THE THEORIES OF DR. DURKHEIM
Theories of Dr. Durkheim--Was man originally
promiscuous?--Difficulty of ascertaining Dr. Durkheim's
opinion--Apparent contradictions--Origin of totemism--A
horde, which did not prohibit incest, splits into two
"primary clans"--These are hostile--Each has an animal
god, and its members are of the blood of the god,
consubstantial with him--Therefore may not intermarry
within his blood--Hence exogamy--These gods, or totems,
"cannot be changed at will"--Questions as to how these
beliefs arise--Why does the united horde choose different
gods?--Why only two such gods?--Uncertainty as to whether
Dr. Durkheim believes in the incestuous horde--Theory of
"collective marriage," a "last resource"--The "primary
clans" said to have "no territorial basis"--Later it
is assumed that they do have territorial bases--Which
they overpopulate--Colonies sent forth--These take new
totems--Proof that an exogamous "clan" has no territorial
basis--And cannot send out "clan" colonies--Colonies
can only be _tribal_--No proof that a "clan" ever
does change its totem--Dr. Durkheim's defence of
one of his apparent inconsistencies--Reply to his
defence--Mr. Frazer's theory (1887) that a totemic "clan"
throws off other clans of new totems, and becomes a
phratry--Objections to this theory--The facts are opposed
to it--Examples--Recapitulation--Eight objections to Dr.
Durkheim's theory.
Dr. Durkheim, Professor of Sociology in the University of Bordeaux,
has displayed much acuteness in his destructive analysis of the Arunta
claims to possess a primitive form of totemism.[1] He has also given
the fullest and most original explanation of the reason why, granting
that groups of early men had each a special regard for a particular
animal or plant, whose name they bore, they tabooed marriage within
that name.[2]
With these and other merits the system of Dr. Durkheim, as unfolded at
intervals in his periodical (_L'Année Sociologique_, 1898-1904), has,
I shall try to show, certain drawbacks, at least as we possess it at
present, for it has not yet appeared in the form of a book. As to the
point which in this discussion we have taken first, throughout, it is
not easy to be certain about the Professor's exact opinion. What was
the condition of human society _before_ totemic exogamy was evolved?
Dr. Durkheim writes, "Many facts tend to prove that, at the beginning
of societies of men, incest was not forbidden. Nothing authorises us
to suppose that incest was prohibited before each horde (_peuplade_)
divided itself into two primitive 'clans,' at least" (namely, what we
now call "phratries"), "for the first form of the prohibition known to
us, exogamy, everywhere appears as correlative to this organisation,
and certainly this is not primitive. Society must have formed a compact
and undivided mass before bisecting itself into two distinct groups,
and some of Morgan's tables of nomenclature" (of relationships)
"confirm this hypothesis."[3]
So far this is the ordinary theory. An undivided promiscuous horde,
for reasons of moral reformation, or any other reason, splits itself
into two exogamous "clans," or germs of the phratries. These, when they
cease to be hostile (as they were on Dr. Durkheim's but not on Mr.
Howitt's theory), peacefully intermarry, and become the phratries in a
local tribe.
Why did the supposed compact horde thus divide itself into two distinct
hostile "clans," each, on Dr. Durkheim's theory, claiming descent from
a different animal, the totem of each "clan"? Why were two bodies in
the same horde claiming two different animal ancestors? Why were the
two divisions in a common horde mutually hostile? That they _were_
originally hostile appears when our author says that, at a given stage
of advance, "the different totemic groups were _no longer_ strangers or
enemies, one of the other."[4] Marriages, at this early period, must
necessarily have been made by warlike capture, for the two groups were
hostile, were exogamous, and, being hostile, would not barter brides
peacefully. Women, therefore, we take it, could only be obtained for
each group by acts of war. "Ages passed before the exchange of women
became peaceful and regular. What vendettas, what bloodshed, what
laborious negotiations were for long the result of this _régime_!"[5]
But why were they exogamous, these two primary groups formed by the
bisection of a previously undivided incestuous horde? Why could not
each of the two groups marry its own women? There must have been a time
when they were not exogamous, and could marry their own women, for
they were only exogamous, in Dr. Durkheim's theory, because they were
totemic, and they did not begin by being totemic. The totem, says Dr.
