DESCENT.
Descent of kinship, origin and primitive form. Matriliny in Australia.
Relation to potestas, position of widow, etc. Change of rule of
descent; relation to potestas, inheritance and local organisation.
In discussions of the origin and evolution of kinship organisations, we
are necessarily concerned not only with their forms but also with the
rules of descent which regulate membership of them. Until recently the
main questions at issue were twofold: (1) the priority or otherwise of
female descent; (2) the causes of the transition from one form of
descent to another. Of late the question has been raised whether in the
beginning hereditary kinship groups existed at all, or whether
membership was not rather determined by considerations of an entirely
different order. Dr Frazer, who has enunciated this view, maintains that
totemism rests on a primitive theory of conception, due to savage
ignorance of the facts of procreation.[10] But his theory is based
exclusively on the foundation of the beliefs of the Central Australians
and seems to neglect more than one important point which goes to show
that the Arunta have evolved their totemic system from the more ordinary
hereditary form. Whether this be so or not, it is difficult to see how
any idea of kinship could arise from such a condition of nescience. If
we take the analogous case of the nagual or "individual totem" there
seems to be no trace of any belief in the kinship of those who have the
same animal as their nagual, but are otherwise bound by no tie of
relationship. Yet if Dr Frazer's theory were correct, this is precisely
what we ought to find.
This is, however, no reason for rejecting the general proposition that
kinship, at its origin, was not hereditary; or, more exactly, that the
beginnings of the kinship groups found at the present day may be traced
back to a point at which the hereditary principle virtually disappears,
although the bond of union and perhaps the totem name already existed.
If, as suggested by Mr Lang, man was originally distributed in small
communities, known by names which ultimately came to be those of the
totem kins, we may suppose that daily association would not fail to
bring about that sense of solidarity in its members which it is found to
produce in more advanced communities. In the case of the tribe an even
feebler bond, the possession of a common language, seems to give the
tribesmen a sense of the unity of the tribe, though perhaps other
explanations may be suggested, such as the possession in common of the
tribal land, or the origin of the tribe from a single blood-related
group. However this may be, it seems reasonable to look for one factor
of the first bond of union in the influence of the daily and hourly
association of group-mates. On the other hand, if, as Mr Lang supposes,
the original group was a consanguine one, the claims of the factor of
consanguinity and perhaps of foster brotherhood and motherhood cannot be
neglected. It may be true, as Dr Frazer argues, that man was originally
and still is in some cases ignorant of physiological facts. But all
races of man and a great part of the rest of the animal kingdom show us
the phenomena of parental affection, of care for offspring and sometimes
of union for their defence. This does not, it may be noted, imply any
predominance of the mother.[11]
We may suppose that the idea of kinship or the recognition of
consanguinity, whichever be the more correct term to apply to these
far-off developments of the factors of human society, extended only by
degrees beyond the limits of the group. First, perhaps, came the naming
of the group, already, it may be, exogamous; then came the recognition
of the fact that those members of it, viz. the women, who passed to
community B after being born and having resided for years in community
A, were in reality, in spite of their change of residence, still in fact
the kin of community A; finally came the step of assigning to their
children the group names which were retained by their mothers from the
original natal groups. This brings us face to face with the first of the
fundamental questions of descent, to which allusion has been made.
It is commonly assumed by students of primitive social organisation that
matrilineal descent is the earlier and that it has everywhere preceded
patrilineal descent; but the questions involved are highly complicated
and it can hardly be said that the subject has been fully discussed.
Much of what has been said on the point has been vitiated by the
introduction of foreign factors. Thus, the child belongs to the tribe of
the father where the wife removes to the husband's local group or tribe.
But though it may be taken as a mark of matrilineal institutions, often
associated with matria potestas or its analogue the rule of the mother's
brother, that the husband should remove and live with the wife, we are
by no means entitled to say that the removal of the wife to the husband
implies a different state of things. Customs of residence are no guide
to the principles on which descent is regulated. Consequently it is
entirely erroneous to import into the discussion with which we are
concerned, viz. the rules by which _kinship_ is determined, any
considerations based on the rules by which membership of a _tribe_ is
settled.
