2. It was between 1866 and 1880 that the common opinion began to be
seriously opposed. John Ferguson McLennan, in his _Primitive Marriage_
and his essays on _The Worship of Plants and Animals_ (see his _Studies
in Ancient History_, second series), drew attention to the wide
prevalence of the custom of inheriting the kinship name through mothers,
not fathers; and to the law of "Exogamy" (q.v.). The former usage he
attributed to archaic uncertainty as to fatherhood; the natural result
of absolute sexual promiscuity, or of Polyandry (q.v.). Either practice
is inconsistent, prima facie, with the primitive existence of the
Family, whether polygamous or monogamous, whether patriarchal or modern.
The custom of Exogamy, again,--here taken to mean the unwritten law
which makes it incest, and a capital offence, to marry within the real
or supposed kin denoted by the common name of the kinship,--pointed to
an archaic condition of family affairs all unlike our Table of
prohibited degrees. This law of Exogamy was found, among many savage
races, associated with Totems, that is plants, animals and other
natural objects which give names to the various kinships, and are
themselves, in various degrees, reverenced by members of the kinships.
(See TOTEM AND TOTEMISM.) Traces of such kinships, and of Totemism, also
of alleged promiscuity in ancient times, were detected by McLennan in
the legends, folk-lore and institutions of Greece, Rome and India.
Later, Prof. Robertson Smith found similar survivals, or possible
survivals, among the Semitic races (_Kinship in Early Arabia_). Others
have followed the same trail among the Celts (S. Reinach, _Cultes,
mythes et religions_, 1904).
If arguments founded on these alleged survivals be valid, it may be that
the most civilized races have passed through the stages of Exogamy,
Totemism and reckoning descent in the female line. McLennan explained
Exogamy as a result of scarcity of women, due to female infanticide.
Women being scarce, the men of a group would steal them from other
groups, and it would become shameful, and finally a deadly sin, for a
man to marry within his own group-name, or name of kinship, say Wolf or
Raven. Meanwhile, owing to scarcity of women, one woman would be the
mate of many husbands (polyandry); hence, paternity being undetermined,
descent would be reckoned through mothers.
McLennan's value.
Such are the outlines of McLennan's theory, which, as a whole, has been
attacked by many writers, and is now, perhaps, accepted by none.
McLennan's was the most brilliant pioneer work; but his supply of facts
was relatively scanty, and his friend Charles Darwin stated objections
which to many seem final, as regards the past existence of a stage of
sexual promiscuity. C.N. Starcke (_The Primitive Family_, 1889), Edward
Alexander Westermarck (_History of Human Marriage_, 1891), Ernest
Crawley (_The Mystic Rose_), Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Lord
Avebury and many others, have criticized McLennan, who, however, in
coining the term Exogamy, and drawing scientific attention to Totemism,
and reckoning of kin through mothers, founded the study of early
society. Here it must be observed that "Matriarchate" (q.v.) is a
misleading term, as is "Gynaecocracy," for the custom of deducing
descent on the spindle side. Women among totemistic and exogamous
savages are in a degraded position, nor does the deriving and inheriting
of the kinship name, or anything else, on the spindle side, imply any
ignorance of paternal relations; even where, as among Central Australian
tribes, the facts of reproduction are said to be unknown.
Lewis Morgan.
3. Simultaneous with McLennan's researches and speculations were the
works of Lewis H. Morgan. He was the discoverer of a custom very
important in its bearing on the history of society. In about two-thirds
of the globe, persons in addressing a kinsman do not discriminate between
grades of relationship. All these grades are merged in large categories.
