THE ARUNTA ANOMALY
How could man, if promiscuous, cease to be so?--Opinion
of Mr. Howitt--Ethical training in groups very small, by
reason of economic conditions--Likes and dislikes--Love
and jealousy--Distinctions and restrictions--Origin of
restrictions not explained by Professor Spencer--His
account of the Arunta--Among them the totem does not
regulate marriage, is not exogamous, denotes a magical
society--Causes of this unique state of things--Male
descent: doctrine of reincarnation, belief in
spirit-haunted stone _churinga nanja_--Mr. Spencer thinks
Arunta totemism pristine--This opinion contested--How
Arunta totemism ceased to regulate marriage--Result
of isolated belief in _churinga nanja_--Contradictory
Arunta myths--Arunta totemism impossible in tribes
with female descent--Case of the Urabunna--Origin of
_churinga nanja_ belief--Sacred stone objects in New
South Wales--Present Arunta belief perhaps based on myths
explanatory of stone amulets of unknown meaning--Proof
that the more northern tribes never held the Arunta belief
in _churinga nanja_--Traces of Arunta ideas among the
Euahlayi--Possible traces of a belief in a sky-dwelling
being among southern Arunta--Mr. Gillen's "great Ulthaana
of the heavens"--How arose the magic-working animal-named
Arunta societies?--Not found in the south-east--Mr.
Spencer's theory that they do survive--Criticism of his
evidence--Recapitulation--Arunta totemism not primitive
but modified.
Next we have to ask how, granting the hypothesis of the promiscuous
horde, man ceased to be promiscuous. It will be seen that, on a theory
of Mr. Howitt's, man was, in fact, far on the way of ceasing to be
promiscuous or a "horde's man," before he introduced the moral reform
of bisecting his horde into phratries, for the purpose of preventing
brother with sister marriages. Till unions were permanent, and kin
recognised, things impossible in a state of promiscuity, nobody could
dream of forbidding brother and sister marriage, because nobody could
know who was brother or sister to whom. Now, Mr. Howitt does indicate
a way in which man might cease to be promiscuous, before any sage
invented the system of exogamous phratries.
He writes,[1] "I start ... from the assumption that there was once an
undivided commune ... I do not desire to be understood as maintaining
that it implies necessarily the assumption of complete communism
between the sexes. Assuming that the former physical conditions of the
Australian continent were much as they are now, complete communism
always existing would, I think, be an impossibility. The character of
the country, the necessity of hunting for food, and of removing from
one spot to another in search of game and of vegetable food, would
necessarily cause any undivided commune, _when it assumed dimensions of
more than that of a few members, to break up_, under the necessities
of existence, into two or more communes of similar constitution to
itself. In addition to this it has become evident to me, after a long
acquaintance with the Australian savage, that, in the past as now,
individual likes and dislikes must have existed; so that, although
there was the admitted common right between certain groups of the
commune, in practice these rights would either not be exercised by
reason of various causes, or would remain in abeyance, so far as the
separated but allied undivided communes were concerned, until on great
ceremonial occasions, or where certain periodical gatherings for
food purposes reunited temporarily all the segments of the original
community. In short, so far as the evidence goes at present, I am
inclined to regard the probable condition of the undivided commune as
being well represented now by what occurs when on certain occasions the
modified divided communes reunite."[2]
What occurs in these festive assemblies among certain central and
northern tribes, as we have seen, is a legalised and restricted change
of wives all round, with disregard, in some cases, of some of the
tribal rules against incest. On Mr. Howitt's theory the undivided
communal horde must always have been, as I have urged, dividing itself,
owing to lack of supplies. It would be a very small group, continually
broken up, and intercourse of the sexes even in that group, must
have been restrained by jealousy, based on the asserted existence of
individual "likes" and "dislikes." These restrictions, again, must have
led to some idea that the man usually associated with, and responsible
for feeding, and protecting, and correcting the woman and her children,
was just the man who "liked" her, the man whom she "liked," and the man
who "disliked" other men if they wooed her.
But that state of things is not an undivided communal horde at all! It
is much more akin to the state of things in which I take marriage rules
to have arisen.
We may suppose, then, that early moral distinctions and restrictions
grew up among the practically "family" groups of everyday life, as
described by Mr. Howitt, and we need not discuss again the question
whether, at this very early period, there existed a community exactly
like the local tribe of to-day in every respect--except that marriage
was utterly unregulated, till an inspired medicine man promulgated the
law of exogamy, his own invention.
Mr. Howitt began his long and invaluable studies of these problems as
a disciple of Mr. Lewis Morgan. That scholar was a warm partisan of
the primeval horde, of group marriage, and (at times) of a reformatory
movement. These ideas, first admitted to Mr. Howitt's mind, have
remained with him, but he has seen clearly that the whole theory needed
at least that essential modification which his practical knowledge of
savage life has enabled him to make. He does not seem to me to hold
that the promiscuous horde suddenly, for no reason, reformed itself:
his reformers had previous ethical training in a state of daily life
which is not that of the hypothetical horde. But he still clings to the
horde, tiny as it must have been, as the source of a tradition of a
brief-lived period of promiscuity. This faith is but the "after-image"
left in his mental processes by the glow of Mr. Morgan's theory, but
the faith is confirmed by his view of the terms of relationship, and of
the _Piraungaru_, _Pirrauru_, and similar customs. We have shown, in
the last chapter, that the terms and the customs are not necessarily
proofs of promiscuity in the past, but may be otherwise interpreted
with logical consistency, and in conformity with human nature.
The statement of Mr. Howitt shows how the communal horde of the
hypothesis might come to see that it needed moral reformation. In
daily life, by Mr. Howitt's theory, it had practically ceased to be a
communal horde before the medicine man was inspired to reform it. The
hypothesis of Professor Baldwin Spencer resembles that of Mr. Howitt,
but, unlike his (as it used to stand), accounts for the existence
of animal-named sets of people within the phratries. Mr. Spencer,
starting from the present social condition of the Arunta "nation" or
group of tribes (Arunta, Kaitish, Ilpirra, Unmatjera), supposes that
these tribes retain pristine traits, once universal, but now confined
to them. The peculiar pristine traits, by the theory, are (1) the
existence of animal-named local societies for magical purposes. The
members of each local group worked magic for their name-giving animal
or plant, but any one might marry a woman of his own group name, Eagle
Hawk, Cockatoo, and the like, while these names were not inherited,
either from father or mother, and did not denote a bond of kinship.