Similarly, no proof of the existence of paternal authority in the family
throws any light on the question of whether the children belong to the
kin of the father rather than of the mother. Where the mother or
mother's brother is the guardian, we are usually safe in assuming that
descent is or has been until recently matrilineal. But from the
undisputed existence of patria potestas no similar inference can be
drawn.
Again, as will be shown below, not even the tie of blood between parent
and child, confined though it may be in the opinion of the people whose
institutions are in question, to a single parent, is an index to the way
in which is determined the kinship organisation to which the child
belongs.
It is therefore clear that the utmost discrimination is necessary in
dealing with these questions; rules of descent must be kept apart from
matters which indeed influence the evolution of the rules but are in no
way decisive as to their form at any given moment.
Returning now to the alleged priority of matrilineal descent in
determining the kinship organisation into which a child passes, it may
be said that whereas evidences of the passage from female to male
reckoning may be observed,[12] there is virtually none of a change in
the opposite direction. In other words, where kinship is reckoned in the
female line, there is no ground for supposing that it was ever
hereditary in any other way. On the other hand, where kinship is
reckoned in the male line, it is frequently not only legitimate but
necessary to conclude that it has succeeded a system of female kinship.
But this clearly does not mean that female descent has in _all_ cases
preceded the reckoning of kinship through males. Patrilineal descent may
have been directly evolved without the intermediate stage of reckoning
through females.
The problem is probably insoluble. No decisive data are available, for
the mere absence of traces of matrilineal descent does not necessarily
prove more than that it had long been superseded by reckoning of kinship
through males. All that can be said is that in the kinship organisations
known to us female descent seems to have prevailed in the vast majority
of cases and probably existed in the residual class of indeterminable
examples.
With patria potestas it is, of course, different. There can be little
doubt that it might and probably did develop in the absence of kinship
organisations and in a state of society where consanguinity is no real
bond after the children have reached puberty. If therefore under such
circumstances a kinship organisation were to come into existence, either
independently or by transmission, it might well be that patrilineal
principles prevailed from the first. But of such a case we have no
knowledge. It may perhaps be questioned whether the actually existing
peoples who appear to have no kinship organisations, such as the
Hottentots, the Bushmen, the Veddahs and perhaps the Fuegians, are not
in this state rather as a result of the break-up of their former
organisation than because they have never evolved kinship groups. But
our knowledge in these matters is lamentably small and the problem is
not one which calls for discussion here.
The second fundamental problem relating to rules of descent is that of
the cause of the transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. The
subject needs to be discussed in detail for each particular area before
general conclusions can be formulated; it is quite possible that the
causes will be found to differ widely; for no general rule can be laid
down as to the relations between matrilineal descent and other cultural
conditions.
All that can be attempted here is an examination of the various elements
in the problem so far as it affects Australia. To this may be prefixed a
further discussion of the origin of matrilineal descent with especial
reference to Australian conditions.
It is commonly assumed that in a pure matrilineal community, the husband
removes to the wife's local group (matrilocal marriage), or if not that,
that at any rate the authority in the family rests in the hands of the
mother's brothers, who are also the heirs to the exclusion of the
children. But of any such custom of removal there is but the very
slenderest evidence in Australia. According to Howitt it occurs
occasionally in Victoria and among the Dieri; among the Wakelbura it is
done only if a man elopes with a betrothed woman and the man to whom she
was betrothed dies; among the Kuinmurbura it seems to have been a
recognised thing for a man who married a woman of another tribe to
remove, but in this case he took no part in intertribal warfare[13]. In
all these cases, the Kurnai excepted, descent is reckoned in the female
line.
If however Dr Howitt's informant, who does not seem to have been
particularly accurate in many cases, is to be relied on, the removal of
the husband to the wife's group is also found among the patrilineal
Maryborough tribes, though only if the woman belonged to a distant
tribelet, whatever that may be[14]. To this information is added the
statement that in such cases the husband joined his wife's tribe for
purposes of hostilities also and that it has happened that a son has
come into conflict with his father under these circumstances and
endangered his life with full knowledge of what he was doing. There is,
it is true, no definite statement to the effect that children in these
tribes take their totems from the father, but we may assume that it is
the case. If therefore the statement in question is accurate, it is a
pretty clear proof of the break-up of the social system; for under no
circumstances does the totem-kinsman, as a rule, violate the
sacro-sanctity of his own flesh. It cannot therefore be argued that the
fact of removal in the Maryborough tribes is any very strong evidence of
the primitive nature of the custom. In the other tribes, on the other
hand, it is distinctly stated that the practice prevails only when
marriage takes place between members of two different tribes, and among
the Wakelbura only exceptionally even when the wife is of an alien folk.
