by which a stock (scattered through many local tribes) claims descent
from and kindred with some plant, animal, or other natural object.
This object, of which the effigy is sometimes worn as a badge or
crest, members of the stock refuse to eat. As a general rule, marriage
is prohibited between members of the stock--between all, that is, who
claim descent from the same object and wear the same badge. The
exogamous limit, therefore, is denoted by the stock-name and crest,
and kinship is kinship in the wolf, bear, potato, or whatever other
object is recognised as the original ancestor. Finally, as a general
rule, the stock-name is derived through the mother, and where it is
derived through the father there are proofs that the custom is
comparatively modern. It will be acknowledged that this sort of
kindred, which is traced to a beast, bird, or tree, which is
recognised in every person bearing the same stock-name, which is
counted through females, and which governs marriage customs, is not
the sort of kindred that would naturally arise among people regulated
on the patriarchal or monandrous family system. Totemism, however, is
a widespread institution prevailing all over the north of the American
continent, also in Peru (according to Garcilasso de la Vega); in
Guiana (the negroes have brought it from the African Gold Coast, where
it is in full force, as it also is among the Bechuanas); in India
among Hos, Garos, Kassos, and Oraons; in the South Sea Islands, where
it has left strong traces in Mangaia; in Siberia, and especially in
the great island continent of Australia. The Semitic evidences for
totemism (animal-worship, exogamy, descent claimed through females)
are given by Professor Robertson Smith, in the _Journal of Philology_,
ix. 17, _Animal Worship and Animal Tribes among the Arabs, and in the
Old Testament_. Many other examples of totemism might be adduced
(especially from Egypt), but we must restrict ourselves to the
following questions:--
1. What light is thrown on the original form of the family by
totemism? 2. Where we find survivals of totemism among civilised
races, may we conclude that these races (through scarcity of women)
had once been organised on other than the patriarchal model?
As to the first question, we must remember that the origin and
determining causes of totemism are still unknown. Mr. M'Lennan's
theory of the origin of totemism has never been published.[222] It may
be said without indiscretion that Mr. M'Lennan once thought totemism
arose at a period when ideas of kinship scarcely existed at all. 'Men
only thought of marking one off from another,' as Garcilasso de la
Vega says: the totem was but a badge worn by all the persons who found
themselves existing in close relations; perhaps in the same cave or
set of caves. People united by contiguity, and by the blind sentiment
of kinship not yet brought into explicit consciousness, might mark
themselves by a badge, and might thence derive a name, and, later,
might invent a myth of their descent from the object which the badge
represented. I do not know whether it has been observed that the
totems are, as a rule, objects which may be easily drawn or tattooed,
and still more easily indicated in gesture-language. Some interesting
facts will be found in the _First Annual Report of the Bureau of
Ethnology_, p. 458 (Washington, 1881). Here we read how the 'Crow'
tribe is indicated in sign-language by 'the hands held out on each
side, striking the air in the manner of flying.' The Bunaks (another
bird tribe) are indicated by an imitation of the cry of the bird. In
mentioning the Snakes, the hand imitates the crawling motion of the
serpent, and the fingers pointed up behind the ear denote the Wolves.
Plainly names of the totem sort are well suited to the convenience of
savages, who converse much in gesture-language. Above all, the very
nature of totemism shows that it took its present shape at a time when
men, animals, and plants were conceived of as physically akin; when
names were handed on through the female line; when exogamy was the
rule of marriage, and when the family theoretically included all
persons bearing the same family name, that is, all who claimed kindred
with the same plant, animal, or object, whether the persons are really
akin or not. These ideas and customs are not the ideas natural to men
organised in the patriarchal family.
The second question now arises: Can we infer from survivals of
totemism among Aryans that these Aryans had once been organised on the
full totemistic principle, probably with polyandry, and certainly with
female descent? Where totemism now exists in full force, there we find
exogamy and derivation of the family name through women, the latter
custom indicating uncertainty of male parentage in the past. Are we to
believe that the same institutions have existed wherever we find
survivals of totemism? If this be granted, and if the supposed
survivals of totemism among Aryans be accepted as genuine, then the
Aryans have distinctly come through a period of kinship reckoned
through women, with all that such an institution implies.[223] For
indications that the Aryans of Greece and India have passed through
the stage of totemism, the reader may be referred to Mr. M'Lennan's
'Worship of Plants and Animals' (_Fortnightly Review_, 1869, 1870).
