PHRATRY NAMES.
The Phratriac Areas. Borrowing of Names. Their Meanings. Antiquity of
Phratry Names. Eaglehawk Myths. Racial Conflicts.
Intercommunication. Tribal Migrations.
It has been shown in Chapter III that from the point of view of kinship
organisations Australia falls into three main areas--occupied by the
classless two-phratry, the four-class and the eight-class organisations.
The total number of phratry names, thirty-three pairs in all, does not
of course fall solely to the count of the two-phratry tribes, but is
divided between the three kinds of organisation, the two-phratry having
twelve pairs with one anomalous area, the four-class sixteen, and the
eight-class five such sets. As regards the relative size of the areas
thus organised, the largest seems to be that occupied by the
Matteri-Kiraru system, though the Muquara-Kilpara (5) probably runs it
close, especially if we take into account the names of like meaning
(1-4) in the East Victorian area. The remainder of the two-phratry
systems do not range over a wide extent of country, so far as is known;
but 10, 11, and 33 are of unknown extent.
In the four-class area are two extensive systems, ranking next after
those of South Australia and N.S. Wales; these are Mallera-Wuthera (27)
and Pakoota-Wootaro (29); they have a single phratry name in common,
which is also found in two other systems; if we add these together, as
we may perhaps do on this evidence of a common basis, we have by far the
largest phratric system in Australia as the result. Almost equal in
extent to either of the two areas occupied by 27 and 29 is that claimed
by the better known Kamilaroi system--Dilbi-Kupathin, which spreads over
a long, comparatively narrow region, but had possibly at one time a
wider field from which at the present time only the corresponding class
names can be recovered. Of the remaining thirteen in the two-class
region, only 28, one of the Wuthera systems already mentioned, has more
than a restricted field of influence. Of moderate size are the four
areas in the eight-class system proper, that of the Mara being small in
comparison.
Taking now the native names, we find that, in addition to the Wuthera
(Ootaroo) sets already mentioned, the Dieri and Kurnandaburi have
Matteri (Mattera) in common, while the latter have in the Baddieri tribe
a neighbour which shares the Yungo phratry name with them. The fact, if
correct, that with the Badieri Yungo is associated with Wutheru, and
takes the place of the more usual Yungaru, suggests that we may equate
the latter with Yungo. In the eight-class area Uluuru is common to two
systems, while a third has Wiliuku, and the fourth Illitchi, all of
which seem to be allied, if we may take it that uru, uku, and tchi are
suffixes; that they are is borne out by the corresponding names
Liaritchi and Liaraku. Other possible equations are Mukula--Mukumurra,
and Cheepa--Koocheebinga, but in the latter case, even if koo is a
prefix, the distance of the two systems makes any such correspondence
improbable. In Victoria the Malian-Multa equation is indisputable; it is
interesting to note that the former is found in N.S. Wales as the name
of the bird, while Multa belongs to Yorke Peninsula.
As regards the meaning of these names, we find that of the fifty-eight
names which remain after deducting those which occur in more than one
system, nineteen can be translated with certainty, and we can guess at
the meaning of some half dozen more. Of translateable names the most
widely spread are various titles of Eaglehawk and Crow, which appear in
five different systems in Victoria and New South Wales[100]. Crow
reappears in West Australia under the name of Wartung, with white
cockatoo, also a Victorian phratry name, as its fellow. In North
Queensland, as a parallel to the black and white cockatoo of the south,
we find on the Annan River two species of bee giving their names to
phratries; and the Black Duck phratry of the Waradjeri suggests that
here too might be found another contrasting pair, if we could translate
the other name. For the Euahlayi phratry names, on which more will be
said in discussing the "blood" organisations, Mrs Parker gives the
translation "Light-blooded" and "Dark-blooded," which comes near that
suggested by Mr Mathews--slow and quick blooded. In the Ulu, Illi, and
Wili of Northern Territory we seem to recognise Welu (curlew). Koolpuru
(emu), Yungaru and Yungo (kangaroo), and Wutheroo (emu) are also
possible meanings.
The problems raised by the phratriac nomenclature are complex and
probably insoluble. They are in part bound up with the problem of the
origin of the organisation itself; of this nature, for example, is the
question whether the names correspond to anything existing in the
pre-phratriac stage, or whether the organisation was borrowed and the
names taken over translated or untranslated into the idiom of the
borrowers. If the latter be the solution, we have a simple explanation
of the wide-spread Eaglehawk-Crow system as well as of other facts, to
which reference is made below.
If on the other hand the names have not been much spread by
borrowing,--and the increasing number of small phratry areas known to us
tells in favour of this, though it also suggests that the widely-found
systems have gained ground at the expense of their neighbours,--then we
obviously need some theory as to the origin of the organisation, before
we can frame any hypothesis as to the origin of the names.
