durkheim.

So far we have seen no luminous and consistent account of how mankind became exogamous, if they began by being promiscuous. The theories rest on the idea that man, dwelling in an "undivided horde" (except so far as it was divided into co-operative magical societies), bisected it into two exogamous intermarrying moieties. Durkheim has put forward a theory which is not at all points easily understood. He supposes that, "at the beginning of societies of men, incest was not prohibited ... before each horde (_peuplade_) divided itself into two primitive 'clans' at least" (_L'Annee sociologique_, i. pp. 62, 63). Each of the two "clans" claimed descent from a different animal, which was its totem, and its "god." The two clans were exogamous,--out of respect to the blood of their totem (with which every member of the clan is mystically one), and, being hostile, the two clans raided each other for women. Each clan threw off colonies, which took new totems, new "gods," though still owning some regard to their original clan, from which they had seceded, while abandoning its "god." When the two "primary clans" made alliance and _connubium_, they became the phratries in the local tribe, and their colonies became the totem kins within the phratries.

We are not told why the original horde was disrupted into two hostile and intermarrying "clans": we especially wonder why the horde, if it wanted an animal god, did not choose one animal for the whole community; and we may suspect that a difference of taste in animal "gods" caused the hostility of the two clans. Nor do we see why, if things occurred thus, the totem kins should not represent twenty or thirty differences of religious taste, in the original horde, as to the choice of animal gods. If the horde was going to vary in opinion, it is unlikely that only _two_ factions put forward animal candidates for divinity. Again, a "clan" (a totem kin, with exogamy and descent derived through mothers) cannot overflow its territorial area and be therefore obliged to send out colonies, for such a clan (as Durkheim himself remarks) has no territorial area to overflow. It is not a _local_ institution at all.

While these objections cannot but occur, Durkheim does provide a valid reason for the existence of exogamy. When once the groups (however they got them) had totems, with the usual taboos on any sort of use of the totem by his human kinsfolk, the women of the kin would be tabooed to the men of the same kin. In marrying a maiden of his own totem, a man inevitably violates the sanctity of the blood of the totem (_L'Annee sociologique_, i. pp. 47-57. Cf. Reinach, _Cultes, mythes et religions_, vol. i. pp. 162-166).

Here at last we have a theory which accounts for the "religious horror" that attaches to the violation of the rule of totemic exogamy: a mysterious entity, the totem, is hereby offended. But how did totems, animals, plants and so on, come to be mystically _solidaires_ with their human namesakes and kinsmen? We do not observe that Dr Durkheim ever explains _why_ two divisions of one horde chose each a different animal god, or why the supposed colonies thrown off by these primary clans deserted their animal gods for others, or why, and on what principle, they all chose new "gods,"--fresh animals, plants and other objects. His hereditary totem is, in practice, the last thing that a savage changes. The only case of change on record is a recent attempt to increase the range of legal marriages in a waning Australian tribe, on whose lands certain species of animals are perishing.

Howitt's solution.

Theories based on a supposed primal state of promiscuity certainly encounter, when explaining the social oganization of Australian savages, difficulties which they do not surmount. But Howitt has provided (apparently without fully realizing the merit of his own suggestions) a way out of the perplexities caused by the conception of early mankind dwelling promiscuously in "undivided communes." The way out is practically to say that, in everyday life, they lived in nothing of the sort. Howitt writes (_Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 173): "A study of the evidence ... has led me to the conclusion that the state of society among the early Australians was that of an 'Undivided Commune.'... It is, however, well to guard this expression. I do not desire to imply necessarily the existence of complete and continuous communism between the sexes. The character of the country, the necessity of moving from one point to another in search of game and vegetable food, would cause any Undivided Commune, when it assumed dimensions greater than the immediate locality could provide with food, to break up into two or more Communes of the same character. In addition to this it is clear ... that in the past as now, individual likes and dislikes must have existed, so that, admitting the existence of common rights between the members of the Commune, these rights would remain in abeyance, so far as the separated parts of the Commune were concerned. But at certain gatherings ... or on great ceremonial occasions, all the segments of the original Commune would reunite," and would behave in the fashion now common in great licentious festive meetings.