The evidence there adduced is not all of the same value, and the
papers are only a hasty rough sketch based on the first testimonies
that came to hand. Probably the most important 'survival' of totemism
in Greek legend is the body of stories about the amours of Zeus in
animal form. Various noble houses traced their origin to Zeus or
Apollo, who, as a bull, tortoise, serpent, swan, or ant, had seduced
the mother of the race. The mother of the Arcadians became a she-bear,
like the mother of the bear stock of the Iroquois. As we know plenty
of races all over the world who (like Greek royal houses) trace their
descent from serpents, tortoises, swans, and so forth, it is a fair
hypothesis that the ancestors of the Greeks once believed in the same
fables. In later times the swan, serpent, ant, or tortoise was
explained as an _avatar_ of Zeus. The process by which an
anthropomorphic god or hero succeeds to the exploits of animals, of
theriomorphic gods and heroes, is the most common in mythology, and is
illustrated by actual practice in modern India. When the Brahmins
convert a pig-worshipping tribe of aboriginals, they tell their
proselytes that the pig was an avatar of Vishnu. The same process is
found active where the Japanese have influenced the savage Ainos, and
persuaded them that their bear- or dog-father was a manifestation of a
deity. We know from Plutarch (_Theseus_, vii. viii.) that one Carian
~genos~, the Ioxidae, revered the asparagus because it was friendly to
their ancestress, as a totem should be. A vaguer indication of
totemism may perhaps be detected in the ancient theriomorphic statues
of Greek gods, as the Ram-Zeus and the Horse-headed Demeter, and in
the various animals and plants which were sacred to each god and
represented as his companions.[224]
The hints of totemism among the ancient Irish are interesting. One
hero, Conaire, was the son of a bird, and before his birth his father
(the bird) told the woman (his mother) that the child must never eat
the flesh of fowls. 'Thy son shall be named Conaire, and that son
shall not kill birds.'[225] The hero Cuchullain, being named after
the dog, might not eat the flesh of the dog, and came by his ruin
after transgressing this totemistic taboo. Races named after animals
were common in ancient Ireland. The red-deer and the wolves were
tribes dwelling near Ossory, and Professor Rhys, from the frequency
of dog names, inclines to believe in a dog totem in Erin. According
to the ancient Irish 'Wonders of Eri,' in the _Book of Glendaloch_,
'the descendants of the wolf are in Ossory,' and they could still
transform themselves into wolves.[226] As to our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors, there is little evidence beyond the fact that the names
(in many cases patronymics) of the early settlements of Billings,
Arlings, and the rest, are undeniably derived from animals and
plants. The manner in which those names are scattered locally is
precisely like what results in America, Africa, and Australia from
the totemistic organisation.[227] In Italy the ancient custom by
which animals were the leaders of the _Ver sacrum_ or armed migration
is well known. The Piceni had for their familiar animal or totem (if
we may call it so) a woodpecker; the Hirpini were like the
'descendants of the wolf' in Ossory, and practised a wolf-dance in
which they imitated the actions of the animal.
Such is a summary of the evidence which hints that Aryans may once
have been totemists, therefore savages, and therefore, again, had
probably been in a stage when women were scarce and each woman had
many husbands.
(4) _Evidence from the Gens or ~genos~._--There is no more puzzling
topic in the history of the ancient world than the origin and nature
of the community called by the Romans the _gens_, and by the Greeks
the ~genos~. To the present writer it seems that no existing community
of men, neither totem kin, nor clan, nor house community, nor _gotra_,
precisely answers to the _gens_ or the ~genos~. Our information about
these forms of society is slight and confused. The most essential
thing to notice for the moment is the fact that both in Greece and
Rome the ~genos~ and _gens_ were extremely ancient, so ancient that
the ~genos~ was decaying in Greece when history begins, while in Rome
we can distinctly see the rapid decadence and dissolution of the
_gens_. In the laws of the Twelve Tables, the _gens_ is a powerful and
respected corporation. In the time of Cicero the nature of the _gens_
is a matter but dimly understood. Tacitus begins to be confused about
the gentile nomenclature. In the Empire gentile law fades away. In
Greece, especially at Athens, the early political reforms transferred
power from the ~genos~ to a purely local organisation, the Deme. The
Greek of historical times did not announce his ~genos~ in his name (as
the Romans always did), but gave his own name, that of his father, and
that of his deme. Thus we may infer that in Greek and Roman society
the ~genos~ and _gens_ were dying, not growing, organisations. In very
early times it is probable that foreign _gentes_ were adopted _en
bloc_ into the Roman Commonwealth. Very probably, too, a great family,
on entering the Roman bond, may have assumed, by a fiction, the
character and name of a _gens_. But that Roman society in historical
times, or that Greek society, could evolve a new _gens_ or ~genos~ in
a normal natural way, seems excessively improbable.