Mr. Spencer, then, supposes the horde to have been composed of such
magical societies, at a very remote date, before sexual relations were
regulated by any law. Later, in some fashion, and for some reason
which Mr. Spencer does not profess to explain, "there was felt the
need of some form of organisation, and this gradually resulted in the
development of exogamous groups."[3] These "exogamous groups," among
the Arunta, are now the four or eight "matrimonial classes," as among
other tribes of northern Australia. These tribes, as a rule, have
phratries, but the Arunta have lost even the phratry names.
Mr. Spencer's theory thus explains the existence of animal-named
groups--as co-operative magical societies, for breeding the animals or
plants--but does not explain how exogamy arose, or why, everywhere,
except among the Arunta, all the animal or plant named sets of people
are kinships, and are exogamous, while they are neither the one or
the other among the Arunta. Either the Arunta groups have once been
exogamous totem kinships, and have ceased to be so, becoming magical
societies; or such animal-named sets of people have, everywhere, first
been magical societies, and later become exogamous totem kinships. Mr.
Spencer holds the latter view, we hold the former, believing that the
Arunta have once been in the universal state of totemic exogamy, and
that, by a perfectly intelligible process, their animal-named groups
have become magical societies, no longer exogamous kinships. We can
show how the old exogamous totem kinship, among the Arunta, became
a magical society, not regulating sexual relations; but we cannot
imagine how all totemic mankind, if they began with magical societies
in an unregulated horde, should have everywhere, except among the
Arunta, conspired to convert these magical societies into kinships
with exogamy. If the social organisation of the Arunta were peculiarly
primitive, if their beliefs and ceremonials were of the most archaic
type, there might be some ground for Mr. Spencer's opinion. But Mr.
Hartland justly says that all the beliefs and institutions of the
Arunta "point in the same direction, namely, that the Arunta are the
most advanced and not the most primitive of the Central Australian
tribes."[4]
The Arunta, a tribe so advanced that it has forgotten its phratry
names, has male kinship, eight matrimonial classes, and _local_ totem
groups, with Headmen hereditary in the male line, and so cannot
possibly be called "primitive," as regards organisation. If, then,
the tribe possesses a peculiar institution, contravening what is
universally practised, the natural inference is that the Arunta
institution, being absolutely isolated and unique, as far as its
non-exogamy goes, in an advanced tribe, is a local freak or "sport,"
like many others which exist. This inference seems to be corroborated
when we discover, as we do at a glance, the peculiar conditions without
which the Arunta organisation is physically impossible. These essential
and indispensable conditions are admitted by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
to be:--
1. Male reckoning of descent--which is found in very many tribes where
totems are exogamous--as everywhere.
2. Local totem groups, which are a result of male reckoning of descent.
These also are found in many other tribes where, as everywhere, totems
are exogamous.
3. The belief that the spirits of the primal ancestors of the
"Dream-Time" (_Alcheringa_)--creatures evolved out of various animal
shapes into human form--are constantly reincarnated in new-born
children. This belief is found in all the northern tribes with male
descent; and among the Urabunna, who have female descent--but among all
these tribes totems are exogamous, as everywhere.
4. The Arunta and Kaitish, with two or three minor neighbouring tribes,
believe that spirits desiring incarnation, all of one totem in each
case, reside "at certain definite spots." So do the Urabunna believe,
but at each of these spots, in Urabunna land, there may be spirits _of
several different totems._[5] Among the Urabunna, as everywhere, totems
are exogamous. None of these four conditions, nor all of them, can
produce the Arunta totemic non-exogamy.
Finally (5) the Arunta and Kaitish, and they alone, believe not only
that the spirits desiring reincarnation reside at certain definite
spots, and not only that the spirits there are, in each case, _all
of one totem_ (which is essential), but also that these spirits are
most closely associated with objects of stone, inscribed with archaic
markings (_churinga nanja_), which the spirits have dropped in these
places--the scenes where the ancestors died (_Oknanikilla_). These
stone objects, and this belief in their connection with ancestral
spirits, are found in the Arunta region alone, and are the determining
cause, or inseparable accident at least, of the non-exogamy of Arunta
totemism, as will be fully explained later.
Not one of these five conditions is reported by Mr. Howitt among
the primitive south-eastern tribes, and the fifth is found only in
Aruntadom. Yet Mr. Spencer regards as the earliest form of totemism
extant that Arunta form, which requires four conditions, not found in
the tribes of primitive organisation, and a fifth, which is peculiar to
the Arunta "nation" alone.
That the Arunta tribe, whether shut off from all others or not (as
a matter of fact it is not), should alone (while advanced in all
respects, including marriage and ceremonials) have retained a belief
which, though called primitive, is unknown among primitive tribes,
seems a singularly paradoxical hypothesis. Meanwhile the cause of the
Arunta peculiarity--non-exogamous totems--is recognised by Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen, who also declare that the cause is isolated. They
say "it is the idea of spirit individuals associated with _churinga_"
(manufactured objects of stone), "and resident in certain definite
spots, that lies at the root of the present totemic system of the
Arunta tribe."[6]
Again, they inform us that the _churinga_ belief, and the existence of
stone _churinga_, are things isolated. "In the Worgaia tribe, which
inhabits the country to the north-east of the Kaitish" (neighbours of
the Arunta), "we meet, so far as we have been able to discover, with
the last traces of the _churinga_--that is, of the _churinga_ with its
meaning and significance, as known to us in the true central tribes,
as associated with the spirits of _Alcheringa_ ancestors" (mythical
beings, supposed to be constantly reincarnated).[7] Thus, "the present
totemic system of the Arunta tribe,"--in which, contrary to universal
rule, persons of the same totem may inter-marry--reposes on a belief
associated with certain manufactured articles of stone, and neither the
belief nor the stone objects are discovered beyond a certain limited
region. It is proper to add that the regretted Mr. David Carnegie
found, at Family Wells, in the desert of Central Australia, two stone
objects, one plain, the other rudely marked with concentric circles,
which resemble _churinga nanja_. He mentions two others found and
thrown away by Colonel Warburton. The meaning or use of these objects
was not ascertained.[8]
We differ from Messrs. Spencer and Gillen when they think that
this peculiar and isolated belief, held by four or five tribes of
confessedly advanced social organisation and ceremonials (a belief only
possible under advanced social organisation), is the pristine form of
totemism, out of which all totemists, however primitive, have found
their way except the Arunta "nation" alone. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
write: "... the only conclusion which it seems possible to arrive at
is that in the more northern tribes" (which have no churinga nanja,
no _stone_ churinga), "the churinga represent the surviving relics of
a time when the beliefs among those tribes were similar to those which
now exist among the Arunta. It is more easy to imagine a change which
shall lead from the present Arunta or Kaitish belief to that which
exists among the Warramunga, than it is to imagine one which shall
lead from the Warramunga to the Arunta."[9] Now among the Warramunga,
as everywhere, the division of the totems between the two (exogamous)
moieties is complete, "and, with very few exceptions indeed, the
children follow the father."[10] (These exceptions are not explained.)