Whatever else the custom proves in these cases, it certainly evidences
the existence of friendly relations between the tribes in question; for
if it were otherwise the man would hardly be disposed to give up the
security of his own people for the perils of a strange community; on the
other hand it is hardly likely that the man's tribe would allow him to
pass over to the ranks of the strangers, nor would they view with
equanimity the loss of effective fighting strength which would result
from the fact that his children too would be numbered against them, not
for them, if it came to hostilities. The custom is therefore clear
evidence of fairly permanent friendly relations in the district in
question; and it is plain that we cannot assume these to have existed in
more primitive times. It is therefore difficult to see in what way the
present day practices lend support to the theory that the original usage
was for the husband to remove to his wife's group. For, be it noted,
there is not a single case, unless we include the anomalous Kurnai, in
which the husband removes to his wife's group within his own tribe; but
clearly this is the custom to which the removal theory applies. So far,
therefore, as Australia is concerned, the removal theory falls to the
ground; it cannot of course be disproved, but we are not justified in
assuming that matrilineal descent and matria potestas are due to a
custom of removal.
Inasmuch as patrilocal[15] marriage involves descent of group and tribal
property rights in the male line, it might appear that in rejecting the
hypothesis of a prior stage of matrilocal marriage, we are involving
ourselves in difficulties; for it is clearly not easy to see how descent
could come to be reckoned through the mother, while property descended
through the father. But it is obviously unnecessary in the first place
to regard the individual rights of property as originating
simultaneously or under the same conditions as the rules as to kinship
or even communal property; there is nothing to show how long the present
system of land tenure in Australia has held good, and it is clearly one
which points to a certain growth of population; for if the local group
were remote from their neighbours, there would be little need to
encroach; moreover, the exact delimitation of territory now in practice
is a thing of long growth.
Further consideration however shows that it is only by a confusion of
thought that we can speak of land descending in the male line (that is,
of course, in respect of group rights, not private property, to which we
return later); strictly speaking the descent of landed property is
neither in the male nor the female line but local. A man who removes to
his wife's tribe is, so far as we can see, as truly part owner of the
tribal land as if he were himself a member of the tribe by birth within
its limits. The suggested difficulty, therefore, does not exist, and the
conclusion as to removal customs holds good.
We may now examine the relation of matriliny to the seat of authority in
the family. Questions of potestas naturally range themselves under more
than one head. We have (1) the relation of the husband (_a_) to the wife
and (_b_) to the children; (2) the relation of the mother to the
children, and closely connected with this the influence of the mother's
brother; finally (3) we have the position of the widow, a matter indeed
more intimately connected with inheritance from a legal point of view
but in Australia more closely connected with potestas than in countries
where slavery is a recognised institution.
Small as is our information on Australian jurisprudence, it is certain
that the husband enjoys practically unrestricted rights over the person
of his wife, _pirrauru_ and similar customs apart. He may at will lend
her or hire her out to strangers; he may punish her infidelity,
disobedience or awkwardness by chastisement, not stopping short of the
infliction of spear or club wounds; he may even, according to Roth[16],
go so far as to kill her and yet get off scot free, his only duty in
such a case being to provide a sister for the brothers of his dead wife
to kill in retaliation.
This custom suggests that the kin to which the woman belongs claim a
certain property in her even after she is married, and this partial
proprietorship naturally implies a slight protecting influence; for it
would clearly not be in every case easy for the homicidal male to find a
sister ready to go out and be killed as a set-off to his murdered wife.