Keeping in mind the antique and 'obsolescent' character of the _gens_
and ~genos~, let us examine the theories of the origin of these
associations. The Romans themselves knew very little about the matter.
Cicero quotes the dictum of Scaevola the Pontifex, according to which
the _gens_ consisted of _all persons of the same gentile name_ who
were not in any way disqualified.[228] Thus, in America, or
Australia, or Africa, all persons bearing the same totem name belong
to that totem kin. Festus defines members of a _gens_ as persons of
the same stock and same family name. Varro says (in illustration of
the relationships of words and cases), 'Ab AEmilio homines orti AEmilii
sunt gentiles.' The two former definitions answer to the conception of
a totem kin, which is united by its family name and belief in identity
of origin. Varro adds the element, in the Roman _gens_, of common
descent from one male ancestor. Such was the conception of the _gens_
in historical times. It was in its way an association of kinsfolk,
real or supposed. According to the Laws of the Twelve Tables the
gentiles inherited the property of an intestate man without agnates,
and had the custody of lunatics in the same circumstances. The _gens_
had its own _sacellum_ or chapel, and its own _sacra_ or religious
rites. The whole _gens_ occasionally went into mourning when one of
its members was unfortunate. It would be interesting if it could be
shown that the _sacra_ were usually examples of ancestor-worship, but
the faint indications on the subject scarcely permit us to assert
this.
On the whole, Sir Henry Maine strongly clings to the belief that the
_gens_ commonly had 'a real core of agnatic consanguinity from the
very first.' But he justly recognises the principle of imitation,
which induces men to copy any fashionable institution. Whatever the
real origin of the _gens_, many _gentes_ were probably copies based
on the fiction of common ancestry.
On Sir Henry Maine's system, then, the _gens_ rather proves the
constant existence of recognised male descents among the peoples where
it exists.[229]
The opposite theory of the _gens_ is that to which Mr. M'Lennan
inclined. 'The composition and organisation of Greek and Roman tribes
and commonwealths cannot well be explained except on the hypothesis
that they resulted from the joint operation, in early times, of
exogamy, and the system of kinship through females only.'[230] 'The
_gens_,' he adds, 'was composed of all the persons in the tribe
bearing the same name and accounted of the same stock. Were the
_gentes_ really of different stocks, as their names would imply and as
the people believed? If so, how came clans of different stocks to be
united in the same tribe?... How came a variety of such groups, of
different stocks, to coalesce in a local tribe?' These questions, Mr.
M'Lennan thought, could not be answered on the patriarchal hypothesis.
His own theory, or rather his theory as understood by the present
writer, may be stated thus. In the earliest times there were
homogeneous groups, which became totem kin. Let us say that, in a
certain district, there were groups called woodpeckers, wolves, bears,
suns, swine, each with its own little territory. These groups were
exogamous, and derived the name through the mother. Thus, in course of
time, when sun men married a wolf girl, and her children were wolves,
there would be wolves in the territory of the suns, and thus each
stock would be scattered through all the localities, just as we see in
Australia and America. Let us suppose that (as certainly is occurring
in Australia and America) paternal descent comes to be recognised in
custom. This change will not surprise Sir Henry Maine, who admits that
a system of male may alter, under stress of circumstances, to a system
of female descents. In course of time, and as knowledge and
common-sense advance, the old superstition of descent from a
woodpecker, a bear, a wolf, the sun, or what not, becomes untenable. A
human name is assumed by the group which had called itself the
woodpeckers or the wolves, or perhaps by a local tribe in which
several of these stocks are included. Then a fictitious human ancestor
is adopted, and perhaps even adored. Thus the wolves might call
themselves Claudii, from their chief's name, and, giving up belief in
descent from a wolf, might look back to a fancied ancestor named
Claudius. The result of these changes will be that an exogamous totem
kin, with female descent, has become a _gens_, with male kinship, and
only the faintest trace of exogamy. An example of somewhat similar
processes must have occurred in the Highland clans after the
introduction of Christianity, when the chief's Christian name became
the patronymic of the people who claimed kinship with him and owned
his sway.