Primitive promiscuity improbable.

In the early ages contemplated, how can we postulate "great ceremonial occasions" or even peaceful assemblies at fruit-bearing spots? How can we postulate a surviving sense of solidarity among the scattered segments of the Commune, obviously very small, owing to lack of supplies, and perpetually disintegrated? But, taking the original groups as very small, and as ruled by likes and dislikes, by affection and jealousy, we are no longer concerned with a promiscuous horde, but with a little knot of human beings, in whom love, parental affection and the jealousy of sires, would promptly make discriminations between this person and that person, as regards sexual privileges. Thus we have edged away from the hypothesis of the promiscuous indiscriminating horde to the opinion of Darwin. "We may conclude," he says, "from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed as many of them are with special weapons for battling with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of Nature is extremely improbable.... The most probable view is that Man originally lived in small communities, each (man) with a single wife, or, if powerful, with-several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men." But, in a community of this early type, to guard women jealously would mean constant battle, at least when Man became an animal who makes love all the year round. So Darwin adds: "Or man may not have been a social animal, and yet have lived with several wives, like the Gorilla,--for all the natives agree that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows up a contest takes place for the mastery, and the strongest, by killing or driving out the others, establishes himself as head of the Community. Younger males, being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner, prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same _family_" (_Descent of Man_, ii. pp. 361, 363 (1871)).

Here, then, we have practical Exogamy, as regards unions of brothers and sisters, among man still brutish, while the Sire is husband of the whole harem of females, probably unchecked as regards his daughters.

Atkinson's theory.

On this Darwinian text J.J. Atkinson builds his theory of the evolution of exogamy and of savage society in his _Primal Law_ (_Social Origins and Primal Law_, by Lang and Atkinson, 1903). Paternal jealousy "gave birth to Primal Law, prohibitory of marriage between certain members of a family or local group, and thus, in natural sequence, led to _forced_ connubial selection _beyond_ its circle, that is, led to Exogamy ... as a _habit_, not as an expressed law...." The "expressed law" was necessarily a later development; conditioned by the circumstances which produced totemism, and sanctioned, as on Durkheim's scheme, by the totemic taboo. Atkinson worked out his theory by a minute study of customs of avoidance between near kin by blood or affinity; by observations on the customs of animals, and by hypotheses as to the very gradual evolution of human restrictions through many modifications. He also gave a theory of the "classificatory" system of names for relationships opposed to that of Morgan. The names are based merely "on reference to relativity of age of a class in relation to the group." The exogamous moieties of a tribe (phratries) are not the result of a reformatory legislative bisection of the tribe, but of the existence of "two intermarrying totem clan groups." The whole treatise, allowing for defects caused by the author's death before the book was printed, is highly original and ingenious. The author, however, did not touch on the evolution of totemism.

Lang's system.

9. The following system, as a means of making intelligible the evolution of Australian totemic society, is proposed by the present writer. We may suggest that men originally lived in the state of "the Cyclopean family" of Atkinson; that is, in Darwin's "family group," containing but one adult male, with the females, the adolescent males being driven out, to find each a female mate, or mates, elsewhere if they can. With increase of skill, improvements in implements and mitigation of ferocity, such groups may become larger, in a given area, but men may retain the habit of seeking mates outside the limits of the group of contiguity; the "avoidance" of brothers and sisters may already have arisen. Among the advanced Arunta, now, a man may speak freely to his elder sisters; to younger sisters, or "tribal sisters," he may not speak, "or only at such a distance that the features are indistinguishable." This archaic rule of avoidance would be a step facilitating the permission to adult males to dwell in their paternal group, avoiding their sisters. Such groups, whether habitually exogamous or not, will require names for each other, and various reasons would yield a preference to names derived from animals. These are easily signalled in gesture language; are easily presented in pictographs and tattooing; are even now, among savages and boys, the most usual sort of _personal_ nicknames; and are widely employed as _group_ names of villagers in European folk-lore. Among European rustics such group sobriquets are usual, but are resented. The savage, with his ideas of the equality or superiority of animals to himself, sees nothing to resent in an animal sobriquet, and the names, originally group sobriquets, would not find more difficulty in being accepted than "Whig," "Tory," "Huguenot," "Cavalier," "Christian," "Cameronian,"--all of them originally nicknames given from without. Again, "Wry Nose" and "Crooked Mouth" are _derisive_ nicknames, but they are the translations of the ancient Celtic clan names Cameron and Campbell. The nicknames "Naked Dogs," "Liars," "Buffalo Dung," "Men who do not laugh," "Big Topknots," have been thoroughly accepted by the "gentes" of the Blackfoot Indians, now passing out of Totemism (Grinnell, _Blackfoot Lodge Tales_, pp. 208-225).

