Chapter VI

I now come to give my own opinion as to the ways in which Kwakiutl totemism may have attained its existing peculiarities. It is necessary first to defend my view that the essential thing in totemism--surveying the whole totemic field--is the existence of exogamous kins bearing animal and other such names. Here Mr. Goldenweizer opposes me, saying that "no particular set of features can be taken as characteristic of totemism, for the composition of the totemic complex is variable, nor can any particular feature be regarded as fundamental, for not one of the features does invariably occur in conjunction with others; nor is there any evidence to regard any other feature as primary in order of development, or as of necessity original psychologically."[45]

I have already remarked that this is true; we find human _associations_, which are _not_ kins or clans, bearing animal and other totemic names, while these associations are not exogamous (the Arunta nation); and we find exogamous sets, kins, or associations which do not bear animal names.

But the co-existence of the exogamous kin with the totemic name of that kin is found in such an immense and overwhelming majority over every other arrangement; the exogamous "totem clan" is so hugely out of proportion in numbers and width of diffusion over the Arunta animal-named non-exogamous associations and other rare exceptions, that we have a right to ask--Are not the exceptions aberrant variations? Have not the Arunta, with non-exogamous sets bearing totemic names, and other peoples with exogamous sets _not_ of totemic names, passed through and out of the usual stage of animal-named exogamous kins? A mere guess that this is so, that the now non-exogamous human sets with totem names have once been exogamous, would be of no value. I must prove, and fortunately I can prove, that it _was_ so.

It is certain, historically, that some exogamous units which now bear non-totemic names, in the past were ordinary totem kins with totemic names. As we can also demonstrate to a certainty that the Arunta have been in, and, for definite reasons, have passed out of, the ordinary stage of exogamous totem kins, we have a right, I think, to say that, normally, the feature of the totemic name is associated with the feature of exogamy, and that the exceptions really prove the rule, for we can show how the exceptions came to vary from the rule.

Mr. Goldenweizer, in a very brief criticism of my own theory of Totemism, given by me in _Social Origins_ (1903), and in _The Secret of the Totem_ (1905), writes "Why is the question, How did the early groups come to be named after the plants and animals?--the real problem? Would not Lang admit that other features may also have been the starting point?" (I not only admit but insist that "other features" were among the starting-points of exogamous totemism.) Among "the other features" Mr. Goldenweizer gives "animal taboos, or a belief in descent from an animal, or primitive hunting regulations, or what not? I am sure that Lang, who is such an adept in following the _logos_, could without much effort construct a theory of totemism with any one of these elements to start with--a theory as consistent with fact, logic, and the mind of primitive man, as is the theory of names accepted from without."

Now as to the last point, I have written "unessential to my system is the question _how_ the groups got animal names, as long as they got them and did not remember how they got them" (_et seq_.)[46] I _did_ show how European and other village groups obtained animal names, namely as _sobriquets_ given from without; and I proved the same origin of the modern names of Siouan "gentes," of two Highland clans; of political parties, religious sects; and so forth.

This mode of obtaining names is a _vera causa_: that is all: and nobody had remarked on it, in connection with totemism.

Next I cannot "without much effort" (or with any effort) construct a theory of totemism out of (1) "animal taboos." They are imposed for many known and some unknown reasons, and not all totem kins taboo the totem object. Next (2) as I must repeat that "belief in descent from an animal," is only one out of many post-totemic myths explanatory of totemism; I cannot possibly use it as the starting-point of totemism. If Mr. Goldenweizer has read the book which he is criticising, he forgets that I wrote[47] "it is an error to look for origins in myths about origins," and that I refused to accept as corroboration of my theory an African myth which agrees with my own view.

As to (3) "primitive hunting regulations," Mr. Goldenweizer does not tell us what they were. It is a very common "regulation" that no totem kin may hunt its own totem animal, but to suggest that the totem kin was created by the regulation is to mistake effect for cause.

Finally (4), who can take "or what not" for the starting-point of an investigation? But every totem kin has a totemic name: if there is no totemic name how can we know that we have before us a totem kin? If the Tlingit "clans" be exogamous but not named by totemic names (as Mr. Swanton tells us), then the Tlingit clans are not totemic, now, whatever they may have been in the past: and we are not concerned with them.