Are there any traces at all of totemism in what we know of the Roman
_gentes_? Certainly the traces are very slight; perhaps they are only
visible to the eye of the intrepid anthropologist. I give them for
what they are worth, merely observing that they do tally, as far as
they go, with the totemistic theory. The reader interested in the
subject may consult the learned Streinnius's _De Gentibus Romanis_, p.
104 (Aldus, Venice, 1591).
Among well-known savage totems none is more familiar than the sun. Men
claim descent from the sun, call themselves by his name, and wear his
effigy as a badge.[231] Were there suns in Rome? The Aurelian _gens_
is thus described on the authority of Festus Pompeius: 'The Aurelii
were of Sabine descent. The Aurelii were so named from the sun
(_aurum_, _urere_, the burning thing), because a place was set apart
for them in which to pay adoration to the sun.' Here, at least, is an
odd coincidence. Among other gentile names, the Fabii, Cornelii,
Papirii, Pinarii, Cassii, are possibly connected with plants; while
wild etymology may associate Porcii, Aquilii, and Valerii with swine
and eagles. Pliny (_H. N._, xviii. 3) gives a fantastic explanation of
the vegetable names of Roman _gentes_. We must remember that vegetable
names are very common in American, Indian, African, and Australian
totem kin. Of sun names the Natchez and the Incas of Peru are familiar
examples. Turning from Rome to Greece, we find the ~genos~ less
regarded and more decadent than the _gens_. Yet, according to Grote
(iii. 54) the ~genos~ had--(1) _Sacra_, 'in honour of the same god,
supposed to be the primitive ancestor.' (2) A common burial-place. (3)
Certain rights of succession to property. (4) Obligations of mutual
help and defence. (5) Mutual rights and obligations to intermarry in
certain cases. (6) Occasionally possession of common property.
Traces of the totem among the Greek ~gene~ are, naturally, few. Almost
all the known ~gene~ bore patronymics derived from personal names. But
it is not without significance that the Attic demes often adopted the
names of obsolescent ~gene~, and that deme names were, as Mr. Grote
says (iii. 63), often 'derived from the plants and shrubs which grew
in their neighbourhood.' We have already seen that at least one
ancient ~genos~, the Ioxidae, revered the plant which, as the myth ran,
befriended their ancestress. One thing is certain, the totem names,
and a common explanation of the totem names in Australia, correspond
with the names and Mr. Grote's explanation of the names of the Attic
demes. 'One origin of family names,' says Sir George Grey (ii. 228),
'frequently ascribed by the natives, is that they were derived from
some vegetable or animal being common in the district which the family
inhabited.' Some writers attempt to show that the Attic ~genos~ was
once exogamous and counted kin on the mother's side, by quoting the
custom which permitted a man to marry his half-sister, the child of
his father but not of his mother. They infer that this permission is a
survival from the time when a man's _father's_ children were not
reckoned as his kindred, and when kinship was counted through mothers.
Sir Henry Maine (p. 105) prefers M. Fustel de Coulanges' theory, that
the marriage of half-brothers and sisters on the father's side was
intended to save the portion of the girl to the family estate. Proof
of this may be adduced from examination of all the recorded cases of
such marriages in Athens. But the reason thus suggested would have
equally justified marriage between brothers and sisters on both sides,
and this was reckoned incest. A well-known line in Aristophanes shows
how intense was Athenian feeling about the impiety of relations with a
sister uterine.
On the whole, the evidence which we have adduced tends to establish
some links between the ancient ~genos~ and _gens_, and the totem
kindreds of savages. The indications are not strong, but they all
point in one direction. Considering the high civilisation of Rome and
Greece at the very dawn of history--considering the strong natural
bent of these peoples toward refinement--it is almost remarkable that
even the slight testimonies we have been considering should have
survived.
(5) On the evidence from myth and legend we propose to lay little
stress. But, as legends were not invented by anthropologists to prove
a point, it is odd that the traditions of Athens, as preserved by
Varro, speak of a time when names were derived from the mother, and
when promiscuity prevailed. Marriage itself was instituted by Cecrops,
the serpent, just as the lizard, in Australia, is credited with this
useful invention.[232] Similar legends among non-Aryan races, Chinese
and Egyptian, are very common.