Among the Kaitish the same totems occur among both exogamous moieties,
so persons of the same totem _can_ intermarry, but "it is a very rare
thing for a man to marry a woman of the same totem as himself."[11]
The obvious conclusion is the reverse of that which our authors think
"alone possible." The Kaitish have adopted the Arunta _churinga nanja_
usage which introduces the same totem into both exogamous moieties,
but, unlike the Arunta, they have not yet discarded the old universal
rule, "No marriage within the totem." It is not absolutely forbidden,
but it scarcely ever occurs. The Kaitish, as regards exogamy and
religion, are a link between the primitive south-eastern tribes and the
Arunta.
We go on to show in detail how Arunta totems alone ceased to be
exogamous, and to demonstrate that the more northern tribes have never
been, and never can have been, in the present Arunta condition. Among
the Arunta, in the classes, none of them his own, into which alone a
man may marry, there are plenty of women of his own totem. Thus, in
marrying a woman of his totem, but not of his set of classes, a man
does not break the law of Arunta exogamy. Now how does it happen that a
totem may be in both sets of exogamous classes among the Arunta alone
of mankind? Was this always the case from the beginning?
It is, naturally, our opinion that among the Arunta, as everywhere
else, matters were originally, or not much later, so arranged that
the same totem never appeared in both phratries, or, afterwards, when
phratries were lost, in both opposed sets of two or four exogamous
matrimonial classes. The only objection to this theory is that
the Arunta themselves believe it, and mention the circumstance in
their myths. These myths cannot be historical reminiscences of the
"Dream-Time," which never existed. But even a myth may deviate into
truth, especially as the Arunta must know that in other tribes the same
totem never occurs in both phratries, and are clever enough to see that
their method needs explanation as being an exception to general rule;
and that, even now, "the great majority of any one totem belong to one
moiety of the tribe." So they say that originally all Witchetty Grubs,
for instance, were in the Bulthara-Panunga moiety (as most Grubs still
are to this day), while all Emus were in the opposite exogamous moiety
(Purula-Kumura). But, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "owing to the
system according to which totem names are" (_now_) "acquired, it is
always possible for a man to be, say, a Purula or a Kumura, and yet a
Witchetty; or, on the other hand, a Bulthara or a Panunga, and yet an
Emu."[12] The present system of acquiring totem names has transferred
the totems into both exogamous moieties, and so has made it possible
to marry within the totem name.
This suggests that, in native opinion or conjecture, Arunta totems,
like all others, were once exogamous; no totem ever occurred originally
in both exogamous moieties. It also indicates that, in the opinion
of Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, they only ceased to be exogamous when
the present method of acquiring totem names, an unique method, was
introduced. Happily, to prove the historical worthlessness of Arunta
legendary myth, the tribe has a contradictory legend. The same totem,
according to this fable, occurred in both exogamous moieties, even
in the mythic Dream-Time (_Alcheringa_); by this fable the natives
explain (what needs explaining) how the same totem does occur in _both_
exogamous moieties to-day, and so is not exogamous.[13]
This is nonsense, just as the other contradictory myth was conjecture.
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have themselves explained why the same totem
may _now_ occur in both moieties, and so be non-exogamous. The unique
phenomenon is due to the actual and unique method of acquiring totem
names.[14] Thus the modern method is not primitive. These passages are
very instructive.
The Arunta have been so long in the relatively advanced state of
_local_ totemism that their myths do not look behind it. A group,
whether stationary or migratory, in the myths of the Dream-Time (the
_Alcheringa_) always consists of persons of the same totem, with
occasional visitors of other totems. The myths, we repeat, reflect the
present state of local totem groups back on the past.
The myths allege (here the isolated superstition comes in) that
the mythical ancestors of the _Alcheringa_ died, or "went into the
ground" at certain now haunted spots, marked by rocks or trees, which
may be called "mortuary local totem-centres"--in native speech,
_Oknanikilla_[15] Trees or rocks arose to mark the spot where the
ancestors, all of one totem in each case, went into the ground. These
trees or rocks are called _Nanja_. Thereabouts the dying ancestors
deposited possessions peculiar to Aruntadom, their stone amulets, or
_churinga nanja_, with what are now read as totemic incised marks.
Their spirits, all of one totem in each case, haunt the _Nanja_ rock or
tree, and are especially attached to these stone amulets,[16] called
_churinga nanja_. The spirits discarnate await a chance of entering
into women, and being reborn. When a child comes to the birth, the
mother, whatever her own or her husband's totem may be, names the
spot where she supposes that she conceived the child, and the child's
_Nanja_ tree or rock is that in the _Oknanikilla_, or mortuary local
totem-centre nearest to the place where the child was conceived. Its
male kin hunt for the _churinga_, or stone amulet, there deposited
by the dying _Alcheringa_ ancestor; if they find it, it becomes the
child's _churinga_, for he is merely the ancestor spirit reborn. He
(or she) "comes into his own"; his _Nanja_ tree or rock, his _churinga
nanja_, and his original totem, which may be, and often is, neither
that of his father or mother.
