STUDIES IN ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Edited by the HON. W. PEMBER REEVES
_Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science_
No. 36 in the Series of Monographs by Writers connected
with the London School of Economics and Political Science.
KINSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION
Kinship and
Social Organisation
By
W. H. R. RIVERS, M.D., F.R.S.,
Fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge
LONDON
CONSTABLE & CO LTD
1914
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii.
LECTURE I 1
LECTURE II 28
LECTURE III 60
INDEX 95
PREFACE.
These lectures were delivered at the London School of Economics in May
of the present year. They are largely based on experience gained in the
work of the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition to Melanesia of 1908, and
give a simplified record of social conditions which will be described
in detail in the full account of the work of that expedition.
A few small additions and modifications have been made since the
lectures were given, some of these being due to suggestions made by
Professor Westermarck and Dr. Malinowski in the discussions which
followed the lectures. I am also indebted to Miss B. Freire-Marreco
for allowing me to refer to unpublished material collected during her
recent work among the Pueblo Indians of North America.
W. H. R. RIVERS.
St. John’s College,
Cambridge.
_November 19th, 1913._
KINSHIP AND SOCIAL
ORGANISATION
LECTURE I
The aim of these lectures is to demonstrate the close connection which
exists between methods of denoting relationship or kinship and forms
of social organisation, including those based on different varieties
of the institution of marriage. In other words, my aim will be to show
that the terminology of relationship has been rigorously determined
by social conditions and that, if this position has been established
and accepted, systems of relationship furnish us with a most valuable
instrument in studying the history of social institutions.
In the controversy of the present and of recent times, it is the
special mode of denoting relationship known as the classificatory
system which has formed the chief subject of discussion. It is in
connection with this system that there have arisen the various vexed
questions which have so excited the interest--I might almost say the
passions--of sociologists during the last quarter of a century.
I am afraid it would be dangerous to assume your familiarity with this
system, and I must therefore begin with a brief description of its
main characters. The essential feature of the classificatory system,
that to which it owes its name, is the application of its terms, not
to single individual persons, but to classes of relatives which may
often be very large. Objections have been made to the use of the term
“classificatory” on the ground that our own terms of relationship also
apply to classes of persons; the term “brother,” for instance, to all
the male children of the same father and mother, the term “uncle” to
all the brothers of the father and mother as well as to the husband
of an aunt, while the term “cousin” may denote a still larger class.
It is, of course, true that many of our own terms of relationship
apply to classes of persons, but in the systems to which the word
“classificatory” is usually applied, the classificatory principle
applies far more widely, and in some cases even, more logically and
consistently. In the most complete form of the classificatory system
there is not one single term of relationship the use of which tells
us that reference is being made to one person and to one person only,
whereas in our own system there are six such terms, viz., husband,
wife, father, mother, father-in-law and mother-in-law. In those systems
in which the classificatory principle is carried to its extreme degree
every term is applied to a class of persons. The term “father,” for
instance, is applied to all those whom the father would call brother,
and to all the husbands of those whom the mother calls sister,
both brother and sister being used in a far wider sense than among
ourselves. In some forms of the classificatory system the term “father”
is also used for all those whom the mother would call brother, and for
all the husbands of those whom the father would call sister, and in
other systems the application of the term may be still more extensive.
Similarly, the term used for the wife may be applied to all those whom
the wife would call sister and to the wives of all those whom the
speaker calls brother, brother and sister again being used in a far
wider sense than in our own language.
The classificatory system has many other features which mark it off
more or less sharply from our own mode of denoting relationship, but I
do not think it would be profitable to attempt a full description at
this stage of our enquiry. As I have said, the object of these lectures
is to show how the various features of the classificatory system have
arisen out of, and can therefore be explained historically by, social
facts. If you are not already acquainted with these features, you will
learn to know them the more easily if at the same time you learn how
they have come into existence.
I will begin with a brief history of the subject. So long as it was
supposed that all the peoples of the world denoted relationship in the
same way, namely, that which is customary among ourselves, there was
no problem. There was no reason why the subject should have awakened
any interest, and so far as I have been able to find, it is only since
the discovery of the classificatory system of relationship that the
problem now before us was ever raised. I imagine that, if students ever
thought about the matter at all, it must have seemed obvious that the
way in which they and the other known peoples of the world used terms
of relationship was conditioned and determined by the social relations
which the terms denoted.
The state of affairs became very different as soon as it was known that
many peoples of the world use terms of relationship in a manner, and
according to rules, so widely different from our own that they seem to
belong to an altogether different order, a difference well illustrated
by the confusion which is apt to arise when we use English words in
the translation of classificatory terms or classificatory terms as the
equivalents of our own. The difficulty or impossibility of conforming
to complete truth and reality, when we attempt this task, is the best
witness to the fundamental difference between the two modes of denoting
relationship.