Durkheim, in explanation of exogamy, is a "god" who is in each member
of his group while they are in him. He is blood of their blood and soul
of their soul.[6] This being so--as it is wrong to shed the blood of
our kindred--a man of totem Emu, say, may not marry a maid of, say,
totem Emu; he must seek a bride from the only other group apparently
at this stage accessible, that is a maid of, say, totem Kangaroo.
Presently all Kangaroos of a generation must have been Emus by female
descent; all Emus, Kangaroos; for the names were inherited through
women. The clans were thus inextricably blended, and neither had a
separate territory, a point to be remembered.
Manifestly the strange superstitious metaphysics of totemism must have
occupied a long time in evolution. The sacredness of the totem is the
result of a primitive "religiosity," Dr. Durkheim says, which existed
before gods or other mythological personages had been developed. There
is supposed by early man (according to our author) to be a kind of
universal element of power, dreadful and divine, which attaches to
some things more than to others, to some men more than to others, and
to all women in their relations with men.[7] This mystic something
(rather like the _Mana_ of the Maories, and the _Wakan_ of many North
American tribes) is believed by each group (if I correctly understand
Dr. Durkheim) to concentrate itself in their name-giving animal, their
totem.[8] All tabu, all blood tabu, has in the totem animal its centre
and shrine, in the opinion of each group. Human kinship, of Emu man to
Emu woman, is, if I understand rightly, a corollary from their common
kinship with the Emu bird; or rather the _sacredness_ of their kinship,
not to be violated by marriage, is thus derived; an opinion which I
share.
How all this came to be so; _why_ each of two "clans" in one horde
chose, or acquired, a given animal as the centre of the mysterious
sacred atmosphere, Dr. Durkheim has not, so far, told us. Yet surely
there must have been a reason for selecting two special animals, one
for each of the two "clans," as _the_ tabu, _the_ totem, _the_ god.
Moreover, as such a strange belief cannot be an innate idea of the
human mind, and as this belief, with its corollaries, is, in Dr.
Durkheim's theory, the sole origin of exogamy, there must have been
a time when men, not having the belief, were not exogamous, and when
their sexual relations were wholly unregulated. They only came under
regulation after two "clans" of people, in a horde, took to revering
two different sacred animals, according to Dr. Durkheim.
The totem, he says, is not only the god, but the ancestor of the
"clan," and this ancestor, says Dr. Durkheim, is not a species--animal
or vegetable--but is such or such an individual Emu or Kangaroo. This
individual Emu or Kangaroo, however, is not alive, he is a creature of
fancy; he is a "mythical being, whence came forth at once all the human
members of the 'clan,' and the plants or animals of the totem species.
Within him exist, potentially, the animal species and the human 'clan'
of the same name."[9]
"Thus," Dr. Durkheim goes on, "the totemic being is immanent in the
clan, he is incarnate in each individual member of the clan, and dwells
in their blood. He is himself that blood. But, while he is an ancestor,
he is also a god, he is the object of a veritable cult; he is the
centre of the clan's religion.... Therefore there is a god in each
individual member of the clan (for the entire god is in each), and, as
he lives in the blood, the blood is divine. When the blood flows, the
god is shed" (_le dieu se répand_).
All this, of course, was the belief (if ever it was the belief) when
totemism was in its early bloom and vigour, for to-day a black will
shoot his totem, but not sitting; and will eat it if he can get nothing
else, and Mr. Howitt mentions cases in which he will eat his totem
if another man bags it.[10] The Euahlayi, with female kin, eat their
totems, after a ceremony in which the tabu is removed.[11] Totemism
is thus decadent to-day. But "a totem is not a thing which men think
they can dispose of at their will, at least so long as totemic beliefs
are still in vigour.... A totem, in short, is not a mere name, but
before all and above all, he is a religious principle, which is one and
consubstantial with the person in whom it has its dwelling-place; it
makes part of his personality. One can no more change one's totem than
one can change one's soul...."[12] He is speaking of Arunta society on
the eve of a change from female to male reckoning of descent.