Thus inheriting his own old _Nanja_ tree and _churinga_, and totem,
_the child is not necessarily of his father's or mothers but is of
his own old original totem_, say Grub, or Hakea Flower, or Kangaroo,
or Frog. His totem is thus not inherited, we repeat, as elsewhere,
from either parent, but is derived, by the accident of his place of
conception, from the _local_ totem, from the totemic ghosts (all
of one totem) haunting the particular mortuary totem centre, or
_Oknanikilla_, where he was conceived. His totem may thus be in _both_
of the exogamous moieties, and for that reason alone is not exogamous.
To take an example. A woman, by totem Cat, has a husband by totem
Iguana. She conceives a child, and believes that she conceived it in a
certain district. The local totem of that district is the Grub, Grub
ghosts haunt the region; the child, therefore, is a Grub. He inherits
his exogamous class, say Bukhara, from his father, and he must marry
a woman of Class Kumara. But she may also be a Grub, for her totem,
like his, has been acquired (like his, not by inheritance, but) by the
accident that her mother conceived her in a Grub district. Thus, and
thus only, are totems not exogamous among the Arunta. They are not
inherited from either parent.
It is probable that, after male descent came in, the Arunta and Kaitish
at first inherited their totems from their fathers, as among all other
tribes with male descent. This appears to be proved by the fact that
they still do inherit, from their fathers, totemic rites, and the power
of doing totemic mummeries for their fathers' totems, even when, by
the accident of their places of conception, they do not inherit their
fathers' totems. When they did inherit the paternal totem, they were,
doubtless, totemically exogamous, like all other tribes with either
male or female descent.
One simple argument upsets the claim of Arunta totems to be primitive.
In no tribe with female descent can a district have its _local_ totem,
as among the Arunta. A district can only have a local totem if the
majority of the living people, and of the haunting ghosts of the
dead, are of one totem only. But this (setting aside the occasional
results of an isolated Urabunna superstition) can only occur under male
reckoning of descent, which confessedly is not primitive. In a region
where reckoning in the female line exists a woman could not say, "I
conceived my child in Grub district, the country of totem Grub"--for
such a country there is not and cannot be. Consequently, among the
Urabunna as everywhere with reckoning of descent in the female line,
every child is of its mother's totem.
Let us examine other tribes who, like the Arunta, have the theory of
reincarnation, but whose totems are, as elsewhere, exogamous, unlike
those of the Arunta. The Urabunna have female descent, and their myth
about the origin of totemic ancestors approximates to that of the
Arunta, but, unlike the Arunta fable, does not produce, or account
for, non-exogamy in totems. Things began, say the Urabunna, by the
appearance of a few creatures half human, half bestial or vegetable.
They had miraculous powers, and dropped spirits which tenanted lizards,
snakes, and so on, all over the district. These spirits later became
incarnated in human beings of the Lizard, Snake, or other totem, and
are constantly being reincarnated. The two Urabunna phratries were
originally a green and a brown snake: the Green Snake said to the
Brown Snake, "I am Kirarawa, you are Matthurie"--the phratry names.
It does not appear that these names now mean Green Snake and Brown
Snake, though they may once have had these significations. The spirits
left about by these snakes, like all the other such spirits (_mai
aurli_) keep on being incarnated, and, when incarnated, the children
bear the totem name of their mothers in each case. A Green Snake
woman is entered by a spirit, which she bears as a Green Snake child.
The accident of the locality in which the child was conceived does
not affect his totem, so Urabunna totems remain in their own proper
phratries, and therefore, by phratry law, are exogamous, as everywhere,
except among the Arunta.[17]
This arrangement is merely the usual arrangement, with female descent A
woman's child is of the woman's totem. Believing in reincarnation, the
Urabunna merely adapt that belief to the facts. With female descent an
Emu woman's child is Emu. If a tribe has male descent, an Emu father's
child is Emu. With female descent, a spirit has entered an Emu woman
and been born Emu: with male descent, a spirit has entered the wife of
an Emu man, and, by inheritance from his father, is Emu. Yet Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen think that the Arunta and Kaitish rule--demanding
the non-primitive male descent, local groups, local ghosts all of one
totem, and _churinga_ stones of the mark of that totem (all of which
are indispensable), "is probably the simplest and most primitive."[18]
Most primitive, by our author's own statement, the Arunta method cannot
be, for, as they show, it demands male descent, local totemism, and the
peculiar belief about manufactured stone _churinga_. But they think it
"most simple," because the Urabunna have a complicated myth, which,
however, in no way affects the result, namely, that each child takes
its mother's totem. Each spirit, according to the myth, changes its
phratry and sex, and, necessarily, its totem, at each reincarnation,
but that does not affect the result. Each child, as in all tribes with
female descent, is still of its mother's totem.[19] No _churinga nanja_
cause an anomaly among the Urabunna, for the _churinga nanja_, and the
belief about them, among the Urabunna do not exist.
The Urabunna myth, adapted to male descent, occurs in all the northern
tribes, from the northern bounds of the Kaitish to the sea, which have
no stone _churinga nanja_; and in all of them totems are exogamous,
because they never occur in both phratries, being uninfluenced by the
Arunta _churinga_ belief. They cannot, for they are duly inherited
from the father, and they are so inherited because the tribes have not
the exceptional _Churinga Nanja_ creed, attaching the spirit to the
amulet of a local totem group, which fixes--by the accident of place of
conception--the totem of each child.
The Arunta non-exogamous totems, in Australia, as we saw, are only
found where _stone churinga nanja_ are in use; these amulets being
peculiarly the residence of the spirits of totemic ancestors.