We should not, it is true, overlook the fact that the customs of the
Pitta-Pitta differ from those of many of the Australian tribes, in that
exchange of sisters is not practised. Otherwise it would be tempting to
argue that this proprietorship in the women of their kin may go back to
the time of Mr Lang's connubial groups and help to explain the reckoning
of descent through females. For clearly, if a woman still belongs in a
sense to the group she has left, so may her children belong to the same
group, inasmuch as their relationship to her is, to us at any rate,
unmistakeable. If any evidence could be produced for the widespread
existence of the custom (found in various parts of the globe, though
not, up to the present, in Australia), according to which the widow and
her children remove to her own district, some probability would be
imparted to this hypothesis.
The ordinary rule as regards punishment inflicted by the husband on the
wife seems to be that he may go any length short of doing her a mortal
injury, without being liable to be called to account. The punishment of
death however may only be inflicted for adultery and certain specified
offences without incurring a blood-feud with the woman's relatives.
It is by no means improbable that under the influence of the custom of
exchanging sisters there may be a tendency for the control of the kin in
this respect to diminish; in fact the Boulia example is only explicable
on this hypothesis. At the same time we cannot overlook the fact that
elopement, or real marriage by capture, as distinguished from formal
abduction, would, so far as we can see, have a similar effect, and the
rise of the custom of exchange of sisters would in that case tend to
re-establish rather than weaken the power of the woman's kin, at any
rate in the first instance.
However this may be, the woman's kin exercises, _primâ facie_, some kind
of protectorship. At the present day the kinship may be matrilineal or
patrilineal without affecting their right. But if, before kinship was
reckoned at all, this protectorship were exercised for the benefit of
the children, we clearly have a possible cause of matriliny.
For a discussion of the question of the inheritance of the deceased's
wife by his brother we have more facts at our disposal. As a matter of
fact it is a not infrequent custom in Australia for the widow to pass to
the deceased husband's brother[17]; or if she does not become his wife,
he decides to whom she shall be allotted[18]. In no case do the woman's
kin seem to have a voice in the selection of her new husband. On the
whole therefore the proprietary rights found in the Boulia district seem
to be the product of exceptional local conditions. If this is so, it is
clear that in the matter of potestas the rights of the woman's kin are
now absolutely restricted to protecting her from a death which she has
not according to native law deserved and to avenging such a death when
it is inflicted by the husband.
The so-called levirate, or right of succession to the widow, is clearly
of much importance, so far as questions of dominion are concerned; but
as regards the problems of descent the evidence is less easily
interpreted. It has sometimes been assumed that the succession of the
brother and not the son is a mark of matriliny; but it is clear that
where the right of appropriating the widow is concerned, this is very
far from being the case, for the simple reason that the real matria
potestas would put her at the disposal of the kin from whom she
originally came; on the other hand, inasmuch as the son is naturally
debarred from marrying his own mother or his tribal mother, who commonly
belongs to a class into which he does not marry, there might easily
arise in a purely patripotestal and patrilineal tribe a custom of
handing over the widow to the father's brother.
On the whole however it seems simplest to regard the matter as one in
which the rights are determined by no considerations of inheritance or
descent but simply by the rule that the property in the woman remains
vested in the body of purchasers. For it must be remembered that not
only an own but also a tribal sister may be given in exchange for a
wife. From this it follows that, theoretically at any rate, the
contracting parties are corporations rather than individuals, and in
this case the death of the individual on whose behalf the transaction
has been effected does not extinguish the proprietary rights acquired by
handing over a woman, standing in the relation of sister to the one
corporation, in exchange for another woman standing in the relation of
sister to the other corporation.
If this solution is correct, it is unnecessary to go into the
complicated question of the relation of brother-inheritance to matriliny
and patriliny. For it is by no means clear that it is an exemplification
of the former rather than the latter principle. It may, of course, be
argued that brothers succeed as children of the same mother; but against
this must be set the fact that they are also children of the same
father; for uncertain paternity can only be a _vera causa_ where
_pirrauru_ and similar customs are found; and even here the pre-eminence
of the primary husband might well be held to determine the legal
paternity of the children, which is, of course, especially in Africa, a
matter of potestas rather than procreation. However this may be, the
position of the widow does not appear to invalidate the guardianship
origin of matriliny.