So far, the theory of Dr. Durkheim is that in a compact communal
horde, where incest was not prohibited, one "clan" or division took to
adoring, say, the Eagle Hawk, another set the Crow; to claiming descent
each from their bird; to regarding his blood as tabu; to seizing
wives only from the other "clan"; and, finally, to making peaceful
intermarriages, each, exclusively, only from the other set, Eagle Hawk
from Crow, Crow from Eagle Hawk. We do not learn why half the horde
adored one, and the other half another animal. If the disruption of the
horde produced two such "clans," "at least," there may have been other
"clans," sets equally primal, as Lizard, Ant, Wallaby, Grub. About
these we hear nothing more in the theory; the two "primary clans" alone
are here spoken of as original, and are obviously the result of a mere
conjecture, to explain the two phratries of animal name, familiar in
our experience.
No attempt is made to explain either why members of the _same_ horde
chose _separate_ animal gods; or why--unless because of consequent
religious differences--the two "clans," previously united, were now
hostile; or why there were at first only two such religious hostile
"clans"; or, if there were more, what became of the others.
Meanwhile, we are not even sure that Dr. Durkheim does believe in a
primary incestuous horde, when "Society must have formed a compact
undivided mass ... before splitting into two distinct groups, and some
of Morgan's tables of nomenclature corroborate this hypothesis."[13]
It is true that Dr. Durkheim makes this assertion. But, in the same
volume (i. p. 332), Dr. Durkheim tells us that Mr. Morgan's theory of
obligatory promiscuity (a theory based, as we saw in Chapter II., on
the terms of relationship) "seems to us to be definitely refuted."
Again, Mr. Morgan, like Mr. Howitt and Mr. Spencer, regarded the
savage terms for relationships as one proof of "group marriage,"
or "collective marriage," including unions of the nearest of kin.
(Compare our Chapter III.) But Dr. Durkheim writes, "The hypothesis of
collective marriage has never been more than a last resource, intended
to enable us to envisage these strange customs: but it is impossible
to overlook all the difficulties which it raises ... this improbable
conception."[14]
Is it possible that, after many times reading the learned Professor's
work, I misunderstand him? With profound regret I gather that he does
not believe in the theory of "obligatory promiscuity" in an undivided
horde, which I have supposed to be the basis of his system; a horde
"in which there is nothing to show that incest was forbidden." That
incest, in Mr. Morgan's theory, was "obligatory," I cannot suppose,
because, if nobody knew who was akin to whom, nothing could compel a
man to marry his own sister or daughter. I am obliged to fear that I
do not understand what is meant. For Dr. Durkheim made society begin
in a united solid _peuplade_, in which "there is no reason to suppose
that incest was forbidden," and as proof he cited some of Mr. Morgan's
tables of relationships. He then gave his theory of how exogamy was
introduced into the "compact undivided mass." He next appears to reject
this "mass," and Morgan's argument for its existence. Is there an
inconsistency, or do I merely fail to understand Dr. Durkheim?
Let us, however, take Dr. Durkheim's theory of a horde with
"permissive" incest, split, for some reason, into two distinct hostile
"clans" worshipping each its own "god," an animal; each occupying
a different territory; reckoning by female kin; exogamous, and
intermarrying. Such communities, exogamous, intermarrying, and with
female descent, Dr. Durkheim uniformly styles "primary clans," or
"elementary totemic groups."[15] It is obvious that they constitute,
when once thoroughly amalgamated by exogamy and peaceful intermarriage,
_a local tribe_, with a definite joint territory, and without _clan_
territory. At every hearth, through the whole tribal domain, both
clans are present; the male mates are, say, Eagle Hawks, the women and
children are Crows, or _vice versa_. Neither "clan" as such "has any
longer a territorial basis." "The clan," says Dr. Durkheim, "has no
territorial basis." "The clan is an amorphous group, a floating mass,
with no very defined individuality; its contours, especially, have no
material marks on the soil."[16] This is as true as it is obvious.
The clans, when once thoroughly intermixed, and with members of each
clan present, as father, mother, and children, by every hearth, can,
as clans, have no local limits, no territorial boundaries, and Dr.
Durkheim maintains this fact Indeed, he distinguishes the clan from the
tribe as being _non-territorial_.[17]
Yet though he thus asserts what every one must see to be true, his
whole theory of the origin of the totem kins ("secondary clans")
within the phratries, and his theory (as we shall show later) of the
matrimonial classes, rests on the contradictory of his averment. He
then takes the line that the exogamous clans with female descent do, or
did, possess definite separate territorial bases, which seems contrary
to the passage where he says that they do not![18] He has reversed his
position.