I do not know of any discovery in the whole range of science which
can be more certainly put to the credit of one man than that of the
classificatory system of relationship by Lewis Morgan. By this I mean,
not merely that he was the first to point out clearly the existence of
this mode of denoting relationship, but that it was he who collected
the vast mass of material by which the essential characters of the
system were demonstrated, and it was he who was the first to recognise
the great theoretical importance of his new discovery. It is the denial
of this importance by his contemporaries and successors which furnishes
the best proof of the credit which is due to him for the discovery.
The very extent of the material he collected[1] has probably done much
to obstruct the recognition of the importance of his work. It is a
somewhat discouraging thought that, if Morgan had been less industrious
and had amassed a smaller collection of material which could have been
embodied in a more available form, the value of his work would probably
have been far more widely recognised than it is to-day. The volume
of his material is, however, only a subsidiary factor in the process
which has led to the neglect or rejection of the importance of Morgan’s
discovery. The chief cause of the neglect is one for which Morgan must
himself largely bear the blame. He was not content to demonstrate, as
he might to some extent have done from his own material, the close
connection between the terminology of the classificatory system of
relationship and forms of social organisation. There can be little
doubt that he recognised this connection, but he was not content to
demonstrate the dependence of the terminology of relationship upon
social forms the existence of which was already known, or which were
capable of demonstration with the material at his disposal. He passed
over all these early stages of the argument, and proceeded directly to
refer the origin of the terminology to forms of social organisation
which were not known to exist anywhere on the earth and of which there
was no direct evidence in the past. When, further, the social condition
which Morgan was led to formulate was one of general promiscuity
developing into group-marriage, conditions bitterly repugnant to the
sentiments of most civilised persons, it is not surprising that he
aroused a mass of heated opposition which led, not merely to widespread
rejection of his views, but also to the neglect of lessons to be learnt
from his new discovery which must have received general recognition
long before this, if they had not been obscured by other issues.
[1] _Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family:
Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_, vol. xvii.; Washington, 1871.
The first to take up the cudgels in opposition to Morgan was our own
pioneer in the study of the early forms of human society, John Ferguson
McLennan.[2] He criticised the views of Morgan severely and often
justly, and then pointing out, as was then believed to be the case,
that no duties or rights were connected with the relationships of the
classificatory system, he concluded that the terms formed merely a
code of courtesies and ceremonial addresses for social intercourse.
Those who have followed him have usually been content to repeat the
conclusion that the classificatory system is nothing more than a
body of mutual salutations and terms of address. They have failed to
see that it still remains necessary to explain how the terms of the
classificatory system came to be used in mutual salutation. They have
failed to recognise that they were either rejecting the principle of
determinism in sociology, or were only putting back to a conveniently
remote distance the consideration of the problem how and why the
classificatory terms came to be used in the way now customary among so
many peoples of the earth.
[2] _Studies in Ancient History_, 1st series, 1876, p. 331.
This aspect of the problem, which has been neglected or put on one
side by the followers of McLennan, was not so treated by McLennan
himself. As we should expect from the general character of his work,
McLennan clearly recognised that the classificatory system must have
been determined by social conditions, and he tried to show how it might
have arisen as the result of the change from the Nair to the Tibetan
form of polyandry.[3] He even went so far as to formulate varieties
of this process by means of which there might have been produced the
chief varieties of the classificatory system, the existence of which
had been demonstrated by Morgan. It is quite clear that McLennan had no
doubts about the necessity of tracing back the social institution of
the classificatory system of relationship to social causes, a necessity
which has been ignored or even explicitly denied by those who have
followed him in rejecting the views of Morgan. It is one of the many
unfortunate consequences of McLennan’s belief in the importance of
polyandry in the history of human society that it has helped to prevent
his followers from seeing the social importance of the classificatory
system. They have failed to see that the classificatory system may be
the result neither of promiscuity nor of polyandry, and yet have been
determined, both in its general character and in its details, by forms
of social organisation.
[3] _Op. cit._, p. 373.
Since the time of Morgan and McLennan few have attempted to deal with
the question in any comprehensive manner. The problem has inevitably
been involved in the controversy which has raged between the advocates
of the original promiscuity or the primitive monogamy of mankind,
but most of the former have been ready to accept Morgan’s views
blindly, while the latter have been content to try to explain away
the importance of conclusions derived from the classificatory system
without attempting any real study of the evidence. On the side of
Morgan there has been one exception in the person of Professor J.