The origin of that belief is obscure. It could not arise in the
present condition of Arunta or Kaitish affairs, for, now, every stone
_churinga_ in the tribe has already its recognised legal owner, and,
on the death of an owner, or the extinction of a local totem group,
the _churinga_ are not left lying about to be found on or in the
earth, but pass by a definite rule of inheritance; and they are all
carefully warded and frequently examined, in Ertnatu-lunga, or sacred
storehouses.[20] Thus stone _churinga nanja_, to-day, are not left
lying about on the surface, or buried in graves, like those which, on
the birth of each Arunta child, are sought for, and sometimes found, at
the local totem-centre, and near the _Nanja_ tree or rock, where the
child was conceived. There _churinga nanja_ must have been _buried_,
of old, if our authors correctly say that the mythical ancestors "went
into the ground, each carrying his _churinga_ with him."[21] Again we
read, "Many of the _churinga_ were placed _in_ the ground, some natural
object again marking the spot." The spot was always marked by some
natural object, such as a tree or rock.[22]
Though our authors tell us that they know Arunta natives who, on the
birth of a child, have sought for and found his _churinga nanja_ near
the _Nanja_ rock or tree next to the place where he was conceived, they
do not say that the _churinga_ are found by digging.[23] If they are,
or if the _Oknanikilla_ really are ancient burying-places (about which
we are told nothing), the association of the _churinga nanja_ with the
ghost of the man in whose grave it is buried would be easily explained.
But the impression left is that the stone _churinga nanja_ found after
search are discovered on the surface, dropped there by the spirit when
about to be reincarnated.[24]
Here a curious fact may be filed for reference. Stone amulets,
fashioned and decorated by man, are not known to be in use south of
the Arunta region. But a cousin of my own, Mr. William Lang, found a
stone object not unlike one figured by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen,
on his station near Cooma, New South Wales. The decoration was of
the rectilineal type prevalent in that region. Mr. Lang knew nothing
of the Arunta _churinga_ till I drew his attention to the subject.
He then visited the Sydney Museum, and found several stone objects,
"banana-shaped," exactly like the specimen (wooden?), one out of five
known to Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and published by them in their
first work (p. 150). The New South Wales ornament, however, was always
rectilineal. The articles appear to be obsolete among the tribes of
New South Wales. It is said that they were erected of old round graves
of the dead. Whites call them "grave stones." Careful articles on
these decorated stone objects of New South Wales have been written by
Mr. W. R. Harper and Mr. Graham Officer.[25] As a rule, they are not
banana-shaped or crescentine, but are in the form of enormous stone
cigars. They used to be placed, twelve or thirteen of them, on graves,
and their weight, averaging about 3 lbs. to 4 lbs., makes them less
portable than most of the _churinga_ of the Arunta. It does not seem
at all probable that Arunta stone _churinga_ were ever erected round
graves, but excavations at _Oknanikilla_, if they could be executed
without a shock to Arunta sentiment, might throw some light on the
subject.
In my opinion, the _churinga_ found at _Oknanikilla_ by the Arunta may
have had no such original significance as is now attached to them. The
belief may be a mere myth, explaining the sense of objects found and
not understood--relics, as the myth itself avers, of an earlier race,
the _Alcheringa_ folk. The only information about those New South Wales
decorated cigar-shaped and banana-shaped stone objects which could be
got out of a local black was: "All same as bloody brand." He meant,
conceivably, that the incised markings were totem marks, I think, and
in that sense the marks on Arunta stone _churinga_ are now interpreted.
It would not be surprising if the Arunta--supposing that they possessed
the belief in "spirit trees," and the belief in reincarnation, and then
found, near the _Nanja_ trees or rocks, the stone amulets or "grave
stones" of some earlier occupants of the region--evolved the myth that
ancestral souls, connected with the spirit trees, abode especially
in these decorated stones, common enough in American and European
neolithic sites.
This is, of course, a mere conjecture. But Messrs. Spencer and Gillen
agree with us when they say: "It is this 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
tribes."[26]
Three facts are now apparent. The Arunta (i) must have reckoned in
the male line for a very long time, otherwise their myths would not
take local totem-centres for granted as a primeval fact, since such
centres can only occur and exist under male reckoning of descent; in
cases where the husbands do not go to the wives' region of abode. (2)
The myth that totemic _local_ ghosts are reincarnated cannot be older
than _local_ totem-centres, for it is their old local totem-centres
that the totemic ghosts do haunt. The spots are strewn with their old
totem-marked _churinga_. The myths make the wandering groups of fabled
ancestors all of one totem, because, by male reckoning, they could be
little else till the _churinga_ superstition arose and scattered totems
about at random in the population.
Again, (3) even local totemism, _plus_ the belief in the reincarnation
of primary ancestral spirits, did not produce the non-exogamy of
totems, till it was reinforced by the unique Arunta belief in the stone
_churinga nanja._
The totemism of the Arunta, then, was originally like that of their
neighbours, exogamous, till the stone _churinga nanja_ became the
centre of a myth which introduces the same totems into both exogamous
moieties among the Arunta, where it has broken down the old exogamous
totemic rule. Among the Kaitish, as we saw, the rule is still surviving
in general practice.
We now proceed to demonstrate that the more northern tribes have never
passed through the present Arunta state of belief and customary law.
Suppose that the Arunta to-day dropped their _churinga nanja_ belief,
and allowed the totem name to be inherited through the father, as
the right to work the ceremonies of the totem still is inherited by
sons who do not inherit the totem itself. What would follow? Why,
totems among the Arunta would still be non-exogamous, for the existing
_churinga nanja_ belief has brought the same totems into both exogamous
moieties, and there they would remain, after they came to be inherited
in the male line. In the same way, if the northern tribes had once
been in the Arunta state of belief, their totems would still be in
both exogamous moieties, and would not regulate marriage. But this is
not the case. These tribes, therefore, have never been in the present
Arunta condition. _Q.E.D_.
The Arunta belief is, obviously, an elaboration of the belief in
reincarnation, not held, as far as is known, by the Dieri, but held by
the Urabunna, and by all tribes from the Urabunna northwards to the
sea. Mr. Howitt does not mention the belief among the south-eastern
tribes. But there is a kind of tendency towards it among the Euahlayi
of north-west New South Wales, reported on by Mrs. Langloh Parker
(MS.). This tribe reckons in the female line, has phratries, and uses
the class names (four), but not the phratry names of the Kamilaroi.
Each individual has a _Minngah tree_ haunted by spirits unattached.
Medicine men have _Minngah_ rocks. These answer to the Arunta _Nanja_
(Warramunga, _Mungai_) trees and rocks in mortuary local totem-centres.