We first gave Dr. Durkheim's statement as to how the totem kins (which
he calls "secondary clans") came to exist within the phratries.
"When a clan increases beyond a certain measure, its population cannot
exist within the same space: it therefore throws off colonies, which,
as they no longer occupy the same habitat with, nor share the interests
of the original group from which they emerged, end by taking a totem
which is all their own: thenceforth they constitute new clans."[19]
Again, "the phratry is a primary clan, which, as it develops, has been
led to segment itself into a certain number of secondary clans, which
retain their sentiment of community and of solidarity."[20]
All this is (as far as I can see), by Dr. Durkheim's own previous
statement, impossible. A totemic clan, exogamous, with female descent,
cannot, as a clan, overflow its limits of "space," for, as a clan,
he tells us, it "has no territorial basis," no material assigned
frontier, marked on the soil.[21] "One cannot say at what precise point
of space it begins, or where it ends." The members of one "clan" are
indissolubly blended with the members of the other "clan," in the local
tribe. This point, always overlooked by the partisans of a theory that
the various totem kins are segments of "a primary clan," can be made
plain. By the hypothesis there are two "clans" before us, of which
Eagle Hawk (male) always marries Crow (female), their children being
Crows, and Crow (male) always marries Eagle Hawk (female), the children
being Eagle Hawks. The _tribal_ territory is over-populated (the _clan_
has no territory). A _tribal_ decree is therefore passed, that clan
Eagle Hawk must "segment itself," and go to new lands. This decree
means that a portion of clan Eagle Hawk must emigrate. Let, then,
Eagle Hawk men, women, and children, to the amount of half of the clan,
be selected to emigrate. They go forth to seek new abodes. In doing so
the Eagle Hawk men leave their Crow wives at home; the Eagle Hawk women
leave their Crow children, and Crow husbands; the Eagle Hawk children
leave their Crow fathers. Not a man or woman in the segmented portion
of clan Eagle Hawk can now have a wife or a husband, for they can only
marry Crows. They all die out! Such is the result of segmenting clan
Eagle Hawk.
Yet the thing can be managed in no other way, for, if the emigrant
Eagle Hawk men take with them their Crow wives and children, they
cannot marry (unless men marry their daughters, Crows) when they
become widowers, and unless Crow brothers marry Crow sisters, which is
forbidden. Moreover, _this_ plan necessitates a segmentation, not of
_clan_ Eagle Hawk, but of the _tribe_, which is composed of both Crows
and Eagle Hawks. These conspicuous facts demolish the whole theory of
the segmentation of a "clan" into a new clan which takes a new totem,
though it would need two.
Moreover, why should a tribal colony of two blended clans take, as
would be absolutely necessary, two new totem names at all? We know not
one example of change of totem name in Australia.[22] Their old totems
were their gods, their flesh, their blood, their vital energies, by
Dr. Durkheim's own definition. "The members of a clan literally deem
themselves of one flesh, of one blood, and the blood is that of the
mythic being" (the totem) "from which they are all descended."[23]
How and _why_ then, should emigrants from "clans," say Eagle Hawk and
Crow, change their gods, their blood, their flesh, their souls? To
imagine that totems or even the descent of totems can be changed, by
legislation, from the female to the male line, is, says Dr. Durkheim,
"to forget that the totem is not a thing which men think they can
dispose of at will,... at least so long as totemic beliefs are in
vigour."[24]
Our author goes on: "A totem, in fact, is not a mere name, it is, above
all and before all, a religious principle, one with the individual in
whom it dwells; and part of his personality. One can no more change his
totem, than he can change his soul...."