We now turn to the question of why male tends to take the place of
female descent. The possible factors are (1) authority in the family,
(2) the rise of chieftainship and inheritance generally, and (3) the
organisation of the family group. Of the authority of father or mother
over the children, there is not much trace in Australia except in the
most youthful period of the pre-adult life. It is for example
exceptional for a parent to correct a child. As to who decides in cases
of infanticide we have unfortunately too little information to be able
to generalise. Only in one important step--that of betrothal--have we
anything like adequate information, and the interrelations between rule
of descent and potestas are found to be in this case sufficiently clear,
though it is not clear on what principle it is decided _who_ shall
exercise the right.
Taking first tribes with matrilineal descent, we find that the Barkinji,
the Wakelbura, the Dieri, and in some cases the Wollaroi, assign the
right of betrothal to the mother or mother's brother[19]. In other
cases, transitional forms, the father, his elder brother, or the girl's
brothers decide, or else the parents or two of these persons
jointly[20]. Among the Mukjarawaint the betrothal rested in part with
the paternal grandparents[21]; it may be noted that the grandfather had
to decide also whether a child should be brought up or killed. Among the
Kuinmurbura it falls to the mother's brother's son or the father's
sister's son, who is, apparently, entitled to marry the girl
himself[22].
Turning now to tribes with male descent, we find that the father, his
brother, or the parents, almost invariably make the decision[23]. Among
the eight-class tribes, Spencer and Gillen assert in one place[24] that
the mother's brother betroths a girl; but this is contradicted in two
other passages[25], and cannot be regarded as reliable.
On the whole therefore it appears that while there are some survivals of
matria potestas into patrilineal descent, and in the matrilineal stage
transitional forms are found, the right of betrothal tends to pass from
the mother's to the father's side, when the rule of descent changes; but
there is little to show how far a change in the right of betrothal tends
to cause a change in the rule of descent.
A curious fact may be noted here, which goes far to demonstrate the
absolutely heterogeneous nature of kinship and consanguinity, and
suggests that descent is not reckoned in the female line on account of
any supposed specially close connection between the mother and her
offspring. Of the four tribes among which, according to Howitt, the
child is regarded as the offspring of the father alone[26], the mother
being only its nurse, two, the Yuin and Kulin, have male descent; two,
however, the Wolgal and Tatathi, have female descent, and among the
latter, in addition, the right of betrothal lies with the mother or
mother's brother.
On the whole, therefore, it may be said that no questions of potestas
seem to have exercised any influence in bringing about the transition
from matrilineal to patrilineal descent. It does not appear necessary,
therefore, to do more than allude in passing to a fact which may well
have had something to do with the decay of matria potestas, at any rate,
so far as the mother's brother is concerned, even if it did not actively
hasten the coming of patria potestas. This fact is the considerable size
of the area over which, with the rise of the so-called nations, it is
possible to select a wife. The more remote geographically the mother's
relatives, the less their influence. Allowance must of course be made
for the opportunities of discussion afforded by the great gatherings of
the tribes; but the wider area of bride-choice must have shaken the
authority of the brother.
It has been remarked above that there is no well-established case of the
right of betrothal being assigned on patrilineal principles in a
matrilineal tribe. The influence of the father's brother is not
necessarily a mark of patrilineal tendencies, except in so far as all
patria potestas is such. That the elder brother has authority in this
case is no more decisive than that the elder brother has authority in
cases of betrothal; it is no more an exemplification of the simple
patria potestas, which has already been shown to be universal and under
but slight limitations so far as the wife is concerned. From the point
of view of potestas, it is a great advance that the father should be
able to dispose of his own daughter in marriage; but if we may judge by
the survival of matria potestas into patriliny, the cases of patria
potestas under matriliny cannot have exercised an important influence in
bringing about a change in the rule of descent.
The case of the power of the girl's own brother is somewhat different.
_Primâ facie_ it appears to owe its origin to the fact that it is the
brothers who are mainly interested in the transaction, inasmuch as it is
to them that wives come in exchange for the sisters given in marriage.
Consequently we cannot, as has already been the case with the so-called
levirate, assign the practice definitely either to matripotestal or
patripotestal customs, for father's and mother's authority are alike
overruled.