Thus, in what Morgan calls the "Malayan system," "all _consanguinei_,
near or far, fall within one of these relationships--grandparent, parent,
brother, sister, child and grandchild." No other blood-relationships are
recognized (_Ancient Society_). This at once reminds us of the Platonic
Republic. "We devised means that no one should ever be able to know his
own child, but that all should imagine themselves to be of one family,
and should regard as brothers and sisters those who were within a certain
limit of age; and those who were of an elder generation they were to
regard as parents and grandparents, and those who were of a younger
generation as children and grandchildren" (_Timaeus_, 18, Jowett's
translation, first edition, vol. ii., 1871). This system prevails in the
Polynesian groups and in New Zealand. Next comes what Morgan chooses to
call the Turanian system. "It was universal among the North American
aborigines," whom he styles Ganowanians. "Traces of it have been found in
parts of Africa" (_Ancient Society_), and "it still prevails in South
India among the Hindus, who speak the Dravidian language," and also in
North India, among other Hindus. The system, Morgan says, "is simply
stupendous." It is not exactly the same among all his miscellaneous
"Turanians," but, on the whole, assumes the following shapes. Suppose the
speaker to be a male, he will style his nephew and niece in the male
line, his brother's children, "son" and "daughter," and his grand-nephews
and grand-nieces in the male line, "grandson" and "granddaughter." Here
the Turanian and the Malayan systems agree. But change the sex; let the
male speaker address his nephews and nieces in the female line,--the
children of his sister,--he salutes them as "nephew" and "niece," and
they hail him as "uncle." Now, in the Malay system, nephews and nieces on
both sides, brother's children or sisters, are alike named "children" of
the uncle. If the speaker be a female, using the Turanian style, these
terms are reversed. Her sister's sons and daughters are saluted by her as
"son" and "daughter," her brother's children she calls "nephew" and
"niece." Yet the children of the persons thus styled "nephew" and "niece"
are not recognized in conversation as "grand-nephew" and "grand-niece,"
but as "grandson" and "granddaughter." It is impossible here to do more
than indicate these features of the classificatory nomenclature, from
which the others may be inferred. The reader is referred for particulars
to Morgan's _Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Race_.
The existence of the classificatory system is not an entirely novel
discovery. Nicolaus Damascenus, one of the inquirers into early society,
who lived in the first century of our era, noticed this mode of address
among the Galactophagi. Lafitau found it among the Iroquois. To Morgan's
perception of the importance of the facts, and to his energetic
collection of reports, we owe our knowledge of the wide prevalence of
the system. From an examination of the degrees of kindred which seem to
be indicated by the "Malayan" and "Turanian" modes of address, he has
worked out a theory of the evolution of the modern family. A brief
comparison of this with other modern theories will close our account of
the family. The main points of the theory are shortly stated in _Systems
of Consanguinity_, &c., and in _Ancient Society_. From the latter work
we quote the following description of the five different and successive
forms of the family:--
"I. _The Consanguine Family._--It was founded upon the intermarriage
of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group.
"II. _The Punaluan Family._--It was founded upon the intermarriage of
several sisters, own and collateral, with each others' husbands, in a
group--the joint husbands not being necessarily kinsmen of each other;
also, on the intermarriage of several brothers, own and collateral,
with each others' wives in a group--these wives not being necessarily
of kin to each other, although often the case in both instances (sic).
In each case the group of men were conjointly married to the group of
women.
"III. _The Syndyasmian or Pairing Family._--It was founded upon
marriage between single pairs, but without an exclusive cohabitation.
The marriage continued during the pleasure of the parties.
"IV. _The Patriarchal Family._--It was founded upon the marriage of
one man with several wives, followed in general by the seclusion of
the wives.
"V. _The Monogamian Family._--It was founded upon marriage between
single pairs with an exclusive cohabitation.
"Three of these forms, namely, the first, second, and fifth, were
radical, because they were sufficiently general, and influential to
create three distinct systems of consanguinity, all of which still
exist in living forms. Conversely, these systems are sufficient of
themselves to prove the antecedent existence of the forms of the
family and of marriage with which they severally stand connected."