In that case, how did the supposed colonies thrown off by a segmented
clan, manage to change their totems, as they did, on Dr. Durkheim's
theory?[25] They lived in the early vigour of totemic beliefs, and
during that blooming age of totemism, says Dr. Durkheim, "the totem is
not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will," and yet, on
his theory, they did dispose of it, they took new totems.[26]
The supposed process seems to me doubly impossible by Dr. Durkheim's
premises. A "clan," exogamous, with female kin, cannot overflow its
territory, for it has confessedly, as a "clan," no delimitations of
territory. Consequently a clan cannot throw off a colony (only a
tribe can do that); therefore, as there can be no "clan" colony, the
tribal colony cannot change its one totem, _for it has two_. Moreover,
Dr. Durkheim says that there can be no such cavalier treatment of the
totem: "Tant du moins que les croyances totémiques sont encore en
vigueur." Yet he also says that the totems were thus cavalierly treated
when totemic beliefs were in vigour.
Dr. Durkheim, however, might reply: "A tribe with two 'clans' can throw
off colonies, each colony necessarily consisting of members of both
clans, and these can change their two totems." That might pass, if he
had not said that, while totemic beliefs are in vigour, men cannot
dispose of the totem, "a part of their personalities," at their will.
One argument, based on certain facts, has been advanced to show
that the totem kins in the phratries are really the result of the
segmentation of a "clan" into new clans with new totems. This argument,
however, breaks down on a careful examination of the facts on which it
is based, though I did not see that when I wrote _Social Origins_, p.
59, Note 1. The chief circumstance appealed to is this. The Mohegans
in America have three phratries: (1) WOLF, with totem kins Wolf, Bear,
Dog, Opossum; (2) TURKEY, with totem kins Turkey, Crane, Chicken;
(3) TURTLE, with totem kins Little Turtle, Mud Turtle, Great Turtle,
Yellow Eel. "Here we are almost forced to conclude," wrote Mr. Frazer
in 1887, "that the Turtle phratry was originally a Turtle clan which
subdivided into a number of clans, each of which took the name of a
particular kind of turtle, while the Yellow Eel clan may have been a
later subdivision."[27]
Mr. Frazer has apparently abandoned this position, but it seems to
have escaped his observation, and the observation of Dr. Durkheim, who
follows him here, that in several cases given by himself the various
species of totem animals are _not_ grouped (as they ought to be on the
hypothesis of subdivision) under the headship of one totem of their own
kind--like the three sorts of Turtle in the Mohegan Turtle phratry--but
quite the reverse. They are found in the opposite phratry, under an
animal not of their species.
Thus Mr. Dawson, cited by Mr. Frazer, gives for a Western Victoria
tribe, now I believe extinct:--
_Phratry A_.
Totem kins:
_Long-billed Cockatoo_.
Pelican.
_Phratry B_.
Totem kins:
_Banksian Cockatoo_.
Boa Snake.
Quail.
The two cockatoos are, we see, in _opposite phratries_, not in the
same, as they should be by Mr. Frazer's theory.[28]
This is a curious case, and is explained by a myth. Mr. Dawson, the
recorder of the case (1881) was a scrupulous inquirer, and remarks
that it is of the utmost importance to be able to converse with the
natives in their own language. His daughter, who made the inquiries,
was intimately acquainted with the dialects of the tribes in the Port
Fairy district. The natives collaborated "with the most scrupulous
honesty." The tribes had an otiose great Being, Pirmeheeal, or Mam
Yungraak, called also Peep Ghnatnaen, that is, "Father Ours." He is
a gigantic kindly man, living above the clouds. Thunder is his voice.
"He is seldom mentioned, but always with respect."[29] This Being,
however, did not institute exogamy. The mortal ancestor of the race
"was by descent a Kuurokeetch, or Long-billed Cockatoo." His wife was a
female Kappatch (Kappaheear), or Banksian Cockatoo. These two birds now
head opposite phratries. Their children could not intermarry, so they
brought in "strange flesh"--alien wives--whence, by female descent,
came from abroad the other totem kins, Pelican, Boa Snake, and Quail.
Pelican appears to be in Long-billed Cockatoo phratry; Boa Snake in
Banksian Cockatoo phratry. At least these pairs may not intermarry.
Quail, as if both a phratry and a totem kin by itself, may intermarry
with any of the other four, while only three kins are open to each
of the other four.[30] In this instance a Cockatoo phratry has not
subdivided into Cockatoo totem kins, but two species of Cockatoos head
opposite phratries, and are also totem kins in their own phratries.