Kohler,[4] who has recognised the lines on which the problem must be
studied, while on the other side there has been, so far as I am aware,
only one writer who has recognised that the evidence from the nature
of the classificatory system of relationship cannot be ignored or
belittled, but must be faced and some explanation alternative to that
of Morgan provided.
[4] _Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe_, Stuttgart, 1897 (reprinted from
_Zeitsch. f. vergleich. Rechtswiss._, 1897, xii., 187).
This attempt was made four years ago by Professor Kroeber,[5] of the
University of California. The line he takes is absolutely to reject
the view common to both Morgan and McLennan that the nature of the
classificatory system has been determined by social conditions.
He explicitly rejects the view that the mode of using terms of
relationship depends on social causes, and puts forward as the
alternative that they are conditioned by causes purely linguistic and
psychological.
[5] _Journ. Roy. Anth. Inst._, 1909, xxxix, 77.
It is not quite easy to understand what is meant by the linguistic
causation of terms of relationship. In the summary at the end of
his paper Kroeber concludes that “they (terms of relationship) are
determined primarily by language.” Terms of relationship, however, are
elements of language, so that Kroeber’s proposition is that elements
of language are determined primarily by language. In so far as this
proposition has any meaning, it must be that, in the process of seeking
the origin of linguistic phenomena, it is our business to ignore any
but linguistic facts. It would follow that the student of the subject
should seek the antecedents of linguistic phenomena in other linguistic
phenomena, and put on one side as not germane to his task all reference
to the objects and relations which the words denote and connote.
Professor Kroeber’s alternative proposition is that terms of
relationship reflect psychology, not sociology, or, in other words,
that the way in which terms of relationship are used depends on a
chain of causation in which psychological processes are the direct
antecedents of this use. I will try to make his meaning clear by means
of an instance which he himself gives. He says that at the present time
there is a tendency among ourselves to speak of the brother-in-law as
a brother; in other words, we tend to class the brother-in-law and the
brother together in the nomenclature of our own system of relationship.
He supposes that we do this because there is a psychological similarity
between the two relationships which leads us to class them together in
our customary nomenclature. I shall return both to this and other of
his examples later.
We have now seen that the opponents of Morgan have taken up two main
positions which it is possible to attack: one, that the classificatory
system is nothing more than a body of terms of address; the other,
that it and other modes of denoting relationship are determined by
psychological and not by sociological causes. I propose to consider
these two positions in turn.
Morgan himself was evidently deeply impressed by the function of the
classificatory system of relationship as a body of salutations. His
own experience was derived from the North American Indians, and he
notes the exclusive use of terms of relationship in address, a usage
so habitual that an omission to recognise a relative in this manner
would amount almost to an affront. Morgan also points out, as one
motive for the custom, the presence of a reluctance to utter personal
names. McLennan had to rely entirely on the evidence collected by
Morgan, and there can be no doubt that he was greatly influenced by
the stress Morgan himself laid on the function of the classificatory
terms as mutual salutations. That in rude societies certain relatives
have social functions definitely assigned to them by custom was
known in Morgan’s time, and I think it might even then have been
discovered that the relationships which carried these functions were
of the classificatory kind. It is, however, only by more recent work,
beginning with that of Howitt, of Spencer and Gillen, and of Roth
in Australia, and of the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits,
that the great importance of the functions of relatives through
the classificatory system has been forced upon the attention of
sociologists. The social and ceremonial proceedings of the Australian
aborigines abound in features in which special functions are performed
by such relatives as the elder brother or the brother of the mother,
while in Torres Straits I was able to record large groups of duties,
privileges and restrictions associated with different classificatory
relationships.
Further work has shown that widely, though not universally, the
nomenclature of the classificatory system carries with it a number of
clearly defined social practices. One who applies a given term of
relationship to another person has to behave towards that person in
certain definite ways. He has to perform certain duties towards him,
and enjoys certain privileges, and is subject to certain restrictions
in his conduct in relation to him. These duties, privileges and
restrictions vary greatly in number among different peoples, but
wherever they exist, I know of no exception to their importance and
to the regard in which they are held by all members of the community.
You doubtless know of many examples of such functions associated with
relationship, and I need give only one example.