But the _Minngah_-tree spirits do not seek reincarnation. Only spirits
of persons dying young, before initiation, are reincarnated. Fresh
souls for new bodies are made by the Crow and the Moon. These spirits,
when "made," hang in the boughs of the _coolabah_ tree only, not round
_Minngah_ trees or rocks.
I think it possible, or even probable, that ideas like those of the
Euahlayi exist among the southern Arunta and elsewhere. Messrs. Spencer
and Gillen give a Kaitish myth of two men "who arose from _churinga_,"
and heard Atnatu (the Kaitish sky-dwelling being, the father of some
men) making, in the sky, a noise with his _churinga_ (the wooden bull
roarer).[27] Now, I have seen the statement, on which I lay no stress,
that in extreme south-west Aruntadom a sky-dwelling Emu-footed being
lost two stone _churinga_. Out of one sprang a man, out of the other a
woman. They had offspring, "but not by begetting."
Among the tribes with the reincarnation belief connubial relations
are supposed only to "prepare the mother for the reception and birth
also of an already formed spirit child."[28] This apparent ignorance
of physical facts, not found among the south-eastern tribes, is a
corollary from the reincarnation belief, or from the other belief that
spirit children are "made" by some non-human being. (Cf. Chapter XI.)
To continue with the statement as to the southern Arunta, the
sky-dwelling being "has laid germs of the little boys in the mistletoe
branches, germs of little girls among the split stones ... such a germ
of a child enters a woman by the hip." Now among the Euahlayi, when the
spirit children made by the Crow and the Moon are weary of waiting to
be reincarnated, they are changed into mistletoe branches.
I do not insist on the alleged sky-dwelling being of these Arunta, for
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen (in their two books) have not found him,
and Mr. Howitt thinks that his name arises from a misunderstanding.
Kempe, a missionary of 1883, speaks of "Altjira, 'god,' who gives the
children."[29] Altjira, "god," may be a mistake, based on the root of
_Alcheringa_ or _Altjiringa_, "dream." On the other hand, Mr. Gillen
himself credits the Arunta with a belief in a sky-dwelling being, and
with a creed incompatible with the faith in reincarnation, as, in tins
Anunta myth, human souls are not reincarnated. This information we
quote.
"ULTHAANA
"The sky is said to be inhabited by three persons, a gigantic man with
an immense foot shaped like that of an emu, a woman, and a child who
never develops beyond childhood. The man is called Ulthaana, meaning
'spirit.' When a native dies his spirit is said to ascend to the
home of the great Ulthaana, where it remains for a short time; the
Ulthaana then throws it into the Saltwater (sea) [these natives have
no personal knowledge of the sea], from whence it is rescued by two
benevolent but lesser Ulthaana who perpetually reside on the seashore,
apparently merely for the purpose of rescuing spirits who have been
subject to the inhospitable treatment of the great Ulthaana of the
heavens (alkirra). Henceforth the spirit of the dead man lives with the
lesser Ulthaana."[30] Is it possible that Mr. Gillen's "Great Ulthaana
of the Heavens, alkirra," is Kempe's Altjira? Or can he be a native
modification of Kempe's own theology? Probably not.
In any case the Arunta of Mr. Gillen who do not believe in
reincarnation cannot possibly, it would seem, possess the Arunta form
of totemism. It is only natural that varieties of myth and belief
should exist, and it is asserted that there is a myth among the Arunta
of the extreme south-west section about a sky-dwelling being, who,
like the Crow and the Moon of Euahlayi belief, makes spirit children,
and places them in the mistletoe boughs. The story that the first man
and woman sprang from two of this being's lost _churinga_, again, is
matched by the Kaitish story of two men who rose from _churinga_. The
Arunta described by Mr. Gillen, they whose souls dwell with "the lesser
Ulthaana," no more believe in reincarnation than do the south-eastern
tribes. These variants in belief and myth usually occur among savages.
The Arunta add to the reincarnation myth, the peculiarity of mortuary
local totem-centres, and of the attachment of the spirit to a stone
_churinga_ inscribed with the marks of that totem, and from these
peculiar ideas--as much isolated as the peculiar ideas of the Urabunna
or the Euahlayi--arises the non-exogamous character of Arunta totemism.
No _one_, out of such varying freaks of belief, can be regarded as
primitive, more than another, but the Arunta variant, for the reason
repeatedly given, cannot possibly be primitive.
The Arunta totems are not only non-exogamous: their actual _raison
d'être_, to-day, is to exist as the objects of magical co-operative
societies, fostering the totem plants and animals as articles of tribal
food supply. Mr. Spencer thinks this the primary purpose of totem
societies, everywhere. Now we have not, as yet, been told _why_ each
society took to doing magic for this or that animal or other thing in
nature. They cannot have been "charged with" this duty, except by some
central authority. As there did not yet exist, by the hypothesis, so
much as a tribe with phratries, what can this central authority have
been? If it existed, on what principle did it select, out of the horde,
groups to become magical societies? Were they groups of kin, or groups
of associates by contiguity? On what principle could the choice of
departments of nature to be controlled by each group, be determined
by the central authority? Had the groups already distinguishing
names--Emu, Eagle Hawk, Opossum, &c.--how did these names arise, and
did these names determine the department of nature for which each
group was allotted to do magic? Or did authority give to each group a
magical department, and did the nature of that department determine the
group-name, such as Frogs, Grubs, Hakea Trees?