Morgan makes the systems of nomenclature proofs of the existence of the
Consanguine and Punaluan families. Unhappily, there is no other proof,
and the same systems have been explained on a very different principle
(McLennan, _Studies in Ancient History_). Looking at facts, we find the
Consanguine family nowhere, and cannot easily imagine how early groups
abstained from infringing on each other, and created a systematic
marriage of brothers and sisters. St Augustine, however (De civ. Dei,
xv. 16), and Archinus in his _Thessalica_ (_Odyssey_, xi. 7, scholia B,
Q) agree more or less with Morgan. Next, how did the Consanguine family
change into the Punaluan? Morgan says (_Ancient Society_) brothers
ceased to marry their sisters, because "the evils of it could not for
ever escape human observation." Thus the Punaluan family was hit upon,
and "created a distinct system of consanguinity" (_Ancient Society_),
the Turanian. Again, "marriages in Punaluan groups explain the
relationships in the system." But Morgan provides himself with another
explanation, "the Turanian system owes its origin to marriage in the
group _and_ to the gentile organization." He calls exogamy "the gentile
organization," though, in point of fact, the only gentes we know, the
Roman gentes, show scarcely a trace of exogamy. Again, "the change of
relationships which resulted from substituting Punaluan in the place of
Consanguine marriage turns the Malayan into the Turanian system." On the
same page Morgan attributes the change to the "gentile organization,"
and, still on the same page, uses _both_ factors in his working out of
the problem. Now, if the Punaluan marriage is a sufficient explanation,
we do not need the "gentile organization." Both, in Morgan's opinion,
were efforts of conscious moral reform. In _Systems of Consanguinity_
the gentile organization (there called tribal), that is, exogamy, is
said to have been "designed to work out a reformation in the
intermarriage of brothers and sisters." But the Punaluan marriage had
done that, otherwise it would not have produced (as Morgan says it did)
the change from the Malayan to the Turanian system, the difference in
the two systems, as exemplified in Seneca and Tamil, being "in the
relationships which depended on the intermarriage or non-intermarriage
of brothers and sisters" (_Ancient Society_). Yet the Punaluan family,
though itself a reform in morals and in "breeding," "did not furnish
adequate motives to reform the Malay system," which, as we have seen, it
did reform. The Punaluan family, it is suspected, "frequently involved
own brothers and sisters"; had it not been so, there would have been no
need of a fresh moral reformation,--"the gentile organization." Yet even
in the Punaluan family (_Ancient Society_) "brothers ceased to marry
their own sisters." What, then, did the "gentile organization" do for
men? As they had already ceased to marry their own sisters, and as,
under the gentile organization, they were still able to marry their
half-sisters, the reformatory "ingenuity" of the inventors of the
organizations was at once superfluous and useless. It is impossible to
understand the Punaluan system. Its existence is inferred from a system
of nomenclature which it does (and does not) produce; it admits (and
excludes) own brothers and sisters. Morgan has intended, apparently, to
represent the Punaluan marriage as a long transition to the definite
custom of exogamy, but it will be seen that his language is not very
clear nor his positions assured. He does not adduce sufficient proof
that the Punaluan family ever existed as an institution, even in Hawaii.
There is, if possible, a greater absence of historical testimony to the
existence of the Consanguine family. It is difficult to believe that
exogamy was a conscious moral and social reformation, because, _ex
hypothesi_, the savages had no moral data, nothing to cause disgust at
relations which seem revolting to us. It is as improbable that they
discovered the supposed physical evils of breeding in and in. That
discovery could only have been made after a long experience, and in the
Consanguine family that experience was impossible. Thus, setting moral
reform aside as inconceivable, we cannot understand how the Consanguine
families ever broke up. Morgan's ingenious speculations as to a
transitional step towards the gens (as he calls what we style the
totem-kindred), supposed to be found in the "classes" and marriage laws
of the Kamilaroi, are vitiated by the weakness and contradictory nature
of the evidence (see Pritchard; J.D. Lang's Queensland, Appendix;
_Proceedings of American Academy of Arts_, &c., vol. viii. 412; Nature,
October 29, 1874). Further, though Morgan calls the Australian "gentile
organization" "incipient," he admits (_Ancient Society_) that the
Narrinyeri have totem groups, in which "the children are of the clan of
the father." Far from being "incipient," the gens of the Narrinyeri is
on the footing of the ghotra of Hindu custom. Lastly, though Morgan
frequently declares that the Polynesians have not the gens (for he
thinks them not sufficiently advanced), W.W. Gill (_Myths and Songs from
the South Pacific_, London, 1876) has shown that unmistakable traces of
the totem survive in Polynesian mythology.