In the Banks Islands the term used between two brothers-in-law is
_wulus_, _walus_, or _walui_, and a man who applies one of these terms
to another may not utter his name, nor may the two behave familiarly
towards one another in any way. In one island, Merlav, these relatives
have all their possessions in common, and it is the duty of one to
help the other in any difficulty, to warn him in danger, and, if need
be, to die with him. If one dies, the other has to help to support
his widow and has to abstain from certain foods. Further, there are
a number of curious regulations in which the sanctity of the head
plays a great part. A man must take nothing from above the head of his
brother-in-law, nor may he even eat a bird which has flown over his
head. A person has only to say of an object “That is the head of your
brother-in-law,” and the person addressed will have to desist from the
use of the object. If the object is edible, it may not be eaten; if it
is one which is being manufactured, such as a mat, the person addressed
will have to cease from his work if the object be thus called the head
of his brother-in-law. He will only be allowed to finish it on making
compensation, not to the person who has prevented the work by reference
to the head, but to the brother-in-law whose head had been mentioned.
Ludicrous as some of these customs may seem to us, they are very far
from being so to those who practise them. They show clearly the very
important part taken in the lives of those who use the classificatory
system by the social functions associated with relationship. As I
have said, these functions are not universally associated with the
classificatory system, but they are very general in many parts of the
world and only need more careful investigation to be found even more
general and more important than appears at present.
Let us now look at our own system of relationship from this point
of view. Two striking features present themselves. First, the great
paucity of definite social functions associated with relationship,
and secondly, the almost complete limitation of such functions to
those relationships which apply only to individual persons and not
to classes of persons. Of such relationships as cousin, uncle, aunt,
father-in-law, or mother-in-law there may be said to be no definite
social functions. A school-boy believes it is the duty of his uncle
to tip him, but this is about as near as one can get to any social
obligation on the part of this relative.
The same will be found to hold good to a large extent if we turn to
those social regulations which have been embodied in our laws. It is
only in the case of the transmission of hereditary rank and of the
property of a person dying intestate that more distant relatives are
brought into any legal relationship with one another, and then only
if there is an absence of nearer relatives. It is only when forced to
do so by exceptional circumstances that the law recognises any of the
persons to whom the more classificatory of our terms of relationship
apply. If we pay regard to the social functions associated with
relationship, it is our own system, rather than the classificatory,
which is open to the reproach that its relationships carry into them no
rights and duties.
In the course of the recent work of the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition
in Melanesia and Polynesia I have been able to collect a body of facts
which bring out, even more clearly than has hitherto been recognised,
the dependence of classificatory terms on social rights.[6] The
classificatory systems of Oceania vary greatly in character. In some
places relationships are definitely distinguished in nomenclature
which are classed with other relationships elsewhere. Thus, while
most Melanesian and some Polynesian systems have a definite term for
the mother’s brother and for the class of relatives whom the mother
calls brother, in other systems this relative is classed with, and
is denoted by, the same term as the father. The point to which I now
call your attention is that there is a very close correlation between
the presence of a special term for this relative and the presence of
special functions attached to the relationship.
[6] The full account of these and other facts cited in these lectures
will appear shortly in a work on _The History of Melanesian Society_,
to be published by the Cambridge University Press.
In Polynesia, both the Hawaiians and the inhabitants of Niue class the
mother’s brother with the father, and in neither place was I able to
discover that there were any special duties, privileges or restrictions
ascribed to the mother’s brother. In the Polynesian islands of Tonga
and Tikopia, on the other hand, where there are special terms for
the mother’s brother, this relative has also special functions. The
only place in Melanesia where I failed to find a special term for the
mother’s brother was in the western Solomon Islands, and that was
also the only part of Melanesia where I failed to find any trace of
special social functions ascribed to this relative. I do not know of
such functions in Santa Cruz, but my information about the system of
that island is derived from others, and further research will almost
certainly show that they are present.
In my own experience, then, among two different peoples, I have been
able to establish a definite correlation between the presence of
a term of relationship and special functions associated with the
relationship. Information kindly given to me by Father Egidi, however,
seems to show that the correlation among the Melanesians is not
complete. In Mekeo, the mother’s brother has the duty of putting on the
first perineal garment of his nephew, but he has no special term and is
classed with the father. Among the Kuni, on the other hand, there is
a definite term for the mother’s brother distinguishing him from the
father, but yet he has not, so far as Father Egidi knows, any special
functions.
Both in Melanesia and Polynesia a similar correlation comes out in
connection with other relationships, the most prominent exception
being the absence of a special term for the father’s sister in the
Banks Islands, although this relative has very definite and important
functions. In these islands the father’s sister is classed with the
mother as _vev_ or _veve_, but even here, where the generalisation
seems to break down, it does not do so completely, for the father’s
sister is distinguished from the mother as _veve vus rawe_, the mother
who kills a pig, as opposed to the simple _veve_ used for the mother
and her sisters.