(6) There remains the evidence of actual fact and custom among Aryan
peoples. The Lycians, according to Herodotus, 'have this peculiar
custom, _wherein they resemble no other men_, they derive their names
from their mothers, and not from their fathers, and through mothers
reckon their kin.' Status also was derived through the mothers.[233]
The old writer's opinion that the custom (so common in Australia,
America and Africa) was unique, is itself a proof of his good faith.
Bachofen (p. 390) remarks that several Lycian inscriptions give the
names of mothers only. Polybius attributes (assigning a fantastic
reason) the same custom of counting kin through mothers to the
Locrians.[234] The British and Irish custom of deriving descents
through women is well known,[235] and a story is told to account for
the practice. The pedigrees of the British kings show that most did
not succeed to their fathers, and the various records of early Celtic
morals go to prove that no other system of kinship than the maternal
would have possessed any value, so uncertain was fatherhood. These are
but hints of the prevalence of institutions which survived among
Teutonic races in the importance attached to the relationship of a
man's sister's son. Though no longer his legal heir, the sister's son
was almost closer than any other kinsman.[236]
We have now summarised and indicated the nature of the evidence which,
on the whole, inclines us to the belief of Mr. M'Lennan rather than of
Sir Henry Maine. The point to which all the testimony adduced
converges, the explanation which most readily solves all the
difficulties, is the explanation of Mr. M'Lennan. The Aryan races
have very generally passed through the stage of scarcity of women,
polyandry, absence of recognised male kinship, and recognition of
kinship through women. What Sir Henry Maine admits as the exception,
we are inclined to regard as having, in a very remote past, been the
rule. No one kind of evidence--neither traces of marriage by capture,
of exogamy, of totemism, of tradition, of noted fact among Lycians and
Picts and Irish--would alone suffice to guide our opinion in this
direction. But the cumulative force of the testimony strikes us as not
inconsiderable, and it must be remembered that the testimony has not
yet been assiduously collected.
Let us end by showing how this discussion illustrates the method of
Folklore. We have found anomalies among Aryans. We have seen the
_gens_ an odd, decaying institution. We have seen Greek families claim
descent from various animals, said to be Zeus, or another god, in
disguise. We have found them tracing kinship and deriving names from
the mother. We have found stocks with animal and vegetable names. We
have found half-brothers and sisters marrying. We have noted
prohibitions to marry any one of the same family name. All these
institutions are odd, anomalous, decaying things among Aryans, and the
more civilised the Aryans the more they decay. All of them are living,
active things among savages, and, far from being anomalous, are in
precise harmony with savage notions of the world. Surely, then, where
they seem decaying and anomalous, as among Aryans, these customs and
laws are mouldering relics of ideas and practices natural and
inevitable among savages.
FOOTNOTES:
[206] _Early Law and Custom._
[207] _Studies in Ancient History_, p. 127.
[208] _Descent of Man_, ii. 362.
[209] _Early Law and Custom_, p. 210.
[210] Here I would like to point out that Mr. M'Lennan's theory was
not so hard and fast as his manner (that of a very assured believer in
his own ideas) may lead some inquirers to suppose. Sir Henry Maine
writes, that both Mr. Morgan and Mr. M'Lennan 'seem to me to think
that human society went everywhere through the same series of changes,
and Mr. M'Lennan, at any rate, expresses himself as if all those
stages could be clearly discriminated from one another, and the close
of one and the commencement of another announced with the distinctness
of the clock-bell telling the end of the hour.' On the other hand, I
remember Mr. M'Lennan's saying that, in his opinion, 'all manner of
arrangements probably went on simultaneously in different places.' In
_Studies in Ancient History_, p. 127, he expressly guards against the
tendency 'to assume that the progress of the various races of men from
savagery has been a uniform progress: that all the stages which any of
them has gone through have been passed in their order by all.' Still
more to the point is his remark on polyandry among the very early
Greeks and other Aryans; 'it is quite consistent with my view that in
all these quarters (Persia, Sparta, Troy, Lycia, Attica, Crete, etc.)
monandry, and even the _patria potestas_, may have prevailed at
points.'
[211] _Early Law and Custom_, p. 212.