Of every totem "clan" the totem name is a _universal_ feature; and therefore I must begin my study from what is universal--the names. Here (though we must not appeal to authority), I have the private satisfaction of being in agreement with Mr. Howitt. The assumption by men of the names of objects "in fact must have been the commencement of totemism," says Mr. Howitt.[48]

I start then, from the totemic names because,--no totemic name, no totemic "clan"! With the totemic name of a social unit in the tribe, I couple exogamy, (though exogamy may exist apart from totemism), because exogamy is always associated with a "clan" of totemic name, except in a very few cases of which the Arunta "nation" is much the most prominent. But it is not to the point, for _the Arunta have no totemic clans_. Mr. Frazer's latest definition of totemism is "an intimate relation which is supposed to exist between a group of _kindred_ people on the one side and a species of natural or artificial objects on the other"[49] Now the Arunta associations of animal names are not (I must keep repeating) kindreds, are not "clans," are not composed of persons who are, "humanly speaking," akin. The totem is not inherited from either parent or through any kinsman or kinswoman. The Arunta bearers of the same totem name, in each case, do not constitute a "clan." This puts the so-called Arunta "totem clans," non-exogamous, out of action as proofs that "totem clans" may be non-exogamous.

Moreover, the non-exogamous Arunta associations bearing totemic names have once been exogamous totem clans. The usages of the Arunta, and their traditions, and the actual facts of their society, prove that their totems were originally hereditary and exogamous.[50]

I use the word "prove" deliberately; the demonstration is of historical and mathematical certainty. These facts compel me to believe that the Arunta have been in and passed out of normal hereditary totemism, in which the totems are arranged so that no totem occurs in both main exogamous divisions, and all totems are exogamous. In that normal totemic stage the Arunta have at one time been. But they have passed out of it into their present "conceptional" totemism, with the same totems appearing in both main exogamous divisions, the totems being non-hereditary, and non-exogamous.

Spencer and Gillen say, "in the Arunta, as a general rule, the great majority of the members of any one totemic group belong to one moiety of the tribe, but this is by no means universal, and in different totemic groups certain of the ancestors are supposed to have belonged to one moiety and others to the other, with the result that of course their living descendants also follow their example."[51] (This statement I later compare with others by the same authors.) Now in normal totemism, not "the great majority," but all the members of any one totemic group belong to one or other moiety of the tribe. The totems being hereditary, they cannot wander out of their own into the other phratry, and, as all persons must marry out of their own phratry, they cannot marry into their own totem, for no person of their own totem is in the phratry into which they must marry.

At present "the great majority" of members of each totem, among the Arunta, are in one phratry or the other. Thus their society is either, (1) in some unknown way, rapidly approximating itself to normal totemism, or (2) has comparatively recently emerged from normal totemism. The former alternative is impossible. Each Arunta obtains his or her totem by sheer chance, by the accident of the supposed locality of his or her conception, and of the totemic _erathipa_ or _ratapa_ which alone haunt that spot.[52] Manifestly this present Arunta mode of determining totems cannot introduce the great majority of each totem into one or the other phratry or main exogamous division (Panunga-Bulthara and Purula-Kumara), for these divisions have now no local habitation or limits. Consequently the arrangement by which the great majority of each totem is in one or the other moiety can be due to nothing but the fact that the Arunta have comparatively recently emerged from normal exogamous and hereditary, into conceptional, casual, non-hereditary and non-exogamous totemism. Had they emerged long ago, and adopted their present fortuitous method of acquiring the totem, _manifestly the totems, by the operation of chance, would now be present in almost equal numbers in both phratries_. This would also be the case had Arunta totemism always been conceptional and fortuitous.

According to Spencer and Gillen, "it is the idea of spirit individuals associated with _churinga_ and resident in certain definite spots, that lies at the root of the present totemic system of the Arunta tribe."[53]

This is certainly true; and the facts prove, we shall see, to demonstration, that this actual "conceptional" state of Arunta totemism is later than, and has caused the disappearance of the normal hereditary exogamous totemism, among the Arunta.

It is plain and manifest that if the Arunta nation, from the first, were in their present stage of "conceptional totemism"--the totem of each individual being always determined by sheer chance--when the exogamous division of the tribe was instituted, individuals of each totem would be almost equally distributed between the two main divisions, Purula-Kumara and Bulthara-Panunga. Chance could not put the great majority of the members of every totem name either into one exogamous division or the other. If any one doubts this, let him take four packs of cards (208 cards), and deal them alternately five or six times to two friends, Jones representing the phratry Bulthara-Panunga, and Brown standing for the phratry Purula-Kumara. It will not be found that Brown always holds the great majority of Court cards--Ace, King, Queen and Knave--and the great majority of tens, nines and eights: while Jones holds the great majority of sevens, sixes, and fives, fours, threes, and twos.