As Howitt writes, "the assumption of the names of objects by men must in fact have been the origin of totemism." Howitt does not admit the theory that the totem names came to arise in this way, but this way is a _vera causa_. Names must be given either from within or from without. A group, in savagery, has no need of a name for itself; "we" are "we," or are "The Men"; for all other adjacent groups names are needed. The name of one totem, _Thaballa_, "The Laughing Boy" totem, among the Warramunga and another tribe, is quite transparently a nickname, as is _Karti_, "The Grown-up Men" (Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 207).

There is nothing, prima facie, which renders this origin of animal, plant and other such names for early savage groups at all improbable. They would not even be resented, as now are the animal names for villagers in the Orkneys, the Channel Islands, France, Cornwall and in ancient Israel (for examples see _Social Origins_, pp. 295-301). The names once accepted, and their origin forgotten, would be inevitably regarded as implying a mystic _rapport_ between the bestial and the human namesakes, Crow, Eagle Hawk, Grub, Bandicoot, Opossum, Emu, Kangaroo and so on (see NAME). On this subject it is enough to cite J.G. Frazer, in _The Golden Bough_ (2nd ed., vol. i. pp. 404-446). Here will be found a rich and satisfactory collection of proof that community of name implies mystic _rapport_. Professor Rhys is quoted for the statement that probably "the whole Aryan race believed at one time not only that the name was a part of the man, but that it was that part of him which is termed the soul." In such a mental stage the men "Crows" identify themselves with the actual Crow species: the birds are now "of their flesh," are fabled to be their ancestors, or the men have been evolved out of the birds. The Crow is sacro-sanct, a friend and protector, and a centre of taboos, one of which is the prohibition preventing a Crow man from intercourse with a Crow woman, "however far apart their hunting grounds may have been." All men and women Crows are recognized as brothers and sisters in the Crow, and are not intermarriageable.

On these lines the prohibition to infringe the totem taboo by marriage within the totem name is intelligible, but the system of phratries has yet to be accounted for. It is obvious that the names could only have been given originally to _local_ groups: the people who held this or that local habitation received the name. Suppose that the rule of each such group, or heart circle, had been "no marriage within the local group or camp," as in Atkinson's scheme. When the groups accept their new names, the rule becomes, "no marriage within local group Eagle Hawk, group Crow," and so on. So far the animal giving the group name may not yet have become a revered totem. The result of the rule would inevitably be, in three or four generations, that in groups Crow or Eagle Hawk, there were no Crows or Eagle Hawks _by descent_, if the children took the names of descent from their mothers; for the sake of differentiation: the Ant woman's children in local group Crow being Ants, the Grub woman's children being Grubs, the Eagle Hawk woman's children being Eagle Hawks,--all in local group Crow, and inheriting the names of the local groups whence their mothers were brought into local group Crow.