Rival theories.
4. Morgan's theory was opposed by McLennan (_Studies in Ancient
History_, 1876), who maintained that the names of relationships, in the
"classificatory system," were merely terms of address, as among
ourselves when a preacher calls any adult male "brother," when an old
woman is addressed as "mother," when an elder man calls a junior "my
son." He also showed that his own system accounted for the terms. The
controversy is still alive; one set of writers regarding the savage
terms of relationship as indicating a state of things in which human
beings dwelt in a "horde," with promiscuous intercourse; another set
holding that the terms do not indicate consanguineous kinship, but
degrees of age, status, and reciprocal obligations in a local _tribe_,
and therefore that they do not yield any presumption that there was a
past of promiscuity or of what is called "group marriage." On Morgan's
side (not of course accepting all his details) are L. Fison and A.W.
Howitt, and Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen. Against him are Starcke,
Westermarck, A. Lang, Dr Durkheim, apparently, Crawley and many others.
Evidence of original promiscuity.
5. A second presumption in favour of original promiscuity has been drawn
by the eminent Australian students, Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and
by A.W. Howitt, from the customs of some Australian aborigines. In each
tribe, owing to customary laws which are to be examined later, only men
and women of a given status are intermarriageable (_nupa_, _noa_,
_unawa_) with each other. Though child-betrothals are usual, and though
the woman is specialized to one man, who protects and nourishes her and
all her children, and though their union is immediately preceded by an
extended _jus primae noctis_ (such as Herodotus describes among the
Nasamones), yet, among certain tribes, the following custom prevails. At
great meetings the tribal leaders assign a woman as paramour (with what
amount of permanence remains obscure) to a man (_pirrauru_); one woman
may have several _pirrauru_ men, one man several _pirrauru_ women, in
addition to their regularly betrothed (_tippa malku_) wives and
husbands. The husband occasionally shows fight, and bitter jealousies
prevail, but, at the great ceremonial meetings, complaisance is enforced
under penalty of strangling. Thenceforth, if the husband permits, the
male _pirrauru_ has matrimonial rights over the other man's _tippa
malku_ wife when they meet. A symbolic ceremony of union precedes the
junction of the _pirrauru_ people. This institution, as far as reported,
is peculiar to a group of tribes near Lake Eyre, the Dieri, Urabunna,
and their congeners,--or perhaps to all who have the same "phratry"
names as the Dieri and Urabunna (_Kiraru_ and _Mattera_, in various
dialectic forms).
Elsewhere the _pirrauru_ custom is not known: but almost everywhere
there are licentious festivals, in which all marriage rules except those
which forbid incest (in our sense of the word, namely between the
closest relations) are thrown to the winds. Also a native travelling
among alien tribes is lent women of the status into which he may legally
marry.
Group marriage.
Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen, and A.W. Howitt, regard _pirrauru_ as
"group marriage" and as a proof that, at one time, all intermarriageable
people were actually husbands and wives, while the other examples of
licence are also survivals, in a later stage of decay, of promiscuity,
and "group marriage." To this it is replied that "_group_ marriage" is a
misnomer; that if _pirrauru_ be in a sense marriage it is _status_, not
_group_ marriage. Again, it is urged, _pirrauru_ is a modification of
_tippa malku_, which comes first; a woman is "specialized" to a man
_before_ she can be made _pirrauru_ to another, and her tippa _malku
husband_ continues to support her, and to recognize her children as his
own, after she has become _pirrauru_ to another man or other men.
Without the foregoing _tippa malku_ union, the _pirrauru_ unions are not
conceivable; they are mere legalized paramourships, modifying the _tippa
malku_ marriage (like the Italian cicisbeism); procuring a protector for
a woman in her husband's absence, and supplying legal loves for
bachelors. The custom is peculiar to a given set of kindred tribes. The
festivals are the legalized, restricted and more or less permanent
modification of the casual orgies of feasts of licence, or _Saturnalia_,
which have their analogies among many people, ancient and modern.