In the same way, in the now extinct Mount Gambier tribe, the phratries
are Kumi and Kroki. Black Cockatoo (Wila) is in Kroki; in Kumi is Black
Crestless Cockatoo (Karaal).[31] By Mr. Frazer's theory, which he
probably no longer holds, a Cockatoo primary totem kin would throw off
other kins, named after various other species of Cockatoo, and become a
Cockatoo phratry, with several Cockatoo totem kins. The reverse is the
fact: the two Cockatoos are in opposite phratries.
Again, among the Ta-ta-thi tribe, two species of Eagle Hawk occur as
totems. One is in Eagle Hawk phratry (Mukwara), the other is in Crow
phratry (_Kilpara_). This could not have occurred through Eagle Hawk
"clan" splitting into other clans, named after other species of Eagle
Hawk.[32]
In the Kamilaroi phratries two species of Kangaroos occur as totem
kins, but the two Kangaroo totem kins are in opposite phratries.[33]
If Mr. Frazer's old view were correct, both species of Kangaroo would
be in the same phratry, like the various kinds of Turtle in the Mohegan
Turtle phratry. Again, in the Wakelbura tribe, in Queensland, there are
Large Bee and Small or Black Bee _in opposite phratries_.[34]
On Mr. Frazer's old theory, we saw, a phratry is a totem kin which
split into more kins, having for totems the various species of the
original totem animal. These, as the two sorts of Bees, Cockatoos,
Kangaroos, and so on, would on this theory always be in the same
phratry, like the various kinds of Mohegan Turtles. But Mr. Frazer
himself has collected and published evidence to prove that this is far
from being usually the case; the reverse is often the case. Thus the
argument derived from the Mohegan instance of the Turtle phratry is
invalidated by the opposite and more numerous facts. The case of the
Mohegan Turtle phratry, with various species of Turtles for totem kins
within it, is again countered in America, by the case of the Wyandot
Indians. They have four phratries. If these have names, the names are
not given. But the first phratry contains _Striped Turtle_, Bear, and
Deer. The second contains _Highland Turtle, Black Turtle_, and _Smooth
Large Turtle_. If this phratry was formed by the splitting of Highland
Turtle into Black and Smooth Turtles, why is Striped Turtle in the
opposite phratry?[35] The Wyandots, in Ohio, were village dwellers,
with female reckoning of lineage and exogamy. If they married out of
the tribe, the alien was adopted into a totem kin of the other tribe,
apparently changing his totem, though this is not distinctly stated.[36]
Thus Dr. Durkheim's theory of the segmentation of a primary totem
"clan" into other "clans" of other totems is not aided by the facts
of the Mohegan case, which are unusual. We more frequently find
that animals of different species of the same genus are in opposite
phratries than in the same phratry. Again, a totem kin (with female
descent) cannot, we repeat, overpopulate its territory, for, as Dr.
Durkheim says, an exogamous clan with female descent has no territorial
basis. Nor can it segment itself without also segmenting its linked
totem kin or kins, which merely means segmenting the local tribe. If
that were done, there is no reason why the members of the two old
"clans" in the new colony should change their totems. Moreover, in Dr.
Durkheim's theory that cannot be done "while totemic beliefs are in
vigour."
To recapitulate our objections to Dr. Durkheim's theory, we say
(i.) that it represents human society as in a perpetual state of
segmentation and resegmentation, like the Scottish Kirk in the many
secessions of bodies which again split up into new seceding bodies.
First, we have a _peuplade_, or horde, apparently (though I am not
quite sure of the Doctor's meaning) permitted to be promiscuous in
matters of sex. (ii.) That horde, for no obvious reason, splits into
at least two "clans"--we never hear in this affair of more than the
two. These two new segments select each a certain animal as the focus
of a mysterious impersonal power. On what grounds the selection was
made, and why, if they wanted an animal "god," the whole horde could
not have fixed on the same animal, we are not informed. The animals
were their "ancestors"--half the horde believed in one ancestor, half
in another. The two halves of the one horde now became hostile to each
other, whether because of their divergence of opinion about ancestry or
for some other reason, (iii.) Their ideas about their animal god made
it impossible for members of the same half-horde to intermarry, (iv.)
Being hostile, they had to take wives from each other by acts of war.