The prominent part, however, played by the Eaglehawk among phratry names
raises some questions which can be discussed on their merits. One of
these is the age of phratry names. Some of the earliest records of
initiation ceremonies in New South Wales mention that the eaglehawk
figured in them[101]. In West Australia this bird is the demiurge, and
the progenitors of the phratries, of which crow is one, are his nephews.
This is not the only case in which these birds figure in mythology.
As the Rev. John Mathew has pointed out in his work, _Eaglehawk and
Crow_, there are found in Australia, especially in the south-eastern
portion, a number of myths relating to the conflicts of these birds.
These myths he interprets as echoes of a long-past conflict between the
aboriginal Negrito race and the invading Papuans, and traces the origin
of the phratries to the same racial strife. As an explanation of exogamy
the hypothesis is clearly insufficient, but it is evident that no theory
of the origin of the phratries can leave exogamy out of the question.
The point, however, with which we are immediately concerned is the myth
on which in the main Mr Mathew based his theory. Unfortunately, he did
not think it necessary to attempt to define either the area covered by
the different phratry names--an omission which is remedied by the
present work--nor yet the limits within which the myth in question or
its analogues are part of the native mythology. These analogues to the
story of the battle of Eaglehawk and Crow, ended in the Darling area
according to tradition by a treaty between the contending birds, are
myths in which birds are said to have destroyed the human race, or a
large portion of it, to have contended with Baiame, or one of the other
gods, or to have figured in some other conflict[102]. The bird of this
myth--the bird conflict myth, as it may be termed--is the Eaglehawk.
Possibly, as I have pointed out in the note in _Man_, both bird conflict
myths and Eaglehawk-Crow myths--they may be termed collectively bird
myths--may go back to a common origin. So far as Mr Mathew's evidence
goes, bird myths do not seem to be told outside the colony of Victoria
and the Darling area of New South Wales.
A little research, however, shows that this idea is altogether
erroneous. There are unfortunately large areas in Australia, as to the
mythology of which we know absolutely nothing. Therefore it must not be
supposed that the bird conflict myth is confined to the districts in
which we have evidence of its existence. We may rather infer that a myth
so widely distributed--it ranges from the head of the Bight, 129° E., to
the coast north of Sydney, and probably as far as Moreton Bay; to the
north it is found among the Urabunna, and probably elsewhere--is common
property of the Australian Tribes.
A glance at the map will show that the eaglehawk and crow myth covers
but a small portion of the area in which the bird conflict myth is
found. On the other hand we find within the eaglehawk-crow myth district
the phratry names Cockatoo, three names of unknown meaning, and the
doubtful Kiraru--Kirarawa. Now if a racial conflict is indicated by the
names eaglehawk and crow, this must be either because the contending
races were already known by these names, or because the two birds in
question are proverbially hostile to each other. In either case we are
left without any explanation of the two cockatoo phratries. It may
indeed be argued that the locality in which the eaglehawk-crow phratry
names are found tells strongly in favour of the racial conflict
hypothesis; for it is precisely in this area that the last stand of the
aborigines against the invaders may, on the theory put forward by Mr
Mathew and accepted by some anthropologists[103], be supposed to have
taken place. But against this must be set the fact that in this area
also we find two cockatoos, and on the Annan River two bees, arrayed
against one another; unless it can be shown that these two birds are
also proverbial foes, or that the Australian native had reached a point
in his biological investigations at which he recognised that the
presence of two closely allied species in a district involves a
particularly keen struggle for existence (which they would, however,
regard in such an advanced stage of knowledge as appropriate to the
designation of intra-racial rather than inter-racial feuds), the two
sets of facts balance one another, and leave us still engaged in a vain
quest for a conclusion.
Putting theories as to racial conflicts aside, and dealing with the
facts as we find them, we seem to have a choice of two hypotheses.
Either the eaglehawk-crow myths were told before the phratry names came
into existence, or they were invented to explain the existence of the
phratry names. Let us assume that none of the unknown names mean
eaglehawk or crow, and that the eaglehawk-crow area has remained
approximately the same size, or has, at any rate, not diminished
(excluding, of course, those cases where it seems to have lost ground
owing to the disappearance of phratry names altogether, as among the
Kurnai); we must then, on the second theory, assume that the story of
the combat spread to tribes with completely different phratry names like
the Urabunna, and got mixed up with their ceremonies of initiation (the
most sacred part of the mythology of the Australian natives, and one not
likely to be much influenced by chance intruders); and that it came even
in some cases to be told of Baiame, the creator and institutor of the
rites of initiation, who is represented as himself taking part in the
conflict and gaining a victory over the foes of mankind[104]. On the
whole, therefore, this view of the case appears improbable.