_Pirrauru_ is no more a survival of and a proof of primitive
promiscuity, than is the legalized incest of ancient Egypt or ancient
Peru. If these views be correct the argument for primitive promiscuity
derived from _pirrauru_ falls to the ground.
The historical problem.
6. The questions at issue obviously are, was mankind originally
promiscuous, with no objections to marriage between persons of the
nearest kin; and was the first step in advance the prohibition of
marriage (or of amatory intercourse) between brothers and sisters; or
did mankind originally live in very small groups, under a jealous sire,
who imposed restrictions on intercourse between the young males, his
sons, and all the females of the "hearth-circle," who constituted his
harem? The problem has been studied, first, in the institutions of
savages, notably of the most backward savages, the black natives of
Australia; and next, in the light of the habits of the higher mammalia.
As regards Australian matrimonial institutions, it has been known since
the date of the _Journals of two Expeditions of Discovery_, by Sir
George Grey (1837-1839), that they are very complex and peculiar, in
points strongly resembling the customary laws of the more backward Red
Indian tribes of North America. Information came in, while McLennan was
working, from G. Taplin (_The Narrinyeri_, 1874), from A.W. Howitt and
L. Fison, and many other inquirers (in Brough Smyth's _Aborigines of
Victoria_, 1878), from Howitt and Fison again (in _Kamilaroi and
Kurnai_, 1880), and many essays by these authors, and finally, in
_Native Tribes of Central Australia_ (1899) and _Northern Tribes of
Central Australia_ (1904), by Baldwin Spencer and F.J. Gillen; and in
Howitt's _Native Tribes of South-East Australia_ (1904), with R. Roth's
_North-West Central Queensland Aborigines_ (1897). All of these are
works of very high merit. Knowledge is now much more wide, minute and
securely based than it was when McLennan's _Studies in Ancient History_,
second series, was posthumously published (1896). We know with certainty
that in Australia, among archaic savages who have neither metals,
agriculture, pottery nor domesticated animals, a graduated scale of
matrimonial institutions exists. First there are _local_ tribes, each
tribe having its own dialect; holding a recognized area of territory;
and living on friendly terms with neighbouring tribes. Territorial
conquest is never attempted. In many cases a knot of tribes of allied
dialects and kindred rites may be, or at least is, spoken of as a
"nation" by our authorities.
Primitive restrictions on marriage.
7. Customary law is administered by the Seniors, the wise, the magically
skilled, who in many cases are "headmen" of local groups or of sets of
kindred. As to marriage, persons may wed within the local tribe, or into
a neighbouring local tribe, at will, provided that they obey the
restrictions of customary law. The local tribe is neither exogamous nor
endogamous, any more than is an English county. The restrictions, except
where they have become obsolete, fall into six main categories:--
(1) In the most primitive, each tribe consists of two intermarrying and
exogamous divisions, which are often styled _phratries_. Each such
division has a name, which, when it can be translated, is the name of an
animal: in the majority of cases, however, the meaning of the phratry
name is lost. In one instance, that of the Euahlayi tribe of north-west
New South Wales, the phratry names are said (by Mrs Langloh Parker) to
mean "Light Blood" and "Dark Blood." This, as in the theory of the Rev.
J. Mathews, _Eagle and Crow_, might be taken to indicate a blending of
two distinct _races_.
Taking, for the sake of clearness, tribes whose phratry names mean
"Crow" and "Eagle Hawk," every member of the tribe belongs either to
Eagle Hawk phratry or to Crow phratry: if to Crow, the man or woman can
only marry an Eagle Hawk, if to Eagle Hawk, can only marry a Crow. The
children invariably belong to the phratry of the mother, in this most
primitive type. Within Eagle Hawk phratry is one set of totem kins,
named usually after various species of animals and plants; within Crow
phratry is another set of totem kins, named always (except in one region
of Central Australia) after a _different_ set of plants and animals.
With the exception mentioned (that of the Arunta "nation"), in no tribe
does the same totem ever occur in both phratries. Totems and totem names
are inherited by the children from the mother, in this primitive type.