By this means (indicated first by McLennan) each member of a local group would have a _local_ group name, say Eagle Hawk, and a name by _female descent_, say Kangaroo, in addition, as now, to his or her personal name. In this way, all members of each local group would find, in any other local group, people of his name of descent, and, as the totem belief grew to maturity, kinsmen of his in the totem. When this fact was realized, it would inevitably make for peace among all contiguous groups. In place of taking women by force, at the risk of shedding kindred blood, peaceful betrothals between men and women of different local group names and of different names by descent could be arranged. Say that local groups Eagle Hawk and Crow took the lead in this arrangement of alliance and _connubium_, and that (as they would naturally flourish in the strength conferred by union) the other local groups came into it, ranging themselves under Eagle Hawk and Crow, we should have the existing primitive type of organization: Local Groups Eagle Hawk (_Mukwara_) and Crow (_Kilpara_) would have become the widely diffused phratries, _Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_, with all the totem kins within them.

But, on these lines, some members of any totem kin, say Cat, would be in phratry Eagle Hawk, some would be in phratry _Kilpara_ as now (for the different reason already indicated) among the Arunta. Such persons were in a quandary. By _phratry_ law, as being in opposite phratries, a Cat in Eagle Hawk' phratry could marry a Cat in Crow phratry. But, by totem law, this was impossible. To avoid the clash of law, all Cats had to go into one phratry or the other, either into Eagle Hawk or into Crow.

Two whole totem kins were in the same unhappy position. The persons who were Eagle Hawks by _descent_ could not be in Eagle Hawk local group, now phratry, as we have already shown. They were in Crow phratry, they could not, by phratry law, marry in their own phratry, and to marry in Eagle Hawk was to break the old law, "no marriage within the _local_ group name." Their only chance was to return to Eagle Hawk phratry, while Crow totem kin went into Crow phratry, and thus we often find, in fact, that in Australian phratries _Mukwara_ (Eagle Hawk) there is a totem kin Eagle Hawk, and in _Kilpara_ phratry (Crow) there is a totem kin Crow. This arrangement--the totem kin within the phratry of its own name--has long been known to exist in America. The Thlinkets have Raven phratry, with totem kins Raven, Frog, Goose, &c., and Wolf phratry, with totem kins Wolf, Bear, Eagle, &c. (Frazer, _Totemism_, pp. 61, 62 (1887)). In Australia the fact has hitherto escaped observation, because so many phratry names are not translated, while, though _Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_ are translated, the Eagle Hawk and Crow totem kins within them bear other names for the same birds, more recent names, or tribal native names, such as _Biliari_ and _Waa_, while _Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_ may have been names borrowed, within the institution of phratries, from some alien tribe now perhaps extinct.

We have now sketched a scheme explanatory of the most primitive type of social organization in Australia. The tendency is for phratries first to lose the meanings of their names, and, next, for their names to lapse into oblivion, as among the Arunta; the work of regulating marriage being done by the opposed Matrimonial Classes.

These classes are obviously an artificial arrangement, intended to restrict marriage to persons on the same level as generations. The meanings of the class names are only known with certainty in two cases, and then are names of animals, while there is reason to suspect that animal names occur in four or five of the eight class-names which, in different dialect forms, prevail in central and northern Australia. Conceivably the new class regulations made use of the old totemic machinery of nomenclature. But until Australian philologists can trace the original meanings of Class names, further speculation is premature.

Breaking up of totemism.

10. Much might be said about the way out of totemism. When once descent and inheritance are traced through males, the social side of totemism begins to break up. One way out is the Arunta way, where totems no longer designate kinships. In parts of America totems are simply fading into heraldry, or into magical societies, while the "gentes," once totemic, have acquired new names, often local, as among the Sioux, or mere sobriquets, as among the Blackfeet. In Melanesia the phratries, whether named or nameless, have survived, while the totems have left but a few traces which some consider disputable (_Social Origins_, pp. 176-184). Among the Bantu of South Africa the _tribes_ have sacred animals (_Siboko_), which may be survivals of the totems of the chief local totem group, with male descent in the tribe, the whole of which now bears the name of the sacred animal. Even in Australia, among tribes where there is reckoning of descent in the male line, and where there are no matrimonial classes, the tendency is for totems to dwindle, while exogamy becomes _local_, the rule being to marry out of the _district_, not out of the _kin_ (Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, pp. 270-272; cf. pp. 135-137).