Or was there no formal distribution, no sudden organisation, no central
authority? Did a casual knot of men, or a firm of wizards, say, "Let
_us_ do magic for the Kangaroo, and get more Kangaroos to eat"? Was
their success so great and enviable that other casual knots of men or
firms of wizards followed their example? And, in this case, why do
Arunta totemists not eat their totems freely? Is it because they think
that to do so would frighten the totems, and make them recalcitrant
to their magic? But that cannot be the case if their success, while
they worked their magic on their own account, was great, enviable, and
generally imitated. And, if it was not, why was it imitated? Next,
how, among the magical societies, was exogamy introduced? Mr. Spencer
writes: "Our knowledge of the natives leads us to the opinion that
this really took place; that the exogamic groups were deliberately
introduced _so as to regulate marital regulations_." This was, then, a
Marriage Reform Act. However, Mr. Spencer hastens to add that he cannot
conceive a motive for the Marriage Reform Act. "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."[31]
We have shown that no such ideas could occur to the supposed
promiscuous horde, who knew not that there is such a thing as
procreation, but supposed that, like the stars in Caliban's philosophy,
children "came otherwise." Yet the "exogamic system" does nothing
but prohibit certain marriages, and "it is quite possible that the
exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to regulate marital
relations."[32]
Mr. Spencer's theory is, then, that there was a horde with magical
totemic societies, how evolved we cannot guess. Across that came the
arrangement of classes to regulate marriage, as it does, but the
ancestors who possibly introduced it had, he says, no idea that there
was any moral or material harm in unregulated marriages. Then why did
they regulate them?
The hypothetical horde of the kind which we have described had no
_marriage_ relations, and had no possible reason for regulating
intersexual relations.
It is true that reformatory movements in marriage law are actually
being purposefully introduced, among tribes which, possessing
already such laws, of unknown origin, to reform, have deduced from
these laws themselves that there is a right and wrong in matters of
sex. Certainly, too, much of savage marriage law is of ancient and
purposeful institution. But the question is, not how moral laws, once
developed, might be improved; but how a tabu law against sexual
relations between near kin could even be so much as dreamed of by
members of a communal horde, who bad do idea of kin, and could not
possibly tell who was akin to whom. _Ce n'est que le premier pas qui
coûte!_ We must account for _le premier pas_.
Again, the _Intichiuma_, or co-operative totemic magic, of the
Arunta, regarded by our authors as "primary," is nowhere reported of
the tribes of the south and east. Mr. Howitt asserts its absence.
The lack of record, say Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, "is no proof
that these ceremonies did not exist" If they did, bow could they
escape the knowledge of Mr. Howitt, an initiated man?[33] As a fact,
when you leave the centre, and reach the _north_ sea-coast, totemic
magic dwindles, and nearly disappears. Among the coast tribes of
the north, the _Intichiuma_ magic is "very slightly developed." Its
faint existence is "doubtless to be associated with the fact that
they inhabit country where the food supply and general conditions of
life are more favourable than in the central area of the continent
which is the home of these ceremonies." But surely the regions of
the south and east, where there is no _Intichiuma_, are also better
in supply and general conditions than the centre. Why then should
the apparent absence of _Intichiuma_ in the south and east be due to
want of observation and record, while the "very slight development"
of _Intichiuma_ on the north coast is otherwise explained, namely, by
conditions--which also exist in the south!
Moreover, co-operative and totemic magic is most elaborately organised
among the Sioux, Dakotah, Omaha, and other American tribes, where
supplies are infinitely better than in any part of Australia,[34]
and agriculture has there, as in Europe, a copious magic. Magic, as
a well-known fact, is most and best organised in the most advanced
non-scientific societies. In Australia it is most organised in the
centre, and dwindles as you move either north, south, or east. This
implies that, socially, the centre is in this respect most advanced and
least primitive; while magic, partly totemic, is highly organised in
the much more prosperous islands of the Torres Straits, and in America.
It is true that Collins (1798), a very early observer, saw east-coast
natives performing ceremonies connected with Kangaroos, in one of which
a Kangaroo hunt was imitated. Collins believed that this was imitative
magic of a familiar kind, done to secure success in the chase. In
_Magic and Religion_, p. 100, I express the same opinion. But Messrs.
Spencer and Gillen write, as to the magic observed by Collins, "There
can be little doubt but that these ceremonies, so closely similar
in their nature to those now performed by the central natives, were
totemic in their origin"--they may be regarded as "clear evidence of
the existence of these totemic ceremonies ... in a tribe living right
on the eastern coast."[35]
Really the evidence of Collins, on analysis, is found to describe
(i.) a Dog dance; (ii.) a native carrying a Kangaroo effigy made of
grass; (iii.) a Kangaroo hunt. Nothing proves the working of _totemic_
ceremonies: the point is not established. Collins saw a hunt dance,
not a ceremony whose "sole object was the purpose of increasing the
number of the animal or plant after which the totem is called," and
to do _that_ is the aim of the _Intichiuma_.[36] The hunt dances
seen by Collins were just those seen by Mr. Howitt at an initiation
ceremony.[37] In the Emu _Intichiuma_ of the Arunta the Emus are
represented by men, but no Emu hunt is exhibited, and women are allowed
to see the imitators of the fowls.[38] The ceremonies reported by
Collins were done at an initiation of boys, which "the women of course
were not allowed to see."[39]
Apparently we have _not_ "clear evidence" that Collins saw
_Intichiuma_, or totemic co-operative magic, in the south, and Mr.
Howitt asserts and tries to explain its absence there.
It is, of course, perfectly natural that men, when once they come to
believe in a mystic connection between certain human groups and certain
animals, should do magic for these animals. But, in point of fact,
we do not find the practice in the more primitively organised tribes
outside the Arunta sphere of influence, and we do find the practice
most, and most highly organised, in tribes of advanced type, in America
and the Torres Isles, quite irrespective of the natural abundance of
supplies, which is supposed to account for the very slight development
of _Intichiuma_ on the north coast of Australia.
I cannot agree with Mr. Hartland in supposing that the barren nature of
the Arunta country forced the Arunta to do magic for their totems. The
country is not so bare as to prevent large assemblies, busy with many
ceremonials, from holding together during four consecutive months,
while Mr. Howitt's south-eastern tribes, during a ceremonial meeting
which lasted only for a week, needed the white man's tea, mutton, and
bread. If fertile land makes agricultural magic superfluous, why does
Europe abound in agricultural magic? Among the Arunta, the totem names,
deserting kinships, clung to local groups, and with the names went the
belief that the inhabitants of the locality or the bearers of the names
had a special _rapport_ with the name-giving animals or plants. This
_rapport_ was utilised in magic for the behoof of these objects, and
for the good of the tribe, which is singularly _solidaire_.