There is thus definite evidence, not only for the association of
classificatory terms of relationship with special social functions, but
from one part of the world we now have evidence which shows that the
presence or absence of special terms is largely dependent on whether
there are or are not such functions. We may take it as established that
the terms of the classificatory system are not, as McLennan supposed,
merely terms of address and modes of mutual salutation. McLennan came
to this conclusion because he believed that the classificatory terms
were associated with no such functions as those of which we now have
abundant evidence. He asks, “What duties or rights are affected by the
relationships comprised in the classificatory system?” and answers
himself according to the knowledge at his disposal, “Absolutely
none.”[7] This passage makes it clear that, if McLennan had known what
we know to-day, he would never have taken up the line of attack upon
Morgan’s position in which he has had, and still has, so many followers.
[7] _Op. cit._, p. 366.
* * * * *
I can now turn to the second line of attack, that which boldly discards
the origin of the terminology of relationship in social conditions, and
seeks for its explanation in psychology. The line of argument I propose
to follow is first to show that many details of classificatory systems
have been directly determined by social factors. If that task can be
accomplished, we shall have firm ground from which to take off in the
attempt to refer the general characters of the classificatory and other
systems of relationship to forms of social organisation. Any complete
theory of a social institution has not only to account for its general
characters, but also for its details, and I propose to begin with the
details.
I must first return to the history of the subject, and stay for a
moment to ask why the line of argument I propose to follow was not
adopted by Morgan and has been so largely disregarded by others.
Whenever a new phenomenon is discovered in any part of the world, there
is a natural tendency to seek for its parallels elsewhere. Morgan lived
at a time when the unity of human culture was a topic which greatly
excited ethnologists, and it is evident that one of his chief interests
in the new discovery arose from the possibility it seemed to open of
showing the uniformity of human culture. He hoped to demonstrate the
uniformity of the classificatory system throughout the world, and he
was content to observe certain broad varieties of the system and refer
them to supposed stages in the history of human society. He paid but
little attention to such varieties of the classificatory system as are
illustrated in his own record of North American systems, and seems to
have overlooked entirely certain features of the Indian and Oceanic
systems he recorded, which might have enabled him to demonstrate the
close relation between the terminology of relationship and social
institutions. Morgan’s neglect to attend to these differences must
be ascribed in some measure to the ignorance of rude forms of social
organisation which existed when he wrote, but the failure of others
to recognise the dependence of the details of classificatory systems
upon social institutions is rather to be ascribed to the absence
of interest in the subject induced by their adherence to McLennan’s
primary error. Those who believe that the classificatory system is
merely an unimportant code of mutual salutations are not likely to
attend to relatively minute differences in the customs they despise.
The credit of having been the first fully to recognise the social
importance of these differences belongs to J. Kohler. In his book “Zur
Urgeschichte der Ehe,” which I have already mentioned, he studied
minutely the details of many different systems, and showed that they
could be explained by certain forms of marriage practised by those who
use the terms. I propose now to deal with classificatory terminology
from this point of view. My procedure will be first to show that
the details which distinguish different forms of the classificatory
system from one another have been directly determined by the social
institutions of those who use the systems, and only when this has been
established, shall I attempt to bring the more general characters
of the classificatory and other systems into relation with social
institutions.
I am able to carry out this task more fully than has hitherto been
possible because I have collected in Melanesia a number of systems of
relationship which differ far more widely from one another than those
recorded in Morgan’s book or others which have been collected since.
Some of the features which characterise these Melanesian systems will
be wholly new to ethnologists, not having yet been recorded elsewhere,
but I propose to begin with a long familiar mode of terminology which
accompanies that widely distributed custom known as the cross-cousin
marriage. In the more frequent form of this marriage a man marries the
daughter either of his mother’s brother or of his father’s sister; more
rarely his choice is limited to one of these relatives.
Such a marriage will have certain definite consequences. Let us take a
case in which a man marries the daughter of his mother’s brother, as is
represented in the following diagram:
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 1[8]
[8] In this and other diagrams capital letters are used to represent
men and the smaller letters women.
+----------------------------+
| |
B = a A = b
| |
| +----------+----------+
| | | |
C =================== d E f
]
One consequence of the marriage between _C_ and _d_ will be that _A_,
who before the marriage of _C_ was only his mother’s brother, now
becomes also his wife’s father, while _b_, who before the marriage was
the mother’s brother’s wife of _C_, now becomes his wife’s mother.
Reciprocally, _C_, who before his marriage had been the sister’s
son of _A_ and the husband’s sister’s son of _b_, now becomes their
son-in-law. Further, _E_ and _f_, the other children of _A_ and _b_,
who before the marriage had been only the cousins of _C_, now become
his wife’s brother and sister.