To the theory that the Eaglehawk-Crow story was originally independent
of the phratry names no such objections apply. We are indefinitely
remote from the period at which the anthropologist will be able to do
for Australia what Franz Boas has done for the North-West of
America--draw up a table showing the resemblances and differences
between the stock of folktales of the different tribes, or, which is
more important for our present purpose, of the main divisions, eastern,
central, and western, which the analysis of initiation ceremonies gives
us--a tripartite division which Curr also makes on the linguistic side,
though Mathew's map shows considerable intermixture in this respect.
Until we know to what extent the Urabunna or the Ikula have folktales in
common with the Victorian area, or,--which is perhaps more important,
though we do not seem to hear of any communication on this line,--how
far there is a stock of folktales common to the Darling district and the
central area, it is obviously idle to speculate as to how it comes that
an Eaglehawk myth is told in both areas. The physical anthropology of
the Australian natives is at present a little-worked field, in which,
singularly enough, the French have done more than the English, to our
shame be it said. Possibly a somatological survey might disclose to what
extent the central tribes are distinct from the eastern group, and how
far we may assume movements of population, subsequent to the original
peopling of the country by the stocks in question, in either or both
directions. In the absence of such data, and until an Australian Grimm
has arisen to bring order into the present linguistic chaos, the
evidence from folktales seems to promise most light on the question of
migrations.
We are, of course, confronted by the difficulty that this evidence may
simply disclose the lines along which tribal intercommunication has been
most easy, whether in the way of simple interchange of commodities,
evidence of which we have over considerable areas in Australia, or in
the way of intermarriage, which, as we see by the example of the
Urabunna and the Arunta, is found in spite of fundamental differences of
tribal organisation. A common stock of folktales due to this cause would
leave unexplained the prominence of the bird myth in the sacred rites,
and leave the present hypothesis, in this regard, on a par with that of
post-phratriac dissemination, in respect of probability. On the other
hand we have the Scylla of tribal property in land, an idea so firmly
rooted in our own day in the minds of the Australians as to make wars of
conquest unthinkable to them, and to transform the practical part of
their intertribal feuds into mere raids. If, therefore, investigation
showed that the central and eastern tribes are in possession of a stock
of folktales with many items in common, we should always have to take
into consideration the possibility that these tales antedate the
complete occupation of Australia, and go back to a period when the
eastern and central divisions were in close relation. The probability of
this view would, of course, depend on the extent of the resemblance
between the two stocks of tales, or, perhaps, rather on the extent of
the resemblance between those tales which they have in common; for it is
clear that a close resemblance between comparatively few items would be
more effective proof of intercommunication than a less marked general
resemblance between the tale-stocks as a whole.
In spite of the deficiencies of our evidence we may perhaps incline to
the view that the bird myth dates back to a very early period. Until it
has been shown that intrusive elements are not only taken up into the
tribal stock of tales, but also incorporated in the more sacred portion
of those tales, which are told at the tribal mysteries, it will always
remain more probable that the myth belongs to the two divisions as a
result of lineal and not lateral transmission. If this is so the
differences between the initiation ceremonies, no less than the
anthropomorphic form of the myth in the eastern division, as compared
with the purely theriomorphic story of the central division and the
mixed form of the Ikula, will enable us to say that the period when the
separation of the divisions took place must be very remote.
There is, therefore, no inherent improbability in supposing that the
bird myth was told before the phratry names were invented or adopted,
and that the latter were in some cases taken from the principal
characters in the myth. This conclusion is supported by the fact that
the phratry names seem to be subsequent to the present grouping, if we
may take as our guide the fact that the frontiers of the phratry names
correspond with the boundaries between the central and eastern
divisions. The fact that there is a cross division, if we base our
reasoning on the class organisation, need not of course be taken into
account, for we have every reason to believe that the classes are
subsequent to the phratries.
In favour of the derivation of the phratry names from the myth tells
also the five-fold division of the eaglehawk-crow groups into Muquara
and Kilpara, Bunjil and Waa, Merung and Yuckembruk, Multa or Malian and
Umbe. For it is clearly more probable that the names should have been
taken from a common object than that they should have been in their
origin identical in form and subsequently differentiated, as the
languages changed; we have in fact direct evidence of a tendency to
preserve the old names, which we may perhaps regard as the sacred names,
after the bird has been rebaptised in the terminology of daily life.
Over and above this we have of course the fact that the sacred language
has, generally speaking, both in Australia and elsewhere, this
unchanging character. But this simple name-borrowing theory, it is
clear, is equally valid as an explanation of the facts.
Although we cannot determine the meaning of the names the quadripartite
division of the Mallera-Wuthera[105] and allied phratries in the north is
evidence of a similar tendency. It is by no means impossible that
Mallera, Yungaroo, and Pakoota all mean the same thing. (This ignorance
of the meaning of the phratry and class names is _primâ facie_ evidence
of their high antiquity.) In the newly-discovered phratry names of the
eight-class tribes we have yet another instance of tripartite division.