It has already been stated that we have but few data for estimating the
influence of the right of betrothal on the rule of descent. Clearly the
father has little to gain from the fact that his daughter follows him
rather than the mother, when the inevitable effect of the marriage
regulations is to make her children of the phratry and totem of her
husband, and consequently to make them of a different phratry and totem
from her father. Under matriliny on the other hand there is nothing to
prevent the grandchildren from being of the same totem as the
grandfather, and they are necessarily of the same class in a four-class
tribe. If considerations with regard to the phratry and totem of the
grandchildren played any part in bringing about a change in the rule of
descent, this must have been based on a review of the changes that would
be brought about in the position of the son's and not the daughter's
offspring. But this is unlikely.
But on the other hand the father's disposal of the daughter's hand is
indirectly a means of increasing his influence both with his son and in
general. If the son gains his wife by an exchange of sisters, the
father's authority is obviously increased. But we do not know how far
this factor of the right of betrothal has operated.
Turning now to questions of inheritance, we find that properly speaking
the hereditary chief is unknown in Australia. There is a tendency for
the son of the tribal headman to succeed his father, but it is subject
to exceptions. Moreover, it is by no means a universal rule for the
tribe to have an over-headman; it may be ruled by the council of
district headmen. In any case the influence of the quasi-hereditary
character of the over-headmanship upon the rule of descent cannot but
have been comparatively slight.
It is, on the other hand, usual for the local group and the totem kin to
have headmen. In the case of the latter, age is often the qualification,
as among the Dieri[27]; in such cases there is no possible effect on the
rule of succession. But among some of the Victorian tribes with
matrilineal descent the rule is for the son to follow the father in the
headmanship[28]; and the same is the case, as we should expect, among
the patrilineal eight-class tribes[29]. The most important tribe in
which hereditary headmanship is combined with female descent is the
Wiradjeri[30]; their neighbours, the Kamilaroi, showed marked respect to
the son of a headman, if he possessed ability, though they did not,
apparently, make him his father's successor[31].
On the whole, then, we cannot assign much weight to this element in the
list of possible causes of the transition.
Of inheritance of chattels or land and fixtures we know little. From
Spencer and Gillen we learn that among the Warramunga the mother's
brother, or daughter's husband, succeeds to the boomerangs, and other
moveable property[32]. Among the Kulin and the Kurnai inheritance in the
male line seems to have been the rule. In the Adelaide district, as we
learn from Gerstaecker[33], individual property in land was known; it
descended in the male line. Among the Turribul there was individual
property in _bunya-bunya_ trees; these too devolved from father to
son[34].
On the other hand on the Bloomfield property in zamia nut grounds has
vested in women and descends from mother to daughter[35]; but in this
remarkable variant we see, of course, not the influence of the mother's
kin, but female influence or rather the right of females to the produce
of their labour. In respect of other property, inheritance in North
Queensland is in the male line, for it descends to blood brothers and
remains in the same exogamous group from generation to generation.
This brings us to the question of the part played by the local group in
causing the change from female to male descent. Under ordinary
circumstances, with female descent, the local group is made up of
persons of different phratries and totems; in any case, just as the
phratry and totem of the members of the individual family change from
generation to generation, the complexion of the local group is liable to
be completely changed; though in practice the changes in one direction
are no doubt counterbalanced by changes in the other, so that the net
result may be nil, when the original differences were small. But we
cannot suppose that the group was often evenly balanced; and a change in
the rule of descent would in that case have important results for the
local group and in any case for the individual family.
The importance of the difference in the constitution of the local group
under descent in the male line is seen when we reflect that in the
normal tribe the totem kin is practically the unit for many purposes.
If, for example, an emu man has killed, let us say, an iguana man, it is
the duty of the iguana men to avenge the death of their kinsman. Their
vengeance need not, however, fall on the original perpetrator of the
deed; according to the rules of savage justice all the emu men are
equally responsible with the culprit; consequently it suffices to kill
the first emu person whom they can find. Conversely, those to whom an
emu man looks for defence, when he is attacked, or assistance, when he
wishes to abduct a wife or anything of that sort, are his fellow emu
men. It is therefore clear that the rule of male descent gives far
greater security to the members of a local group; for they are
surrounded by kinsmen. Under the rule of female descent, on the other
hand, they probably have some kinsmen in the same group but equally a
considerable number of members of other totem kins.
Self-interest therefore, no less than the natural sympathy between
fathers and children, as well as between members of the same group
(quite apart from forays and fighting), must have tended to bring about
a change in the laws of descent.