Thus a man, Eagle Hawk by phratry, Snipe by totem, marries a woman Crow
by phratry, Black Duck by totem. His children by her are of phratry
Crow, of totem Black Duck. Obviously no person can marry another of his
or her own totem, because, in the phratry into which he or she _must_
marry, no man or woman of his or her totem exists. The prohibition
extends to members of alien and remote tribes, if of the same totem
name.
The same rules exist in the more primitive North American tribes, but as
the phratry there has generally, though not always, decayed, the rule,
where this has occurred, merely forbids marriage within the totem kin.
(2) We find this type of organization, where the child inherits phratry
and totem from the father, not from the mother.
(3) We find tribes in which phratry and totem are inherited from the
mother, but an additional rule prevails: the rule of "Matrimonial
Classes." By this device, in phratry "Dilbi," there are two classes,
"Muri" and "Kubi." In phratry "Kupathin" are two classes, "Ipai" and
"Kumbo" (all these names are of unknown meaning). Each child inherits
its mother's phratry name and totem name, and also the name of that
class of the two in the mother's phratry to which the mother does _not_
belong. No person may marry into his or her own class--practically into
his or her own generation: the rule makes parental and filial marriages
impossible,--but these never occur even among more primitive tribes
which have not the institution of classes. Suppose that the class names
are really names of animals and other objects in nature--as in a few
cases they actually are. Then the rules, where classes exist, would
amount to this: no person may marry another who, by phratry, totem or
generation, owns the same hereditary animal name as himself or herself.
In practice, where phratries exist, a man who knows a woman's phratry
name knows whether or not he may marry her. Where class names exist
(even though the phratry name be lost), a man who knows a woman's class
name knows whether or not he may marry her. Nothing can be simpler in
practice.
(4) The same rules as under (3) exist, but the phratry, totem and class
are inherited through the father: the class of the child of course not
being the father's, but the linked class in his phratry.
(5) In the fifth category (Central North Australia), while phratry name
(if not lost) and totem name are inherited from the father, by a
refinement of law which is spreading southwards there are _four_ classes
in each phratry (or main exogamous division unnamed), and the choice of
a partner in life is thus more restricted than in more primitive tribes.
Arunta customs.
(6) Finally we reach the institutions of the group of tribes called,
from the name of the most powerful tribe in the set, "the Arunta
nation." They occupy the Macdonnell Ranges and other territory in the
very centre of Australia. The Arunta reckon kinship in the male line:
their phratry names they have forgotten, in place of phratries eight
matrimonial classes regulate marriage. In these respects they resemble
most of the central and northern tribes, but present this unique
peculiarity, that the same totems may and do exist in _both_ of the
opposed intermarrying exogamous divisions consisting of four classes
each. It thus results that a man, in the Arunta tribe, may marry a woman
of his own totem, if she be in the class with which he may intermarry.
This licence is unknown in every other part of the totemic world, and
even in the Kaitish tribe of the Arunta nation intertotemic marriages,
in practice, almost never occur.
Among the Arunta the totems are only prominent in magical ceremonies,
unknown in South-Eastern Australia. At these ceremonies (Intichiuma) the
men of the totem do cooperative magic for the benefit of their plant or
animal, as part of the tribal food-supply. The members of the totem
taste it sparingly on these occasions, apparently under the belief that
to do so increases their magical power: the rest of the tribe eat
freely. But, as far as denoting kinship or regulating marriage is
concerned, the totems, among the Arunta, have no legally important
existence. Men and women of the same totem may intermarry, their
children need not belong to the totem of either father or mother.