(v.) Each half-horde was now an exogamous totem kin, a "primary clan,"
reckoning descent on the female side. As thus constituted, "no clan has
a territorial basis": it is an amorphous group, a floating mass. As
such, no clan can overflow its territorial limits, for it has none.
(vi.) But here a fresh process of segmentation occurs. The clan _does_
overflow its territory, though it has none, and, going into new lands,
takes a new totem, though this has been declared impossible; "the
totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of at will, at
least while totemic beliefs are in vigour." Thus the old "clans" have
overflowed their territorial limits, though "clans" have none, and
segments have wandered away and changed their totems, though, in the
vigour of totemic ideas, men do not think that they can dispose of
their totems at will, (vii.) In changing their totems, they, of course,
change their blood, but, strange to say, they still recognise their
relationship to persons not of their blood, men of totems not theirs,
namely, the two primary clans from which they seceded. Therefore they
cannot marry with members of their old primary clans, though these are
of other totems, therefore, _ex hypothesi_, of different blood from
themselves, (viii.) The primary clans, as relations all round grow
pacific, become the phratries of a tribe, and the various colonies
which had split off from a primary clan become totem kins in phratries.
But such colonies of a "clan" with exogamy and female descent are
impossible.
If these arguments are held to prove the inadequacy of Dr. Durkheim's
hypothesis, we may bring forward our own.[37]
[1] _L'Année Sociologique_ v. pp. 82-141.
[2] Ibid., i. pp. 35-57.
[3] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. pp. 62, 63.
[4] Dr. Durkheim here introduces a theory of Arunta totemic magic.
As he justly says, the co-operative principle--each group in a tribe
doing magic for the good of all the other groups--cannot be primitive.
The object of the magic, he thinks, was to maintain in good condition
the totems, which are the gods, of the groups, and, indeed, "the
condition of their existence." Later, ideas altered, ancestral souls,
reincarnated, were the source of life, but the totemic magic survived
with a new purpose, as Magical Co-operative Stores. But why have the
more primitive tribes no totem magic? (_L'Année Sociologique_, v. pp.
117, 118, 119.)
[5] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. p. 64.
[6] Ibid., pp. 51, 52.
[7] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. pp. 38-57.
[8] Ibid., i. pp. 38-53; v. pp. 87, 88. "Le caractère sacré est d'abord
diffus dans les choses avant de se concrétiser sous la forme des
personalités déterminés."
[9] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. p. 51, and Note I.
[10] For other rules see Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, pp.
320-328.
[11] MS. of Mrs. Langloh Parker.
[12] _L'Année Sociologique_, v. pp. 110, 111.
[13] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. p. 63.
[14] i. _L'Année Sociologique_, i. p. 318.
[15] _L'Année Sociologique_, v. pp. 91, 92.
[16] Ibid., i. p. 20.
[17] Ibid., i. p. 6.
[18] Ibid., i. p. 6.
[19] L'Année Sociologique, i. p. 6.
[20] Ibid., v. p. 91.
[21] Ibid., i. p. 20. The thing would only be possible if the two
"clans" were not yet exogamous and intermarrying; but then they would
not be "clans," by the definition!
[22] In _Natives of South-East Australia_, pp. 215, 216, we hear on
the evidence of "Wonghi informants" that members of the totems are
allowed to change totems, "to meet marriage difficulties," and because
in different ports of the tribal territory different animals, which
act as totems, are scarce. The tribe, haring matrimonial classes, is
not pristine, and, if the report be accurate, totemic ideas, from Dr.
Durkheim's point of view, cannot be "still in their vigour."
[23] _L'Année Sociologique_, i. p. 51.
[24] Ibid., V. p. 110.
[25] Ibid., i. p. 6.
[26] In _Folk Lore_, March 1904, I criticised what I regard as an
inconsistency in this part of Dr. Durkheim's theory. I here cite his
reply textually, from _Folk Lore_, June 1904, pp. 215-216.
RÉPONSE A M. LANG.
"Dans le _Folk Lore_ de Mars, M. Lang, sous prétexte de se défendre
contre mes critiques, m'attaque directement. Je suis donc obligé,
à mon grand regret, de demander l'hospitalité du _Folk Lore_ pour
les quelques observations qui suivent. Afin d'abréger le débat, je
n'examinerai pas si M. Lang s'est justifié ou non de mes critiques, et
me borne à répondre à celle qu'il m'a adressée.