We trust we have shown that the primal origin of totemic institutions
cannot be found in the very peculiar and strangely modified totemism
of the Arunta, and of their congeners. Their marriage law, to repeat
our case briefly, now reposes solely on the familiar and confessedly
_late_ system of exogamous alternating classes, as among other
northern tribes. The only difference is that the totems are now (and
nowhere else is this the case), in both of the exogamous moieties,
denoted by the classes, and they are in both moieties because, owing
to the isolated belief in reincarnation of _local_ ghosts, attached
to stone amulets, they are acquired by accident, not, as elsewhere,
by inheritance. A man who does not inherit his father's totem because
of the accident of his conception in a local centre of another totem,
does, none the less, inherit his totemic ceremonies and rites.
Totemism is thus _en pleine décadence_ among the Arunta, from whom,
consequently, nothing can be learned as to the origin of totemism.
NOTE
The Arunta legends of the _Alcheringa_ usually describe
the various wandering groups, all, in each case, of one
totem, as living exclusively for long periods on their own
totems, plants, or animals. This cannot be historically
true; many plants, and such animals as grubs, are in
season for but a brief time. On the other hand, we meet a
legend of women of the Quail totem who lived exclusively,
not on quails, but on grass seeds.[40] Again, in only one
case are men of the _Achilpa_, or Wild Cat totem, said
to have eaten anything, and what they ate was the Hakea
flower. Later they became Plum men, _Ulpmerka_, but are
not said to have eaten plums. In a note (Note I, p. 219)
Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say that "Wild Cat men are
represented constantly as feeding on plums." They are
never said to have eaten their own totem, the Wild Cat,
which is forbidden to all Arunta, though old men may
eat a little of it Reasons, not totemic, are given for
the avoidance.[41] We are not told anything about the
_Intichiuma_ or magical rites for the increase of the Wild
Cat, which is not eaten. Are they performed by men of the
Wild Cat totem? The old men of the totem might eat very
sparingly of the Wild Cat, at their _Intichiuma_, but
certainly the members of other totems who were present
would not eat at all. The use of a Wild Cat _Intichiuma_
is not obvious: there is no desire to propagate the animal
as an article of food.
[1] _J. A. I._, xii. p. 497. Cf. Native Tribes of South-East Australia,
PP. 173, 174.
[2] I neglected to observe this important passage when reviewing Mr.
Howitt's ideas in _Social Origins_.
[3] _J. A. I._, N.S., i. pp. 284, 285.
[4] _Folk Lore_, December 1904, p. 473. For Mr. Spencer's assertion
that the Aninta social type is advanced, see _Central Tribes_; cf. p.
211. For the probable advanced and relatively recent character of their
initiatory ceremonies, see _Central Tribes_, p. 217; _Northern Tribes_,
p. 329.
[5] _Northern Tribes_, p. 147.
[6] _Central Tribes_, p. 123.
[7] _Northern Tribes_, p. 274.
[8] _J. A. I._, August 1898, pp. 20, 21.
[9] _Northern Tribes_, p. 281.
[10] Ibid., p. 175.
[11] Ibid.
[12] _Central Tribes_, pp. 125, 126.
[13] _Northern Tribes_, pp. 151, 152.
[14] _Central Tribes_, pp. 125, 126.
[15] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, p. 123.
[16] Ibid., p. 150. Figures of the objects are given.
[17] _Northern Tribes_, pp. 145-148.
[18] Ibid., p. 174.
[19] _Northern Tribes_, pp. 146, 149.
[20] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, pp. 153-155.
[21] Spencer and Gillen, _Central Tribes_, p. 123.
[22] _Op. cit_., p. 124.
[23] _Op. cit_., p. 132.
[24] The _churinga_ here spoken of are a kind of stone amulets, of very
various shapes, marked with such archaic patterns of cups, concentric
circles or half circles, and other devices as are found on rock
surfaces in our islands, in India, and generally all over the world,
as in New Caledonia. The same marks occur on small plaques of slate or
schist, in Portuguese neolithic sites, in palæolithic sites, and in
Scotland, where Dr. Munro regards them as not of genuine antiquity.
See _Antiguedades Prehistoricas de Andalucia_, Gongora y Martinez,
Madrid, 1868, p. 109; _Antiguedades Monumentaes do Algarve_, vol. ii.
pp. 429-462, Estacio da Veiga, Lisbon, 1887; _Portugalia_, i. Part IV.,
Severo and Brenha, 1903; _Magic and Religion_ (A. L.), pp. 246-256,
1901. For a palæolithic bone object, exactly like an Arunta _churinga_,
see Hoernes, _Der Diluviale Mensch in Europa_, p. 138, 1903. It does
not follow, of course, that these objects in Europe were ever connected
with a belief like that of the Arunta. The things were probably
talismans of one sort or another.
[25] _Proceedings_, Linnaean Society of New South Wales, 1898, vol.
xxiii. part 3, and vol. xxvi. p. 238.
[26] _Op. cit_., p. 123.
[27] _Northern Tribes_, pp. 272, 373.
[28] _Central Tribes_, p. 265.
[29] Geographical Society of Halle, _Proceedings_, 1883, p. 53.
[30] Notes on Some Manners and Customs of the Aborigines of the
_McDonnell Ranges_, belonging to the _Arunta Tribe_. Gillen, _Horn
Expedition_, iv. p. 183.
[31] _J. A. I._, N.S., p. 278.
[32] Ibid., i. pp. 284, 285. Dr. Roth has conjectured that phratries
were introduced "by a process of natural selection" to regulate the
food supply. But how did they come to regulate marriage? (_Aborigines
of North-West Central Queensland_, pp. 69, 70.)
[33] See _Northern Tribes_, pp. xiii, xiv, 173.
[34] Dorsey, _Omaha Sociology. Siouan Cults. Bureau of Ethnology_,
1881-1882, pp. 238, 239; 1889-1890, p. 537. Frazer, _Totemism_, p. 24.
For Torres Islands, _J. A. I._, N.S., i. pp. 5-17.
[35] _Northern Tribes_, pp. 224, 225.
[36] Spencer and Gillen, p. 169.
[37] _Natives of South-East Australia_, p. 545.
[38] Spencer and Gillen, pp. 182, 183.
[39] _Northern Tribes_, p. 225.
[40] _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, p. 417.
[41] Ibid., p. 168.