The process by which Arunta totems came thus to differ from those of all
other savages is easily understood. Like the other tribes from the
centre to the north (including the Urabunna nation, which reckons
descent through women), the Arunta believe that the souls of the primal
semi-bestial ancestors of the Alcheringa or "dream time" are perpetually
reincarnated. This opinion does not affect by itself the usual exogamous
character of totemism among the other tribes. The Arunta nation,
however, cultivates an additional myth, namely that the primal
ancestors, when they sank into the ground, left behind them certain oval
stone slabs, with archaic markings, called _churinga nanja_, or "sacred
things of the _nanja_." The _nanja_, again, is a tree or rock, fabled to
have risen up to mark the spot where a group of primal ancestors, all of
one and the same totem in each case (Cats here, Grubs there, Ducks
elsewhere), "went into the ground." The souls of these ancestors haunt
such spots, especially they haunt the nanja tree or rock, and the stone
_churinga nanja_. Each district, therefore, has its own _oknanikilla_
(or local totem centre of the ghosts), Cat ghosts, Grub ghosts, Hakea
flower ghosts and so on. These spirits enter into women and are reborn
as children. When a child comes to birth, the mother names the
oknanikilla in which she conceived it, and, whatever the ghost totem of
that place may be, it is the child's totem. Its mother may be a Grub,
its father may be a Crow, but if the child was conceived in a Duck, or
Cat, or Opossum or Kangaroo locality, it is, by totem, a Cat, Opossum,
Duck or Kangaroo. The _churinga nanja_ of its primal ancestor is sought
for at the place of the child's conception, and is put into the sacred
repository of such objects.
Thus the child does not inherit its totem from father, or from mother,
as everywhere else, but _does_ inherit the right to do ceremonies for
the paternal totem: a proof that, of old, totems were inherited, as
elsewhere, and that in the male line. If totems among the Arunta, as
everywhere else, were once arranged on the plan that the same totem
never occurs in both exogamous moieties, that arrangement has been
destroyed, as was inevitable, by the existing method of allotting totems
to children,--not by inheritance,--but at haphazard. By this means (a
consequence of the unique Arunta belief about _churinga nanja_) the same
totems have got into _both_ exogamous moieties, so that persons of the
same totem, but of appropriate matrimonial classes, may marry. This
licence is absolutely confined to the limited region in which stone
_churinga nanja_ occur.
The whole system is impossible except where descent is reckoned in the
male line, for there alone is _local_ totemism possible, and the Arunta
system is based on local totemism, _plus_ the _churinga nanja_ and
reincarnation beliefs. With reckoning of descent in the female line, no
locality can possibly have its _local_ totem: all the totems
indiscriminately distributed everywhere: and thus no woman can say in
what totemic locality her child was conceived, for there is not and
cannot be, with female descent, any totemic _locality_. Now it is
admitted that reckoning by female descent is the earlier method, and it
is granted that in rites and ceremonies the Arunta are of a relatively
advanced and highly organized pattern. Their social organization is
local, and they have a kind of local magistracies, hereditary in the
male line.
In spite of these facts, Spencer and Gillen conceive that the peculiar
totemism of the Arunta is the most primitive type extant (cp. Spencer,
_J.A.I._ (N.S.), vol. i. 275-281; and Frazer, _ibid._ 281-288). It is
not easy to understand this position, as, without male kinship and
consequent local totemism (which are not primitive), and without the
_churinga nanja_ (which exist only in a strictly limited area), the
Arunta system of non-exogamous totems cannot possibly exist. Again, the
other tribes cannot have passed through the Arunta stage, for, if they
had, their totems would have existed, as among the Arunta, in _both_
exogamous moieties, and would there remain when they came to be
inherited; so that the totems of all these tribes would still be
non-exogamous, like those of the Arunta. But this is not the case. Once
more, it is clear that the Arunta system has but recently reached their
neighbours, the Kaitish, for though they have the _churinga nanja_
belief, and the haphazard method of acquiring totems by local accident,
these things have not yet overcome the old traditional reluctance to
marry within the totem name. It is not unlawful among the Kaitish; but
it is hardly ever done.
Despite these objections, however, Spencer and Gillen hold, as we have
said, that, originally, there were no restrictions (or no known
restrictions) on marriage. Totems were merely the result of the
formation of co-operative magical societies, in the interest of the
tribal food supply. Then, in some unknown way, regulations as to
marriage were introduced for some unknown purpose, or were involved in
some manner not understood. "The traditions of the Arunta," says
Spencer, "point to a very definite introduction of an exogamous system
long after the totemic groups were fully developed, and, further, they
point very clearly to the fact that the introduction was due to the
deliberate action of certain ancestors. Our knowledge of the natives
leads us to the opinion that it is quite possible that this really took
place, that the exogamic groups were deliberately introduced so as to
regulate marital relations."