If we may assume that Illitchi, Uluuru, and Wiliuku are from the same
root (which, as we have seen, is probably _welu_, the terminations
_-uku_, _-itchi_, and _-uru_ (=_-aree_) being formative suffixes), we
have here too a single phratry name on the one side and three sister
names on the other. While it is clear that the names cannot be in any
sense of the term recent, from the fact that linguistic differentiation
had already gone some distance in what we may call, for want of a better
term, groups speaking a stock language (in proof of which we have only
to look at the formative suffixes), it seems equally clear that the
present phratry names must be considerably later than the final
settlement of the country. At the same time it must not be forgotten
that the existence of numerous small phratries, the number of which may
yet be largely increased by more exact research, is _primâ facie_ a
proof that the groups which adopted them had not reached the stage at
which anything like that tribal (still less national) organisation was
known, which is at the present day characteristic of the Arunta, and,
perhaps, we may say, of all groups organised on a class system with
class names known and used over an area far beyond that over which the
(in a restricted sense) tribal language extends.
The recurrence of crow in the phratry name of the far west lends further
support to the view that the phratry names were selected in some way,
and were not due to some accident of savage wit. The view has been taken
that the phratry animals were originally totems, or animals that became
totems at a later stage. In view of the large number of totems found in
many tribes, or even restricting their number to six or eight in each
phratry, it is not difficult to estimate the probability that cockatoo
and crow would recur in different areas, and that an opposition of
characters should be found in other cases. The hypothesis needs at any
rate to be combined with a theory, firstly, of borrowing of phratry
names, a process which must indeed have played a large part in the
development of the present system, but which does not necessarily
involve the supposition that the borrowed names replaced previously
existing home-made names; and, secondly, of selection of such names as
were not borrowed.
It has been mentioned that the principle of tribal property in land or,
to be strictly accurate, in hunting grounds, is, at the present day, a
fundamental one in native Australian jurisprudence. But, as is shown by
the map, in some cases the phratries are split into two or more
segments[106], more or less remote from one another, geographically
speaking. Now this apparent segmentation must be due to migration; it
can hardly arise from the chance adoption of identical names; for the
groups in which the names occur are, though separated by a considerable
distance, not so remote as, on the theory of chance selection, we should
expect them to be, in other words the probability is in favour of the
segmentation of an original group or its cleavage by an intrusive
element. Of the causes of this drift of population, which on a large
scale, and under pressure of any kind, might well overrule even the
rights of property, we have naturally no idea. In a homogeneous mass
like the population of Australia, and especially in a mass whose level
of culture is so low as to leave no remains behind which we could use
for the purposes of chronology, it is hopeless to expect any solution of
any of the problems connected with drift of population. One thing only
seems clear, and on this point we may hope for some light from the data
of philology, namely that the migration was long subsequent to the
original _Volkerwanderung_; for this must have preceded the rise of
phratry names, which again must have preceded the migration of which the
segmentation of groups, evidenced by the names themselves, is at
present, and in default of the aid of philology, our only proof.
The migrations of which we are speaking must, if the possession of one
phratry name in common be worth anything as evidence of a closer
connection between the groups, have been internal to a group or, if the
term be preferred, to a nation occupying the south of Queensland. For in
the absence of evidence that phratry names are to be found outside their
own linguistic groups, we cannot but infer from the quadripartite
division of the Wuthera phratries both the linguistic unity (and
language must be in Australia the ultimate test of racial relationship
on a large scale) and the internal movements of the group in which they
occur.
In favour of the primitive unity of the Wuthera groups, is the fact that
with small exceptions, and those on the outskirts of the district, the
area occupied by the assumed homogeneous pre-phratry group has the same
class names throughout--which is at the same time a proof that the class
names are posterior to the phratry names; for the later the date, the
more extensive the group, may be taken to be the rule in savage
communities; if the phratry names came later than the class names we
should expect them to be identical, and the class names different
instead of the reverse. But to the relative age of classes and phratries
we return at another point of our argument.
The available data being few, it could hardly be expected that a
discussion of them would be very fruitful. In the present chapter we
have, however, shown that the phratry names and organisation are
probably of very early date, that considerable movements of population
took place within the linguistic groups subsequent to the adoption of
the phratry names, and that these names have been selected for some
explicit reason and not adopted at haphazard.
FOOTNOTES:
[100] For references, meanings, etc. see chap. IV.
[101] See _Man_ 1905, no. 28.
[102] Cf. _Man_, 1905, no. 28.
[103] But see _J.R.S. Vict._ XVII, 120.
[104] See _Man_, 1905, no. 28, where I show that in the Wellington
Valley was current a myth of the conflict between Baiame and Mudgegong
(=Eaglehawk).
[105] Chap. IV, phratries, nos. 27-29.
[106] See Map III, phratry no. 28.