Similarly, _a_, who before the marriage of _d_ was her father’s sister,
now becomes also her husband’s mother, and _B_, her father’s sister’s
husband, comes to stand in the relation of husband’s father; if _C_
should have any brothers and sisters, these cousins now become her
brothers- and sisters-in-law.
The combinations of relationship which follow from the marriage of a
man with the daughter of his mother’s brother thus differ for a man and
a woman, but if, as is usual, a man may marry the daughter either of
his mother’s brother or of his father’s sister, these combinations of
relationship will hold good for both men and women.
Another and more remote consequence of the cross-cousin marriage, if
this become an established institution, is that the relationships
of mother’s brother and father’s sister’s husband will come to be
combined in one and the same person, and that there will be a similar
combination of the relationships of father’s sister and mother’s
brother’s wife. If the cross-cousin marriage be the habitual custom,
_B_ and _b_ in Diagram 1 will be brother and sister; in consequence
_A_ will be at once the mother’s brother and the father’s sister’s
husband of _C_, while _b_ will be both his father’s sister and his
mother’s brother’s wife. Since, however, the mother’s brother is also
the father-in-law, and the father’s sister the mother-in-law, three
different relationships will be combined in each case. Through the
cross-cousin marriage the relationships of mother’s brother, father’s
sister’s husband and father-in-law will be combined in one and the same
person, and the relationships of father’s sister, mother’s brother’s
wife and mother-in-law will be similarly combined.
In many places where we know the cross-cousin marriage to be an
established institution, we find just those common designations which I
have just described. Thus, in the Mbau dialect of Fiji the word _vungo_
is applied to the mother’s brother, the husband of the father’s sister
and the father-in-law. The word _nganei_ is used for the father’s
sister, the mother’s brother’s wife and the mother-in-law. The term
_tavale_ is used by a man for the son of the mother’s brother or of
the father’s sister as well as for the wife’s brother and the sister’s
husband. _Ndavola_ is used not only for the child of the mother’s
brother or father’s sister when differing in sex from the speaker, but
this word is also used by a man for his wife’s sister and his brother’s
wife, and by a woman for her husband’s brother and her sister’s
husband. Every one of these details of the Mbau system is the direct
and inevitable consequence of the cross-cousin marriage, if it become
an established and habitual practice.
This Fijian system does not stand alone in Melanesia. In the southern
islands of the New Hebrides, in Tanna, Eromanga, Anaiteum and
Aniwa, the cross-cousin marriage is practised and their systems of
relationship have features similar to those of Fiji. Thus, in Anaiteum
the word _matak_ applies to the mother’s brother, the father’s sister’s
husband and the father-in-law, while the word _engak_ used for the
cross-cousin is not only used for the wife’s sister and the brother’s
wife, but also for the wife herself.
Again, in the island of Guadalcanar in the Solomons the system of
relationship is just such as would result from the cross-cousin
marriage. One term, _nia_, is used for the mother’s brother and the
wife’s father, and probably also for the father’s sister’s husband and
the husband’s father, though my stay in the island was not long enough
to enable me to collect sufficient genealogical material to demonstrate
these points completely. Similarly, _tarunga_ includes in its
connotation the father’s sister, the mother’s brother’s wife and the
wife’s mother, and probably also the husband’s mother, while the word
_iva_ is used for both cross-cousins and brothers- and sisters-in-law.
Corresponding to this terminology there seemed to be no doubt that it
was the custom for a man to marry the daughter of his mother’s brother
or his father’s sister, though I was not able to demonstrate this form
of marriage genealogically.
These three regions, Fiji, the southern New Hebrides and Guadalcanar,
are the only parts of Melanesia included in my survey where I found the
practice of the cross-cousin marriage, and in all three regions the
systems of relationship are just such as would follow from this form of
marriage.
Let us now turn to inquire how far it is possible to explain these
features of Melanesian systems of relationship by psychological
similarity. If it were not for the cross-cousin marriage, what
can there be to give the mother’s brother a greater psychological
similarity to the father-in-law than the father’s brother, or the
father’s sister a greater similarity to the mother-in-law than the
mother’s sister? Why should it be two special kinds of cousin who are
classed with two special kinds of brother- and sister-in-law or with
the husband or wife? Once granted the presence of the cross-cousin
marriage, and there are psychological similarities certainly, though
even here the matter is not quite straightforward from the point of
view of the believer in their importance, for we have to do not merely
with the similarity of two relatives, but with their identity, with
the combination of two or more relationships in one and the same
person. Even if we put this on one side, however, it remains to ask
how it is possible to say that terms of relationship do not reflect
sociology, if such psychological similarities are themselves the
result of the cross-cousin marriage? What point is there in bringing
in hypothetical psychological similarities which are only at the best
intermediate links in the chain of causation connecting the terminology
of relationship with antecedent social conditions?