Chance distribution does not keep on working in that way; and the chance conceptional distribution of totems could not put the great majority of, say, Kangaroos, Hachea Flowers, Wild Cats, and Little Hawks in the Bulthara-Panunga phratry, and the great majority of Emus, Lizards, Wichetty Grubs, and Dogs in the Purula-Kumara division. That is quite impossible. Yet all (or almost all) Arunta totems are thus distributed between the two main exogamous divisions.

When once the reader understands this fact--insisted on by Spencer and Gillen--he becomes convinced, becomes mathematically certain that the chance distribution of conceptional totemism did not and could not thus array the totems of the Arunta. This present arrangement, and this alone, makes the Arunta associations with totemic names non-exogamous. I proceed to give further evidence of Spencer and Gillen. "Whilst every now and then we come across traditions, according to which, as in the case of the Achilpa," (Cats) "the totem is common to all classes[54] we always find that in each totem one moiety of the tribe predominates,[55] and that, according to tradition, many of the groups" (totem groups) "of ancestral individuals consisted originally of men or women or of both men and women, who all belonged to one moiety. Thus in the case of certain Okira or Kangaroo groups we find only Kumara and Purula; in certain Udnirringita or Wichetty Grub groups we find only Hulthara and Panunga, in certain Achilpa or 'Wild Cat' (groups) 'a predominance of Kumara and Purula, with a smaller number of Bulthara and Panunga.'[56] At the present day no totem is confined to either moiety of the tribe, but in each local centre we always find a great predominance of one moiety, as for example at Alice Springs, the most important centre of the Wichetty Grubs, amongst forty individuals, thirty-five belong to the Bulthara and Panunga and only five to the other moiety of the tribe."[57]

Here the great majority--thirty-five to five--of the members of the totem belong to one of the two main exogamous divisions. Outside of the Arunta nation and Kaitish all the Grubs would belong to one main exogamous division. It is mathematically certain that chance could not bring thirty-five to five members of a given totem--or, "a great majority" in each case--into one or other phratry.

Consequently the chance distribution of totems on the present conceptional Arunta system has not caused this uniform phenomenon. It follows that the totems of the Arunta were at one time hereditary, and were arranged, some exclusively in one, some exclusively in the other moiety, so that no person could marry into his or her own totem. The fortuitous system of conceptional distribution then arose out of the Arunta philosophy of spirits and emanations, and out of the _churinga nanja_ usage, and has now detached a small minority of members of each totem from their original phratry and lodged them in the other. Members of every totem can therefore find legal spouses of their own totem in the phratry not their own, and may marry them. And thus these Arunta associations with totemic names are now non-exogamous. But they have been exogamous totem kins. Mr. Frazer finds what he calls totemism without exogamy in parts of Melanesia.[58] I need not here repeat my arguments, given in _Anthropos_, vol. v. (1910) pp. 1092-1108, to prove that the so-called "totems" in this case are only animal or vegetable "familiars" of individuals. Thus the great example of "totem clans" so-called, without exogamy, is put out of action. The Arunta "clans" are not clans, and the Arunta have had exogamous totem clans like other people.

[45] _J. A. F._ pp. 269, 270.

[46] _Secret of the Totem_, p. 125.

[47] _Secret of the Totem_, p. 23.

[48] _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 153.

[49] _T. and E._, vol. iv. pp. 3, 4.

[50] What, follows I have already said in _Anthropos_, 1910.

[51] _Northern Tribes_, p. 175.

[52] Vol. i. pp. 189-190. _Central Tribes_, p. 123.

[53] _Central Tribes_, p. 123.

[54] The myth is self-contradictory in the case of the Achilpa. They were in both phratries; the other totems were confined to one or the other phratry. In the latter case the myth exaggerates the present state of things, and puts all, not the great majority, of each totem in one phratry or the other. In the former case the myth throws the actual state of things back into the past.

[55] By "moiety" the authors mean one of the two main exogamous divisions or phratries.

[56] _Central Tribes_, p. 120. In fact out of three Achilpa or Wild Cat sets of wanderers, two, in the legend, are exclusively of one phratry--Purula-Kumara--and one is exclusively of the other, Bulthara-Panunga, _op. cit._ p. 120.

[57] _Central Tribes_, p. 120.

[58] _T. and E._, vol. iii. pp. 9, 287.