Thus the wisdom of men living promiscuously as regards marriage, but
organized in magical societies for the benefit of the common food supply
of the local _tribe_ (a complex institution postulated as already in
being at this early stage), induced them to institute exogamy. Why they
did this, what harm they saw in their promiscuity, we are not informed.
Spencer goes on, "by this we do not mean that the regulations had
anything whatever to do with the idea of incest, or of any harm accruing
from the union of individuals who were regarded as too nearly
related.... There was felt the need of some kind of organization, and
this gradually resulted in the development of exogamous groups." But as
"it is quite possible that the exogamous groups were deliberately
introduced to regulate marital relations," and as they could only do so
by introducing exogamy, we do not see how that system can be the result
of the _gradual_ development of an organization _quelconque_,--of
unknown nature. A magical organization already existed (_Journal of the
Anthropological Institute_, New Series, i. pp. 284-285).
The traditions of the Arunta seem here to be first accepted: "quite
possibly" they are correct in stating that an exogamic system was
purposefully introduced, long after totemic groups had arisen, by "the
deliberate action of certain ancestors," and then that myth is rejected,
in favour of the _gradual_ development of exogamy, "out of some form of
organization," unknown.
People who, like the Arunta, have lost memory of the very names of the
phratries, cannot conceivably remember the nature of the origin of
exogamy. Accustomed as they now are to tribal councils which introduce
new rules, they fancy that, in the beginning, new rules were thus
introduced.
Conclusion as to Spencer's hypothesis.
Meanwhile the working of magic for the behoof of the totem animals and
plants, or rather for the name-giving animals of magical societies, is
not known to Howitt among the tribes of primitive social organization,
while it is well known among agricultural natives of the Torres Strait
Islands and among the advanced Sioux and Omaha of North America. The
practice seems to belong rather to the decadence than to the dawn of
totemism. On the whole, then, there seem to be insuperable difficulties
in the way of Spencer's hypothesis that mankind were promiscuous, as
regards marriage, but were organized into cooperative magical groups,
athwart which came, in some unexplained way, the rule of exogamy; while,
when it did come, all savages except the Arunta arranged matters so that
totem kins were exogamous. The reverse was probably the case, totem kins
were originally exogamous, and ceased to be so, and even to be kins
among the Arunta, in consequence of the _churinga nanja_ creed, becoming
co-operative magical societies (Hartland, Marett, Durkheim and others).
Origin of exogamy.
8. Spencer and Gillen leave the origin of exogamy an open question.
Howitt supposes that, in the shape of the phratriac division of the
tribe into two exogamous moieties, the scheme may have been introduced
to the tribal headmen by a medicine man "announcing to his fellow
headman a command received from some supernatural being ..." (_Natives
of South-East Australia_, pp. 89, 90). The Council, so to speak, of
"headmen" accept the divine decree, and the assembled tribe pass the
Act. But this explanation explains nothing. Why did the prophet wish to
introduce exogamy? Why were names of animals given, in so many cases, to
the two exogamous divisions? As Howitt asks (op. cit. p. 153), "How was
it that men assumed the names of objects, which in fact must have been
the commencement of totemism?"
It is apparent that any theory which begins by postulating the existence
of early mankind in promiscuous groups or hordes, into which exogamous
moieties are introduced by tribal decree, takes for granted that the
_tribe_, with its headman, councils and great meetings (not to mention
its inspired prophet, with the tribal "All Father" who inspires him),
existed before any rules regulating "marital relations" were evolved.
Even if all this were probable, we are not told why a promiscuous tribe
thought good to establish exogamous divisions. Some native myths
attribute the institution to certain wise ancestors; some to the
supernatural "All Father," say Baiame; some to a treaty between Eagle
Hawk and Crow, beings of cosmogonic legend, who give names to the
phratries. Such myths are mere hypotheses. It is impossible to imagine
how early savages, _ex hypothesi_ promiscuous, saw anything to reform in
their state of promiscuity. They now think certain unions wrong, because
they are forbidden: they were not forbidden, originally, because they
were thought wrong.