If you concede the causal relation between the characteristic features
of a Fijian or Anaiteum or Guadalcanar system and the cross-cousin
marriage, there can be no question that it is the cross-cousin marriage
which is the antecedent and the features of the system of relationship
the consequences. I do not suppose that, even in this subject, there
will be found anyone to claim that the Fijians took to marrying their
cross-cousins because such a marriage was suggested to them by the
nature of their system of relationship. We have to do in this case,
not merely with one or two features which might be the consequence of
the cross-cousin marriage, but with a large and complicated meshwork
of resemblances and differences in the nomenclature of relationship,
each and every element of which follows directly from such a marriage,
while no one of the systems I have considered possesses a single
feature which is not compatible with social conditions arising out of
this marriage. Apart from quantitative verification, I doubt whether it
would be possible in the whole range of science to find a case where
we can be more confident that one phenomenon has been conditioned by
another. I feel almost guilty of wasting your time by going into it
so fully, and should hardly have ventured to do so if this case of
social causation had not been explicitly denied by one with so high a
reputation as Professor Kroeber. I hope, however, that the argument
will be useful as an example of the method I shall apply to other cases
in which the evidence is less conclusive.
The features of terminology which follow from the cross-cousin
marriage were known to Morgan, being present in three of the systems
he recorded from Southern India and in the Fijian system collected
for him by Mr. Fison. The earliest reference[9] to the cross-cousin
marriage which I have been able to discover is among the Gonds of
Central India. This marriage was recorded in 1870, which, though
earlier than the appearance of Morgan’s book, was after it had been
accepted for publication, so that I think we can be confident that
Morgan was unacquainted with the form of marriage which would have
explained the peculiar features of the Indian and Fijian systems. It is
evident, however, that Morgan was so absorbed in his demonstration of
the similarity of these systems to those of America that he paid but
little, if any, attention to their peculiarities. He thus lost a great
opportunity; if he had attended to these peculiarities and had seen
their meaning, he might have predicted a form of marriage which would
soon afterwards have been independently discovered. Such an example of
successful prediction would have forced the social significance of the
terminology of relationship upon the attention of students in such a
way that we should have been spared much of the controversy which has
so long obstructed progress in this branch of sociology. It must at the
very least have acted as a stimulus to the collection of systems of
relationship. It would hardly have been possible that now, more than
forty years after the appearance of Morgan’s book, we are still in
complete ignorance of the terminology of relationship of many peoples
about whom volumes have been written. It would seem impossible, for
instance, that our knowledge of Indian systems of relationship could
have been what it is to-day. India would have been the country in which
the success of Morgan’s prediction would first have shown itself, and
such an event must have prevented the almost total neglect which the
subject of relationship has suffered at the hands of students of Indian
sociology.
[9] Grant, _Gazetteer of Central Provinces_, Nagpur, 2nd ed., 1870, p.
276.
LECTURE II
In my last lecture I began the demonstration of the dependence of the
classificatory terminology of relationship upon social institutions by
showing how a number of terms used in several parts of Melanesia have
been determined by the cross-cousin marriage. I showed that in places
where the cross-cousin marriage is practised there are not merely one
or two, but large groups of, terms of relationship which are exactly
such as would follow from this form of marriage. To-day I begin by
considering other forms of Melanesian marriage which bring out almost
as clearly and conclusively the dependence of the classificatory
terminology upon social conditions.
The systems of relationship of the Banks Islands possess certain very
remarkable features which were first recorded by Dr. Codrington.[10]
Put very shortly, it may be stated that cross-cousins stand to one
another in the relation of parent and child, or, more exactly,
cross-cousins apply to one another terms of relationship which are
otherwise used between parents and children. A man applies to his
mother’s brother’s children the term which he otherwise uses for
his own children, and, conversely, a person applies to his father’s
sister’s son a term he otherwise uses for his father. Thus, in the
following diagram, _C_ will apply to _D_ and _e_ the terms which are in
general use for a son and daughter, while _D_ and _e_ will apply to _C_
the term they otherwise use for their father.
[10] _The Melanesians_, p. 38.
[Illustration: DIAGRAM 2.