The late Major J.W. Powell has already described the transition from
matria potestas to patria potestas among the Pueblo peoples. He put it
down to economic conditions, which lead the groups to scatter, each
under the headship of a male, who is also the husband; this naturally
resulted in a weakening of the influence of the mother's brother. It is,
however, less clear that it would bring about the decay of the power of
the mother herself, which in Australian tribes, at any rate, seems to be
independent of the support she obtains from her male relatives.
In Australia, as we have seen, the change from matria to patria potestas
had but little influence in bringing about a change in the rule of
descent. Here, too, the change in the rule of descent may be put down in
the main to economic causes also in a broad sense. Dumping was not in
those days a question of practical politics; the problem was to prevent
the neighbours from pursuing the policy of the free and open port. The
necessity of protecting tribal and group property in land and game would
naturally tend to bind men closer and closer, in proportion as the
pressure from without became greater. It is perhaps hardly accidental
that the main area of male descent is that which has also developed the
Intichiuma ceremonies.
If Prof. Gregory's view[36] that the occupation of Victoria by the
natives dates back no more than 300 years is correct, we may perhaps see
in the migration one cause of the rise of patriliny. Anything which
tended to shake the influence of the mother's kin would increase the
father's power; and the need of protecting newly established groups
from the incursions of their neighbours would be more urgent than in
older districts. As we have seen, the first mentioned cause has
elsewhere had little direct effect; but it may well have played a larger
part under the novel conditions of migration and occupation of fresh
territory.
In South Queensland the fractionation of tribes seems to have gone
further than elsewhere, unless we suppose that we have here an area,
where, as in California, pressure from without has crowded together the
remnants of many tribes. Although it is not obvious how the
multiplication of distinct tribes has favoured patrilineal descent, we
may, at any rate, say that the conditions in the area are exceptional;
possibly it was more fruitful than the greater part of the continent; if
so personal property in the shape of trees, etc., which we have already
seen in existence in this area, would play a more important _rôle_ here,
and may well have determined the transition to patrilineal descent.
FOOTNOTES:
[10] _Fortn. Rev._ Sept. 1905, cf. van Gennep, _Mythes et Légendes_.
[11] It cannot be said that the ordinary theory of the development of
kinship in the female line is satisfactory. The consanguine relation of
mother and child does not appear to be a complete answer to the question
why kinship--an entirely different thing--was reckoned through the
mother; the alleged uncertainty of fatherhood is in the first place
closely connected with an unproven stage of promiscuity and consequently
hardly a _vera causa_, until further evidence of such a stage has been
produced; and again among the Arunta, it is rather potestas than
physical fatherhood which, on their theory, determines the kinship of
the child so far as the class is concerned. For the primitive group
therefore we cannot assert any predominant interest of the mother in the
children nor yet admit that it would necessarily be important if it were
shown to exist.
[12] _Année Sociologique_ V, 104 sq.; VIII, 132 sq.; Tylor in _J.A.I._
XVIII, 245-272.
[13] Howitt, pp. 220, 225, 234, 248; cf. 159, 269.
[14] _ib._ p. 234.
[15] P. 30 _infra_.
[16] _Ethnological Studies_, p. 141.
[17] Howitt, pp. 193, 224, 227, 236.
[18] _ib._ p. 248, cf. 227.
[19] Howitt, pp. 195, 221, 177, 217.
[20] _ib._ pp. 210, 227, 252, 216, 177, 260.
[21] _ib._ p. 243.
[22] _ib._ p. 219.
[23] _ib._ pp. 232, 257, 236.
[24] _Nor. Tr._ p. 603.
[25] _ib._ pp. 77 n., 114.
[26] Howitt, pp. 263, 255, 198, 195.
[27] Howitt, p. 298.
[28] _ib._ pp. 306, 308 sq.
[29] _Nor. Tr._ p. 23.
[30] Howitt, p. 303.
[31] _ib._ p. 302.
[32] _Nor. Tr._ p. 524.
[33] _Reisen._ IV, 347.
[34] _Petrie's Reminiscences_, p. 117.
[35] _N.Q. Ethn. Bull._ VIII.
[36] _Proc. R.S. Vict._ XVII, 120.