"M. Lang me reproche d'avoir renié ma propre théorie sur la nature du
totem. J'aurais (L'Année Sociologique, i. pp. 6 et 52) dit qu'un clan
peut changer de totem et, dans la même périodique (v. pp. 110, 111),
j'aurais établi qu'un tel changement est impossible. En réalité, la
seconde opinion qui m'est ainsi attribuée n'est pas la mienne et je ne
l'ai pas exprimée.
"En effet, je n'ai pas dit que groupes et individus ne pouvaient
jamais changer de totem, mail, ce qui est tout autre chose, que _le
principe de filiation totémique, la manière dont le totem est réputé
se transmettre des parents aux enfants ne pouvait être modifiée par
mesure legislative, par simple convention_. Je cite les expressions que
j'ai employées et que tait M. Lang: "Tant que, d'après les croyances
regnantes, le totem de l'enfant était regardé comme une emanation
du totem de la mère, il n'y avait pas de mesure legislative qui pût
faire qu'il en fut autrement." Et plus bas ("Les croyances totémiques)
ne permettaient pas que _le mode_ de transmission du totem pût être
modifié d'un coup, par un acte de la volonté collective." Il est
clair, en effet, que si l'on croit fermement que l'esprit totémique
de l'enfant est déterminé par la fait de la conception, il n'y a pas
de legislation qui puisse décider qu'à partir d'un certain moment il
aura lieu de telle façon et non de telle autre. Mais mon assertion
ne porte que sur ce cas particulier. Et des changements de totems
restent possibles dans d'autres conditions comme celles dont il est
question dans le Tome I. de _L'Année Sociologique_. J'ajoute que même
ces changements n'ont jamais lieu, à mon sens, par mesure legislative.
J'ai, il est vrai, comparé un changement de totem à un changement
d'âme. Mais ces changements d'âmes n'ont rien d'impossible (pour
l'homme primitif) dans les conditions déterminées. Seulement, ils ne
sauraient avoir lieu par décret; or, c'est tout ce que signifiaient
les quatre ou cinq mots incriminés par M. Lang. Leur sens est très
clairement déterminé par tout le contexte comme je viens de le montrer.
En tout cas, après les explications qui précèdent, appuyées sur des
textes, il ne saurait y avoir de doute sur ma pensée, et je considère
par suite le débat comme clos. E. DURKHEIM."
It distresses me that I am unable to understand Dr. Durkheim's defence.
He does say (_L'An. Soc._ i. p. 6) that the colonies of "clans" too
populous "to exist within their space" "end by taking a totem which
is all their own, and thenceforth constitute new clans." He also does
say that "the totem is not a thing which men think they can dispose of
at their will,... at least so long as totemic beliefs are in vigour"
(_L'An. Soc._ v. p. 110). But his hypothetical colonies _did_ "dispose
of" their old totems "at their will," and took new totems "all their
own," and that while "totemic beliefs were in their vigour." I was
saying nothing about _le principe de filiation totémique_, nor was Dr.
Durkheim when he spoke of clan colonies changing their totems. I print
Dr. Durkheim's defence as others, more acute than myself, may find it
satisfactory.]
[27] Totemism, p. 62, 1887.
[28] Totemism, p. 65, citing Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 26 _et
seq_.
[29] Dawson, _Australian Aborigines_, p. 49.
[30] Ibid., pp. 26, 27.
[31] _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, p. 168. Totemism, p. 85.
[32] _J. A. I._, xiv. p. 349. _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_,
p. 100. I do not know certainly whether Mr. Howitt now translates
_Mukwara_ and _Kilpara_ as Eagle Hawk and Crow.
[33] _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_, p. 104.
[34] Totemism, p. 85. Howitt, _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_,
p. 112.
[35] Powell, Report of Bureau of Ethnology, 1879-80, p. 60.
[36] Op. cit., p. 68.
[37] I have excised a criticism of Dr. Durkheim's theory of the modus
by which "primary clans" segmented into secondary clans (_L'Année
Sociologique_, vi. pp. 7-34), because, since a clan, exogamous and
with female reckoning of descent, cannot conceivably segment itself,
as we have proved, my other arguments are as superfluous as they are
numerous.