+----------------------------+
| |
B = a A = b
| |
| +----------+----------+
| | |
C D e
]
In most forms of the classificatory system members of different
generations are denoted in wholly different ways and belong to
different classes,[11] but here we have a case in which persons of the
same generation as the speaker are classed with those of an older or a
younger generation.
[11] I leave out of account here those cases in which members of
different generations are denoted by a reciprocal term.
I will first ask you to consider to what kind of psychological
similarity such a practice can be due. What kind of psychological
similarity can there be between one special kind of cousin and the
father, and between another special kind of cousin and a son or
daughter? If the puzzle as put in this form does not seem capable of a
satisfactory answer, let us turn to see if the Banks Islanders practise
any social custom to which this peculiar terminology can have been due.
In the story of Ganviviris told to Dr. Codrington in these islands[12]
an incident occurs in which a man hands over one of his wives to his
sister’s son, or, in other words, in which a man marries one of the
wives of his mother’s brother. Inquiries showed, not only that this
form of marriage was once widely current in the islands, but that it
still persists though in a modified form. The Christianity of the
natives does not now permit a man to have superfluous wives whom he can
pass on to his sister’s sons, but it is still the orthodox, and indeed
I was told the popular, custom to marry the widow of the mother’s
brother. It seemed that in the old days a man would take the widow of
his mother’s brother in addition to any wife or wives he might already
have. Though this is no longer allowed, the leaning towards this form
of marriage is so strong that after fifty years of external influence
a young man still marries the widow of his mother’s brother, sometimes
in preference to a girl of his own age. Indeed, there was reason to
believe that there was an obligation to do so, if the deceased husband
had a nephew who was not yet married. The peculiar features of the
terminology of relationship in these islands are exactly such as would
follow from this form of marriage. If, in Diagram 2, _C_ marries _b_,
the wife or widow of his mother’s brother, and thereby comes to occupy
the social position of his uncle _A_, the children of the uncle, _D_
and _e_, will come to stand to him in the relation of children, while
he, who had previously been the father’s sister’s son of _D_ and _e_,
will now become their father. An exceptional form of the classificatory
system, in which there is a departure from the usual rule limiting a
term of relationship to members of the same generation, is found to
be the natural consequence of a social regulation which enjoins the
marriage of persons belonging to different generations.
[12] _Op. cit._, p. 384.
The next step in the process of demonstrating the social significance
of the classificatory system of relationship will take us to the
island of Pentecost in the northern New Hebrides. When I recorded
the system of this island, I found it to have so bizarre and complex
a character that I could hardly believe at first it could be other
than the result of a ludicrous misunderstanding between myself and my
seemingly intelligent and trustworthy informants. Nevertheless, the
records obtained from two independent witnesses, and based on separate
pedigrees, agreed so closely even in the details which seemed most
improbable that I felt confident that the whole construction could not
be so mad as it seemed. This confidence was strengthened by finding
that some of its features were of the same order of peculiarity as
others which I had already found in a set of Fijian systems I have
yet to consider. There were certain features which brought relatives
separated by two generations into one category; the mother’s mother,
for instance, received the same designation as the elder sister; the
wife’s mother the same as the daughter; the wife’s brother the same as
the daughter’s son. The only conclusion I was then able to formulate
was that these features were the result of some social institution
resembling the matrimonial classes of Australia, which would have the
effect of putting persons of alternate generations into one social
category.
This idea was supported by the system of relationship of the Dieri of
Australia which possesses at least one feature similar to those of
Pentecost, a fact I happened to remember at the time because Mr. N.
W. Thomas[13] had used it as the basis of a _reductio ad absurdum_
argument to show that terms of relationship do not express kinship.
The interest of the Pentecost system seemed at first to lie in the
possibility thus opened of bringing Melanesian into relation with
Australian sociology, a hope which was the more promising in that the
people of Pentecost and the Dieri resemble one another in the general
character of their social organisation, each being organised on the
dual basis with matrilineal descent. When in Pentecost, however, I was
unable to get further than this, and the details of the system remained
wholly inexplicable.
[13] _Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia_,
Cambridge, 1906, p. 123.
The meaning of some of the peculiarities of the Pentecost system
became clear when I reached the Banks Islands; they were of the same
kind as those I have already considered as characteristic of these
islands. When I had discovered the dependence of these features upon
the marriage of a man with the wife of his mother’s brother, it
became evident that not only these, but certain other features of
the Pentecost system, were capable of being accounted for by this
kind of marriage. The peculiar features of the Pentecost system could
be divided into two groups, and all the members of one group could
be accounted for by the marriage with the mother’s brother’s wife.
All these features had the character in common that persons of the
generation immediately above or below that of the speaker were classed
in nomenclature with relatives of the same generation.